Latvians in Russia

Latvian language in the Russian Empire (1897)

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.

The Latvian Lutheran Christ the Saviour Church in St. Petersburg, 19th century

A Latvian Lutheran church existed in St. Petersburg since 1849.[2]

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.[3]

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.[4] In total, about 70,000 ethnic Latvians in the USSR were killed during the repressions of the 1930s.[5]

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.

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.[6] The Latvian municipality was established in the 1920s, during the ethnic emancipation of the early Soviet years (Korenizatsiya). 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 Siberia (modern Krasnoyarsk Krai), the village Nizhnyaya Bulanka (Russian: Нижняя Буланка, Latvian: Lejas Bulāna) was founded by Latvian settlers in 1859. The village still exists and has less than one hundred inhabitants.

Memorial plaque on the former building of the Soviet state Latvian theatre Skatuve in Moscow. The theatre was shut down by the Stalinist regime in November 1937, its staff was almost entirely executed during the Great Purge

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.[7] The Moscow Latvian choir, Tālava, was established in 1993.[8]

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.

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

• 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

• Latvia–Russia relations
• Russians in Latvia
• Latvian Operation of the NKVD