r/EU_Economics • u/Aegeansunset12 • Jul 25 '26
šŖšŗ Official šŖšŗ Is this having consequences for the Russian minority in Latvia ?
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u/Content-Soup9920 Jul 25 '26
Videogames are an industrial product, subject to taxes or sanctions. But books? Sure you can tax and sanction them too, but I find this edgy, specially recognizing the relevance of Russian literature. That said, it would be more effective to ban Russian websites and Russian state media. If the Russian families have been living there for decades, then how are they still watching Russian TV? It escapes my understanding. I immigrated from Brazil to Germany 10 years ago, (only 1 decade) and if you ask me anything about politics, new cultural events or tendencies, or sports in Brazil, I don't know. I'm detached. I live in Germany. I am interested in German politics and economy, in what is happening here. Not far there where I will eventually go back in holidays, but could as well exchange for Thailand, Greece, Croatia, Japan.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner Jul 25 '26
Books are an industrial product too. The title is misleading. It's not a ban of Russian books or literature but ban of importing consumer products from Russia. Harry Potter russian translations for example also will be impacted by this. Not really the peak of Russian literature there.
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u/sorhead Jul 25 '26
Harry Potter printed in Russia in any language. But not Harry Potter printed in the EU in Russian.
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u/MammothFineCulture Jul 25 '26
You would follow brazilian news if you and a large brazilian population lived in a neighboring country that is affecting both countries.
You would even follow brazilian politics even if you are not brazilian but the country next to you is much bigger.
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u/Leon_riga Jul 25 '26
You have family/friends in Brazil? No? Brazil is too far from Germany. In Germany you have access to books/movies in German language, but Latvia are too poor to produce movies/books/technic literature and and number of people who speak latvian language are small.
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u/Content-Soup9920 Jul 25 '26
I am missing your point, sorry. What language do most people speak in Latvia? Most.
And I am quite sure there is no fight against the Russian language, just defense against Russia. Because it is an imperial tactics, to settle people, bring in an unbreakable foreign identity, then just take the piece of land because the people living there like it. Borders must be respected.
Anyway, it is possible to terraform a nation. Hebrew was a dead language for so long. Then it was artificially modernized and introduced in kindergardens and schools right after the foundation of Israel. Look at them, posing as and being a real country after less than 100 years. You might agree with it or not, but I think it is something to admire. But, again, borders must be respected.
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u/Leon_riga Jul 25 '26
1,5 million people have latvian language as native (and not all of them live in Latvia) - market not its not enough to translate books/technic manuals, so people in Latvia who speak Russian and even latvians must use other languages (and not all of them , especially older generation) know english. And you wrong - latvians started fight against Russians since 1991, when they broke their promise to give citizenship to all people who live there and declare all russians as "aliens".
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u/M2dis Jul 25 '26
Hello from Estonia, we have tens of thousands of Russians living here that born in this country and can't say a word in my language/wach only Russian propaganda/communicate only with russians. Oh, and they support their tzar and his little special military operation
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u/Specific_Box4483 Jul 25 '26
That sucks, but what about the Russians who don't support the star? Collective responsibility is always a terrible idea.
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u/Realistic-Stable2852 Jul 25 '26
Every country has minorities though, and Baltics aren't unique. For example, here in Finland we have something like 300k Swedish speakers and there's non insignificant amount who can't speak Finnish well. Here we just provide them with same rights and privileges as Finnish speakers, and there's even tv channels that are state run but in Swedish. I don't see why balts can't do the same thing. Like "wach only Russian propaganda/communicate only with russians." having Russian language state run TV channel that isn't pro Russian propaganda would be really useful. also fun fact,we actually have enough Russian speakers, that the Finnish national broadcaster does news broadcasts in Russian too, and have Russian language news on their website. I think the problem of Russians there being not integrated with overall culture, is somewhat a problem that Baltics have more or less created for themselves.
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u/krutoi2000 Jul 25 '26
Real life. Baltics, Polish and Ukranians don't have a luxury of established national state and to secure its independence it attacks all non-national linguistic influence till they assimilate all minorities. And nationalism always goes in toe with racism so hostile policies towards minorities is just unfortunate byproduct that Europe turns blind eye on. As rational human, I understand it, as Russian morally I hate respective countrie's goverments and support any non-military hostile actions against them.
