Would You Flee, or Would You Fight? Tracing the Tensions at the Latvian-Russian Border. Issue 2 (2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ozoliņa, Liene
• Is Part Of: Slavic review. Volume 78:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 348
• Page End: 356
• Publication Date: 2019
• Subjects: Slavs -- Periodicals; Europe -- History -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1017/slr.2019.90
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0037-6779

Abstract

Abstract : "In case of Russian invasion, would you be ready to pick up arms and fight or would you flee the country?" This morally charged question has recently been pre-occupying the Latvian collective imagination. The Latvian Ministry of Defense has conducted several nation-wide surveys to monitor the public's response to it. Focusing on two controversies that recently erupted in the Latvian public sphere, this essay maps the growing militarization in Latvia and the tensions in the symbolic space between the state and the citizen that it brings to the surface. I argue that the recent militarization brings into sharp relief the socio-economic and political tensions created by several decades of postsocialist neoliberal restructuring. To the extent that we can observe here contemporary reconfigurations of the state and political subjectivity, I propose considering the Baltics as not only geopolitical but also analytical borderlands.