Language Policy in Latvia - Historical Background

Historical Background

In the medieval Livonian Confederation, Latin and German were the dominant languages of education and administration. German kept this position under subsequent periods of rule by Poland, Sweden and, initially, under the Russian Empire. German was the language of instruction in the first institution of tertiary education on the territory of Latvia (Riga Polytechnicum, founded in 1862). In Latgale, the Polish language gained some influence, beginning from 16th century.

From the mid-19th century, Latvian started to rise in influence. At the end of 19th century, tsar Alexander III instigated a policy of Russification in non-Russian areas of the Empire. As a result, language of administration, that of Riga Polytechnicum and most schools was changed from German to Russian, and some German toponyms in eastern Latvia were Russianized (e.g., Dünaburg became Dvinsk). After the 1905 revolution, possibilities for schooling in Latvian increased.

The pro-Bolshevik revolutionary soviet, Iskolat, declared on 4 January 1918 that Latvian should be the primary language of administration on the territory of Latvia.

Under the short-lived Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1919, Latgalian enjoyed co-equal status with both Latvian and Russian as an official language of administration.

The Republic of Latvia (founded in 1918) was initially liberal in its language policy: while Latvianizing toponyms (e.g., Dvinsk became Daugavpils), it also allowed to use Russian and German languages in Parliament along Latvian, acknowledged minorities' rights to learn in schools in their mother tongues and, despite switching public tertiary education to Latvian, did not forbid private post-secondary education in minority languages. State had acknowledged public use of Latgalian. After the 1934 Ulmanis coup d'état the policy changed, and many minority high schools were closed. Particularly hard hit were the Belarusian primary schools, all but 5 of which were closed. Belarusian schoolteachers and other intellectuals in Latvia were suspected of having a pro-Soviet agenda harmful to national security.

During World War II, German community of Latvia was mostly moved to Germany, and the Jewish community was destroyed (hit first by the Stalinist deportations in 1941, then by the Holocaust). Due to that, these groups' respective schools disappeared.

In the postwar Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, the proportion of Latvian-speaking population decreased due to large losses in World War II and mass deportation, while the Russian-speaking population increased due to the presence of military forces and mass immigration of labour to implement the Soviet Union's industrialization policy (still, due to low birth rate, population of Latvia has grown by 27.4% between 1959 and 1989 censuses, while that of the whole USSR — by 36.8%). Consequently, the use of Russian language increased and it started to dominate in the areas integrated on federal level (state security, railway etc.). As concerns tertiary education, in some faculties, the language of instruction was only Latvian, in some – only Russian, in some there were two language "streams". Under Stalinism, Polish schools were closed and after Arvīds Pelše's 1959 victory over the "national communists" (Eduards Berklavs et al.), the last Latgalian newspaper was closed.

Latvian was declared the state language of the Latvian SSR by a decree of the republican Supreme Soviet on 6 October 1988. Nevertheless, citizens could still choose to communicate with state authorities in Russian, and all correspondence with the USSR's federal bodies was to be in Russian.