Sentence: Life

During the recent celebrations of the end of World War II, three former countries were all but forgotten. Before the war, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were thriving independent nations. Now they are part of the Soviet Union. Their government is the Soviet government. They have ceased to be independent states. Take Latvia, for example.

The description of the “Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic” that appears in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was, appropriately enough, written in part by an official of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, Pyotr Vatslavovich Gulyan. After all, history is written by the victors. The first sentence reads: “Latvia, which had been an independent republic since 1920, was constituted as one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union on July 21, 1940, and was proclaimed a Soviet Socialist republic on August 5.” This skimps a lot of history (which, in fairness to the many-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, may be found elsewhere in that reference work).

RM

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Ruth Inglis Matthews

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During the recent celebrations of the end of World War II, three former countries were all but forgotten. Before the war, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were thriving independent nations. Now they are part of the Soviet Union. Their government is the Soviet government. They have ceased to be independent states. Take Latvia, for example.

The description of the “Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic” that appears in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was, appropriately enough, written in part by an official of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, Pyotr Vatslavovich Gulyan. After all, history is written by the victors. The first sentence reads: “Latvia, which had been an independent republic since 1920, was constituted as one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union on July 21, 1940, and was proclaimed a Soviet Socialist republic on August 5.” This skimps a lot of history (which, in fairness to the many-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, may be found elsewhere in that reference work).