This work has traced Russian-speaking discourses in Latvia from the late Soviet period to the present. Naturally not every available discourse has been examined. However, the broad scope of analysed materials helps to build up a picture of how discursive strategies have developed in Latvia over the course of the last thirty years. A key argument of this work is that discursive and identity strategies do not develop ex nihilo. Foucault (2002a: 28) argues that ‘Discourse must not be referred to the distant presence of the origin, but treated as and when it occurs.’ While it is important to treat discourse ‘as and when it occurs’, this research has sought to demonstrate how Russian-speaking discourses respond to, alter, and maintain already existing discursive understandings. The study has therefore adopted a temporal approach to the investigation of Russian-speaking identity in Latvia.

Because Russian-speaking discourse is best understood as a reaction to existing discourses, the position of the Latvian state is of central importance. As the analysis has shown, from the late Soviet period onwards, a ‘Latvian’ hegemonic order has been created that has established a series of sacred nodal points for Latvian statehood. These nodal points revolve around historical interpretations of the past and are used to create and justify a political and cultural state that privileges an imagined community of ‘Latvians’. The majority of Latvia's Russian speakers, by nature of their linguistic, cultural, and genealogical histories, do not fit neatly within the core group of the ‘latviešu nācija’ (ethnic Latvian nation) that is now codified in the preamble to the country's constitution. Consequently many within this group struggle to find discursive acceptance within the prevailing political order.

Previously it has been argued that Latvian nationalism and nation-building have enabled the country to transition relatively smoothly to a form of liberal democracy (Karklins 1994a; Jubulis 2001). Whether or not this is true, these nationalising measures present serious obstacles to individuals who lie outside the imagined community of ethnic Latvians, and who wish to integrate their identity within the discourses of the Latvian state.