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IMISCOE Research Series

Rita Kaša
Inta Mieriņa Editors

The Emigrant
Communities of
Latvia
National Identity, Transnational
Belonging, and Diaspora Politics
IMISCOE Research Series
This series is the official book series of IMISCOE, the largest network of excellence
on migration and diversity in the world. It comprises publications which present
empirical and theoretical research on different aspects of international migration.
The authors are all specialists, and the publications a rich source of information for
researchers and others involved in international migration studies.
The series is published under the editorial supervision of the IMISCOE Editorial
Committee which includes leading scholars from all over Europe. The series, which
contains more than eighty titles already, is internationally peer reviewed which
ensures that the book published in this series continue to present excellent academic
standards and scholarly quality. Most of the books are available open access.
For information on how to submit a book proposal, please visit: http://www.
imiscoe.org/publications/how-to-submit-a-book-proposal.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13502

Rita Kaša • Inta Mieriņa
Editors

The Emigrant Communities

of Latvia
National Identity, Transnational Belonging,
and Diaspora Politics
Editors
Rita Kaša Inta Mieriņa
Stockholm School of Economics in Riga Institute of Philosophy and Sociology
Riga, Latvia University of Latvia
Riga, Latvia

ISSN 2364-4087     ISSN 2364-4095 (electronic)

IMISCOE Research Series
ISBN 978-3-030-12091-7    ISBN 978-3-030-12092-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12092-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. This book is an open access publication
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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Acknowledgements

This research into Latvia’s emigrant communities in the twenty-first century is the
outcome of a large-scale interdisciplinary research initiative and a collaborative
effort supported by a community. It was the support of the community that made
this study a unique event with lasting value.
First and foremost, the editors of this book and the team of authors wish to thank
all the participants in the research which has led to this publication. We thank our
respondents who shared their views by completing a questionnaire of Latvian emi-
grants abroad, who entrusted their stories of personal experiences of migration to
our interviews and who encouraged the involvement of friends and relatives in this
study.
Data reflected in this volume were collected in the scope of the research project
The Emigrant Communities of Latvia: National Identity, Transnational Relations,
and Diaspora Politics Nr. 013/0055/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/13/APIA/VIAA/040 funded by
the European Social Fund, carried out under the umbrella of the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, in cooperation with the Faculty of
Economics and Management. Data collection efforts took place in various countries
where there are Latvians who went abroad after 1991. The breadth of such a research
effort would not have been possible without the ongoing support of the World
Federation of Free Latvians, the European Latvian Association, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, the Latvian Language Agency, the State
Employment Agency of Latvia, the Latvian Association of Local and Regional
Governments, Latvian diplomatic representations abroad and many other organisa-
tions which helped us engage with Latvians abroad. On a personal level, we would
like to extend our special gratitude to Rolands Lappuķe and Pēteris Kārlis Elferts,
the former Special Ambassadors for the Diaspora Affairs of the Republic of Latvia,
for their support from the initial phases until the completion of the project.
Many thanks also go to the social media outlets which provided crucial informa-
tion support for the survey of emigrants in this research, especially Juris Auzāns and
Jānis Akmentiņš at Draugiem.lv; Kristaps Armanis at TvNET; Ingus Bērziņš and
Anatolijs Golubovs at DELFI; Indulis Bērziņš at Inbox; Daina Gross at ­latviansonline.

v
vi Acknowledgements

com, the diaspora media outlet latviesi.com; Anglo-Baltic News; and many others
who distributed information about the survey.
This research project would not have been possible without the excellent support
of our colleagues Aleksandrs Aleksandrovs and Alda Ramāne in project administra-
tion. And finally, we express our sincere gratitude to Vincent Hunt for his thoughtful
engagement with this project and for editing the English language throughout this
manuscript.
Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1
Rita Kaša and Inta Mieriņa

Part I Contemporary Latvian Migration

2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide������������   13
Inta Mieriņa
3 Emigration from Latvia: A Brief History and Driving
Forces in the Twenty-First Century ������������������������������������������������������   35
Mihails Hazans
4 The Complex Identities of Latvians Abroad:
What Shapes a Migrant’s Sense of Belonging? ������������������������������������   69
Ilze Koroļeva
5 Latvian Migrants in Foreign Labour Markets: Job Placement
and Discrimination����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   97
Aivars Tabuns

Part II Case Studies on Transnational and National

Belonging of Migrants
6 Latvian Migrants in Great Britain: ‘The Great Departure’,
Transnational Identity and Long Distance Belonging�������������������������� 119
Mārtiņš Kaprāns
7 Growing Up to Belong Transnationally: Parent Perceptions
on Identity Formation Among Latvian Emigrant
Children in England�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145
Daiga Kamerāde and Ieva Skubiņa

vii
viii Contents

8 Manoeuvring in Between: Mapping Out the Transnational

Identity of Russian-­Speaking Latvians in Sweden
and Great Britain ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 163
Iveta Jurkane-Hobein and Evija Kļave
9 Cultural and Media Identity Among Latvian
Migrants in Germany������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 183
Laura Sūna
10 Latvian Emigrants in the United States: Different Waves,
Different Identities? �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 203
Andris Saulītis and Inta Mieriņa
11 ‘I Am One of Them’: Exploring the Communication
of Identity of Latvian Migrants on Social Networking Sites���������������� 231
Ianis Bucholtz and Laura Sūna

Part III Return Migration and Policies of the Sending Country

12 Return Migration Process in Policy and Practice �������������������������������� 261
Evija Kļave and Inese Šūpule
13 The Nexus Between Higher Education Funding and Return
Migration Examined�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 283
Rita Kaša
Contributors

Ianis Bucholtz is an assistant professor at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences

and a researcher at the Institute of Social, Economic and Humanities Research. He
received his Ph.D. in Communication Science from the University of Latvia in
2013. His research interests concern contemporary developments in journalism,
social aspects of computer-mediated communication and social media.

Mihails Hazans is a professor of Econometrics at the University of Latvia and

research fellow at IZA Institute of Labor Economics and at the Global Labour
Organization. He has served as an expert, consultant, advisor or principal investiga-
tor in numerous projects for the OECD, World Bank, USAID, European Commission,
ILO and Global Development Network, as well as for various national institutions.
His research considers labour market issues in the Baltic and other European coun-
tries, and his recent focus has been on migration, human capital, ethnic minorities,
informality and ageing. He has contributed chapters to books published by Springer,
Edward Elgar, Ashgate and the OECD and has also published articles in journals
such as Economica, Journal of Population Economics, Empirica and Labour:
Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations.

