Sveicam Lāčplēša dienā! / Greetings on Lāčplēsis Day! (poster: “The spirit of Lāčplēsis has not passed away,” Rihards Zariņš, 1934)

Tomorrow at UMass Boston, I will give a talk on historical narratives of/memory work by veterans of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion as an interesting case of "overcoming defeat"

I will be giving a lecture on the Holocaust in Latvia this Thursday at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence, RI
bornsteinholocaustcenter.org/event/the-ho...

I think it was phrased best as the "privatization of the instruments of coercion" (Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad, p. 117)

What do you know about Great Britain? Test your knowledge! (from the November 1, 1974 "Foreign Language Corner" of Plēsums, newspaper of the Latvian Academy of Agriculture in the Latvian SSR)

Senate Republican JRPG Villain Caucus
bsky.app/profile/bria...

These Latvian veterans did so collectively, as the Association of Latvian Riflemen, in the Popular Front of Latvia or in the Latvian National Independence Movement, or individually, as when Latvian Jewish veteran Mavriks Vulfsons exposed the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1988.

This V-E Day/Victory Day, I am thinking of the Red Army soldiers of the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps who liberated Latvia from the Nazi occupation in 1944/45, some of whom also later contributed to the restoration of Latvian independence from the Soviet Union from 1988-1991.

"May 1st - International Workers' Solidarity Day. In commemoration of the May 1st, 1886 protest by Chicago workers, May 1st, 1889, was declared International Workers' Solidarity Day." (Alnis Mitris, Latvian SSR, 1986)

On March 18, at the University of Vermont, I will deliver a lecture on clashing ideas between Jewish survivors and Latvian refugees of World War II atrocities in Latvia.

March 16 is "Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires," an unofficial holiday in Latvia commemorating soldiers of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion, which fought under Nazi German command during World War II. As it remains a historical flashpoint, here is my attempt to succinctly contextualize it.

For breaking news, I only use Bluesky and The Baltic Hotline