BALTIC SELF-AWARNESS IN LITHUANIA AND LATVIA

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.1.2

The article explores the distinct development of Lithuanian and Latvian national self-awareness and the circumstances determining the differences by comparing different historical experience. It is inferred that the differences were conditioned by the unlike estate structure of both nations. Due to the 13th century German expansion and opposition to it, the Northern Balts lost their nobility and became an exclusively peasant nation. The Lithuanians, conversely, preserved their estate structure; however, their nobility began to turn Polish linguistically in the 15th century, becoming bilingual, although maintaining Lithuanian ethnos for some time. In the 19th century, the bilingual Lithuanian community chose national self-awareness and patriotic attachment subject to the language employed by the individual; the Latvian community evaded this split, because historically it was monolingual, preserved Latvian identity and did not have to face the dilemma of national self-awareness in the 19th century. Greater consolidation of the Latvian nation on the basis of the Latvian language has been still felt up to now in the development of the language and minority policy in the Latvian Republic. In this respect, Lithuania demonstrates certain indecisiveness and lack of consistency, veiling it with liberalism and historical tradition.