Iveta Jurkane-Hobein is an independent researcher. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology

from Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research interests include perceptions of
time, family sociology, migration experiences and Russian-speaking Latvians. Her
research has been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,
Qualitative Sociology, Studies in Communication and Culture and other peer-
reviewed journals.

Daiga Kamerāde is a senior lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods at the

University of Salford in the UK. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences
from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests focus on civic partici-
pation, work, employment and well-being. Her research has been published in vari-
ous outlets, including Human Relations, Work, Employment and Society, the
European Sociological Review, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

ix
x Contributors

Mārtiņš Kaprāns is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology,

University of Latvia, and an associate expert at the US think-tank The Center for
European Policy Analysis. He received his Ph.D. in Communication Science from
the University of Latvia in 2012. His research interests involve Baltic labour
migrants, Russophone communities in the post-Soviet area and strategic narratives.
He has published scientific articles in many international volumes and journals, the
most recent of which are Memory Studies and Journal of Baltic Studies.

Rita Kaša is a research fellow at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. She
holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Education from the State University of New York in
Buffalo, USA. Her research interests concern educational policy, equity in higher
education access and the finance and governance of higher education. Her articles
have appeared in the Peabody Journal of Education, the Baltic Journal of Economics
and European Education.

Evija Kļave Dr.sc.soc., is a senior researcher at the Baltic Institute of Social

Sciences, one of the leading research and policy analysis centres in Latvia, and a
research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of
Latvia. Since 1998, she has worked as sociologist and has participated in a wide
range of national and international sociological studies and policy analysis projects.
She specialises in the field of qualitative research, policy analysis and discourse
analysis. Her research interests are ethnic studies, language use and knowledge,
general education policy, social integration policy and migration issues.

Ilze Koroļeva Dr.sc.soc., is a deputy director and leading researcher at the Institute
of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Latvia. Her scientific work is
largely focused on youth, social exclusion and identity research. She was the lead
researcher in the Latvian Science Council-funded project Social Exclusion Risks of
Youth and Youth in Risk Society: Transition to Adulthood. She has also contributed
to and led many international comparative studies including the international longi-
tudinal survey Path of a Generation, European School Survey Project on Alcohol
and Other Drugs (ESPAD), Eurostudent. She is the author of more than 60 scientific
publications, appearing in The Sociological Review, European Psychiatry,
Religious-philosophical and other peer-reviewed journals.

Inta Mieriņa Ph.D., is the director of the Centre for Diaspora and Migration
Research at the University of Latvia and a senior researcher at the University of
Latvia’s Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. In 2014–2015, she was the director
of the European Social Fund-supported research project The Emigrant Communities
of Latvia: National Identity, Transnational Relations, and Diaspora Politics, for
which she received the University of Latvia Annual Prize in Science in 2014. She is
an alumna of Juris Padegs Research Fellowship at the MacMillan Center for
International and Area Studies at Yale University, New Haven, USA. She has also
received a Fulbright scholarship for research at the University of Washington,
Seattle, USA. Her publications have appeared in Social Science Research, The
Contributors xi

Sociological Review, European Societies, Europe-Asia Studies and other peer-­

reviewed journals. Her main research interests concern migration, nationalism and
far-right attitudes, inequality, participation, trust and community involvement.

Andris Saulītis is a Ph.D. candidate in Social and Political Sciences at the European
University Institute in Florence, Italy. Currently, he is a Juris Padegs Research
Fellow at Yale University’s Baltic Studies Programme, New Haven, USA.

Ieva Skubiņa Ph.D., is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at

the University of Latvia. Skubiņa has led and coordinated multiple national and
international research projects. She also has worked in projects aimed at developing
recommendations to policymakers for addressing social policy issues. Her main
research interests are in the sociology of youth and education, the analysis of migra-
tion and asylum policies and research into social exclusion and poverty.

Laura Sūna Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin,

Germany, working on a project exploring Transcultural Emotional Repertoires in
and by Reality TV at the Collaborative Research Centre Affective Societies. Before
that, she was a part-time lecturer at the Institute for Media and Communication
Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and a scientific assistant at the University of
Bremen, Germany, and the University of Latvia, Latvia. Her research interests
include reality TV, youth culture, migration studies, cultural studies and qualitative
research methods.

Inese Šūpule Dr.sc.soc., is a sociologist and researcher at the Institute of Philosophy

and Sociology at the University of Latvia. Her fields of expertise include migration,
ethnic studies, ethnic politics, integration in society, education and language use and
knowledge.

Aivars Tabuns is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Latvia. He received

his Ph.D. in Applied Sociology from the Institute of Applied Sociology in
Moscow. His research interests concern national identity, ethnic relations, language,
culture and social integration in Latvia.
Chapter 1
Introduction

Rita Kaša and Inta Mieriņa

This volume contributes to research on migration from Latvia, a country in Central

Eastern Europe (CEE), following the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991. The experi-
ence of independent Latvia with borders opening up to the world and more specifi-
cally to the West has turned out to be both a rewarding and wounding experience for
communities in the country. On the rewarding side, individuals have gained lib-
erty – an ability to travel the world freely, to see and live in the countries which were
beyond the closed doors of the Soviet Union just some decades ago. This freedom,
however, has also brought the sense of cost to the society – people are going abroad
as if dissolving into other worlds, away from their small homeland. The context of
decreasing birth rates and ageing in the country seems to amplify a feeling of loss
which is supported by hard evidence. Research shows a worrying 17% decline in
Latvia’s population between 2000 and 2013. One third of this is due to declining
birth rates and two-thirds is caused by emigration (Hazans 2016). This situation has
turned out to be hurtful experience for communities in Latvia causing a heightened
sense of grief especially during the Great Recession which shook the country at the
end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. By 2013 the feeling of crises even
larger than the economic downturn came to a head in Latvian society, pushing the
government for the first time in the history of independent Latvia to recognise the
migration of the country’s nationals and to acknowledge diaspora politics as an
important item on the national policy agenda.