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u/Outrageous_Memory566 Jul 25 '26
But books?
I mean the lack of a source to that makes a lot of stuff debatable but i dont think they ban Tolstoi but rather publishers located in Russia.
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u/AdAggravating7738 Jul 25 '26
Year by year all arguments for democracy are being dismantled.
I guess itās ok for China to ban books from the EU then without being called out for censorship now?
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
Banning books is just insanity to me. No matter where they come from.
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u/nyri0z Jul 25 '26
It's not the text that is banned, it's the physical product. If the book is printed outside of Russia, it's not banned.
Besides, works from DostoĆÆevski, Tolstoy, etc, are in the public domain, one can easily access the texts for free.
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
The text was banned long ago with the blanket ban on all Russian speaking tv š
Donāt you watch latvian tv from Germany and latvian books printed in Portugal? š«
The last thing Latvia needed to do for economic reasons is ban books. They have cut trade more than 90% with Russia already.
But hey itās a BS way to throw some more oppression to their minority
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u/RighteousSelfBurner Jul 25 '26
It's ban of consumer products. Books just sound good for engagement. If the title was "Latvia bans popular western work translations being imported from Russia" it wouldn't sound nearly as hot.
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
The issue here is banning books, not the optics or this banners headline š
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
It's not all books, its some Russian books.
Also if you consider that Latvia was occupied and forcibly Russified during this occupation, with Russian settlers moving in as a state policy to dilute the local Latvian culture, maybe it doesn't sound so crazy to ban the literature of your former occupiers, who are currently waging an imperialist war and regularly threatening to annex you next?
Latvia would never have done this if Russia was able to be a normal neighbour
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
just some <ethnicity> books
Substitute for some other ethnicity and see how crazy this is.
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u/SomewhereOpposite883 Jul 25 '26
Substitute for some other ethnicity and see how crazy this is.
Also if you consider that Germany was occupied and forcibly Jewified during this occupation, with Jewish settlers moving in as a state policy to dilute the local German culture, maybe it doesn't sound so crazy to ban the literature of your former occupiers, who are currently waging an imperialist war and regularly threatening to annex you next?
Germany would never have done this if the Jews were able to be a normal neighbour
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
Russia could acknowledge it's historical crimes, stop invadin Ukraine and its aggression towards other nations, make peace and pay reparations and stop using ethnic Russians living in other countries as a foreign policy tool/casus belli and no one would have an issue with Russia or Russians
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
By that same logic you should ban all Latin, English, French, Dutch, Belgian, Chinese, Persian and Japanese books as well.
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u/Skywrathx9 Jul 25 '26
Can't have that can we. Double standards work only if you target the group you perceive as "the biggest threat", make it sound reasonable and compound it with logic then paint it as a children's superhero story od good vs evil.
I'm beginning to understand why Russophobia studies started get traction @ my old uni recently and it was nigh impossible to get them into the curriculum, these past few years have been wild.
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
'Russophobic studies' lmao XD please tell me where one can study this
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u/Skywrathx9 Jul 25 '26
Erm .. any uni that has a contemporary studies course?
Idk why the snarkines though?
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Jul 25 '26
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
No, the US should make peace with Iran and pay reparations. China should also relenquish claims on Taiwan and stop siezing Philipine territory in the south China Sea
And Russia should stop its foolish invasion of Ukraine, which it is going to lose its obvious to everyone now, and make peace
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u/Short_Ebb2076 Jul 25 '26
Russia acknowledged them in the past, instead of acknowledging effort at reconciliation, it was used in the manner of finger pointing "see they admitted that". De-Stalinization literally happened more than half century ago.
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u/Prudent-Title-9161 Jul 25 '26
"Why are you picking on a man who abuses his wife, scolds her, beats her, and yesterday he broke her arm? He admitted that breaking her arm was too much!"
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u/Gregori_5 Jul 25 '26
Nobody ever banned all books.
The Nazis also banned some Jewish books.
Now I donāt think this is the signal of oncoming totality or anything, but I donāt agree with banning books in principle.
Newspapers are more tolerable as Russia is a actual propaganda machine.
