DIRECT DEMOGRAPHIC LOSSES CAUSED TO LATVIA BY THE USSR OCCUPATION REGIME FROM 1940 TO 1990

• Authors: Zvidrins P.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of this paper is to assess the direct demographic losses of Latvia due to the Soviet occupational regime. In post-war period the Soviet authorities and their agencies continued the repressions against different Latvian population groups which started in the horrible 1940. By making use of the so-called method of the potential demography, the author has estimated that the deportations of June 1941 and March 1949 alone caused the decrease of the summary life potential of the Latvian people by three quarters of a million people years (not including health damages, children remaind unborn and other indirect demographic losses). The number of people who fled to West during the last months of World War II, scared of Soviet terror, is about two hundred thousand. Only a few thousand of them returned later to the occupied Latvia. In 1944 there was an administrative change in the territory (the annexation of Abrene region) and Latvia lost at least 40 thousand population. Repressive acts against the Latvian nation in different forms continued even after the so–called 'period of thaw'. There were also irreversible human losses due to forced participation of Latvian people in the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) or in the liquidation of consequences of breakdown of the Tchernobil nuclear power station (in 1986). It is not yet possible to give exact numerical data of the total direct losses because the working out of some methodics of calculations or estimations (casualties of the war, losses among national partisans etc.) is still in progress. According to author's estimations, the direct demographic losses of Latvia during the Soviet occupation amount to more than 10 million person-years.

Keywords

EN

DIRECT DEMOGRAPHIC LOSSES (LATVIA); PERSON-YEARS; SUMMARY LIFE POTENTIAL'S DECREASE

Discipline

• OTHER_SOCIAL_SCIENCES: OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES

• Publisher: EPC Ltd (Economic Prognosis Centre), Riga, Latvia (till March 2009 - Institute of Economics, Latvian Academy of Sciences, Ltd)
• Journal: Humanities and Social Sciences: Latvia
• Year: 2008
• Issue: 1(54)
• Pages: 6-25
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Zvidrins P.

• P. Zvidrins, Latvijas Universitate, Statistikas un demografijas katedra, Aspazijas bulv. 5, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08LVAAAA04608864