Latvians in Russia - Misplaced Pages

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"Russian Latvians" redirects here. For Russians living in Latvia, see Russians in Latvia.

Ethnic group

Latvians in Russia
*Krievijas latvieši*
*Российские латыши*
Total population
Students of the school at the Latvian embassy in Moscow, 2019
18,979, including 1,089 Latgalians (modern) (2010 Census)
Regions with significant populations
Moscow, Bashkortostan, Siberia
Languages
Russian, Latvian
Related ethnic groups
Other Latvians

In Russia, Latvians are a small ethnic minority scattered across its various regions. In the 2010 census, 18,979 in Russia identified as ethnic Latvian, down from 28,520 in 2002.

History

There have been several waves of migration of Latvians to Russia following the annexation of the Latvian lands by the Russian Empire in the 18th century.

A Latvian Lutheran church existed in St. Petersburg since 1849.

During the 19th century, many landless Latvian peasants moved eastwards, establishing settlements in Siberia and the Urals. Thousands of Latvians migrated to Russia as refugees during the First World War. A number of Latvian Bolshevik politicians and activists settled down in Russia after the Russian Civil War and became members of the Soviet state leadership.

According to the results of the First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union of 1926, more than 151,000 ethnic Latvians lived in the USSR. Numerous Latvian cultural organizations, publishing houses and schools were created in various regions of the USSR. The largest and most influential organization was Prometejs Society, headquartered in Moscow.

In the 1930s, thousands of Latvians faced repressions by the regime of Joseph Stalin. Starting from November 1936, the NKVD carried out the so-called "Latvian Operation", a mass campaign of repressions targeting specifically persons of Latvian origin. First of all, the targets were activists of Latvian organizations, former Red Latvian Riflemen, immigrants from independent Latvia, and even senior governmental officials and prominent communist revolutionaries like Jānis Rudzutaks, Jukums Vācietis, Jānis Bērziņš, and others. More than 21,300 persons were sentenced during the operation, of which 16,575 were executed. In total, about 70,000 ethnic Latvians in the USSR were killed during the repressions of the 1930s.

After the Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944 and establishment of the Latvian SSR, a few Latvians migrated within the USSR, in particular to Moscow and Leningrad. During Perestroika in the 1980s, new organizations of the Latvian diaspora have been established in major cities. Many Latvians went back from Russia to Latvia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of the independence of Latvia.

Latvian settlements in Russia

An autonomous Latvian municipality exists in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan – the Arch-Latvian Selsoviet. Latvian settlers came to the region in the 19th century. The Latvian municipality was established in the 1920s, during the ethnic emancipation of the early Soviet years (known as korenization). The Latvian kolkhoz Jaunā dzīve ('New Life') was established there in 1929. Today, Latvians make up approximately 300 out of almost 2000 inhabitants of the municipality.

In the Siberian krai of Krasnoyarsk, the village Nizhnyaya Bulanka (Russian: Нижняя Буланка; Latvian: Lejas Bulāna) was founded by Latvian settlers in 1859. Today the village has less than 100 inhabitants.

Organizations

Since the 1990s, there is a number of Latvian organizations and Latvian Lutheran parishes in Russia, primarily in major cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Smolensk and others. The Moscow Latvian choir, Tālava, was established in 1993.

Burials

Several Latvian communists are buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow: Pēteris Stučka, Arvīds Pelše, Jānis Lepse, Jānis Valdovskis, Oto Vērzemnieks, Jānis Zvejnieks, as well as the Riga-born scientist Mstislav Keldysh.

Burial of Jānis Lepse in the Kremlin Wall
Burial of Pēteris Stučka in the Kremlin Wall
Burial of Arvīds Pelše in the Kremlin Wall

Russians of Latvian descent

Petr Aven, businessman and former government minister
Alexei Kudrin, statesman, former finance minister
Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza, politician and human rights activist
Valdis Pelšs, television presenter
Dmitry Nagiyev, actor, TV-host, musician, showman and radio host
Alexander Auzan, economist, head of economics department of the Moscow State University

Latvians in the Soviet Union

Otto Schmidt, scientist, explorer of the Arctic, Hero of the Soviet Union
Pēteris Stučka, first president of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union
Jukums Vācietis, the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army
Jānis Fabriciuss, widely memorialized commander in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and in the 1920s
Jēkabs Alksnis, commander of the Red Army Air Forces from 1931 to 1937
Jānis Rudzutaks, Soviet government minister, member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Valērijs Mežlauks, Chairman of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) in 1934 – 1937
Jānis Lencmanis, Arvīds Zeibots and Jānis Bērziņš, creators of the Soviet military intelligence
Jānis Mežlauks, first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR
Vilhelms Knoriņš, head of the Communist Party of the Belarusian SSR in 1920 – 1923 and in 1927 – 1928
Jānis Strods, commander of Soviet troops in Yakutia during the Yakut revolt
Karl Bauman, statesman, member of the Central Committee elected by the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
Boris Pugo, Minister of Interior in the USSR, member of the GKChP in the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
Arvīds Pelše, member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Jānis Bērziņš, Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Austria between 1925 and 1927
Jānis Lācis, Red Army commander, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Otto Lācis, Soviet and Russian journalist

Latvian Baltic Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union

Sergei Eisenstein, film director of Baltic German or Baltic Jewish origin
Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, Russian field marshal during the 1812 war with Napoleon
House of Biron, a Baltic German aristocratic family
- Ernst Johann von Biron, Regent of Russia in 1737–1740
House of Lieven, an aristocratic family allegedly descending from Livonian tribal leaders
Yevgeny Miller, general and one of the leaders of the anticommunist White Army during and after the Russian Civil War
Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, officer of the White Army during the Russian Civil War and of the Russian Liberation Army during World War II

References

v t e Latvian diaspora
Africa	South Africa Afrikaners
Americas	Brazil Canada United States
Europe	Finland Lithuania Russia Sweden United Kingdom
Oceania	Australia

v t e Immigration to Russia
From Europe	Albanians British English Scottish Belarusians Bulgarians Danes Estonians French Germans Greeks Pontic Hungarians Irish Jews Italians Latvians Lithuanians Macedonians Norwegians Poles Romanians Serbs Slovaks Slovenes Spaniards Swedes Swiss Ukrainians
From Asia	Afghans Arabs Armenians Assyrians Azerbaijanis Bangladeshis Burmese Cambodians Chinese Dungans Georgians Indians Iranians Tajiks Japanese Jews Kazakhs Koreans Koryo-saram Sakhalin North Koreans Kurds Kyrgyz Mongolians Nepalis Turks Turkmens Uzbeks Vietnamese
From Africa	Black Africans Eritreans
From America	Americans Latin Americans Cubans

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