Talk:List of Latvians

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[edit] Karlis Ulmanis

Call Karlis Ulmanis what you will, but he was _never_ President of Latvia. He came to power via coup d'etat dislodging the sitting Prime Minister Blodnieks, and later dismissed President Kviesis. By no legal or constitutional means did Karlis Ulmanis ever become President.

As far as I know, after the coup, Kviesis completed his term. Ulmanis did hold both the primary offices, of President and Prime Minister, subsequently. There are equally many or more that would argue that Ulmanis took his action in an ultimate act of patriotism only after the Latvian government was so fractured as to be dysfunctional. Peters 07:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whose measure of fame?

In reading through the list of "famous" Latvians, this is a bit of a problematic description. Fame is fickle. The list of famous Latvians of my parents' generation would be quite different and would also include Latvians active in Latvian cultural life in exile after WWII. I would likely add quite a few more entries, but I'd hate to go through that and then have them removed as "not famous enough" (i.e., a primarily American-centric "have we heard of this person"). Peters 07:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but I don't think anybody would (should) remove a name as "not being famous enough" unless it is obviously inappropriate (e.g., if somebody adds their own name). The criteria for this list should be broad, but perhaps the page should bear a note clarifying the meaning? Mark Rothko, for example, was born here before this was Latvia and departed whilst Dvinsk was still in the Russian Empire; neither was he an ethnic Latvian. He spoke no Latvian at all and took no interest in Latvia, other than making a cynical request that an exhibit of his works be arranged in Soviet Daugavpils. He does belong on the list because Daugavpils is now the second largest city in Latvia and he was born here (and he is increasingly important to the city and the country).

The list most definitely should not be restricted to ethnic Latvians, of course, but some clarification might be in order (nationality often does not apply, either, as in the case of some famous or notorious Russified Latvians like Boris Pugo). There is also the Category:Latvian people with its subcategories -- again, neither Jukums Vācietis nor Yan Rudzutak were ever Latvian citizens (in which case "nationality" is being used as a synonym for "ethnicity" -- the talk page at List of people by nationality includes relevant debate]).

What I am getting at, then, is that we should probably include a definition like that found at List of Irish people, and (IMO) observe the rule found there, too ("people of [Latvian] descent who identified themselves or involved themselves with [Latvia]). That means that some people of Latvian descent might be excluded. The first criterion at the Irish page should probably be clarified here as "in what is now Latvia" (or, to be more precise, "what became Latvia after the Republic was established in 1918" [so qualified because of the de facto status of the Abrene district]).

I also think the list should be subdivided, as many are. We might concentrate on adding everybody on the recent list at Latvijas Avīze.

The thing is, though (and this is important regarding what you wrote above, Peter) that there shouldn't be so many red links in this list. People adding to it should at least make stubs that can later be expanded, and in my opinion the amount of information given on the list itself should be more consistent (the entry "Raudive" should end with "writer, parapsychologist" and a stub should be written with dates of birth and death and some information). --Pēteris Cedriņš 12:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, Baltic Germans certainly considered themselves as "of Latvia"--I would certainly consider Latvia home if I traced my presence there back for generations. My own background includes Swedish, and so on. Then there are Latvians of Jewish descent, who consider themselves Latvian. Latvia--centered on Riga and the other ports to a lesser extent--has a centuries-old multi-cultural past. It seems that needs to be captured somewhere with appropriate notes. Seems the categories would be... Latvians, non-Latvians to whom Latvia was (just as much) home (at least for a time), and then those who are simply Latvia-born (Rothko, Halsman,...). Peters 03:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The lists can certainly overlap -- there is a "Notable Baltic Germans" section at Baltic German, for example, to which I just added Augusts Bīlenšteins, making a redirect to August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein. There is even a category for Soviet people. I, too, want to explain the nitty-gritty somewhere -- it is, for instance, especially confusing to many that the terminology has changed a great deal. Until quite recently, "Balts" most often referred not to ethnic Latvians but to the Baltic Germans, and this is especially confusing to people not acquainted with our history. To make it even more confusing, Latgalians with more separatist leanings very often referred to "čiuļi," non-Latgalian Latvians, as "Balts" (Latvian makes the distinction between balti and baltieši, of course, just as latgaļi and latgalieši have had a very different meaning, only now blurred by writers like Kūceņu Armands). The article on Irish people offers the sort of explanation I think is required, with a host of important detail (similar to the Irish, we need an explanation of the Letticization of names, etc.). I would add discussion of the distinction between "Latvijas tauta" ("the people of Latvia") and "latviešu tauta," ("the Latvian people"), the neologism "latvijieši," the (changing) usage of the term "Latvijas krievi," ("Russians of Latvia"), the difference between "Россиянин" and "Русские," etc., since the nuances of many of these terms are very often crucial to an understanding of the people of Latvia. The trouble with this project is that the more one writes, the more one sees how much more needs to be written! --Pēteris Cedriņš 13:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)