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Three national revival movements in Lativa
The
Latvian National Awakening
(
Latvian
:
latvie?u [or latvju] tautas atmoda
) refers to three distinct but ideologically related
national revival
movements:
[1]
- the
First Awakening
refers to the national revival led by the
Young Latvians
from the 1850s to the 1880s
- the Second Awakening or "
New Current
" was the movement that led to the proclamation of Latvian independence in 1918
[2]
- the Third Awakening was the movement that led to the restoration of
Latvia
's independence in the "
Singing Revolution
" of 1987?1991
[3]
Application of the term
[
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]
Although the term "Awakening" was introduced by the Young Latvians, its application was influenced by the nationalist ideologue
Ernests Blanks
and later by the academician
J?nis Stradi??
.
[4]
Stradi?? was the first person to use the term "Third Awakening" (at the expanded plenum of the Writers' Union of the Latvian SSR in June 1988), opposing those who had begun to call the national revival in the period of
glasnost
the Second Awakening (the first being that of the Young Latvians).
Blanks sought to distinguish between the
New Current
(in Latvian:
Jaun? str?va
) ? a broad and radical socio-economic, political, and cultural movement that lasted from the late 1880s until the
1905 Revolution
, led by
Rainis
and influenced by
Marxism
? from the more nationalistic direction taken in 1903 by
Ernests Rolavs
and
Mi?elis Valters
; to Blanks, the 1890s "could be stricken completely from the history of national thought." He saw Rolavs' and Valters' nationalist
Latvian Social Democratic Union
(in Latvian:
Soci?ldemokratu savien?ba
; sometimes abbreviated SDS) ? a radical
socialist
group critical of the
cosmopolitanism
of the
Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party
(
Latvijas soci?ldemokr?tisk? str?dnieku partija
; LSDSP) ? as the direct ideological descendants of the Young Latvians. It was the SDS (and especially Valters) that first began to formulate demands for Latvia's political autonomy
[5]
Stradi?? based his view of the national revival in the 1980s on Blanks, considering the Second Awakening similarly: He viewed the organization of the
Latvian riflemen
, the activities of the Latvian emigres in Switzerland, the Latvian refugees' relief committee in Russia, the proclamation of independence and the battles for independence as coming under the heading of the Second Awakening. Less frequently, some have seen the New Current and the 1905 Revolution ? and sometimes even the
Khrushchev Thaw
? as National Awakenings.
[6]
References
[
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]
See also
[
edit
]
- Ernests Blanks
:
Latvju tautas ce?? uz neatkar?gu valsti
. Vasteras: Zieme?bl?zma, 1970.
- J?nis Stradi??:
Tre?? atmoda
. R?ga: Zin?tne, 1992.