Radio Free Europe/Voice of America Latvian Service

[Maris Goldmanis]

Hello!

I am historian from Riga,Latvia. My specialty is not radio history and the Cold War, but I am also a shortwave dx and vintage radio hobby enthusiast. So I am looking for some good research, sources, documents maybe even recordings of the Latvian language service for Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. I know Radio Vatican also had Latvian service until 2012. I know about the Latvian sources, I know a series of publications in the Latvian exile magazine about the subject. But, what can you recommend in English language that has some good insight on the Latvian and other two Baltic national services? I have book by Richard H. Cummings Cold War Radio a good book but its ,more about security,espionage and so on. I know he Radio security director. Unfortunately other books such as Cold War broadcasting by A. Ross Johnson, R. Eugene Parta seems hardly purchasable in Amazon, expensive and less in availability. Also to note the extra shipping costs to Latvia. If there is another bookstore or a digital library of good books about RFE/VOA please let me know. Last year our History Institute Journal released a good article  http://www.lvi.lv/lv/LVIZ_2014_files/2.numurs/J_LHommedieu_Baltic_Language_LVIZ_2014_2%2891%29.pdf by Jonathan H. L’Hommedieu. I might need to contact him too. 

Also regarding the archive documents mainly public digital, where do you recommend me to look about the VOA/RFE besides the CIA archive? And is the Hover Archive the only place with Latvian RFE recordings or there is another site of a least some of them?  As I see know I cannot access them from here and without a reasonable payment.

My goal is to read and understand the history of the Latvian broadcasting from US to Soviet occupied Latvia. Not just how it affected the locals, the jamming, the KGB persecution, but who were the people who worked there, how the stations worked, what were the times and frequencies. If I get that all in comprehensible view I plan to write and publish this in my site Latvianhistory.com and later in some other places if possible. So far I made some articles about the Soviet jammers, the monitoring of the KGB and its effect on locals, but I would want to get the more insight on the other side. The Latvian services for RFE and VOA has been mostly forgotten by Latvians themselves and I want to brought up this back and give a detail for it.  I often listen to Radio Liberty in Russian and Belarusian trough the old radios that used to receive the Latvian service so want to add its place in to Latvian history.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Maris Goldmanis mag.hist. 

Riga,Latvia

[brb...@stanford.edu]

Hi Maris, 

I can't claim to be an expert on publications dealing specifically with the Latvian service of Radio Free Europe. Hopefully, some of the others on this list will provide information on that topic. 

I can tell you with confidence that the Hoover Institution Archives has 191 sound recordings from the Latvian service of RFE from the dates 1980-1995, all of which have been digitized. (Recordings from 1995-2004 comprise a different set and have not yet been digitized.) They are described in the finding aid as: 

Latvian Language Service sound recordings, 1980-1995, 191 sound recordings

Target regions include Latvia. Languages include Latgallian, Latvian and Russian. Programming includes broadcast, music and other recordings. Digital use copies of selected recordings are available for immediate use. See also Multiple Language Services sound recordings for recordings from 1995 to 2004.

Can you tell me what types of Latvian service recordings you're interested in? 

Have you contacted the National Archives of Latvia? It's my understanding that they have 777 Latvian service "editorial radio broadcasts" from 1991-2003. 

Let me know if you have any further questions, happy to help. 

Best, 

Brandon 

---------------------------
Brandon Burke
Archivist for Recorded Sound Collections
Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
vox: 650.724.9711
fax: 650.725.3445
email: brb...@stanford.edu

[Maris Goldmanis]

Thank you for your replay.

For me the interest is broadcast content about politics, the reports from west and their understanding in situation in Latvia. The recordings from 1987 to 1991 are one of the interesting as its often said that RFE was the one who encouraged people to attend the first anti-soviet demonstrations that ignited the independence restoration movement. The Latgalian section is also worth to check as we have many opinions if Latgalian is language or just a dialect. And the fact they have Latgalian speakers in the West to broadcast in it. The question how do I obtain these digital recordings?

I will check the Latvian Archive recordings availability. 

Best

Maris Goldmanis

[Ross]

Maris,

 

In addition to the suggestions from Brandon, you may wish to contact Jonathan LHommedieu (lhomm...@gmail.com), whom you mention and who has written elsewhere too on the history of the RFE/RL Baltic Services; also  Peter Zvagulis [zvag...@yahoo.com], former head of the RFE/RL Latvian Service, who has a chapter in the Cold War Broadcasting volume that I coedited.  See also the CIA documents and the Communist regime documents in the Wilson Center digital archive –

 http://wilsoncenter.org/publication/radio-free-europe-and-radio-liberty

http://wilsoncenter.org/publication/cold-war-broadcasting

 

Best regards,

 

Ross

[Maris Goldmanis]

Hello

Its been a while since last post. I had many other things to do, but this August I placed my sources together and made this article.

http://latvianhistory.com/2015/08/22/international-shortwave-radio-broadcasting-in-latvian-language/

Its not just about the RFE it also features the basic information about Latvian service on VOA and also less known Latvian services on Radio Vatican, National Radio of Spain and Voice of Free Russia. Most sources for this publication is from Rolfs Ekmanis, who worked in RFE Latvian service and has wrote a number of detailed publications on Latvian exile journal Jaunā Gaita. Majorly I have nothing here that I have researched on my own as I don't have access on documents. But, I hope to get more detailed content on the future. I am aware there might be mistakes or bad use of language that's why its good more experienced people would read and tell their opinion on this article. For now this serves  as compilation, but as far as I am aware, most of the details about Latvian language services in RFE and VOA are not widely available in English so it serves. When I get more sources I will definitely improve the article. 

Maris Goldmanis

mag.hist

Riga, Latvia