NÅR STEDER OPLØSES: Russeres begrebsliggørelse af et Riga under forandring

Abstract

Camilla Rosengaard: When Places Disintegrate

This paper focuses on how ethnic Russians

attempt to oppose the processes of deterritorialization

they are subject to in the

newly established Latvian State. The attempt

on behalf of the Latvian State to marginalise

the Russians is - among other things -

expressed in the spatial restructuration of

Latvia’s Capital Riga. Markers and signs

refering to the Russian community and the

Soviet past to a large extern are removed

from the city-scape. In keeping a tour-map

of all the removed places in mind, the

Russians manage to keep track on the Soviet

place and thereby create a continuity with

the past. In creating this discursive place, the

Russians challenge the official Latvian

history and their role in it as foreigners who

are not granted citizenship.