The Russian language is spoken by a significant minority in Latvia. According to the External Migration Survey in 2017, it was the native language of 36% of the population, whereas 25.4% of the population were ethnic Russians.
History and distribution
Early influence The modern Latvian language has retained a number of loanwords borrowed from Old East Slavic during the early contacts between the East Slavic and Baltic people, such as kalps ("farmhand"; from холпь – "serf, slave"), grāmata ("book"; from грамота – "alphabet, writing, literacy"), baznīca ("church"; from божница – "church, chapel"), modrs ("vigilant, watchful, alert"; мѫдръ – "wise"), sods ("punishment"; from судъ) and strādāt ("to work"; from страдати).
In the Governorate of Livonia (1721–1918) and Courland (1795–1918)
On September 14, 1885, an ukaz was signed by Alexander III setting the mandatory use of Russian for Baltic governorate officials. In 1889, it was extended to apply to official proceedings of the Baltic municipal governments as well. By the beginning of the 1890s, Russian was enforced as the language of instruction in Baltic governorate schools.
According to the 1897 Imperial Russian Census, there were 25,630 (3.8%) speakers of "Great Russian" in the Governorate of Courland and 68,124 (5.2%) speakers of "Great Russian" in the Governorate of Livonia, making Russian speakers the 4th largest linguistic group in each of the governorates.
In independent Latvia (1918–1940) In the 1925 census, Russians were reported as the largest ethnic minority (10.6%) and Russian was spoken as the family language by 14% of inhabitants. A small percentage of Russian speakers were not ethnic Russians and conversely, a small percentage of ethnic Russians used another language in the family, which was attributed to interethnic marriages, living in an area with another majority language and, in the case of Russian speakers, Russification policies of the Russian Empire.
As a legacy of Russian imperial rule from the 18th to early 20th century, schools with instruction in Latvian were far less prestigious among Latvia's ethnic minorities than minority schools with instruction in Russian. For example, in the 1922/23 academic year only 18.3% of pupils in Russian schools were ethnically Russian, while 55.7% were Jews, 10.4% were Latvians and 7.4% were Poles.
In the 1930 census, Russian was reported as a family language by 13% of inhabitants. In 1940, 216 of 1521 schools in Latvia had Russian as the language of instruction and trilingualism in Latvian, German and Russian among the population was common.
In Latvian SSR
1944–1957
The number of native Russian speakers increased sharply after the Soviet re-occupation in 1944 to fill the gaps in the workforce created by World War II, mass deportations, execution and emigration. New, previously virtually unknown groups such as Russian-speaking Ukrainians were also introduced.
Russian became the language of State business, and administrative positions were largely filled by ethnic Russians. In addition to that, Russian served as the lingua franca among the increasingly urbanized non-Russian ethnic groups, making cities major centres for the use of Russian language and functional bilingualism in Russian a minimum necessity for the local population.
In an attempt to partially reverse the previous Soviet Russification policies and give the Latvian language a more equal position to the Russian language, the Latvian national communist faction within the Communist Party of Latvia passed a bill in 1957 that made the knowledge of both Latvian and Russian obligatory for all Communist Party employees, government functionaries and service sector staff. The law included a 2-year deadline for gaining proficiency in both languages.
1958–1970
In 1958, as the two-year deadline for the bill was approaching, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union set out to enact an education reform, a component of which, the so-called Thesis 19, would give parents in all of the Soviet Republics, with the exception of Russian SSR, a choice for their children in public schools to study either the language of the republic's titular nation (in this case Latvian) or Russian, as well as one foreign language, in contrast to the previous education system, where it was mandatory for schoolchildren to learn all three languages.
The reform was strongly opposed by both the faction of and the Latvian public who believed that, in reality, it would allow Russians to not learn Latvian, while still forcing Latvians to learn Russian, and perceived the reform as linguistic Russification. Deputy Education Minister Erna Purvinska insisted that proficiency in both Latvian and Russian should be regarded with equal importance.
Due to widespread opposition from other republics as well, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was not able to implement Thesis 19 as an All-Union law and each republic was allowed to decide on it individually. However, in the end, Latvia was only one of two of the 12 Soviet Republics that did not yield to the increasing pressure and excluded the contents of Thesis 19 from its ratified statutes. This led to the eventual purge of the Latvian national communists from Communist Party ranks between 1959 and 1962, during which as many as 2,000 party officials, including all the native Latvians in senior positions, were demoted or removed. A month after the removal of the Latvian National Communist leader Eduards Berklavs, All-Union legislation was implemented in Latvia by Arvīds Pelše.
In an attempt to further widen the use of Russian and reverse the work of the national communists, a bilingual school system was established in Latvia, with parallel classes being taught in both Russian and Latvian. The number of such schools increased dramatically, including regions where the Russian population was minimal, and by July of 1963 there were already 240 such bilingual schools.
