The most recent centenary of the Latvian-Russian agreement is a great reason to remember the war, as a result of which this agreement was signed on August 11, 1920 in Riga. “The main thing that Latvian negotiators could use in these peace talks was the presence of the Latvian army on the Latvian-Russian front, which disturbed Russia,” said Latvian President Egils Levits at the centenary of the agreement. There, he reiterated the dedication of the head of the Latvian negotiating delegation, Jānis Vesmanis (1878-1942), to the Latvian army: “This force was small, but he stood faithfully in his guard posts. This force was “the only support and faithful ally of our delegation.”
Not the forgotten, but the forgotten war
No one has any doubts about the emergence of the Republic of Latvia as a result of World War II and then local interstate and civil wars, but many people consider the expulsion of a group of troops known as Bermont across the southwestern border of the Latvian or Russian Kurzeme province in mid-December 1919 to be the final. It is not that the regimes that have ruled in Latvia so far have created such versions of history in which the transfer of the war activities that took place at the turn of 1919 and 1920 to the eastern front would be completely hidden or denied, but not much attention was paid to it. No regime had the need to swim against the current, specifically keeping in people’s memory what it was more convenient to forget than to remember.
However, the people living in 1920 finally wanted to get out of the chain of wars that began in 1914 and turned to what could be done in peace at the earliest opportunity. This applied to the majority of the Latvian population, who were no longer on the front. It either stood still or moved further east. Indeed, active warfare on the Latvian-Russian front took place only in the first months of 1920. This allowed everyone who wanted to call this year, in general, a year of peace. It is even more convenient for modern people to round the transition from war to peace with the transition from 1919 to 1920.
Of course, the state of Latvia could not be created in one month. We had to go through great suffering and make huge sacrifices for six years, but they could have been in vain if something had gone wrong in January 1920. Then Latvia would not get the signatures of the authorized persons of Russia under the words of Article 2 of the Latvia-Russia Peace Agreement that “in accordance with the will expressed by the Latvian people to independent life, Russia unconditionally recognizes Latvia’s independence and voluntarily and forever renounces all the sovereign rights that belonged to Russia in relation to the people and land of Latvia, both on the basis of the former state legal system and on the basis of international agreements, which in the sense shown here shall lose their force for the foreseeable future. From the former affiliation to Russia, the Latvian people and land do not have any obligations to Russia. ” Without such an agreement, however, the winning countries of the First World War would not have recognized Latvia de jure a year later and would not have been able to maintain this recognition after the loss of Latvia’s independence until the restoration of independence and until this white day.
The thesis about the creation of the Latvian state by military force does not despise the Latgale Congress in the happy moment when people felt that after the overthrow of the evil Russian tsar, they would be able to settle their future with rallies and demonstrations, manifestos, resolutions or referendums. It is good that there was also such a period of time for people to be clear about their feelings, what future they would like in good faith that it is possible. Then we had to take up arms and fight for this future. This does not mean that in the course of the struggle the people did not change their original intentions and affiliation with opposing forces, including the armed forces. In the specific case, no transformations had taken place in Rēzekne and Latgale in general. The residents there did not wait for the Latvian army with manure forks, ie with weapons that everyone who wanted to be able to supply during the war. This is by no means self-evident in the territory, which the magazine “Jaunā Nedēļa” published in Riga in the 17th issue of 1927 under the encouraging title “Latvia’s third star – Latgale” described as follows: “If a Latgalian is asked what nationality he is, he is responsible – a Catholic, but sometimes adds also – a pole, because the Poles brought Catholicism here for the second time. “
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Francis Kemps (1876-1952), who left the Congress and took him to about 50 of the 232th Congress, voted against the decision of the Latgale Congress that it is necessary to unite (because the Congress itself could not add anything) the Latvian or Latgalian districts of Vitebsk Province with Vidzeme and Kurzeme provinces on foot. delegates. After that he settled in the Republic of Latvia and the course of such events in the magazine “Latgolas škola” on May 5/6, 1932. explained in this issue that “the world wars, the revolutions in the butts of which our little Latgale was pulled and anointed the most, changed everything and arranged our lives in a way that we could neither imagine nor predict”. Namely, “all that was left was to save his bones from the hell of communism, which had opened up in the east,” in the fire of which he burned in the literal sense of the word – he died in a fire at his deportation site in the Tomsk region of Siberia.
The weak needs peace
Just as important as the Latgale Congress for the creation of the Latvian state was August Bielenstein (Bielenstein, 1826-1907) with his study “Die Grenzen des lettischen Volksstammes und der latvischen Sprache in der Gegenwart und im 13. Jahrhundert” (“Borders of the Latvian People’s Tribes and Languages Now and In the 13th century ”).