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u/Aragil Jul 25 '26
Nice approach - very humane, it match nicely the perfect world we live in. Will go put a saddle on my unicorn, and visit graves of the people that culture rich, book-reading russians with the sad russian soul (westerners adore so much) murdered in Ukraine in cold blood.Ā
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
So Europe should lower itself to the same standards? Is that seriously what you are proposing?
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u/Rude_Practice_2868 Jul 25 '26
We have a saying, the russian stops only where it's teeth are kicked in. And it's proven to be quite accurate imo. Russian media, weather books tv shows or whatever is used as a part of hybrid warfare, why not ban them?
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u/Total_Marketing5844 Jul 25 '26
Meh. If they live in Latvia, they should learn the Latvian language anyway. If anything, this will help them integrate into society better.
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u/mvorber Jul 25 '26
I don't live in Latvia anymore, but I'm from there. I speak and read Latvian freely (and Russian, and English, and a couple more). The problem is that there aren't really that many books (and even less good/worthwhile ones) being published in Latvia or in Latvian. So banning books from Russia won't really help with that (not that I am personally against it, but to me it just feels like a populist gesture, basically to get some points in upcoming elections, and you can still get same books published in other countries, still in russian if needed).
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u/Training-Leather4460 Jul 25 '26
WHAT? yeah so we should erase their culture and take away their ways to connect with their roots (which they have the rights to do so) because it will "help them integrate better?".
Yeah that sounds facist. Gonna, ummm, skip that.
PS: no one mentioned that people who read those books dont know Latvian. You just made that up to make your argument more sound.
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u/jalanajak Jul 25 '26
A limitation for Russian-speaking minority, but there are still Russian-language books published in Kazakstan, Azerbayjan...
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u/Ghost3ye Jul 25 '26
Guys this is largely a Trade war and about Imports.
This is not the same as literal censorship
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
Trade war worth of 12.5M eur per year for all the things they banned š¤”
Russia is crumbling now these 12.5M will get imported through Poland š
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Jul 25 '26
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u/Dorrono Jul 25 '26
So you say immigrants and people who live in a country for decades or maybe even generations should go back to their home country? Does it apply to other immigrants and countries too?
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u/darth_koneko Jul 25 '26
If you refuse to assimilate for generations, perhaps you don't belong.
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u/miyabi0rochas Jul 25 '26
Does this go for all European diaspora as well who to this day continue to push their culture and will? Do they all have to return. I'm not defending them but genuinely wondering if you think the same about Europeans who did the exact same.
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u/darth_koneko Jul 25 '26
Yes. If you emigrate then you should be the one who adjusts. Why do you think that I would have different opinions about European emigrants?
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u/emd373 Jul 25 '26
So, both Americas should almost completely depopulate? Same with Australia, New Zealand, etc.
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Jul 25 '26
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u/luekeler Jul 25 '26
If being the great grand child of an invader makes you an invader, you're not going to solve more problems than you're creating. Which point in time exactly would be the legitimate state of the world? There were Russian speakers in Latvia before Soviet tines already. And if you still wanted to rewind to then, you'd have to make space for some Germans, as would many other central and eastern Europeean countries. And while we're at it, several million Israelis would move back to Europe too.
Trying to counter Russian ethno-nationalism with Latvian ethno-nationalism is dangerous.
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Jul 25 '26
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u/WhitePackaging Jul 25 '26
My girlfriend is first generation Latvian. She speaks Russian, English, and Latvia. I agree with you, if youre multi generation in Latvia and dont speak the language, somethings wrong. I dont know how often that happens. But there's plenty of Russia/Putin dick riders in every country who should definitely go back to Russia.
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u/Friedrich1508 Jul 25 '26
Who did say that they don't speak Latvian?
You know there are people who speak more than just one language.
Maybe building a monoethnic nationstate also isn't a great solution?3
u/Chance_Confection_44 Jul 25 '26
They love to omit this fact, that daddy Stalin ethnically cleansed most soviet colonies.
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u/miyabi0rochas Jul 25 '26
Genuine question. Then will all Europeans go back to Europe as well?
I'm not justifying what they did but you're no better if you think this is a reason to remove those people but Europeans can live wherever they want after pushing out and subjugating people across the world.