R. Kaša (*)
Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Riga, Latvia
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Mieriņa
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 1

R. Kaša, I. Mieriņa (eds.), The Emigrant Communities of Latvia,
IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12092-4_1
2 R. Kaša and I. Mieriņa

This has raised a number of important questions for research. What has become
of the contemporary post-1991 Latvian migrant communities? Who are they?
Where are they? How are they? What do they do? How do they live? And how is
Latvia’s government reaching them through its diaspora policy measures? Will they
ever come back? And if they do, will they stay? The current volume presents answers
to these questions.
The focus of this volume is driven not only by specific interest in contemporary
migrant realities in a very specific historically national context, but also by the poten-
tial to address the gap in research on migrants originating from a small European
nation. Thus, while the dominant share of migration studies in Europe focus on
immigrants from non-European countries (CEED 2014), this volume provides evi-
dence on migrants from a CEE country, particularly their socio-cultural uprooting,
processes of integration, and – in the case of return migration – re-integration.
This volume extends the issues covered in research on East to West European
migration, especially in the case of the Baltic countries. The literature hitherto has
predominantly tackled issues of labour market (Black et al. 2010; Kahanec and
Zimmermann 2009). In addition to aspects of employment, this volume addresses
social and political trust among emigrants, networks and social inclusion, identity
and their sense of belonging, language use and acquisition, participation and dis-
tance nationalism, cultural and media consumption, policies aimed at return migra-
tion, and employment and education abroad. All these issues in the case of CEE
migrant communities have been under-researched although increasingly they are
deemed relevant for scholarly investigation (Bijl and Verweij 2012; Bilgili et al.
2015; Ersanilli and Koopmans 2011; Huddleston et al. 2013).
This volume finds its place among studies examining emigration from the per-
spective of migrant sending countries and contributes to closing the gap in research
on migration from Baltics since much of the existing research on migration from
CEE focuses on such relatively large communities as Polish and Romanian migrants
(e.g., Faist 2003; Galent et al. 2009; Gorny and Rusipi 2004; Kuvik et al. 2013;
Simon et al. 2008; Uccellini 2013; Ziemer and Roberts 2012). At the same time,
while Latvia is one of the smallest states in Europe it is home to one of the most
mobile populations of CEE citizens and according to some estimates, has the high-
est expected migration potential among European Union (EU) member states
(Hazans 2016). A particular feature in the case of Latvian migration is the large
share of mostly Russian-speaking ethnic minority people among Latvian migrants,
and the increasing share of children and young people leaving the country.
Empirical evidence in the volume broadens and deepens the knowledge about the
reasons for and patterns of Latvian migration during the past 25 years. Most impor-
tantly, it provides a fascinating insight into the social and psychological aspects
linked to migration in a comparative context. The data in the volume is rich in pro-
viding perspectives at the individual level of contemporary Latvian migrants glob-
ally addressing issues such as emigrants’ economic, social and cultural embeddedness
in the host country, ties with the home country and culture, interaction with public
1 Introduction 3

authorities both in the host and home country, political views, and perspectives on
the permanent settlement in migration or return. This research presents the perspec-
tives of diverse groups of migrants including skilled and unskilled professionals,
housewives, students, and entrepreneurs. Although the volume builds on data about
Latvian emigrants, many of the issues discussed here are faced by any emigrant
community – such as the assimilation of children, relationships between emigrants
representing different emigration waves, the complex identities and attachments of
minority emigrants, and the role of culture and media in identity formation and
presentation.
While focused on one sending country, the volume takes on analysis of immi-
grants’ socio-cultural integration at their destinations in a wide comparative per-
spective. It addresses socio-cultural integration of Latvian migrants in multiple host
countries in Europe and elsewhere, diversifying the existing body of literature dom-
inated by case studies of CEE migrant communities in several large receiving coun-
tries and especially in Great Britain (e.g., Kuvik et al. 2013; Ziemer and Roberts
2012).
Such contribution of this volume rests on a large dataset generated in the scope
of the interdisciplinary research project The Emigrant Communities of Latvia:
National identity, transnational relations and diaspora politics Nr.
013/0055/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/13/APIA/VIAA/040, financed by the European Social
Fund. The project was carried out under the auspices of the Institute of Philosophy
and Sociology, University of Latvia in cooperation with the Faculty of Economics
and Management during 2014 and the first half of 2015. This research project
brought together a team of 16 researchers representing the disciplines of sociology,
economics, media studies, comparative education and political science engaged in a
coordinated task to develop a multi-faceted view on contemporary migration from a
single sending country – Latvia. In the scope of this work, the research team under-
took data collection engaging Latvian emigrant communities in many nations in
Europe and elsewhere. Under the umbrella of the overall research focus, each
researcher in the project had their own set of research questions, inquiring deeply
into specific aspects of contemporary migration realities.
Given the versatility of the researchers’ academic backgrounds and research
interests, the research process leading to the results presented in this volume
involved a significant effort to develop a joint interdisciplinary methodology for the
project. Thus, the methodological approach in data collection was jointly designed,
while each researcher in the team had a distinct angle when examining contempo-
rary migration from Latvia, described further in this chapter.
An integrated approach to surveying emigrants, which formed the core of the
research project, distinguishes this volume from other studies not only on migration
from Latvia, but other Eastern European countries as well. Evidence presented in
the chapters of this volume comes from a large quantitative and qualitative data set.
This quantitative data set, which we refer to as ‘The Emigrant Communities of
Latvia survey,’ includes 14,068 respondents who have emigrated from Latvia and
represent 118 emigration destination countries. The qualitative data set extends
4 R. Kaša and I. Mieriņa

quantitative research data providing in-depth descriptions of migration realities.

The qualitative data consists of almost 200 in-depth interviews with emigrants in
Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other countries, return
migrants in Latvia and national migration policy experts. Some authors in this vol-
ume used additional qualitative data generation techniques when examining their
specific research topic, described in their respective chapters. A detailed discussion
of the development and application of the integrated research design for studying
contemporary emigrant communities of Latvia is presented in Chap. 2 by Inta
Mieriņa in this volume.
One important part of developing a common research methodology for a group
of researchers representing different academic disciplines and fields of study was
reaching an agreement on the definition of the central terms of the study. The focus
of this research on contemporary migrants from Latvia drew on the dichotomous
notion of pre-1991 and post-1991 migration from Latvia, characterised by very dif-
ferent historical circumstances. Migration from Latvia in the twentieth century prior
to 1991 was predominantly driven by events associated with World Wars I and II,
described in Chap. 3 of this volume by Mihails Hazans. Forced emigration from
Latvia was a common reason for the forming of the Latvian diaspora prior to 1991.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, full restoration of Latvia’s independence in 1991,
and its subsequent integration with Western countries and the European Union
opened new migration opportunities, also discussed by Hazans. Post-1991 emigra-
tion was not forced by acts of war and foreign occupation regimes, but influenced
by changing economic, social and political conditions instead. The dichotomy of
the pre and post-1991 circumstances formed a logical borderline in this research to
define contemporary migration as ‘cross-border movement after 1991’.
At the same time, drawing strict borders and frames when defining a social phe-
nomenon can be rather arbitrary. Although the approach in this research defines a
‘contemporary migrant’ as someone who moved out of the country after 1991, there
are cases when the logic of applying the year of Latvia’s de jure independence as the
strict and only measure can be challenged. Migration conditions for some years
before and after 1991 were in many ways more comparable than those in 1992 and
2000. Therefore, even though guided by the notion of the old and new diaspora with
1991 as the cut-off line, when collecting data we maintained the possibility for our
research participants to self-identify as the members of the new diaspora, i.e., a
contemporary migrant. Thus, although data in the chapters of this volume primarily
speaks about post-1991 migration, there are cases of earlier departures from Latvia
as well. In The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey, 6.4% of all respondents
said they had emigrated prior to 1991. The decisions of authors to include or exclude
this group of participants in the analysis was guided by the focus of each chapter.
Specific research questions addressed in separate chapters of the volume set their
own requirements for the characteristics of participants such as the year of migra-
tion. For example, in Chap. 11 on the communication of the identity of Latvian
migrants on social networking sites, Ianis Bucholtz and Laura Sūna present per-
1 Introduction 5

