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Sigma Ankrava. Pçckoloniâlais sindroms un identitâtes krîze Latvijâ
The Soviet–type economies could pretend that they were the very embodiment
of industrial modernization, still in most parts of the former
USSR satellite states the Marxist–Leninist economy imprisoned an enormous
number of people on in their farms. Today this reserve army creates
the most serious political conflicts in Poland since the fall of communism
and right at in the time when the country is trying to become an
EU member state. 3
The postcolonial syndrome is essentially a chain of effects provoked by drastic
changes of social roles and identities. On a personal level it may often result in a
profound identity crisis. Such is the case with the Polish farmers. The situation in
Latvia can be characterized in similar terms.
After independence was restored, the indigenous population, at least in theory, had
their former rights restored, whereas the new–comers, who had arrived with the Soviet
occupation troops or later, suddenly turned from ‘liberators’—a role they identified themselves
with—into ‘colonizers’. Neither of the groups was ready for this kind of change.
Independence this time had come to Latvia faster than people had expected. Actually,
the coup of August 1991 solved the problem in a couple of days. This was the time
when many non–ethnic Latvians living in Latvia supported the idea of independence,
and that is why this though unofficial change of their social role was painful to them. In
the past those people had arrived in in Latvia quite differently. The first group came to
Latvia at the end of World War II, along with the Soviet army, convinced of their mission
as li-berators, though for the local people they were just another occupation army. Then
there followed the retired officers who, just in the tradition of the Roman Empire, were
allowed to settle down in its the colonies and enjoy certain privileges. It is those two
groups of settlers to whom it would be politically correct to apply the term ‘colonizers’.
They were followed by economical refugees, – initially from regions ruined by the war,
and later from regions ruined by mismanagement, and then by those who were sent there
by warrants after graduating from high schools and universities. This process intensified
after 1959 – it might be called the secret colonization of Latvia. Although these new–
comers enjoyed the kind of privileges the local population had been denied, for instance
language (Latvian at that time was a kind of a second class language), accommodation,
work, career opportunities etc., they were brought to Latvia in such large numbers that
the regime could not provide them with normal living conditions. They were pining away
for decades in hostels and communal flats, waiting for a flat of their own, and when they
were confronted with the bureaucratic state machinery their lack of rights brought them
together with the local people, though the fundamental difference between the two
groups remained, the difference of the psychology of a grinding–stone and a grain.
Not just the people of Baltic states, but also the inhabitants of other Soviet satellite
states felt like grain between grinding stones, though colonization there was
more of a spiritual type. Karlis Racevskis characterised this method of colonization,
i.e. the colonization of people’s minds, when he quoted Vaclav Havel:
Vaclav Havel provides a most compelling description of the method that
was perfected during the years of Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe.
In order to suggest the insidious subtlety of a system that remained to-
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