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Summary
of the Conference
of the Commission of
the Historians of Latvia,
the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia,
the State Archive of Latvia,
Goethe-Institut Riga
"OCCUPATION, COLLABORATION, RESISTANCE:
HISTORY AND PERCEPTION"
27–28 October 2009 at the Goethe-Institute Riga
The idea
of the conference arose from the observation, that since the fall of the Iron
Curtain and the political developments in Europe after 1991 new issues have
surfaced concerning the historical memory of National Socialism and Communism,
which predominantly influenced the twentieth century. Today, three different
forms of historical memory regarding World War II and its consequences compete
which each other: National Socialist occupation and the Holocaust pre-dominate
in Western memory; the myth of liberation and victory – in the Russian one, and
the suffering inflicted by two totalitarian regimes shapes the memory of the
people of Eastern Europe.
These
divergent memories not only reflect different experiences of war and dictatorship
but are also a result of national memory cultures suppressed by the Communist
rulers. Whereas the perception of occupation, collaboration and resistance in
Western Europe has undergone an immense change during the last 60 years of
research and discourse, in Eastern Europe, and in Latvia as well, it has been
possible to openly articulate the experience of a dual dictatorship only since about
1988. This experience is still denied by official Russian policy, and it is by
no means yet accepted as an evident part of twentieth-century history in
Western Europe.
Therefore, the aim of the conference was to
start a broad multilateral discourse marked by an honest desire to understand
and to respect the historical memories of others and thus prevent them from being
exploited and used to spread new political disagreements and conflicts among
nations. At the same time the conference was supposed to encourage Latvian
historians to concentrate more than hitherto on the international comparison as
a basic method of historical research.
The conference started on the evening before
with a reception at the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which offered the
possibility to the participants to get to know each other and to get acquainted
with the Museum, the central place of remembrance of the three occupations in Latvia. On the
27th of October, the President of the Republic of Latvia, Dr. Valdis
Zatlers, opened the conference with a short address, in which he emphasized the
significance of the culture of remembrance precisely for small nations and
especially for the Latvians. Then Professor Hans Lemberg (Marburg) delivered
his keynote address on "Collaboration as Short-Term and Long-Term
Phenomenon". His stimulating and detailed overview of the history of the
term led him to the most important question: whether the term, which in his
opinion is absolutely correct for the first Soviet and for the German
occupations of the Baltic states, can also be
applied to the long period of the second Soviet occupation from 1944/45 to
1991. He made quite clear that this apparently is not justified, even though he
admitted, that it is very difficult to find another convincing term for the
second "Soviet period". This problem also turned up in many of the
following papers and commentaries, which led to very lively discussions on four
main topics outlined below.
Occupation
Many speakers concentrated on the problem
whether the term "occupation" is really applicable to a period of
nearly 50 years of the existence of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic or
the even longer period of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Especially
Professor Pieter Lagrou (Bruxelles) referred to the international dimension of
this problem, because the term seems to lose much of its conceptual clarity if it
is applied to a period that spans half a century. The question was raised, if
it would be better to apply terms like “imperialism" or “colonialism”,
because they would also cover phenomena like colonial migration of non-Latvian
people, ethnic cleansing by deportations, pressure for Russification, as well
as the gradually increasing conformity from below among the Latvian themselves
– phenomena which are usually not connected with the term “occupation”.
“Imperialism” or “colonialism” are admittedly also terms of the Cold War, but
have attracted new attention among eastern and western historians recently.
Professor Yurii Shapoval (Kiev) even went a
step further when he remarked that in Ukraine at least the second wave of
Sovietization was managed by Ukrainians themselves, that is to say: "We
were occupied by our own countrymen". Also Dr. Kaspars Zellis, in his
commentary to Professor Piotr
Madajczyk’s (Warsaw)
paper, indicated a clear co-responsibility of the respective titular nation –
an indication that gave rise to strong contradictions by other Latvian
participants. Even Professor Toomas Hiio (Tartu) objected by reporting how,
after lengthy discussions, Estonian specialists had come to the conclusion that
from the point of view of international law the term "occupation" is
most suitable, if one wants to stress the continual existence of the Republic
of Estonia, because the annexation by the Soviet Union was not recognized by
other European nations. Also the parliament of Latvia declared in 1996 that
Latvia had been under occupation for the whole period from 1940 to 1991.
Here the obvious question was raised whether
historians are really obliged to follow political decisions like these. The
example of France – as Professor Olivier Wiviorka (Paris) emphasized – shows
clearly that the historians overcame a politicized culture of remembrance based
almost exclusively on the idea of resistance after the archives were opened,
thus paving the way for a more differentiated view of the behavior of the
French people under German occupation. But that required that the historians
set themselves standards for a balanced culture of remembrance based on factual
truth, possibly even in contradiction of a state's history policy, no matter
how well intentioned. Nevertheless, all agreed, that if we stick to the term
"occupation", it should be applied in its manifold aspects and not
just as plain foreign rule.
