Atmoda

Atmoda ("Awakening" in Latvian) was a weekly newspaper in Latvian SSR and Latvia issued in the years 1988-1992. It was an organ of the Popular Front of Latvia (PFL) and the first independent, opposition paper in the Latvian SSR. The name of the newspaper is a reference to Latvian revival movements known as Latvian National Awakening.

The newspaper was issued in the Latvian and Russian languages. Many Russian people of culture and science in Latvia supported the PFL. The newspaper was popular not only in Latvia, but among population of the Soviet Union, and the Russian edition peaked at 100,000 in curculation.

Atmoda, as a token of recognition of rights of Russians by PFL, was a ground of insinuations by competing more radical nationalist political parties, such as Latvian National Independence Movement, that PFL was ridden with Moscow KGB spies to control the national movement in Latvia.

In January 1991, Communist functionaries occupied the national print house claiming it was party property, and Atmoda had to be printed in Šiauliai.

In 1993, a dispute erupted about the fate of mass media in the new independent state. PFL wanted to see Atmoda as an organ of party, while journalists stood on freedom of the press. This resulted in a court suit for the division of assets.

References

Bruce J. Evensen, The Role of Mass Media in a Newly Emerging Democracy: The Latvian Case Study, 1994 AEJMC Proc. pp. 47-71.
http://www.latvija20gadsimts.lv/apkopojums/notikumu-hronologija/tresa-atmoda/

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