During the autumn of 1944 my 17 year old mother and her parents, along with thousands of others, fled their homeland of Latvia to escape the invading Russian army. They lived in refugee camps in Germany before eventually settling in the UK after the war in 1947. The Soviet occupation of the Baltic States lasted for nearly 50 years until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the restoration of Latvian independence. During this period Latvia was incorporated into the USSR as a Soviet Socialist Republic, the nation undergoing massive societal change, its people suffering injustice and repression. My grandparents never returned to their native land, my mother only returning to visit family in the 1980s when the country began to open up to the west. She hardly recognised parts of her home city of Riga: the construction of huge housing estates, industrialisation on a large scale and the complete russification of society had changed things for ever.
Using Latvian Soviet era postcards and images from my family photograph albums, I have reimagined her holidays over this period – instead of the usual postcard greetings on the rear, there are listed the many ways in which the Soviet authorities curtailed the freedoms of the population as they tried to erase the Latvian national identity and establish absolute control. 70 years later, we see how little things have changed as history repeats itself with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its associated regime of terror and repression….
Sources
Museum of the Occupation of Latviahttps://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/en/
The Keys, documentary film serieshttps:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVeCo3LGniAV2wgCaAxMtZuL4Tn31YLXB
Communist Crimeshttps://communistcrimes.org/en/countries/latvia
The Baltic Initiative and Networkhttps://coldwarsites.net/country/latvia/
Digital collage of scanned vintage postcards and family photographs. Image size 9 x 14 cm. Printed on archival matte Hahnemühle Rice Paper, mounted on Arches Platine fine art paper. Also available as a hand-made artist book - see Books page.
2022
