The Russian language will not be the second national language in Latvia. At the unprecedented referendum, held the other day in this Baltic country, 64.5 percent of people said “no” to the Russian language and only 24.9 percent of voters supported it.
The Latvian president Andris Berzins thanked the citizens who had “protected the national language and Latvia as the only country in the world where the Latvian language, traditions and everything Latvian can exist, develop and unite all the real patriots of the country.”
In his blog the Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis paid his respects to the Latvians who voted against “splitting the society and bilingualism.” “Presence of the record number of people and convincing society’s opinion is an irrefutable proof that the values of [the Latvian constitution. – Author] Satversmes (democracy, supremacy of law, human rights, territorial integrity, and the Latvian language as the national one) make the basis of our state and social solidarity,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, the leader of Zatlers’ Reform Party, former Latvian president Valdis Zatlers called the referendum a provocation since its result had been known beforehand. He said to the Latvian Radio that none of the referendum initiators had been able to say what the problem of the Russian-speaking people in Latvia was. In Zatlers’ opinion the initiators of the referendum were unfair towards the Russians who had voted against the amendments to Satversmes.
However, head of the party All for Latvia! Rajvis Dzintars declared that Latvia cannot accept the Russian language as the second national language “since then Russian will become the only official language because it is spoken by millions of people and the Latvian language is under the threat,” he said to BBC. In general, nearly 74.8 percent of people (1.95 million) took part at the referendum.
The Day asked the journalist of the Latvian newspaper Diena Atis KLIMOVIC to comment the results of the referendum:
“Nobody feared the possible results. The people who supported it and those who did not understood the seriousness of the matter. The question taken to the referendum hid something else [than just a language. – Author]: the threat to the sovereign Latvian state with the Latvian language as the official one. This is the explanation why the people were so active and the choice made.”
What do you think should be done not to get back to the language issue anymore?
“The Latvians do not get back to it, they do it only under the pressure since the Kremlin sometimes loses the game it is playing in the post-Soviet space. The struggle with Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia will continue. That is why we cannot relax and have to think about how to protect our sovereignty. We have to choose the best and the most reasonable ways to make these countries stable and reduce the possibilities to destabilize the situation. The referendum that was held and its results cannot be used to destabilize the situation in our country.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has already expressed their astonishment and asked Latvia for explanations. In particular, they doubt that all the Russians living in Latvia voted. How does the Latvian society take such declarations?
“It does not take them at all since there is nothing new in this declaration. In Latvia we do not pay much attention to it. We have much more important things to do. First of all it is the economy that has to take serious steps to overcome the crisis and the majority of problems within the country will be solved. At the same time the integration and knowledge of Latvian among the Russian youth living in Latvia improve. However, we should admit that one generation is not enough and we will have to wait for one more generation for better ties. Taking into account that we were in the Soviet occupation since 1946 we will need two generations to overcome the consequences.”
What do you think should be done so that the language question was never topical in Latvia again?
“Actually, a lot is being done. We should pay more attention to studying the Latvian language. However, one of the main political and historical actions is that Russia has to do is to denounce the crimes of the communism. In its turn it will give the possibility to start a normal dialog. Unfortunately, it has not been done yet but we are still slowly moving forward and we are moving in the right direction. A lot of Russian-speaking people understand that the country should have one language and they know Latvian quite well.”
