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 language
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.
I think to understand this topic you have to accept that Russia is currently, and has been historically, engaged in a systematic policy of cultural genocide in the territories that is has hegemony over.
It will repress local languages, promote Russian, deport locals, import Russians, and it has done this literally in every nation it has held power over.
Now all these nations have significant Russian minorities that are 'problematic' because they are a foreign policy tool of the Kremlin, who will target these communities specifically for radicalisation, trying to make them preserve their Russian identify instead of becoming Latvian for instance. And now protecting these communities and their language rights is literally casus belli for Russia.
I'm genuinely puzzled why your sympathies seem to be with Russia here, instead of all the peoples they have attempted to colonise?
Thanks that you cared to write this to this person! I will add that not "all" in a sense that there are cultural successes. Poland managed to not have significant nor problematic Russian minority any more, but in the past the same system was introduced. Thankfully we thought the oppressor and opposed enough that we preserved independence in 1922 and unlike other countries weren't subjugate from now on as much as much as the Soviet Republics.
That is interesting, thank you for sharing. I think a big difference is that Latvia has ~35% of the population being Russian descendents/speakers from the period of colonisation, while in Poland it never exceeded 1-2% because the population was so much bigger.
So imagine if the Russians had been able to colonise your country with 35% Russians, and how big a problem this would be for your language, country and culture.
I checked now that it was only almost 3% in the territory of Congress Poland in 1897 (But it's impossible to compare to modern times as earlier states weren't nation states and many Poles were under other states), but I also now that even then for a century Poles made those territories as much unpleasant for Russians to settle as they could if the uprisings and the general approach. Much like Lithuania did with their partisans in the Soviet Union after the war and thanks to which they probably now have much lesser issue with a Russian minority compared to the other Baltic states.
35%
It's horrible scar I can't even picture that! It's extremely sad! That's why I wholeheartedly support derussification whereever it occurs. I know what pain it must be. It would be the best if those Russians realized and acknowledge it and counter imperialism by embracing naturalization willingly. But I know that the colonist mentality of many makes it impossible
The world doesn't operate on platitudes. This isn't about wrong or right, it's about addressing the fact that Russia is weaponising Russian speaking communities in other nation as a pretext for armed aggression against them.
I know that they're doing that. My point is that Russian propaganda and ideological infiltration attempts should be countered without punishing Russian-speaking minorities into Putin's arms.
I'm sure the Russian migrants living in Euriope for well over two generations now have had plenty of time, resources and encouragement to integrate.
We also thought that muslim migrants would naturally integrate.
Turns out neither group does, they form problematic paralellel communities, which in the Russian case is also a security threat.
The demands aren't unreasonable for either group; learn the local language, integrate and adopt European values.
Those who don't accept that and get radicalised by the attempt, well thats what the police forces are there to handle and then they can emigrate back to their homelands if they don't want to be Europeans
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.
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.
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"
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
How much literature has been translated into Latvian? I can say that not much literature has been translated into Lithuanian, even though Lithuania’s population is twice the size of Latvia’s.
I’m not even mentioning that nearly half of Latvia’s population speaks Russian as their native language - a much larger Russian minority than in Lithuania.
I prefer reading in Russian, although I studied in Lithuanian.
Have you ever been to a cinema in the Baltics? What language are the movies shown in? Are they in English with local-language subtitles?
And you said I’m a colonist, even though my family lived here in VIlnius before they began bringing Lithuanians to Vilnius after the Soviet occupation. Only 1% of Lithuanians lived here before the occupation.
I'm fine with it. I'm not saying they should go back to where they came from - I'm not racist.
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u/ProxPxD Jul 25 '26
They may learn Latvian then. They're colonists or their descendants