spectives of participants who emigrated after the emergence of the widespread use
of contemporary social media platforms, i.e., after 2004. Similarly in Chap. 13 by
Rita Kaša on the nexus between student loan forgiveness and return migration, the
availability of student loans for studies abroad from 2001 set the focus on partici-
pants who left to study abroad after this year.
Another term as equally important as ‘contemporary’ in this research was the
concept of diaspora. In order to capture the diversity of contemporary Latvian
­emigrant communities, this study applied an open definition of the term ‘Latvian
diaspora’, welcoming any participant who self-identified with Latvia as a geograph-
ical place, nation or citizen. Fieldwork was organized in three languages – Latvian,
Russian and English – so research collecting quantitative and qualitative data could
be tailored depending on the participant’s preference. To enable a diversity of
migrant associations with Latvia and yet have one common reference point, the
common baseline characteristic for research participants was their or their family’s
emigration from Latvia.
One of the aims of this research was to capture the perspectives of the ethnic
minority representatives of the contemporary Latvian diaspora. To achieve it, this
research sought to recruit Russian-speaking members of Latvian emigrant commu-
nities. In determining the belonging of research participants to an ethnic minority or
a Russian-speaking group from Latvia during data collection, we relied on the self-­
identification of participants. We do not apply terms such as ‘ethnic Russian’ in this
research unless the participants themselves identity like this. We took a similar
approach to the majority group in this research; that is, ethnic Latvians. Participant
self-identification with this ethnicity determined their belonging to this group. In
order to succeed in recruiting ethnically diverse participants, we had to approach
participant recruitment based on some assumptions about their ethnic belonging.
However, when collecting data, we asked the participants about their ethnic self-­
identification and built our further engagement with participants on the basis of this
perspective.
Ethnicity as a factor in defining the identity and belonging of migrants emerges
as a theme in several chapters of this volume. A systematic focus on identity and
belonging as it relates to ethnicity, however, is present in two chapters. In Chap. 6,
Mārtiņš Kaprāns discusses the ethno-cultural, political and social contexts for long
distance belonging, comparing perspectives of Latvian and Russian-speaking
migrants in Great Britain. In Chap. 8, Iveta Jurkane-Hobein and Evija Kļave present
a more nuanced view of identity formation among Russian-speaking Latvian
migrants in Great Britain and Sweden.
Thus, in this research and the chapters of this volume, there is a common
approach concerning a shared, if broad, definition of the terms ‘contemporary
migration’, ‘Latvian diaspora’ and ‘ethnic self-identification’ of Latvian migrants.
Another common feature is our jointly developed The Emigrant Communities of
Latvia survey and approach to qualitative interview data collection.
6 R. Kaša and I. Mieriņa

In other respects the chapters in this volume represent diverse contributions. The
authors of the chapters in this volume draw on different sources of literature charac-
teristic to their research focus and the field of studies they represent. We view this
approach as a positive as it extends the links between the fields of migration studies
and knowledge generated in other fields of social sciences. Thus, each chapter in
this volume grounds its research focus in the literature suited to that particular
research focus. Although this approach does not enable a joint theoretical frame-
work for tackling various angles of contemporary migration, it does offer a multi-­
faceted empirical contribution for understanding the emigrant communities of one
sending country in Europe in terms of contemporary migrant identity, belonging
and perspectives on return migration.
This volume consists of three parts. The first part of the volume includes chapters
which consider the question of contemporary migration, its characteristics and
approaches to measuring this phenomenon. Chapter 2 by Mieriņa, as mentioned
earlier, describes the research design forming the overarching rules for generating
the body of evidence presented in the chapters of this volume. This chapter dis-
cusses this methodology in the context of other migration studies and major surveys
on migration. Mieriņa argues that innovative elements of the research approach in
The Emigrant Communities of Latvia: National identity, transnational relations and
diaspora politics research project, which is the framework for contributions in this
volume, qualify this methodology for application in other contexts and studies of
various migrant groups in Europe and beyond.
To set the context for the evidence presented in this volume, the chapter on an
integrated approach to survey emigrants worldwide is followed by a description of
a brief history of emigration from Latvia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
together with analysis of its driving forces. In this chapter Hazans provides detailed
statistics on the main population flows – migration, refugees and deportation – to
and from Latvia in the twentieth century. This review is followed by a more detailed
analysis of emigration during the first 15 years of the twenty-first century, describ-
ing the four waves of emigration between 2000 and 2016. This analysis draws on
the discipline of economics and engages insights from the human capital theory, the
new economic theory of migration, the network theory and migration systems the-
ory, as well as emphasising the institutional factors framing migration. The chapter
concludes that while economic reasons for emigration remain widespread, non-­
economic ones are becoming increasingly important. It also concludes that the
potential for emigration is higher than the potential for return.
The chapter following that, by Ilze Koroļeva, draws on the dataset of 14,051
respondents in The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey and develops profiles of
Latvian emigrants based on their attitudes and self-identification, both with Latvia
and their host country. Among Koroļeva’s findings is that most respondents feel
closer to Latvia than to their host country. However, the people who left Latvia dur-
ing the Great Recession and its aftermath, as well as those who left for economic
reasons, are the most alienated from their home country. These migrants formed the
third wave of twenty-first century emigration from Latvia. Koroļeva concludes that
1 Introduction 7

