Trimdas publikāciju lasītāji Padomju Latvijā

Abstract

The article provides an overview about who read (and for what purposes) the books and printed media published in exile while these publications were officially unavailable in Soviet Latvia. The texts written by Soviet propaganda workers and local intellectuals collaborating with the occupation regime authorities in Latvia were mainly meant for splitting and misinforming the Latvian communities in exile. The Soviet press, including the newspaper “Dzimtenes Balss” (The Voice of Motherland) was seeking to create an illusion that in Soviet Latvia, there was free access to publications of Latvians in exile. In reality, only a very limited readership had access to summaries published by the Academy of Science of Soviet Latvia in the eighties of the 20th century. The items published by Latvians in exile were concentrated in the special stock in the Fundamental library of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR. But one has to understand that any meaningful usage of these items as well as making references to them in scientific publications were very restricted. The same books or periodicals were used by some persons for brewing Soviet propaganda (and accordingly for ideological battles), and at the same time, they were used against other persons as guilt aggravating evidence in criminal cases. One has to note that for evolving this topic, not only the archive documents but also the impressive volumes of the digitized press are very helpful. But critical attitude and understanding of context are needed, otherwise one can get a misleading idea about the presence of publications of Latvian exile in occupied Latvia as well as about their availability for readers.