page_title: Russians in Latvia
section_title: Decline and end of empire
hierarchical_section_title: Russians in Latvia / Livonia / Decline and end of empire
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Häuser der Region Latgale/Lettgallen, Ethnografisches Museum, Bergi, LettlandEnglish: Houses of the Region of Latgale/Latgalia, Ethnographic Museum, Bergi, Latvia
context_page_description: Russians in Latvia have been the largest ethnic minority in the country for the last two centuries. The number of Russians in Latvia more than quadrupled during the Soviet occupation of Latvia when the size of the community grew from 8.8% of the total population in 1935 to 34.0% in 1989. It started to decrease in size again after Latvia regained independence in 1991 falling to 25.2% at the beginning of 2018.
context_section_description: At the dawn of the 20th century, Russians made up a notable part of the working population in the biggest industrial cities. In Latvia, as in the rest of the Russian empire, the situation of factory workers was grim. They worked on average 11 hours a day, 10 on Saturday, and this under harsh and unsafe conditions. Social agitation built up over the course of several years; when workers protested at the Winter Palace, police and Cossacks attacked the procession, killing or wounding hundreds. This event marked the start of the Revolution of 1905.
  When the revolution spread to Latvia there was arguably a more focused target. Instead of frustration or class struggle, the adversary in Latvia was unambiguously the Baltic German elite: a separate social class of separate ethnicity speaking a separate language. Thus the 1905 revolution in Latvia was fundamentally different from that in the rest of Russia. Peasants of both Russian and Latvian ethnicity captured small towns and burned dozens of manors. The revolution in Latvia, however, did not agitate to separate from Russia, as nationalists continued to believe they needed the might of Imperial Russia to counter Baltic German dominance.
  At the conclusion of the 1905 Revolution, Nicholas II, through various concessions, including the establishment of the representative Duma, retained power. Although Russification as a policy was not withdrawn, the Baltic German elite once again found themselves in the Tsar's favor as his agent to maintain control. The Germans, assisted by regiments of the Russian Army, targeted Latvians in an attempt to counter nationalism. The Russian government, in re-allying itself with the ruling elite, sought to cement that relationship by encouraging Russian political leaders to ally themselves with the Germans against the Latvians. The sentiment of the Latvian Russian community, however, remained ambivalent. The majority were descendants from Old Believers who had fled to the Baltics to escape religious persecution – and still regarded the tsar with deep suspicion, if not as outright evil. They now tended to remain neutral in the confrontation between Baltic Germans and nationalist Latvians; but in doing so the active commonality of purpose between Latvian Russians, Latvians, and Latvian nationalists prior to the 1905 Revolution was dissolved. Latvian nationalism continued to be focused against the Baltic Germans, a position unchanged until the Revolution of 1917.
  In 1917, as in 1905, it can again be argued that Latvia was particularly well prepared for revolution. Class-consciousness had continued to develop and was particularly strong in heavily industrialized Riga, the second-largest port in Russia. The Latvian Riflemen were particularly active and instrumental, assisting in organizing urban workers and rural peasants, in confiscating estates, and in setting up soviets in place of former local councils. This, however, presented a new issue for the Latvian nationalists. Based on the historical special status the Baltics had enjoyed since Peter I, they had hoped for more autonomy, yet not seceding from Russia. Bolshevism now threatened to swallow up nationalism and thus became the new enemy. A new, more ethnic, strident, nationalism, defined as throwing off both German and Russian influences, accompanied the turn against Bolshevism. It did not, however, target the Latvian Russian population, nor did it target the influx of Russians who fled to Latvia after 1917 to escape the Soviet Russia.
caption: Russian peasant's house built in the second half of the 19th century in Jekimāni village, Rēzekne District, Latgale, partially reconstructed in 1920 and currently located at The Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia
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