the level of subjective life satisfaction and having a family back at home are impor-
tant for strengthening the sense of belonging to Latvia and can be a crucial factor in
return migration.
Taking into account that most late twentieth and early twenty-first century migra-
tion from Latvia has been driven by economic factors, in Chap. 5, Aivars Tabuns
looks at the role of formal and informal intermediaries in providing job placement
abroad. This chapter addresses such issues as fraud, the mistreatment of jobseekers
and discrimination from employers. Using the Emigrant Communities of Latvia sur-
vey data, this chapter describes the vulnerabilities of migrant workers and the unfair
treatment and discrimination they face. It also includes recommendations for further
studies and policy development.
The second part of the volume Case Studies on Transnational and National
Belonging of Migrants consists of six chapters, which are in-depth case studies
looking at the socio-cultural integration of Latvian migrants in various host coun-
tries. This section opens at Chap. 6 with Mārtiņš Kaprāns considering the transna-
tional aspects of identity and the long distance belonging of Latvian migrants in
Great Britain. This chapter uses The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey data
and semi-structured interviews with Latvian migrants in Great Britain. This chapter
discusses the ethno-cultural, political and social contexts of long distance belonging
for self-identified Latvian and Russian-speaking emigrants. This research finds dif-
ferences in ethno-cultural and political contexts of long distance belonging among
the ethnic majority and minority emigrants from Latvia. However, there are also
points of convergence between the two groups of migrants. This chapter concludes
that the social context of long distance belonging enables new forms of allegiance
towards Latvia, which are manifested in philanthropic initiatives, participation in
various interest groups and a regular interest in what is happening in Latvia.
Chapter 7 by Daiga Kamerāde and Ieva Skubiņa continues the exploration of the
Latvian emigrant community in Great Britain. Their research angle, however, is a
focus on the future of the Latvian emigrant community in this country. The chapter
explores the formation of national and transnational identity among the 1.5 genera-
tion migrant children – the children born in Latvia but growing up in Great Britain –
from the perspective of their parents. Based on evidence from semi-structured
interviews, this chapter shows that the 1.5 generation Latvian migrants are on a path
to become English-dominant bilinguals. There is a tendency towards an active inte-
gration and assimilation into the new host country either facilitated by their parents
or occurring despite their parents’ efforts to maintain ties with Latvia.
Chapter 8 by Jurkane-Hobein and Evija Kļave extends the focus on identity for-
mation among migrants from ethnic minorities, an angle often overlooked in
research. By analysing 30 life histories of self-identified Russian-speaking migrants
from Latvia in Sweden and Great Britain, this chapter shows that in addition to the
migration history of their families, the migrants’ own migration patterns create
interlinked and sometimes conflicting layers of transnational identity. The analysis
in this chapter distinguishes three main processes in the formation of identity: aspir-
ing to a Latvian identity, claiming an unrecognised Russian-speaking Latvian iden-
8 R. Kaša and I. Mieriņa

tity, and developing transnational ‘non-belonging’. Thus, this chapter provides

useful insights into how social integration patterns between majority and minority
at home are repeated in the emigrant community in the new host country.
A different perspective on migrant identity formation through the lens of the
impact of transnational media and culture is presented in Chap. 9 by Laura Sūna,
examining how Latvian migrants in Germany feel and experience their belonging to
Latvia and its culture. Using evidence generated via in-depth interviews, open
media diaries and network maps of Latvian emigrants in Germany, Sūna argues that
culture is shaping the transnational self-perception of Latvian migrants in Germany
as it provides collective narratives of imagined common frames of references and
confirms processes of ‘belonging’ and ‘distinction’.
The question of the welcome the integrated emigrant community affords new-
comers from the same country of origin is addressed by Andris Saulītis and Inta
Mieriņa in Chap. 10. This studies the relationships and interaction among Latvian
emigrants from different migration waves in the United States. It specifically exam-
ines reasons for the inability of the existing ‘old’ Latvian diaspora community,
formed as a result of the events of World War II, to integrate late twentieth and early
twenty-first century newcomers from Latvia into it. This chapter presents The
Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey and semi-structured interview data analy-
sis. The chapter concludes that newcomers distance themselves from the already-­
formed emigrant community. They do not have an active engagement with Latvians
back home. Instead, these migrants base their belonging on the notion of having
roots in Europe in terms of cultural heritage and identity. For them, there is no return
home, as they only look forward.
Bucholtz and Sūna conclude this section of the book with a focus on the role of
social technologies in the life of contemporary migrants. This chapter analyses how
ethnic transnational identities are manifested and negotiated on the social network-
ing sites used by Latvian migrants. The empirical data in the chapter comes from 20
semi-structured interviews with Latvian migrants in different countries and The
Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey. The results presented in this chapter dem-
onstrate that migrant interactions on social networking sites do not necessarily lead
to the homogenisation of concepts of what ‘being a Latvian’ means to migrants.
Results show that a migrant can identify with the host society yet still reject some
of its characteristics – and choose Latvian alternatives instead.
The third and final part of the volume contains two chapters focused on return
migration and related national policies from the perspective of contemporary
migrants.
In Chap. 12 Evija Kļave and Inese Šūpule juxtapose normative return migration
policy in Latvia and the experiences of return migrants. This chapter considers the
extent to which return policy activities correspond to the needs and expectations of
return migrants, and addresses the role of this policy in the process of making the
decision to return. Evidence in this chapter consists of policy documents, The
Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey and in-depth interviews. This chapter finds
that the national return migration policy has no impact on individual return deci-
sions among Latvian migrants, as the main reasons for return are non-economic.
1 Introduction 9

Coming back is connected to homesickness and also eliminating the risk of assimi-
lation for their children in the host country society.
The final chapter in the volume concludes with Rita Kaša exploring the effective-
ness of government policy in prompting return migration. The focus of this chapter
is on a specific policy measure – that of student debt forgiveness for international
graduates who return and work in positions of social value. Based on qualitative
semi-structured interviews, this chapter shows that offering debt forgiveness for
former students abroad who return to take jobs at home in specific public sector
roles does not prompt return migration among graduates at universities abroad.
Evidence from The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey in this chapter suggests
that regardless of the source of their higher education funding, the intention to stay
abroad dominates among Latvian international students. Yet, curiously enough, the
intentions to return are more common among international students who have paid
for their studies either with money from their family or with a student loan from the
Latvian government.

