ABSTRACT
The theme of continuity is a recurrent one in Latvian historiography. The problem of continuity in Latvian historiography is further compounded by the fact that, over the course of the twentieth century, Latvia bore the full impact of the clash between the two totalitarian ideologies, communism and Nazism, each of which, in Mark Mazower's words, presented itself as an ‘End to History’. Geoffrey Swain's path into Latvian historiography, by his own admission, first originated from his extensive studies of the Russian Revolution, leading him first to the Latvian Riflemen, and to the history of Soviet Latvia during and immediately after World War II. If Soviet historiography ‘set in stone’ the portrayal of the Left partisans as national heroes, and the Right partisans as Nazi collaborators, post-1991 popular and even some academic writing has attempted to portray the Left national partisans as ‘Soviet agents’, denying the existence of any indigenous communist ideological roots.
