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Ilze Boldäne-Zelenkova
Up until 1942, alongside the figure of the Bolshevik Jew, Nazi propaganda
also emphasised the role of the Russians in the events of the Year of Horror in
Latvia. However, the situation at the front in Russia prompted a change in focus,
and while Jewish Bolshevism remained absolute evil, Russians were presented as
a nation that had to be liberated from this evil, visualised as a skeleton or beast. In
the visual propaganda distributed in Latvia Russian appears as a collective farmer
in rags, the fruits of his labour consumed by Jewish commissars (T£vija, no. 53,
1941: 5), or as a comical-looking soldier (a budenovka,'’ with a shirt a few sizes
too big etc.), or desperate person, forced to fight by the Soviet dictatorship (Tévija,
no. 30, 1941: 5). That, presumably, was due to the fact that Russians had lived
in Latvia for centuries and for Latvian society ‘the Russian’ was not just a figure
from a newspaper or a propaganda poster. Neither was the Russian community as
secluded or visually or culturally different from that of the Jews. Demonisation of
the image of the Russian would have achieved the opposite effect—distrust in news
sources. Direct sources from the Nazi occupation period do not confirm that the
attempt to implant the image cultivated at the beginning of the occupation of the
Russian as enemy was successful. At the time, the Russians were not perceived as
the Latvian’s own people either, but rather as a marginal group (Zellis 2012: 270).
Continuing this theme, it should be mentioned that during WWH in the Lat¬
vian public space the bear was a recognised symbol of the Russian people (Tévija,
no. 124, 1941: 2). The bear as a symbol of the Russians is also present in the inter¬
view material (E 74 256, 247 etc.).
When we thought about what awaits us, everyone preferred the Russian bear
instead of the Black Knight (E 74 211).'
The Germans
In the interwar period the Latvian attitude towards the Germans as a threat and an
undesirable element of society was clearly visible—from the content of school text¬
books to the pre-election rhetoric and the jubilation of 1939, when a large propor¬
tion of Latvian Germans left their homeland. Since the creation of Latvian national
history in the second part of the nineteenth century, the Germans had been de¬
scribed as aggressors, whose symbol was the Black Knight. This symbol is incorpo¬
rated into the book Läcplesis (1888) by Andrejs Pumpurs (1841-1908), considered
a national epic, as well as the play Fire and Night, 1907 by Rainis (1865-1929),
also significant to Latvians. The symbol of the Black Knight was often used during
the interwar period, in pre-election rhetoric and visual advertising. This theme is
also expertly woven into Soviet fear propaganda, which aimed to invite collabora¬
" Budenovka—patt of the Red Army uniform: a soft, woollen hat that covers the ears and neck; the hat
has a peak and is decorated with a red star.
'S F 1931 Riga.