Crossroads of Jewish Identity in the Soviet Period in Latgale: 1970s–1990s

The proposed study is part of a research project dedicated to the Jewish text in Latgale (south-eastern part of Latvia) in the 1970s-1990s. Within the project, a field study – semi-structured interviews – has been carried out. The groups of respondents interviewed: representatives of Jewish ethnicity, born in the 1960s-1970s (currently living in Latvia and Israel). The paper presents a contradictory model of Jewish identity, which has been reconstructed after the segmentation of interviews. The interview questions were designed to distinguish groups of individual memories: the distinction of Jewish culture among other cultures, the nurturing of traditions in the family, the perception of Jews among classmates, and the perception of Israel. The memories of the 1970s-1980s manifest the interference of the identity model: in childhood and at school, belonging to the Jewish ethnicity becomes a sign of the “other”, and in the narrative it is most often marked as a concept of fear, inconvenience, awkwardness. The recorded interviews testify to the attempts to conceal one’s belonging to Jewish culture (mixed families) or to the division of cultural signs into “community – home”, where the maintenance of the Jewish tradition was the function of grandparents and was mostly related to gastronomic code, leisure activities. The memories demonstrate a specific ritual that testifies to the connection with Israel. The 1990s is characterized as a turning point, the revival of a new Jewish identity – the renewal of the Jewish community). At the same time, the repatriation process was in progress, as a result of which the second (after the Holocaust tragedy) “exit” of the Jewish culture from Daugavpils and Latgale took place. The vector of Jewish identity changed significantly: the concept of fear was replaced by the concept of pride, which for the generation of the 1970s-1990s is marked by the acquisition of new knowledge in the field of Judaica.