Between Homeland and Exile: Identity Reconstruction and Ideological Formation among Latvian Refugees During the Second World War and its Aftermath, 1940-1950

This project seeks to analyze a number of recently-published English language primary sources written by refugees who fled Latvia during the Second World War. These narratives generally depict the author's experiences during the 'war years' (during which the country underwent three periods of military occupation by the Soviet Union and the German Reich) and the subsequent period of displacement that proceeded from it. Despite the deeply personal and individualized nature of these biographical works, certain conclusions can be drawn when they are considered together. In this thesis, I will argue that the Second World War was and remains the central historical event in Latvian national consciousness. The experiences of invasion, occupation, war, and eventual displacement forced Latvians of the war generation to forge a new ideology in their exile by which they could justify their decision to leave their homeland and to explain the situation in which they now found themselves. This ideology can be characterized, at least partially by the following: emphasis on a narrative of national and personal victimhood, the central importance of preserving the Latvian culture and language, and a tendency to downplay the historical agency of Latvians themselves, particularly as it relates to the period of the German occupation. Each of these characteristics is present in these refugee narratives to varying degrees- thus indicating the longevity of this ideological formation that initially emerged in the Displaced Persons camps of postwar Germany.