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 Part I
Contemporary Latvian Migration
Chapter 2
An Integrated Approach to Surveying
Emigrants Worldwide

Inta Mieriņa

2.1 Research on Migrants: Challenges and Solutions

Research into emigrant communities – especially quantitative research – is one of

the most complicated types of research. The collection of information is made more
difficult by the fluid nature of migration as well as the wide distribution of the dias-
pora and the scarcity of information about the migrants in each community. So far
the most common approach for studying migrants has been single-country studies
that analyse immigrants from multiple countries of origin in one destination coun-
try. There are also a few longitudinal panel surveys1 that allow tracking the situation
of migrants over time.2 Although informative, single-country studies offer only lim-
ited insight into the impact of policies or context (Bilgili et al. 2015).
The most common source of comparative cross-national data on migrants in
many countries is the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). It contains a large sample of
households and extensive data on immigrants’ education and their position in the
labour market (Fassmann and Musil 2013; Huddleston et al. 2013).3 However, the

1
The German Socio-Economic Panel, the Dutch immigrant panel survey 2010–2014 (Martinovic
et al. 2009), the National Immigrant Survey of Spain (Reher and Requena 2009); the Longitudinal
Study of Migrant Workers in the East of England (Schneider and Holman 2011), the Longitudinal
Survey on the Careers and Profiles of Newly Arrived or Regularized Migrants in France (Simon
and Steichen 2014).
2
Administrative registers are a useful source of information (Kraler and Reichel 2010). However,
register data is not always timely or comparable due to differences in definitions and questions, and
sometimes lacks data on the country of birth or citizenship. Importantly, it often lacks the neces-
sary richness for an in-depth analysis of the causes or consequences of migration.
3
In 2008 a special model on migrants and their descendants was added to the LFS. The same year
the European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS) survey was conducted. In

I. Mieriņa (*)
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 13

R. Kaša, I. Mieriņa (eds.), The Emigrant Communities of Latvia,
IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12092-4_2
14 I. Mieriņa

LFS has significant methodological drawbacks and limitations linked to the fact that
it is not aimed specifically at migrants (European Commission 2008; Marti and
Rodenas 2007). For example, it does not include information on the aim of immigra-
tion, language skills or the migrants’ situation before migrating. Another limitation
is that the LFS is mainly focused on labour market outcomes and provides little
insight into other aspects that have recently become a matter of increasing concern,
mainly, those linked to socio-cultural integration (Bijl and Verweij 2012; Bilgili et al.
2015; Ersanilli and Koopmans 2011). Another large scale pan-European survey, the
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is also ham-
pered by the problem of under-representation and a small number of immigrants
(Eurostat 2011). As an alternative, some researchers (Aleksynska 2011; Connor and
Koenig 2013; Dronkers and Vink 2012; Wright and Bloemraad 2012) pool data from
the small sub-samples of migrants in several waves of the major cross-sectional sur-
veys (usually, the European Social Survey). However, this approach is problematic
due to differences in measurement time, definitions and questions, the lack of migra-
tion-relevant control variables and most importantly, problems with matching
‘pooled-over-time’ data (Bilgili et al. 2015; Ersanilli and Koopmans 2013).
A small but growing number of studies employ a double comparative design
which looks at more than one immigrant group and more than one destination coun-
try (Aleksynska 2011; Fleischmann and Dronkers 2007; Vink et al. 2013; Voicu and
Comsa 2014), considering that the situation of immigrants may be affected by the
country from which they come (the ‘origin effect’); the country to which they
migrate (the ‘destination effect’) and the specific relations between origins and des-
tinations (the ‘community effect’). Among the most prominent of such studies are:
LIMITS – The Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in European Cities: Life courses
and Quality of Life in a World of Limitations study (2004); SCIICS – Six Country
Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey (2008) (Crul et al. 2012; Ersanilli and
Koopmans 2013); TIES – The Integration of the European Second Generation sur-
vey (2007) (Reichel 2010; Westin 2015); MAFE – The Migration between Africa
and Europe project (between 2008 and 2010) (Crul et al. 2012; Schoumaker and
Beauchemin 2015); SCIP – The Causes and Consequences of Early Socio-Cultural
Integration Processes among New Immigrants in Europe panel study (2013) (Platt
et al. 2015). Unfortunately, due to financial and methodological limitations, these
and most other existing comparative surveys (e.g., Eurostat/NIDI 2000; Koopmans
2010; Phinney et al. 2006; YMOBILITY), including those conducted with migrants
from ECE (Ambrosini et al. 2012; CRONEM 2006; Kogan 2003) cover just a hand-
ful of destinations, yet strictly speaking they cannot mathematically disentangle the
effect of various contextual factors that vary across countries (Bloemraad and
Wright 2014; Koopmans 2013). The only solution that would allow the direct mea-
surement of the effect of various contextual features, while also controlling for other
micro and macro-level confounders, is multilevel regression analysis that includes a

2014 a special model on migration The Labour Market Situation of Migrants and their Immediate
Descendants was again conducted as part of the LFS, yet the questions are retrospective and the
scope of questions are very limited, related mainly to the labour market.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 15

significant number of destination countries (Arzheimer 2009; Bilgili et al. 2015; van
Tubergen et al. 2004).
In order to obtain reliable results on migrants, sample size and sample design are
of crucial importance. Due to the lack of reliable sampling frames from which to
sample migrants in the majority of EU countries, previous quantitative studies of
emigrants in Europe have relied on methods such as simple snowball sampling,
respondent-driven sampling (for example SCIP), Time-Location Sampling or quota
sampling based on census data and recruiting respondents at places they usually
attend. Due to the high costs of fieldwork involving face-to-face interviews with small
minority groups, these methods are usually applied in a narrow geographic space (a
selected number of cities or neighbourhoods) and as such are not suited for analysing
the effect of, for example, policies or other macro-level factors measured at the
national level. Overall, tracing the ‘liquid’ East-West migrants at a particular place of
residence might not be the most appropriate strategy (Eade and Garapich 2009).
Some researchers have used telephone surveys and name sampling from pub-
lished phone books, registers and/or directories. In a few countries (e.g., the
Netherlands) researchers have been able to randomly select respondents from offi-
cial databases. Unfortunately, such sampling frames are only available to research-
ers in a few countries and cannot ensure a broad representation of countries. A very
promising approach was undertaken by the SEEMIG project LFS Pilot survey
‘Migrations’ in 2013 which tried to build the sample of emigrants from Hungary
and Serbia based on referrals and contact information on relatives abroad provided
by the LFS respondents. Unfortunately, this approach did not provide the expected
results (Fassmann and Musil 2013). Instead, it demonstrated that it is not realistic to
build a large representative sample of emigrants through a big, highly formalised
national survey. One can conclude that none of these approaches is able to achieve
a significant sample size in many countries without incurring huge costs that would
render the study unfeasible.
The solution applied in The Emigrant Communities of Latvia project includes
several novel elements and tackles many of the problems of the previous studies. It
draws on the fact that the Internet and social media have become an inseparable part
of many migrants’ lives. With the prevalence of Internet use, online surveys are
becoming increasingly more popular and commonplace. The biggest advantage of
web surveys is the possibility of achieving a large sample in a substantial number of
countries. However, there are other advantages to using a web survey that are
expected to facilitate the willingness of respondents to cooperate and answer the
questions truthfully. These are:
(i) The possibility of anonymity, which should ensure a better representation of
irregular migrants than in previous studies;
(ii) The ability for respondents to fill in the questionnaire at any time, and even to
stop and continue later;
(iii) The possibility of using simple and anonymous referrals, ie; to ‘share’ the
survey via Facebook, Twitter, etc. Methodological studies have shown that the
way web surveys are conducted is unlikely to lead to distortions in comparison
with other survey modes (Grandcolas et al. 2003).
16 I. Mieriņa

