<story><title>In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-latvia-young-people-discover-new-passions-in-bad-economic-times/2013/07/29/ac638cac-efbf-11e2-8c36-0e868255a989_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shitgoose</author><text>In order to put this quick history in a broader context, you may want to mention that Latvia was part of Russian empire for 200 years before gaining independence around 1920. Soviets occupied Latvia 20 years later in 1940.&lt;p&gt;Statement about &amp;quot;Nazi war machine crushing Latvia&amp;quot; is not entirely accurate - on the contrary, Latvia was part of Nazi war machine: e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion_Day&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Latvian_Legion_Day&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>gaius</author><text>A quick history lesson for those who haven&amp;#x27;t been to Latvia, this is a country that has been screwed by history in a way that is hard to imagine. First, they were occupied by the Soviets, with all that entailed, purges, gulags and so on. Then they were occupied by the Nazis, and things got a whole lot worse. Then after WW2, the Soviets again, keen to punish the Latvians for daring to &amp;quot;let&amp;quot; the Nazi war machine crush them beneath its jackboots. Stalin has some ideas about &lt;i&gt;lebensraum&lt;/i&gt; of his own, and instigated a mass programme of exiling Latvians and importing Russians. Even today, they are still finding pockets of Latvians deep inside Russia, relocated there by Stalin, cut off from the world, and asking them if they want to come home. Think about that for a second.&lt;p&gt;These people have a resilience that no pampered Westerner can really understand, they&amp;#x27;ll survive this like they have everything else.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>daliusd</author><text>Wikipedia article you are pointing at clearly says &amp;quot;The day has been controversial as the Legion is seen by some as Nazi and the Legion Day itself as a Nazi honouring, while others hold that the Legion was a purely military unit fighting against the Soviet Union that had occupied Latvia in 1940 and was not itself responsible for any of Nazi war crimes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;While you present that as clearly Nazi. That&amp;#x27;s not the case.&lt;p&gt;Still we can go even deeper in history and found some historic relations between Latvia and Germany.</text></comment>
<story><title>In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-latvia-young-people-discover-new-passions-in-bad-economic-times/2013/07/29/ac638cac-efbf-11e2-8c36-0e868255a989_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shitgoose</author><text>In order to put this quick history in a broader context, you may want to mention that Latvia was part of Russian empire for 200 years before gaining independence around 1920. Soviets occupied Latvia 20 years later in 1940.&lt;p&gt;Statement about &amp;quot;Nazi war machine crushing Latvia&amp;quot; is not entirely accurate - on the contrary, Latvia was part of Nazi war machine: e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion_Day&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Latvian_Legion_Day&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>gaius</author><text>A quick history lesson for those who haven&amp;#x27;t been to Latvia, this is a country that has been screwed by history in a way that is hard to imagine. First, they were occupied by the Soviets, with all that entailed, purges, gulags and so on. Then they were occupied by the Nazis, and things got a whole lot worse. Then after WW2, the Soviets again, keen to punish the Latvians for daring to &amp;quot;let&amp;quot; the Nazi war machine crush them beneath its jackboots. Stalin has some ideas about &lt;i&gt;lebensraum&lt;/i&gt; of his own, and instigated a mass programme of exiling Latvians and importing Russians. Even today, they are still finding pockets of Latvians deep inside Russia, relocated there by Stalin, cut off from the world, and asking them if they want to come home. Think about that for a second.&lt;p&gt;These people have a resilience that no pampered Westerner can really understand, they&amp;#x27;ll survive this like they have everything else.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ghostdiver</author><text>Germans had many allies during WWII, almost every country conquered by Germans had some &amp;quot;legion&amp;quot; in Werhmaht(name of german army), even in UK there was some nazi&amp;#x2F;german political party.</text></comment>