Collaboration
This led to the important, but very
controversial question, whether all those who were party or state-functionaries
in the long decades of the so-called Soviet occupation have to be regarded as
collaborators. Or were they – as Professor Lemberg had asked – rather loyal
servants of a state who just served a regime, the dictatorial character of
which was not open to public criticism and the end of which was not
foreseeable? He suggested that terms like "accommodation" or
"adaptation to the existing conditions", or simply "Soviet
regime" would be more sufficient, at least not reprehensible morally. In
this connection Professor Peter Steinbach (Mannheim), who gave a stimulating
overview of German efforts to deal with the National-Socialist past, emphasized
the problem of integration of the former servants of the dictatorial regime –
as far as they have not committed any crimes and are ready to critically
reflect their role in the dictatorial regime.
The following discussion revealed that the
motives for cooperation with the Soviet regime were manifold and have not yet
been sufficiently investigated. On the other hand, the term
"collaboration" with respect to the German occupation remains
undisputed, and attempts to mitigate it by references to Germans as "the
lesser evil" (after a year of Soviet terror!) and to the possible
restoration of their state by the Germans are not entirely convincing.
Obviously there has to be much more serious research on the limits of a
politically motivated cooperation (connected with the term "national
interest") and a "technical" cooperation, which solely aims at
running daily life.
Comparison between German
and Soviet Occupation Policies
The need for comparative research in this field
was especially stressed by Professor Lagrou in his fascinating and stimulating
"View from the Far West". The comparison seems to be especially
necessary with regard to the wide range of German experiments in occupation
policies between Vernichtungskrieg with the aim of creating Lebensraum
(Eastern Europe minus the Baltic states) and Aufsichtsverwaltung
(Western Europe and the Baltic states). Even
if there are justified doubts as to whether the status of the Baltic states
under German occupation really corresponded to the status of Slovakia and Hungary,
there is not much doubt, that the fate of Latvia
was indeed undecided to the end (Latvia was on the "wait and
see-list"). In this connection Lagrou also asked for a detailed
comparison, for instance, between Soviet occupation policy in Latvia and German
occupation policy in the Netherlands, whereas Professor Madajczyk proposed a
comparison between Soviet policy in Poland and German policy in France, which
would be very rewarding also for the international discussions on occupation
policies.
Lagrou also recommended not to minimize the
role of the Soviet Union in the victory over the Nazis and not to treat National
Socialism and Soviet Communism simply as equal. This notion was rejected by
Latvian historians, because many of them see their main task as permanent
opposition to the "version of the victors". In their opinion, this version emphasizes in
an unjustified manner the leading role of the USSR in the victory over the
Nazis, denounces and prosecutes only the Nazis and thus obscures the crimes of
the other warring nations, especially the crimes against humanity committed by
the Stalinist Soviet Union. As far as the criminal character of Nazism and
Communism is concerned, this comparison seems absolutely natural, whenever
people have suffered under both regimes. The answers depend on actual
experiences. For the majority of the Poles the German occupation was worse than
the Soviet one; for the majority of Latvians the Soviet occupation was the more
terrible one. In this context we must respect for the time being Professor
Inesis Feldmanis's (Riga) statement "that there is absolutely no reason to
claim that the Soviet regime was less evil or less terrible than Nazism",
even though it will cause difficulties placing the Holocaust in this regard as
equal.
There were also many suggestions that attention
should be devoted not only to the victims of the Nazi-German or Soviet
policies, but also to the causes of the spreading authoritarian and finally
totalitarian tendencies all over Europe between the two World Wars, when
Latvia, too, had an authoritarian regime from 1934 on. The effects of this
regime on the further fate of Latvia and especially on the behavior of her
population towards the German and Soviet occupants have not yet been researched
sufficiently. Here lies a major challenge for common efforts of all European
historians.
Conflict of Memories
This conflict
was characteristic for most post-war societies and still is characteristic for
all post-Soviet societies. We heard about the deep divisions in France after
World War II, which weakened national unity, but were finally overcome by
reconciliation based on historical truth and mutual respect. Today these
conflicts are critical first and foremost in countries with ethnic minorities
which belong to the titular nation of the former occupying state, for instance
the Russians in the Baltic states or in Ukraine. Most of these Russians
share the Moscow interpretations of World War II, from the
"voluntary" joining the Soviet Union in 1940 to the
"liberation" through the Red Army 1944/45, which are the very
opposite of the memories and convictions of the Baltic peoples and the
Ukrainians. These conflicts can lead to a disintegration of a given society.
Insofar it was very encouraging to hear from Professor Boris Dubin (Moscow) a
solid critique of the revival of Stalinist interpretations since about 2000,
even though he had to admit, that for the Russian leadership victory in the
Great Fatherland War as the only positive legacy of the whole Soviet history is
a nearly indispensable instrument to generate a feeling of pride and national
identity among the Russian population. Here reconciliation is hard to imagine
in the foreseeable future, especially if one side obviously exploits history to
promote domestic unity or political and economic goals in foreign policy or
even to undermine the authority of the governments of neighboring states.
*
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No
participant of the conference had doubts, that there will always be different
ways of remembering historical experiences. But all were convinced that it is
indeed crucial to prevent them from being exploited and used to spread new
political disagreements and conflicts among nations. Thus the conference was
obviously another positive step in this direction. It produced extremely
valuable information and suggestions from different countries not only for a
better understanding of the memories of others, but also for the sharpening of
one's own perspective.
To further
this European discourse, we hope to publish the conference papers and
commentaries in Latvian and English.
Erwin
Oberländer
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