Latvia, 1918–1920: A Civil War?

Aldis Minins

Journal of Baltic Studies, 2015, vol. 46, issue 1, 49-63

Abstract: The post–World War I conflict that took place in Latvia between 1918 and 1920 was variously described as “struggle for freedom,” “war for liberty,” “independence war,” “civil war,” and so on. This article reviews the various concepts by discussing alternatives of statehood in Latvia. Its primary objective is to provide more evidence to the argument that the postwar conflict that took place in Latvia between 1918 and 1920 may be considered “a civil war.” By focusing on the Red and White terror campaigns, the author suggests that terror is one of the most overlooked aspects of the conflict that provides significant evidence for the perspective of “civil war.” He claims that the war was not “a class struggle,” as argued by Soviet historians, and calls for alternative explanations that would include the discussion of moral crisis, ideological conflict, ethnic and social hatred, clash of values, and the explosion of terror in Latvia.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01629778.2015.1009689 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rbalxx:v:46:y:2015:i:1:p:49-63

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rbal20

DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2015.1009689

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Baltic Studies is currently edited by Liisi Esse

More articles in Journal of Baltic Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().