Latvians’ Ethnic Stereotypes

[Beorn]

The multi-ethnic composition of the Latvian population is defined by
its place on the map of Europe. In the progression of time, ways,
interests and cultures of four ethnic groups – Baltic Finns, Balts,
Germans and Slavs have crossed here, but the greatest changes in the
ethnic composition of the Latvian population were carried out in the
second part of the 20th century. The ethnic structure of Latvia became
more like that of the USSR at that time. Therefore, after restoring the
independence of the Republic of Latvia the solving of the integration
problem was one of the most important tasks for the newly formed
state. The government of Latvia is still working on this complicated and
delicate problem. To my mind, ethnic stereotypes, as models for the
behaviour of people regulating social intercourse between ethnic
groups, are part of the problem. Moreover, ethnic stereotypes could be
a powerful weapon of political manipulation and might influence and
start processes of consolidation or separation among ethnic groups.
Ethnic Stereotypes and their main causes

Psychologist H. Didot gives such a definition of stereotype: “Stereotype
is: 1) A common concept or heuristic; 2) A generalized perception
ascribing particular traits, characteristics, values, aspects, behaviour of
a group or to a member of a group without regard to accuracy or
applicability; 3) An act of making such a judgement with unwillingness
or inability to alter a personal point of view” (The Dictionary… 1999:
944; the same explanation in Sovremennyi… 2000: 626). The author
will operate with the conception that ethnic stereotypes are biased,
oversimplified, inflexible, with a frequently erroneous conception
usually of ethnical group members’ mental, moral and physical fea-
tures. In the course of time and in a concrete economic and political
context, ethnic stereotypes originated and had taken place in people
minds. The steady and final keeping of images about some ethnic
group’s mental, moral and physical features in peoples’ senses, whether
well or ill disposed, then the direction of these images depend on
stereotyping background.

According to the psychologists V. Trusov and A. Filipov opinions,
the creation of ethnic stereotypes depends on: 1) The really existing
traits of the ethnic group that make it different from the others; 2) An
ethical system and perception of people that do the evaluation; 3) An
interface experience on the cultural, economic and social level (Trusov,
Filipov 1984: 13–14). The process of raising national awareness is one
of the most important causes for the bearing of ethnic stereotypes.
During that period of national history, people start evaluating the
ambient environment through an ethnocentric viewpoint and the
classification of the closest ethnic group has mostly an ill disposed
direction at that time. So, in the period of the so-called first Latvian
Revival (second part of 19th century) the Latvian press contains a lot of
negative information about German mental and moral features. The
same situation with the Russian ethnic group takes place in the
beginning of 1990s. Confrontation and conflict between states also
creates a lot of negative ethnic stereotypes (Malikova 1997: 60).

Source

[Osweo]

Ho ho;
Red Latvian Riflemen
[YOUTUBE]4scVTYUuXCY[/YOUTUBE]

("Nosaut" means "shoot him", apparently)