social movements | anthems by zile liepins
identity defiance resistance history song
singing a revolution
The Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – have been occupied most of the time, forever. Latvia enjoyed its first brief period of independence between 1918 and 1940, at which time the first Soviet occupation began. It was interrupted when Latvia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, only to be retaken by the Soviets in 1944.The Soviet Regime carried out mass deportations, intense interrogation and torture of Latvians and ethnic engineering – ‘importing’ thousands of people from various parts of the Soviet Union.A massive military presence, allegedly to protect the Soviet Union against attack, served to intimidate, suppress and control locals. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms that eased restrictions on political freedom. Problems within the Soviet Union and the crimes of the Soviet regime were exposed, causing public dissatisfaction. Latvians stood up and took a path to independence, which succeeded in 1991.The Singing Revolution is a commonly used name for the events that led to the restoration of the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania between 1987 and 1991.
Russian language prevailed at school, work and on the street. Few Russian immigrants chose to learn Latvian, but all Latvians had to acquire Russian. Freedom Street was renamed Lenin Street and streets named after Latvian authors and leaders were renamed Soviet and Communard boulevards. Christmas wasn’t allowed because religion wasn’t, and it was ill-advised to sing the Latvian national anthem. It wasn’t unusual for school exams to be scheduled on traditional Latvian holidays and learning English was considered suspicious. A stone Lenin waved you through Riga’s busiest intersection as you went about your daily business. The freedom monument was preserved for artistic merit, but a trolley route with an excessive, obscuring, number of cables was built around it. Unwise to look at it, or even look up while passing it. There tended to be an informant, or stukach , in any group or gathering. Suddenly a new student would appear who hadn’t done the final exams with the rest of the class the year before, due to mysterious special circumstances. When Lija’s brother got his hands on some American films and invited only his closest friends to watch them, he was called in by the Cheka soon after, interrogated and had his brain washed. When historian visited a church in Lija’s town, interested in its historic importance as it was 150 years old rather than for any religious impulse, consequently and a year later, she was denied leave for an excursion abroad because she had been deemed politically untrustworthy. When I first visited Latvia as a child in 1985, our parents kept my sister and I busy within the hotel with games like ‘find the microphone’ and ‘who can keep quiet the longest’. *
A photograph of my grandfather at the seaside in Jūrmala, 1975, taken by my father.They went for a walk on a cool and windy day.There was only one other person there, a man in a suit sitting on a bench, comically attempting to casually read the newspaper, struggling with it against the wind, his head popping up now and then to ‘check’ the scenery. When my father arrived at Riga airport in 1975 he hadn’t seen his father in 30 years. My grandfather had been deported twice to Siberia and was not allowed to leave the USSR, despite many attempts in appeals for his release. My father was an adult, married with a child – in essence they were meeting for the first time. The first thing my grandfather said was “Welcome to Riga. You are a tourist here. Let’s wait for a taxi. Usually when tourists wait for a taxi, they talk about the weather. There are many sights to see in Riga, but many views are best appreciated when you turn to look behind you”, referring to the ubiquitous Cheka, following behind. My father had brought two American magazines. They were confiscated at the airport, then returned to him. He gave them to his father to read. He did so, overnight, passing them on before morning to eliminate the evidence in case his apartment was searched.
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