History of Latvia: a Brief Survey

On 14 June 1987, the commemorative day of the 1941 deportations, the human rights group Helsinki-86, which had been foundedone year earlier, organised a flower-placing ceremony at the Freedom Monument (Latvia’s symbol of independence that waserected in 1935). This was an unprecedented event that demonstrated the rebirth of national courage and self-confidence in Latvia.A second, and even larger, demonstration took place on 23 August 1987, the anniversary of the ‘Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’.On 1 and 2 June 1988, the Writers’ Union held a congress during which the Latvian intelligentsia discussed the democratisation ofsociety, Latvia’s economic sovereignty, ending migration from the USSR, the transformation of industry and the protection of Latvianlanguage rights. Over the course of these days, for the first time in post-war Latvia, the secret protocol of the ‘Molotov-RibbentropPact’, which had determined Latvia’s fate after 1939 and the decades of occupation, was publicly acknowledged.The congress of the Writers’ Union stirred up the public and provided an additional stimulus for the general process of nationalrevival.In the summer of 1988 two of the most important organisations of the revival period began to organize themselves: the LatvianNational Independence Movement (Latvijas Nacionālās Neatkarības Kustība or LNNK) and the Latvian People’s Front (Latvijas TautasFronte or LTF). Soon afterwards, the more radically inclined Citizens’ Congress (Pilsoņu Kongress) entered the political arena and calledfor complete non-compliance with the illicit Soviet regime. All of these organisations had a common goal — the reinstatementof democracy and independence. On 7 October 1988, there was a mass public demonstration that was dedicated to the issue ofLatvia’s sovereignty and the establishment of judicial order. The first congress of the Latvian People’s Front was held on 8 and 9October. This organisation, which united 200 000 members under the leadership of famous journalist Dainis Īvāns (b. 1955), becamethe guiding force of the revival movement in Latvia and the return to independence.The mass demonstration forindependence in early 1991.The map displays the locations ofmajor Soviet military-industrial plantsin the three Baltic States. Almost everylarge city had such plants, whichmanufactured equipment for the Sovietarmed forces. In Latvia, most wereconcentrated in Rīga and Liepāja.43