The greatest risks associated with web surveys are the potential bias caused by self-­
selection and the difficulties of reaching certain socio-demographic groups via the
Internet (Askitas and Zimmermann 2015; Bethlehem 2010). However, Eurostat data
on Internet use are encouraging as they show that in the EU 78% of people 16 years
of age or older have used the Internet during the last 3 months (Eurostat 2014). In
the 16–24 age group, 94% are regular Internet users and 89% participate in social
networking. Considering that most emigrants are young people (Fuller and Ward
2011) and the Internet is important for migrants as a cheap means of communication
with their friends and families at home, the percentage of Internet users among
migrants – especially young migrants – can be predicted to be very high.
Nevertheless, certain discrepancies and imbalances with regard to the representa-
tion of various socio-demographic groups among survey respondents might remain.

2.2 Collection of the Quantitative Data

2.2.1 Geographic Coverage and the Target Group

The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey had the widest possible geographic
coverage. It did not impose any limitations as to the geographic location of respon-
dents, aiming at all countries in the world. Any Latvian or Latvian national abroad
could participate in the survey, regardless of his or her current country of residence.
The majority of our respondents – reflecting the Latvian diaspora in general – come
from the UK, Ireland, the US, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, Canada, Finland, France and Austria, and in total
118 countries are represented in the dataset. For comparison, we also show, in
Table 2.1, the distribution of Latvian nationals in different countries around the
world according to the official statistics.
The Emigrant Communities of Latvia is the most inclusive migration study so far
in terms of the target audience. All Latvians and Latvian nationals abroad were
invited to participate in the survey, applying a broad and open definition of ‘Latvian
diaspora’, based on identification with the Latvian nation and/or citizenship. Some
respondents belonged to a minority ethnic group yet still felt ‘Latvian’ or ‘Latvian
nationals’. Others may have given up their Latvian citizenship, or never had it in the
first place, yet it did not preclude them from feeling like part of the Latvian dias-
pora. Nine hundred three respondents (6.4% of the total) belong to the ‘old
diaspora’,4 i.e., those who left Latvia before 1991, whereas the majority are mem-
bers of the ‘new diaspora’ (Fig. 2.1).
In general surveys (e.g., the EU Labour Force Survey or EU SILC) people who
are unable to communicate in the survey language are sometimes not interviewed,
which excludes a significant proportion of migrants. This is not the case for our

4
Most members of the ‘old diaspora’ emigrated at the end of 1940s to the beginning of the 1950s.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 17

Table 2.1 Numbers of Latvian nationals responding per country (%)

Latvian nationals in the Those who emigranted
Respondents world since 2000
n % n % n %
1 UK 4954 35.2 70,502 33.3 67,359 43.8
2 Germany 1476 10.5 20,820 9.8 19,565 12.7
3 Ireland 1223 8.7 16,557 7.8 15,557 10.1
4 Norway 838 6.0 7071 3.3 7352 4.8
5 USA 810 5.8 28,272 13.4 3270 2.1
6 Sweden 569 4.0 3679 1.7 4587 3.0
7 Denmark 471 3.3 3621 1.7 3702 2.4
8 Netherlands 399 2.8 2699 1.3 2859 1.9
9 Russia 370 2.6 8851 4.2 3180 2.1
10 Belgium 270 1.9 1374 0.6 1504 1.0
11 Canada 233 1.7 8287 3.9 1377 0.9
12 Finland 225 1.6 1093 0.5 1205 0.8
13 France 208 1.5 3550 1.7 3051 2.0
14 Austria 203 1.4 847 0.4 742 0.5
15 Spain 173 1.2 3993 1.9 3859 2.5
16 Italy 162 1.2 2074 1.0 2092 1.4
17 Australia 160 1.1 9984 4.7 222 0.1
18 Switzerland 133 0.9 1421 0.7 1629 1.1
19 Estonia 107 0.8 2436 1.2 2144 1.4
20 Iceland 92 0.7 556 0.3 612 0.4
21 Cyprus 76 0.5 951 0.4 978 0.6
22 Luxembourg 70 0.5 436 0.2 394 0.3
23 Lithuania 60 0.4 941 0.4 508 0.3
24 Greece 58 0.4 351 0.2 420 0.3
25 Czech Republic 52 0.4 270 0.1 332 0.2
26 UAE 48 0.3 96 <0.1 96 0.1
27 Turkey 42 0.3 147 0.1 156 0.1
28 Ukraine 41 0.3 1433 0.7 330 0.2
29 Portugal 40 0.3 328 0.2 526 0.3
30 Belarus 39 0.3 1215 0.6 279 0.2
31 Israel 36 0.3 4111 1.9 1243 0.8
32 Brazil 35 0.2 482 0.2 333 0.2
33 Poland 34 0.2 334 0.2 1207 0.8
34 China 28 0.2 36 <0.1 35 <0.1
35 New Zealand 26 0.2 367 0.2 86 0.1
36 Other 298 2.0 2292 1.1 1156 0.8
37 NA 9 0.1
14,068 100.0 211,477 100.0 153,947 100.0
Source: The author, based on The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey
Only countries with more than 50 respondents are presented in the table. The figures include only
those aged 15 years or older. The information about Latvian nationals abroad and emigration since
2000 is based on the calculations of Maris Goldmanis (2015) using statistics from official sources
such as OECD, Eurostat, national statistical offices, etc
18 I. Mieriņa