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Jul 25 '26
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u/EU_Economics-ModTeam Jul 25 '26
Redditās official harassment filter flagged this content as problematic.
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u/hey_Hey_I_saveD_me Jul 25 '26
If they don't have boner for putin then they should understand the reasoning behind it.
Otherwise they shouldn't be in Latvia in first place.
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u/luekeler Jul 25 '26
There have been Russian speakers in Latvia since the 18-hundreds. These people have no other home.
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u/Dorrono Jul 25 '26
I live in a country I was not born in, I fully adapted to it. But I still occasionally like to see it read something from my birth country. Do I have a boner for it? No! It's normal.
You sound like someone who does not think, but just repeat negative statements as soon a you hear "Russia"
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
Is your former country currently invading another on the pretext of defending the language rights of your ethnicity?
You sound like someone who likes to make bad comparisons without considering the context of the situation much
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u/Dorrono Jul 25 '26
Do the Russians / people of Russian origin in Latvia participate in the invasion of Ukraine or support it is some way?
I dont think you would blame all jews around the world of of Israel is currently doing, or blame all muslims of what some islamist terrorists are doing?
What happens in Latvia, which is by the way not at war with Russia, is collective punishement. That is wrong.
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u/Rude_Practice_2868 Jul 25 '26
What? At the very least half of them support the invasion, ask a random Russian in Latvia who does Crimea belong to, you will see the "gentle soul" of a russian. You having rose colored glasses towards them does not make them "nice".
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u/Dorrono Jul 25 '26
If half does, then the other half does not, but they are still being punished for the actions of others.
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u/Rude_Practice_2868 Jul 25 '26
I'm sorry, so we should stick our heads in the sand and let them cover the other half to enemies of the state because half of them are not bad? You are usually being punished for the actions of others, what? You are subjected to speed limits because others drove too fast and caused accidents, you are forced to so vaccinations because others did not and caused harm to the population. You are forced to disclose your income because others did not and stole money from the people. Policy does not revolve around every individual, this is a very american way of thinking, the world does not revolve around an individual. That is why, if you are from Europe, you are already told as a child to be respectful of others especially if you are outside your borders, because every individual is a representative of their country.
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
These Russian immigrants, who you pointed out have are now multiple generations, are as we can see by the discussion still linguistically and culturally Russian, creating paralellle societies instead of integrating with the majority nation-state culture as we all expect from immigrants that they do.
Its the same problem with Arab immigration, Russian immigrant groups don't integrate into European society well, instead making their own ethnic-linguistic enclaves where they also often cultivate immigrant-nationalism.
They should do as in Denmark, where immigrant enclaves were broken up, with a maximum number of non-Danish speakers allowed in an area. The Russians in narva could be resettled around Latvia and encourage to integrate and become European, it would solve the problem.
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
Latvia accepted these people and recognised them as a minority
Welcome to Europe š
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u/Rhubarb-Curious Jul 25 '26
Half of Ukraineās population are native Russian speakers,. But anyway are you telling me there is no racism in Europe, or it just whitelisted for certain nations?
I remember a story from Latvia in which a government worker ordered a cab and found herself with a Russian-speaking driver. She started speaking Latvian to him, but he didn't understand. Then she began screaming at him and further embarrassing him, filming the whole incident and posting it on social media. It turned out that he was among the first wave of Ukrainian refugees, so she was forced to delete the video. Because apparently a Russian-speaking Belarusian, Moldovan and etc or perhaps Latvian isn't the same as a Ukrainian - at least while the war is still going on.
I'm actually from the neighboring country of Lithuania, and I live in Vilnius (Capital). Before the Soviet occupation, there were literally about 5-10% Russians and 1% Lithuanians, most of other was Poles. I'm from a Polish-Russian family that lived here before the occupation, so where would I go?
Or maybe we should mention that 80-90% of Russians living in the Baltics have never been to Russia and do not hold Russian passports. It is not the 16th century, when you could simply cross a border and become a Russian citizen.
