Working towards ‘An Unforeseen Miracle’ Redux: Latvian Refugees in Vladivostok, 1918–1920, and in Latvia, 1943–1944
2007 ◽
Vol 16
(4)
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pp. 479-494
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Keyword(s):
Far East
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AbstractDuring the First World War the survival of hundreds of thousands of Latvian refugees, dispersed across the Russian Empire, overlapped with issues of identity. Latvians in Siberia and the Far East created a refugee organisation complete with military, diplomatic and cultural programmes for themselves and their homeland. The key players attempted to recreate the same organisational trajectories and outcomes during the Second World War, under very different geopolitical conditions. This article presents new archival research and suggests new interpretations of the dynamic nature of political organisation, refugee experience and identity in Latvia through the first half of the twentieth century.