Karš Ukrainā: migrācijas ietekme uz Latvijas valodas politiku

Abstract

Until March 2022, the Republic of Latvia belonged to the countries with rather low migration. Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the situation changed unexpectedly. There was a Ukrainian minority in Latvia (42,300 people or 3.5% of the total population). During the first months of the war, appr. 10,000 refugees, mostly women and children, arrived in Latvia, and numbers may exceed 30,000 at present. A special law has already been adopted, including language and education rights articles. The Ukrainian language has become a more visible participant in the Latvian language market and will probably keep these positions after the Ukrainian victory. At the same time, the Latvian state has to ensure the successful integration of newcomers into Latvian society against the background of Latvian language skills. This aspect may be challenging because a part of Ukrainian refugees use Russian as their family language or have Russian language skills. Ukrainian nationals whose family language is Russian belong to the same linguistic community as members of the Russian minority in Latvia, but their political and ideological views can be completely different, raising the issue of linguistic and national identity. Latvia still has not overcome the consequences of Russification during the Soviet period, and the increase of Russian language use in public space is not in line with the goals of the Latvian language policy.