Until recently, the words “nationalism in the USSR” would conjure up images of violent clashes among different nationalities in the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia or the political struggle of the Baltic states to secede. But last year, the Soviet media began reporting for the very first time about an armed confrontation between a tiny Asian minority and the Russians; that is how the Tuva ASSR emerged from obscurity. It is always difficult for Western scholars to discern the truth of what they are told, especially if their only access to the information is through articles and programs on TV or radio emanating from the central Soviet press which may be patchy in coverage, uneven in quality, or sometimes written by journalists who have never been to the part of the country they are writing about.

Latvia is not a large country and, therefore, does not usually attract much attention. In addition, for several postwar decades, it did not exist as an independent country.