Hello Latvians, I was wondering how accurate is this map especially question for those who live in South-East Latvia where the map depicts the Polish People are concentrated, how accurate is this map have you ever meet a Latvian born Pole ?

by LucianFromWilno

12 comments

  1. No idea, I’ve not lived in south east and I don’t know much about poles in Latvia apart that they exist.

  3. If the definition is “these people have some sort of polish ancestry” then the map seems plausible. I have met several of these people and I live in one of the areas that is 3-5%.

  4. I’m not from that area (I think that very few people on reddit would be from there, because its the poorest region – low education, low life expectancy, etc.), but what I have heard from the news it is true. It’s not a diaspora, just by blood, because historically that region was Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Nowadays, they do in a sense identify as Polish heritage something and I think they also have a bit of influence on elections in Daugavpils, but Russian speakers are much more present.

  5. My grandfather was from around Krāslava side (somewhat Daugavpils) ane he knew Polish. But do not know of that was because of birthplace or something in life gave opportunity to learn Polish.

  6. In town called Ilukste there are Pols. Not sure if they still have that but when I was growing up Catholic church had two separate services one in Latvian and one in Polish.

  7. All I know is that in Rēzekne city there is a state gymnasium which is named after Poland/Poles – Rēzeknes poļu ģimnāzija. They have teachers that teach polish language as far as I know.

  8. “Poles” as in – have Polish ancestry, surnames, are catholics unlike mostly protestant Latvians – yeah, sure, this map is probably accurate.

    “Poles” as in – speak Polish language, feel strong ties to Poland, support Polish politicians / sports teams etc. – then no. 

    The only true Poles in Latvia are the ones studying or working in Riga. Those guys in Latgale maybe were Poles a hundred years ago. Now they are Latvians or Russians with Polish surnames.

  10. My grandma is from the dark red area. Her first language was polish but she couldn’t speak it anymore as an adult. She would have been 94 this year.
    There are a lot of catholic churches in Latgale and if you go to any cemetery, most last names will be Polish.

  11. My grandma family was from light red area. They were polish.

  12. I’m from the deep red area – while this map may be true, it sort of isn’t.
    Take my dad – on paper an ethnic pole, in reality, thanks to soviet russification – speaks russian as his first language. His polish was suppressed in his childhood and so he grew as a russian speaker.
    Not saying that there are no people that do not identify as poles or speak Polish, but to say all of the red does would be false, as most speak russian or Latvian.

    One good example of a man that does is the Executive director of the Augšdaugava municipality and oppositional figure to the current leadership in Latvia’s second biggest city Daugavpils, Pēteris Dzalbe, who is very much into preserving the local polish culture. The city also hosts a polish high school, which does show that the state of Poland does care about these poles in the region growing up with the polish identity in modern Latvia.

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