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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2fQJhOm:
nothing2c:
Apparently I’m not the only person born abroad who is worried as fuck about my adopted country now.
There’s actually a strange and interesting side note about Baryshnikov!
He wasn’t born in Russia. He was born in the Soviet Union, of course, but his actual birthplace was Riga, in the Latvian SSR. Which, now, has returned to being an independent nation.
Latvia, like most of the other nations absorbed into the USSR, suffered heavily under the Soviets, and had large swathes of its population forcibly removed and replaced with other people. In their case, mostly ethnic Russians. Now, post-liberation, as they try to build a nation, they have to deal with the fact that a full 35% of their population is— like Baryshnikov– ethnic Russians who don’t speak Latvian.
It is fiendishly difficult for ethnic Russians to get Latvian citizenship. The mere fact of having been born there isn’t enough, not even if their parents were also born there. To get citizenship, you have to either prove that your ancestors were Latvians before I think 1941– or go through a large number of hoops. [My boyfriend, for example, who has never been to Latvia and does not speak the language, only has to find the paperwork from when his grandmother or grandfather– he doesn’t need both– fled in 1941, and they’d take him back right away. At least one of his cousins has already done this, just to have the papers, since Latvia’s in the EU now.]
Quite recently, Baryshnikov wrote to the Latvian government and very, very politely asked them if he could have citizenship in the nation of his birth. Despite having left as a teenager, and basically never having returned, he felt it was important.
They granted it to him, of course, because of who he is and what he has done.
But I find that very interesting, in light of this quote as well. And I’m jealous; there is no nation on Earth I have any legitimate claim to, there’s nowhere I could go. I’m a cis white lady, straight-passing, and I’ll be past child-bearing age soon enough, so I’m not all that vulnerable, but I tell you what, I’d rest easier if there were anywhere I could go. But there isn’t. My family’s been here too long. Nowhere would take me back.
nothing2c:
Apparently I’m not the only person born abroad who is worried as fuck about my adopted country now.
There’s actually a strange and interesting side note about Baryshnikov!
He wasn’t born in Russia. He was born in the Soviet Union, of course, but his actual birthplace was Riga, in the Latvian SSR. Which, now, has returned to being an independent nation.
Latvia, like most of the other nations absorbed into the USSR, suffered heavily under the Soviets, and had large swathes of its population forcibly removed and replaced with other people. In their case, mostly ethnic Russians. Now, post-liberation, as they try to build a nation, they have to deal with the fact that a full 35% of their population is— like Baryshnikov– ethnic Russians who don’t speak Latvian.
It is fiendishly difficult for ethnic Russians to get Latvian citizenship. The mere fact of having been born there isn’t enough, not even if their parents were also born there. To get citizenship, you have to either prove that your ancestors were Latvians before I think 1941– or go through a large number of hoops. [My boyfriend, for example, who has never been to Latvia and does not speak the language, only has to find the paperwork from when his grandmother or grandfather– he doesn’t need both– fled in 1941, and they’d take him back right away. At least one of his cousins has already done this, just to have the papers, since Latvia’s in the EU now.]
Quite recently, Baryshnikov wrote to the Latvian government and very, very politely asked them if he could have citizenship in the nation of his birth. Despite having left as a teenager, and basically never having returned, he felt it was important.
They granted it to him, of course, because of who he is and what he has done.
But I find that very interesting, in light of this quote as well. And I’m jealous; there is no nation on Earth I have any legitimate claim to, there’s nowhere I could go. I’m a cis white lady, straight-passing, and I’ll be past child-bearing age soon enough, so I’m not all that vulnerable, but I tell you what, I’d rest easier if there were anywhere I could go. But there isn’t. My family’s been here too long. Nowhere would take me back.