The first, agreed on April 16, 1920, by the Latvian and Russian peacekeeping delegations was the demarcation of national borders “on the basis of ethnography” and, in particular, on the study and description of tribal and linguistic borders by A. Bielenstein, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. organizations supply in a book published in 1892. A respectable source for updating the boundaries presented in the book was the data of the 1897 Russian census. However, the transformation of the Bielenstein map into a fragment of the European political map dragged on for months and the possible boundaries fluctuated with not even scientific research and discovery. The role of linguistics or statistics was to give promise to draw borders, depending on which territories the armies of both sides had been able to seize or hold.
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Even more clearly than during the peace talks, diplomats’ dependence on soldiers was manifested during the ceasefire talks. It was then that the most active battles between Latvia and the Soviet or Red Army in Latgale took place. Russia had called for peace talks with Latvia, so it had to accept Latvia’s rules that, firstly, it would be just a ceasefire, and secondly, the talks would be secret. By arranging for the Red Cross, ie the exchange of prisoners, etc. The Latvian delegation, disguised for its purposes, entered Russia on January 2, 1920, practically at the same time as the joint attack on the Red Army by Latvian and Polish troops was introduced by the capture of Daugavpils on January 3. The Red Army on the Latvian front really turned out to be weak, which explains why Russia initiated peace talks. The already mentioned occupation of Rēzekne was delayed until January 21 by the fact that due to political considerations it was entrusted not to the Polish, but to the Latvian troops. However, it was also able to go to Zilupe on January 31 and February 4 to strengthen the front line so that no counterattacks by the Red Army were real.
Russia also promised not to hold revenge events. On January 30, a secret ceasefire was signed between Latvia and Russia, showing the position of the armies of both countries, which on January 30 no longer corresponded to reality. On February 1, the parties signed additions to the ceasefire, legalizing the presence of the Latvian and Polish armies on the line they had occupied. The only thing Russia was able to do at that time was not to start ceasefire talks with the Latvian delegation that had already arrived in Moscow until the Latvian government promised that Polish troops would leave Latgale immediately after the Latvian-Russian ceasefire was concluded. Real Poles finished leaving Latgale on April 22, 1920. Until then, Russia reprimanded Latvia for not fulfilling its promise, which Latvia justified by the absence of state borders. Prior to the agreement on borders, it was not known whether the Poles were in Latvia (Latgale), Russia, Lithuania, or Poland itself.
How Riga came next to Versailles
The Independent has already paid attention tohow the Poles presented Latvians with twenty fat years “. At that time, the emphasis was on Poland’s victory over the Red Army in the 16 August 1920 attack on the Vistula. More precisely, it was an attack on the Polish capital, Warsaw. Due to Poland’s participation in the war between Latvia and Russia outlined here, the question arises as to what the Red Army did to Warsaw in the war, which seems so favorable to Poland with its allies. The answer was that Russia had been able to take advantage of the shortening of the real front line, excluding contact with the Latvian army. Latvia enjoyed the peace offered by Russia and integrated Latgale into its territory, including Pitalov, who had been returned by Russia, instead of preparing for the next battles, which Poland resumed in the spring of 1920. Its interim ruler, Joseph Pilsudski (1867-1935), probably convinced that Russia was preparing a revenge against him, decided to launch the first attack on April 26. He did for a whole month, but then for two and a half months. During these months, the Polish army did not retreat to its capital, but fled as fast as the people with the pennants were able to run themselves and drive the horses.
All the transformations in the Russian-Polish war came to Latvia as gifts of destiny. While the Poles won – well, because it was quite clear that Russia could not even dream of any revenge for Latvia. When the Russians started to win – also good, because someone reminds the Poles that they are not as powerful as they thought from time to time. From the point of view of the formation of Latvia’s borders, the main thing is that on July 5, 1920, the Poles left the left bank of the Daugava near Daugavpils and Latvian soldiers literally started racing with Lithuanian soldiers. it would become the territory of Latvia or Lithuania. When the Poles won the “miracle at the Vistula”, everything turned out to be absolutely great, because it ruled out the possibility of a part of the Red Army to visit Latvia on the way “across the corpse of white Poland to Berlin”. Under the direction of their chief political leader, Lenin, the commanders of the Soviet army had already drawn up plans, orders and calls for a further attack when the occupation of Warsaw seemed to them a matter of a few days, if not a few hours.
When, in the end, the Russians and Poles had knocked each other out so that both sides needed a longer respite, Latvia offered both sides a House of Blackheads in Riga to sign a peace treaty. Let us be proud together with E. Levit that the “peace treaty between Latvia and Russia concluded on August 11, 1920 in the wider European context is part of the so-called Versailles-Riga system, which determined the political arrangement in Europe after the First World War”. More often, the reference is made only to the Versailles system according to the place where the peace between Germany, which lost the First World War, and the coalition of the victorious countries was concluded on June 28, 1919, but it is true that the peace between Riga, March 18, 1921 Poland and Soviet Russia drew the last interstate borders on the European political map, which reflected the results of the First World War. Leaving these boundaries unchanged for less than twenty years put all those who had found grounds to rank themselves among the winners of the war to sleep.
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