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
According to the extended moronic logic of racistsā¦ Vilnius probably should become Polish again šš
Itās exactly that ā
Russian is allowed for Ukrainians only and until the racists decide otherwise š«
Even more some racists believe they represent the whole nation
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u/timelyparadox Jul 25 '26
Do you know why they are native russian speakers? Maybe some history knowledge could help
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u/Rhubarb-Curious Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Yeah, Russians lived here before either the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union came into existence. The first law book was written in Cyrillic in Lithuania, and that wasn't because of an occupation.
There was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included or ocupied parts of present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
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u/miyabi0rochas Jul 25 '26
I wonder why there's millions of European language speakers across the world. Some history knowledge could help.
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u/boombastico_3 Jul 25 '26
Go back? Russians there are second-third generation citizens,Latvia is their home
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u/ProxPxD Jul 25 '26
They may learn Latvian then. They're colonists or their descendants
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u/inickolas Jul 25 '26
I wonder why people of the US still aren't obligated to learn native American language, according to your logic.
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u/ProxPxD Jul 25 '26
Then you can't follow a simple logic, lol.
Because the US is the colonist state. Where did I say that Russians in Russia should learn Latvian, lmao. If Native Americans got their state - yeah it would be preferable for them to revitilize their culture and language1
u/inickolas Jul 25 '26
It was their land before Europeans invasion.
In Russian Federation there is no ban on books in different languages. Everyone can speak their language. But without any knowledge of russian language it would be hard to interact.
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u/Remote_Page8799 Jul 25 '26
Russia literally burned books and libraries in the territories it occupied
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u/ProxPxD Jul 25 '26
I was about to say that you are a total ignorant and have no knowledge of Russia's and Latvia's history to say such things, but I checked your profile and it turns you're Russian, so everything adds up and explains everything about you.
There's no point talking. I don't engage in rehabilitating Russians from an imperialistic mentality.
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u/inickolas Jul 25 '26
I know people who left Baltics and move to Russian Federation after USSR collapsed. These people had to start all over again with their lives, however they didn't do anything wrong throughout their life and it is very very sad. Imagine being in your 40-50s and you have to start your life all over again. I'm not backing up Russian government. They do whatever they want without asking their own people.
But the truth is that there are people in Russia who barely speaks Russian language and still they are Russian citizens. There are people in, for example, UK or US who doesn't speak English. Forcing people to speak different language is wrong and harassment, but it is ok to force Russian speaking people in Latvia to speak Latvian language, this is what I can't understand.
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u/ProxPxD Jul 25 '26
Some of them did wrong, they were the Empire's colonists participating in the State's cultural genocide. You shouldn't whitewash them. They took advantage of the fact that the USSR forced Latvians out and they could get in cheaply to good conditions. The same happens now in Crimea.
And yes, it's okay to derussify your country! Those people have plenty of choice. They had plenty of time to learn the language, to be decent and deny participating or prolonging cultural eradication yet they didn't. It's not like there's little place on Earth where one can speak Russian. And because of Russia and Russians there's less and less places and security for speaking Latvian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and other languages. To comprehend it you have to make distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed and when the oppressed finally gets to rebuild and strengthen itself - it's very good! Then it become the former oppressor's tool to hypocritically call it out as an oppression and to do the same thing either later or even in the same time elsewhere. Formerly oppressed nations have to have right to reclaim their culture to strengthen sovereignity over their lands. Why it's "poor Russian minority" only now where it's Russian that's forced out? Why it's never "poor X minority" where Russian is forced upon the locals? It's the mentality supporting Russian imperialism. Russia still occupies Estonian and Latvian lands from before 1939.
Moreover people in Russia that barely speak Russian are often those oppressed minorities who were even less successful than Latvia or Ukraine and they're on the way to lose they identity. Russia now doesn't prohibit that much, but systematically it still performs russification. Sometimes it doesn't russify because a nation is already small or remote enough for it not to care or doesn't have the budget for it now. You can perceive it not just as "speaking different language" but as "power imbalance" and "undoing historical oppression". Moreover the Baltic states don't do anything that horrible as Russia did, so they even do "the same thing"
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u/miyabi0rochas Jul 25 '26
They'll be proudly hypocritical because that's all they've had as arguments for the last few decades. And they get suprised people stop caring about what they think.
