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Identity Construction in Latvia's “Singing Revolution”: Why Inter-Ethnic Conflict Failed to Occur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John Ginkel
John Ginkel*
Affiliation:
Washington University, U.S.A.
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Extract

Introduction

Among the nationalist revolutions that spread across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Latvia seceded from the Soviet Union through a relatively benign process marked by the virtual absence of violent conflict. Several issues were conflated in this movement. Latvia's independence was about democracy, historical redress, and national autonomy. Yet, each of these areas included an ethnic component. Would a Latvian democracy make room for Russians? Would Latvians seek revenge against Russians for the Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics? In the event of conflict between Moscow and Riga, whom would Russophone residents of Latvia support? The demographic situation of Latvia—featuring a near balance of Latvians and mostly Russophone non-Latvians at the time of independence—suggested the potential for ethnic conflict. The forecast of conflict, though, oversimplified the roles that ethnicity and national identity play in affecting political actions. The potential for conflict was predicated on the assumption that individuals naturally identify primarily with others within their ethnic group and act competitively against members of the ethnic “other.” The fact, then, that Latvians and Russians did not clash violently during Latvia's “Singing Revolution” begs the question why inter-ethnic conflict did not occur in this case. This article explains this lack of conflict by focusing on the formation of Latvian identity in the period immediately preceding independence. I argue that individuals in nationalizing states intentionally act with reference to their national identity, and this sense of national identity is not some fixed, exogenous variable. Instead, it is socially constructed. We cannot hope to explain ethnic conflict processes without first understanding the factors that drive ethnic and national identity during chaotic times of change.

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Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2002 , pp. 403 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

* Research for this article was supported in part by a grant from the USIA Fulbright Program. I would also like to thank Jack Knight, Roger Petersen, and two anonymous reviewers for Nationalities Papers for their suggestions. An earlier version of this article, “Conceptualizing Nationalism as Action: Identity, Culture, Symbols and Individual Action,” was presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities Sixth World Conference held in New York on 5–7 April 2001.Google Scholar

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