Searching for an Ally. The Soviet Diplomats in Latvia and Their Contacts with Kastus Ezavitau 1925–1926

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the research of unknown fragments of national Belarusian emigrant groups’ history. Soviet diplomatic plans to establish ties with the local Belarusian population and to expand Communist propaganda in Latvia required contact with the leaders of the Belarusian movement, including Ezavitau. The main subject is the activity of Kastus Ezavitau in the middle of the 1920s. There was no possibility for Belarusian activists in the region of Latgale, where most Latvian Belarusians lived, to avoid collaboration with the Soviet permanent mission because of a lack of money and the discrimination policy of Latvian authorities. Local Belarusian activists had to fi ght for infl uence over the Latgale peasants, who often could not yet decide on their national identity, with the much more active and infl uential Polish and Russian diasporas. The Soviet mission provided fi nancial support to the press, and for school education in Belarusian, but forced them to carry out their demands in return. Analysis of a number of archival documents shows that, contrary to the widespread idea of his pro-Soviet mood, this collaboration was involuntary and undesirable for Ezavitau during this period, as we may see in the documents. He tried to provide more independent activity, such as the creation of the Belarusian party, but was permanently stopped by his super- visors in the Soviet mission. Soviet diplomats were not satisfi ed by collaboration with Ezavitau either but had no other candidate with whom to establish a permanent contact.