{"id":4188,"date":"2015-05-18T11:02:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T18:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellisoncenter.washington.edu\/?p=4188"},"modified":"2016-09-21T20:33:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T20:33:01","slug":"latvian-ambassador-speaks-at-uw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/latvian-ambassador-speaks-at-uw\/","title":{"rendered":"From captive nation to EU leader: Latvian ambassador speaks at UW"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the entire talk on\u00a0<\/em>iTunes<\/em><\/a> or <\/em>Soundcloud<\/em>!<\/em><\/p>\n

By Sarah McPhee<\/p>\n

On April 22, the Latvian\u00a0Ambassador to the United States,\u00a0Andris\u00a0Raz\u0101ns, was the guest of honor at a talk for Baltic Studies students at the University of Washington. His presentation,\u00a0Latvia \u2014 From Captive Nation to President of the European Union,\u00a0<\/em>was a\u00a0story of reunion and reintegration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4406\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ambassador Raz\u0101ns explains Latvia’s remarkable history.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ambassador Raz\u0101ns began his\u00a0talk by describing\u00a0the position of his country in 1939, when it fell under the dictatorship of\u00a0the USSR. Through 50 years of Soviet occupation, Latvia was effectively erased from the political map. Ambassador Raz\u0101ns also recounted his own parallel life story, explaining that he never aspired to become a diplomat but rather had expected to have a career in academia. But following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there had been a need to ban former Communist officials from political and military offices, rendering only younger people available to run the country, much as in Estonia. Only 23 years old at the time, Raz\u0101ns heeded the call to public service but imagined he would\u00a0remain in the Latvian diplomatic service for a year\u00a0at most. Two decades later, he now finds himself\u00a0Ambassador to the United States.<\/p>\n

European History<\/em><\/h3>\n

In his talk on Latvia and its place in the world, Ambassador Raz\u0101ns acknowledged that there is some misunderstanding concerning the identity of the Latvian people, with many foreigners considering Latvians as Eastern or perhaps Central European. Raz\u0101ns dismissed both contexts and instead argued that Latvia should be understood as belonging to Northern Europe. Although Latvians\u00a0are not Scandinavians, they share many commonalities and historical intersections with northerners. Indeed, as a result of Swedish expansionism, Latvia was under Swedish rule for centuries until Peter the Great defeated Charles XII in 1709 and created his \u201cWindow to the West\u201d on the Baltic Sea. Two centuries of Russian rule followed, but Latvia\u2019s essentially Northern European character endured, the Ambassador explained.<\/p>\n

A student of history, Ambassador Raz\u0101ns noted that Latvia was under Swedish rule for approximately the same length of time as it existed under the Russian tsars, lending further credence to his argument for Latvia\u2019s northern European identity. Indeed, Raz\u0101ns observed, in addition to Scandinavian and Slavic influence, the Baltic region was long characterized by a sizeable and powerful German minority, even before the arrival of Russian rule. Upon his conquest of the Baltic region, Peter the Great agreed to permit the Baltic Germans to keep their language and Protestant religion in exchange for their loyalty. These Baltic Germans would go on to play an important leadership role in Latvia and elsewhere in the Russian Empire for centuries to come until the collapse of the Tsarist regime and Latvia\u2019s emergence as an independent state. Thus, Latvia always retained a distinctly European and Baltic identity even as it was under Russian rule.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

The cozy Baltic Neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ambassador\u00a0Raz\u0101ns explained that Latvians enjoyed 20 years of complete independence\u00a0between the world wars, but\u00a0ultimately\u00a0\u201cWorld War II destroyed everything.\u201d\u00a0As a direct consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Latvia was swallowed by the Soviet Union and would exist for the next fifty years as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, a constituent republic of the USSR. These were dark times for the Latvian nation, Ambassador Raz\u0101ns explained, but the spirit of Latvian independence was never extinguished, and the Latvian embassy even continued to operate in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

The Baltic Neighborhood<\/em><\/h3>\n

Pivotal to Latvian success in the 21st century was the strategic business involvement of Nordic countries in the Baltics in the late 1980s, as well as the establishment of their consular offices within Latvia.\u00a0Ambasador Raz\u0101ns\u00a0insisted that Baltic independence mattered for the security of Nordic States, and therefore the Nordic countries actively engaged with the Baltic states and helped establish strong civil institutions when the Soviet Union collapsed. It was from\u00a0these northern neighbors that Latvians learned about open democratic societies.<\/p>\n

Ambassador\u00a0Raz\u0101ns concluded by noting that the United States never recognized the Soviet occupation of Latvia, and the Latvian people have never forgotten this. With the support of its allies and neighbors, Latvia has progressed\u00a0from an occupied country to the leadership of the European Union and is now, \u201cin charge of 90% of the business the EU is doing.\u201d He reminded the audience that the EU is the biggest trading bloc in the world, and the greatest partner to the United States.<\/p>\n

Ukraine<\/em><\/h3>\n
\"Screen<\/p>\n

Latvia’s history as a former Soviet state and present position as leader of the EU makes the Latvian perspective particularly relevant.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When asked by Jackson School NATO expert Dr. Chris Jones about the contemporary relevance of the 2008 NATO nominations of Georgia and Ukraine as well as the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, Ambassador\u00a0Raz\u0101ns was very clear on his personal position and the Latvian stance on the armed conflict in Ukraine:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were among very few allies that supported Georgia and Ukraine\u2019s membership in NATO. There were many members of\u00a0the alliance who were against NATO membership for both Georgia and Ukraine in that year. I believe that was a mistake. What was done, we still believe it was a mistake.\u00a0What is happening in Ukraine is nothing new for us. We have been the most skeptical, or most realistic, members of the alliance in assessing what was happening. So the Russian invasion of Crimea \u2014 and it\u2019s invasion, it\u2019s not civil war, it\u2019s\u00a0aggression \u2013 didn\u2019t come as a surprise to us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He continued by insisting that \u201cRussia learned after Georgia that it can get away with invading its neighbors, it can get away with keeping good relations with the West. These things the West does not take seriously. [Russia] can do as it pleases.\u201d He reminded the audience that \u201cour boys, Georgian boys, American boys, British boys, were all fighting together in Afghanistan at this time,\u201d and he repeated that it was a mistake to do nothing [about the armed conflict in Ukraine] simply because of \u201csome sensitivities in Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambassador Raz\u0101ns asserted that the Russian success in Georgia came at great cost to the Russian military, and following that operation, \u201cthe remilitarization of Russia began.\u201d He cited the increasing number of military exercises near the borders of the Baltic States and the many recent incidents of Russian military pilots turning their transponders off in international airspace and thereby \u201cthreatening civilian aircraft.\u201d He insisted that all of this military activity, \u201cwhat we are facing today,\u201d is a consequence of the inaction over Georgia in 2008.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through 50 years of Soviet occupation, Latvia was effectively erased from the political map. He explained that he never aspired to become a diplomat, but following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he had the opportunity to try diplomatic work because all of the communists had been barred from political and military offices. Much like in Estonia, only young people were left to run the country. Raz\u0101ns, 23 years old at the time, imagined he would find some other work after a year, at most. Now he is the Ambassador to the United States.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":416,"featured_media":8568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[35,36,119],"class_list":["post-4188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-baltic-states","tag-baltic-studies","tag-latvia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom captive nation to EU leader: Latvian ambassador at UW<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Latvian Ambassador -- From an occupied country to the leadership of the European Union, Latvia is "in charge of 90% of the business the EU is doing."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/latvian-ambassador-speaks-at-uw\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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