Mortal threat: Latvian Jews at the dawn of Nazi occupation
In late June 1941, Nazi Germany stormed the borders of the Soviet Union, occupying the three Baltic republics within weeks. By the end of 1941, a significant proportion of the Jewish population had been murdered by German forces and local collaborators. In the days before full Nazi occupation of the territory, Latvia's Jews confronted the question of whether to flee into the Russian interior or stay in their communities. History shows that this would be a critical choice. Testimonies and memoirs of Jewish survivors illuminate the competing motivations to leave or to remain. This article highlights the key factors that figured into these calculations and the interaction between individual ag…
An Unlikely Refuge: Latvia’s Women Volunteers in the Red Army in World War II
This article examines women’s wartime experiences with a focus on Latvia’s women volunteers in the Red Army in World War II. An estimated 8 percent of the Red Army was composed of women, who played a wide array of roles, including as snipers, combat engineers, medics, and frontline journalists. This level of female participation was unique in World War II, but a close examination of the phenomenon shows that motives and means for entry into the Red Army at the beginning of the war were not uniform. Our examination of the case of women volunteers from the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic reveals key factors that fed women’s fervent desire to “get to the front.” It shows particular ways in …
Challenges of a Post-Communist Presidency: Vaira Vike-Freiberga and the Leadership of Latvia
In 1999, Vaira Vikṃe-Freiberga became the first woman president elected in Latvia, as well as the first female executive to assume that office in the post-communist Central and East European region. She was elected by the democratic unicameral legislature and completed two terms in office. President Vikṃe-Freiberga enjoyed record-high-approval ratings and achieved significant political successes, overseeing the accession of Latvia to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As president, Vikṃe-Freiberga did not embrace an explicitly feminist agenda: faced with economic challenges in a newly capitalist country, societal challenges in a country with ethnic tensions betwe…
Unruly actors: Latvian women of the Red Army in post-war historical memory
This work highlights the case of Latvian women volunteers of the Red Army who worked and fought on the eastern fronts of World War II. An estimated 70,000–85,000 Latvians served in the Red Army, some as conscripts, others as volunteers. At least several hundred of those who volunteered were women. How are Latvian women volunteers of the Red Army represented and remembered in Soviet and post-Soviet historical accounts of World War II? Why have they not been remembered in most historical accounts of this period? How are ethnicity, gender, and associated social roles implicated in their historical marginality? These questions are situated in the context of literature on collective memory and m…