‘Small’ Germans and ‘Half’-Germans in the Baltic provinces at the turn of the twentieth century

This chapter explores two nearly forgotten hybrid groups in the history of Latvia – lower class Germans (‘Small’ Germans) and Germanised Latvians (‘Half’-Germans) at the turn of the twentieth century. The most significant historical ethnic minority in Latvia, never exceeding more than one-tenth of the population, Baltic Germans were the cultural and political elite in the region until 1918, when Latvia established its independence from the Russian Empire. The representatives of German nobility and the educated elite tended to dismiss the ‘Small’ Germans and called them ‘free German Latvians’, even encouraging their assimilation with Latvians. While the ‘Small’ Germans were excluded from the Baltic German community for being born in a lower social class, the case was the other way around with the ‘Half’-Germans – Latvians who had moved higher in the social hierarchy or at least had attempted to do so.