The effect of the reform was the gradual decline in the number of assigned hours for learning Latvian in Russian schools and the increase of hours allocated for learning Russian in Latvian schools. In 1964–1965, the total weekly average of Latvian language classes and Russian language and literature classes in Latvian schools across all grades was reported to be 38.5 and 72.5 hours respectively, in comparison with 79 hours being devoted to Russian language and 26 hours being devoted to Latvian language and literature in Russian schools. The reform has been attributed to the persistence of poor Latvian language knowledge among Russians living in Latvia and the increasing language gap between Latvians and Russians.
1970–1991
In 1970, Russian was spoken as the native language by 36% of inhabitants of the Latvian SSR, including 6% of the total population who were not ethnic Russians, and fluently as a second language by a further 31% of inhabitants (including 47% Latvians), while only 18% Russians reported having any knowledge of Latvian. It was even more disproportionate among the Latvian SSR's non-Russians and non-Latvians: 152,897 claimed Russian as their first language, in comparison with only 28,444 who claimed Latvian as their first language.
In 1972, the Letter of 17 Latvian communists was smuggled outside the Latvian SSR and circulated in the Western world, accusing Communist Party of the Soviet Union of "Great Russian chauvinism" and "progressive Russification of all life in Latvia". It detailed the high influx of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians into the republic resulting in several large companies having almost no Latvian employees and people in managerial positions that do not possess any understanding of Latvian in companies with a majority of Latvian workers. The letter also stressed the fact that approximately 65% of doctors working in municipal heath institutions did not speak Latvian, which often resulted in serious medical errors. Furthermore, it pointed out how almost two-thirds of radio and television broadcasts and around half of the published periodical literature in Latvia was already fully in Russian. Works of Latvian authors and school textbooks in Latvian were often not published due to an alleged lack of paper, whereas works of Russian authors and school textbooks in Russians were published. Even many collectives where Latvians formed the majority often yielded to the demands of their Russian-speaking members to conduct the meetings in Russian out of fear of being accused of nationalism. Middle, tertiary and higher education institutions had begun transitioning to Russian as the language of instruction, whereas many of the officials that had objected to these policies had been removed from their posts.
In 1989, Russian was the native language to 42% of inhabitants, including 8% of the population who were non-Russians, while 39% of inhabitants spoke it fluently as a second language. Non-Russian ethnic minorities had been particularly susceptible to linguistic Russification as, for example, the percentage of Belarusians who reported Belarusian as their native language had decreased from 42.6% in 1959 to 32% in 1989, while Poles with Polish as their native language had dropped from 55.3% to 27.3%. 95% of Belarusians and 88% of Poles had proficiency in Russian, but only 18% and 37% had Latvian knowledge. The only ethnic minority with a higher proficiency of Latvian (64%) than Russian (48%) were the Lithuanians.
From 1989 to 1990 an average of 47.5% of pupils had enrolled in schools with Russian as the language of tuition, and the number was even higher (69.3%) in urban centres, meaning that not only an overwhelming majority of non-Latvians but also some Latvians had enrolled in Russian-language schools. During the Perestroika period from 1986 to 1990, the perception of separate Latvian and Russian language schools had shifted and Russian language schools began to be publicly referred to as "symbols of occupation". Policy options of reversing the decades-long Russification were openly discussed.
A January 12, 1989 article of the newspaper Jūrmala reported that the vast majority of Latvians in Riga would begin conversations with strangers in Russian, while only 17% would do so in Latvian. Similarly, 96% of Russians and 85% of people of other groups were also reported as beginning the conversation with strangers in Russian, resulting in the general isolation of Russians living in Latvian cities and an establishment of relatively separate communities that did not integrate with the local population.
In independent Latvia (1990–present)
In 2000, Russian was spoken natively by 17.5% of inhabitants and by 23.7% as the second language. Among them, 73% of Belarusians, 68% of Ukrainians, 58% of Poles and 79% of Jews reported Russian as their native language. In the , 37.2% reported Russian as the language they primarily speak at home. In the Latgale region, Russian was spoken at home by 30.3% of the population, but Zilupe Municipality was the municipality with the biggest percentage of Russian speakers (42.1%). In the capital, Riga Russian was spoken at home by 55.8% of inhabitants.
A 2012 research "Language situation in Latvia: 2004–2010" by the Latvian Language Agency reported that the overall proficiency of Russian as a second language was decreasing due to it losing its popularity among the youth, especially in areas with a very large Latvian majority. In a 2004 survey 73% of the respondents rated their Russian language skills as good, but in 2008 the overall proportion had decreased to 49%.