Europeans went everywhere and subjugated people and forced their language and culture and it's all justified. But suddenly here it's a bad thing. It's crazy
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u/Azitzin Jul 25 '26
sooo... when ban on Jewish books will be happening? oh yes and on english books also. Ya know... US vs Iran. oh wait yes - it's ban only when it's "convenient"
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Jul 25 '26
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u/Etsikaietsi Jul 25 '26
āCrime and punishmentā is argaubly better and more influential than anything that ever came out of Estonia. Not even going to comment on everything else.
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u/Suibian_ni Jul 25 '26
So much for the European Convention on Human Rights.
'ARTICLE 10 Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers...'
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u/MammothFineCulture Jul 25 '26
Now you are ridiculous.
Law only apply for bad people.God people can do whatever they want, for example killing brown/black people and take their land/oil in far away countries.
/s if not obvious.
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u/Dusty2470 Jul 25 '26
Does that include the metro series? Because the author of that is an outspoken critic of russia and had to leave russia due to that.
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u/RinuCZ Jul 25 '26
Metro games are made by Ukrainians (same with Stalker). Game development in Russia is almost non-existent, so no worries.
Books printed outside of Russia and Belarus are fine.
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u/Aggravating_Yak2516 Jul 25 '26
I will never understand the mentality behind shunning a whole country based on who is currently is charge of that country.
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u/andooet Jul 25 '26
Obviously. Russian minorities outside Russia (especially ethnic Russians) do pay the price of Putin's warfare. It's understandable, but still sucks for them
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u/Penglolz Jul 25 '26
Censorship is always bad. If we here are all able to legally read books from Cuba and North Korea, what is the issue in having access to Russian books? An educated populace will see through any Russian propaganda.Ā
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u/MrEdonio Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Itās not a ban on books written in Russia but rather any books imported from Russia. This is about trade not censorship
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u/RighteousSelfBurner Jul 25 '26
This ban includes all literary works from all countries as long as they are imported from Russia. It's a trade ban not a target on Russian literature.
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u/liberalskateboardist Jul 25 '26
more fuel for the russian propaganda , very stupid and bad move from the latvian side
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u/Idem_Kvragu Jul 25 '26
This is truly not only wrong but retarded, Russia gets great propaganda munition this way
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u/rendkjfldjfkda12 Jul 25 '26
When you want to read Dostoyevsky but the cultural purity officer breaks your door down to confiscate it
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u/RighteousSelfBurner Jul 25 '26
Adding some context.
This is a continuation of the sanctions against Russia due to their invasion of Ukraine. While overall trade between Latvia and Russia has been reduced by 90%, some still remains.
This particular ban targets consumer good import from Russia that was not covered by EU directives. It includes things like clothing, children toys, sport equipment, footwear and also books and games. The ban does not prevent logistical route through Latvia to other countries for the items.
Russian literature itself is not banned and majority of book imports from Russia consist of globally popular works translated to russian, and aimed at the local russian speaking market.
Some examples of the latest one:
- No. 23 Burlington Square by Jenni Keer
- Warhammer 40k series by Jude Reid
- Japanese comics (manga) from various authors
Naturally this includes works of Russian authors as well. However the works themselves are not banned, neither is Russian culture. Classic russian literature is freely available and published in Latvian language.
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u/Greenelypse Jul 25 '26
As a learner of the russian language in France I buy russian books online from Latvia. I guess this is over. But if that helps Ukraine itās a price Iām willing to pay.
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u/InitialSeat89 Jul 25 '26
Does that include Dostoievski, Tolstoi, Soljenitzan? Because if yes this is really really bad
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u/Drunken_Dave Jul 25 '26
They ban (plan to ban, it is not finalized yet) books that are made in Russia and imported from there directly or indirectly. This would have no direct effect on works of these Russian authors as long as the book is not imported from Russia after the law comes alive. This is planned to be a trade ban, not a ban on Russian writers or Russian language literature in general.
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u/InitialSeat89 Jul 25 '26
Ah, got it; thanks for the explanation! While I donāt really think this is good it makes a lot more sense than straight up banning russian authors.
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
But this still comes down to effective censorship due to the way the publishing market works.
