Introduction

This chapter examines the diversity of memory in Latvia at the beginning of the 21st century, explaining the historical contexts of creation and the contemporary practices of competing group memories within a new national state. Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and was immediately immersed in the process of creating a new discourse on national history, while simultaneously trying to come to terms with historic traumas: the Second World War, loss of national independence, and the Soviet occupation. At the core of the memory policy of the new state was situated the perspective of the titular nation, namely, that of ethnic Latvians. In this chapter, we argue that the ritualization and performance of the group's memory has been a crucial factor in developing and strengthening dominant historic discourses.

However, this process also marginalized memories of other groups and created competing, mutually exclusive discourses and memory practices in contemporary Latvia, notably those of the Russian-speaking minority, as well as Holocaust memory. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to place the coexistent yet incompatible memory discourses in the context of post-Soviet democracy to explain why and how they were developed, as well as to establish the strategies of performance and ritualization used to create and express the values and identities of the groups in commemorative events. Interpreting memory as a dynamic process, we will also argue that the performances of memory, closely connected to the shifting power relations in society, are often best understood as a practice of counter-memory, that is, remembering as an act of resistance.