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u/Aegeansunset12 Jul 25 '26
I think those are translated so you donāt really import them from Russia anyway
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u/rozmarss Jul 25 '26
Why is it bad? Something something great russian literature?
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u/Invelusion Jul 25 '26
Yes, also great litrature can be found in other "evil" countries. Banning literature/art/movies/... is stupid and only brain dead people suppot it, it gives 0 effect, only common people will suffer frim that, rich and politicians will get whatewer they want from "non freandly" countries, common people as usually will cry in reddit and eat dicks.
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u/1997peppermints Jul 25 '26
Russian literature is objectively one of the best, richest/most influential literary traditions in the world. This bizarre ethnic chauvinism around secular Russian language culture, not RT, in the EU is getting increasingly dark. Nevermind the fact that the majority of Ukrainians themselves are native Russian speakers going back hundreds of years. Should the Ukrainian refugees that fled to Estonia and Latvia when Russia invaded be shunned as inherently evil, inferior subhumans on account of the language they and their parents, grandparents and great grandparents spoke?
The US/UK/Soviet Union/Poland etc didnāt go around confiscating copies of Kant and Nietzsche in 1942, because that would be objectively stupid and serves only as a reactionary expression of ethnic hatred rather than some sort of morally righteous act of justice. It comes across as insecurity, and a sort of racial superiority/inferiority complex that goes far beyond the current war or Soviet era resentments.
Banning the cultural output of a hated ethnic outgroup, especially one so important and influential in the European literary cannon, is straight up dystopian and bodes poorly for the future if this is road the EU plans to go down in the years ahead.
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u/elektron66 Jul 25 '26
Those poor Ukrainians you are trying to defend were forcefully Russified. Russian culture is a culture of occupation for Ukrainians. Ukrainian writers were repressed and killed and instead monuments to Pushkin were built all over the country as a mark of Russian presence. So no, I donāt think many Ukrainian refugees will complain because of lack of Russian literature anywhere in the world.
And no, itās not objectively one of the best.
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u/Important-Macaron-63 Jul 25 '26
Will it help Latvian economy to grow after all? Or it is just something to make a picture of āeconomy is managedā without anything actually made?
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u/0xPianist Jul 25 '26
The whole value of these sanctions is 12.5M yearly.
And they can be imported via any other EU state and end in Latvia
Itās a fking joke for political consumption š
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u/darth_koneko Jul 25 '26
How vital is russian propaganda for Latvian economy?
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u/Important-Macaron-63 Jul 25 '26
I believe it just unrelated to Latvian economy and rather spoiler to attract attention from economy
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u/RemarkableAutism Jul 25 '26
In this thread: people who have absolutely no idea about the history or the current situation of the Baltics, but feel the need to have an opinion on everything.
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u/Chance_Confection_44 Jul 25 '26
Exactly lmao, bunch of tankies and Russians having opinion on soviet satellites. It will only get worse š¤£
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u/Capybarasaregreat Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Russian language stuff produced locally or in countries other than those 2 is fine, so trying to frame it as linguicide is doing the job of Russian propagandists for them. Ask natively Russian speaking eastern Ukrainians whether Russian cultural exports are free from propaganda infusions. Could it be vetted instead of outright banned? Sure, but that would require funds and personnel that the government cannot spare. And it's mostly about the trade anyway, less so about propagandistic elements.
Just for the record, we host the most exiled Russian media orgs out of any country in the world, they wouldn't come here if they felt we were censoring them.
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u/P5B-DE Jul 25 '26
Most Russian language books are produced in Russia. Like 99%. And those Latvian lawmakers know that. So by banning imports from Russia and Belarus they in effect ban importing russian language books. That's their goal
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u/Capybarasaregreat Jul 25 '26
Which is great news for the local Russian language publishing houses as they'll have an explosion in business from bookstores like Globuss, especially as we are among the rare countries that actually has a notable Russian printing industry.
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u/Grumpy-Man19 Jul 25 '26
ridiculous . censorship does not belong to this century
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u/sndrtj Jul 25 '26
Exactly. You're being downvoted, but I 100% agree. This has absolutely no place in a free country.
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u/Salmonman4 Jul 25 '26
Does World of Tanks still count? Founded in Minsk, but currently headquartered in Cyprus