2000
1800
1639
1600 1496
1428 1410
1400 1333
1243
1200
1000
800 726
587 622582
600
565
400
232207197
200 61 70 10275 102 224
39 36 51 46
0
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Fig. 2.1 The year of departure (survey question: when did you start living in [country]?). (Source:
The author, based on The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey. Note: The figure does not
include those respondents who emigrated before 1991)

survey. The questionnaire was produced in Latvian, Russian and English and there
are very few Latvian emigrants not able to speak at least one of these languages.
Careful procedures were applied in translating the Russian and English versions.
Overall, 10% of respondents filled out the questionnaire in Russian and 1% in
English. The rest completed it in Latvian.
In this survey we also consider the liquid nature and diverse patterns of migra-
tion. An increasing number of emigrants do not settle permanently in just one coun-
try, but alternate between countries or have a home in both. According to our survey,
the proportion of such people among emigrants is 17% (Fig. 2.2). They were also
included in the survey.
The lower age limit of the survey is set at 15 years old as for younger children
parental consent would be required in Latvia. A few respondents who were under 15
were excluded from the dataset.
Sometimes a bias in the sample might occur due to people with plenty of free
time being more likely to complete the survey than, for example, those who are very
busy and/or at work. This survey applied an innovative approach, offering respon-
dents an opportunity to fill in a shorter version of the questionnaire (20 min) or the
full version of the questionnaire (30 min). Those who chose the shorter version were
presented with one of two rotating modules, while the core questions of the
­questionnaire were maintained for all respondents. This methodological innovation
allowed the inclusion of more questions in the survey and helped reduce the loss of
respondents due to attrition. Of our respondents, 66% chose to fill in the full ver-
sion. After the survey period the average length of the interview was calculated at
35 min, showing high levels of motivation among respondents to voice their opin-
ion. Our survey design also made it possible to take a break from filling in the ques-
tionnaire and return to it later.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 19

1.5
Outside Latvia
4.8
10.7
Mostly outside Latvia

Alternating between Latvia

and another country

83 Mostly in Latvia

Fig. 2.2 Place of residence. (Source: The author, based on The Emigrant Communities of Latvia
survey)

2.2.2 Fieldwork and Recruitment of Respondents

The survey was conducted as a Web-survey, using different methods of recruiting

respondents:
• Social networking sites: facebook.com, draugiem.lv, vkontakte.com, odnoklass-
niki.ru, latviesi.com.
• The three largest news portals in Latvia: delfi.lv, apollo.lv, inbox.lv.
• Embassies, diaspora organisations, diaspora media, etc.
Researchers prepared a list of dissemination channels where information about
the survey could be sent. It included 187 different diaspora organisations, diaspora
associations (choirs, dance collectives, etc.), Latvian cultural centres, parishes and
other organisations popular among the Latvian diaspora. In most cases, they were
contacted electronically but sometimes the information pamphlets and posters were
delivered physically, to be distributed among members of these organisations.
Information pamphlets and posters were also distributed with the help of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to almost all Latvian embassies in Europe, and placed
there for visitors to see (Fig. 2.3). This was an efficient way of disseminating
­information, as parliamentary elections took place during the fieldwork. This meant
that many of our target group visited the embassy to vote at the polling station.
In addition, online groups of Latvian diaspora members were researched, and
information about the survey distributed to them too. Information about the survey
was distributed to 37 representatives of diaspora newspapers. Many re-published
the press releases and placed the information banners on their website, asking read-
ers to participate in the survey. With the help of the state language agency, the infor-
mation was sent out to the Latvian school network abroad, which includes more
than 100 weekend schools.
20 I. Mieriņa

Fig. 2.3 Information materials used to recruit respondents

In order to inform more people about the project, distribute information about
how to take part in the survey and raise motivation to participate, researchers
engaged in regular interviews with various media, including releasing some initial
results. Interviews were given both to Latvian and Russian media. Three press
releases were prepared and distributed, informing potential respondents about the
survey. Researchers also took part in several conferences presenting interim as well
as final results. The link to the questionnaire together with an invitation to partici-
pate in the survey was placed on the project website www.migracija.lv, in Latvian,
Russian and English. People filling in the questionnaires could also Tweet informa-
tion about the project from the website, or share it on Facebook, Google+, etc. with
their friends and acquaintances, which many did.
Many respondents were recruited via the social media site draugiem.lv which is
one of the most popular social networking sites in Latvia. Considering that some
emigrants might prefer other social networking sites, respondents were also
recruited by placing information about the survey on facebook.com, vkontakte.com,
odnoklasniki.ru, and latviesi.com.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 21

Table 2.2 Respondent Recruitment sites %

recruitment channels
migracija.lv 23.6
aptauja.migracija.lv 14.7
draugiem.lva 10.1
TvNet LAT 6.2
Share buttons LAT 1.9
AdWords LAT 1.7
Delfi RUS 1.1
Latviesi.com 1.1
TvNet RUS .9
Ministry of Foreign Affairs .9
Odnoklassniki .9
Vkontakte .7
Share buttons RUS .5
Delfi LAT .5
Other .5
Unidentified 34.6
a
draugiem.lv statistics for the first
day of placing the information on the
website are based on estimates

Another important, l0 channel for recruiting respondents was through news sites
online. The three largest news portals in Latvia: Delfi, TvNet (and Apollo), and
Inbox displayed information about the project on their websites in Latvian and
Russian for almost the entire period of fieldwork.
Information banners were also placed on other websites frequented by Latvians
abroad: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, the State
Employment Agency, the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments
and several municipality websites.
In order to reach emigrants who are comparatively inactive, i.e., they do not read
news portals, use social networking sites or attend any institutions or organisations,
information about the survey was also distributed using Google AdWords. Invitations
to take part in the survey were shown to people who used Google search engines
from outside Latvia and searched (in Latvian or Russian) for keywords such as
Latvian embassy, Latvia, news in Latvia, work in the UK, Latvians in Ireland,
Latvijas Radio 2, etc.
The statistical overview in Table 2.2 shows that 23.6% of respondents whose
path to the questionnaire could be identified clicked on the link on the project web-
site www.migracija.lv. These are people who heard or read about the project in the
media, saw the information posters in embassies or organisations or were told about
the survey by their friends or relatives, etc. Another 14.7% used the direct link to the
questionnaire. It is most likely they found the link in one of the media publications
or were sent the link by their friends. Approximately 10% of those whose path to the
questionnaire could be identified were informed about, and attracted to the survey,
22 I. Mieriņa

via the social networking site draugiem.lv. Another very important source of recruit-
ing respondents was the TvNet news portal in Latvian (6.2%).
Among the Russian language recruiting channels, the most important were the
news portal Delfi RUS, followed by Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte. These figures do
not give a very precise account of how many respondents each of these portals/
sources attracted, as it is possible that the information was seen and interest created
by one information source but the respondent clicked on the questionnaire from
some other place (eg., the project website).
The fieldwork took place between 4th August and 31st October 2014. To increase
response rates, the deadline for filling in the questionnaire was extended twice.

2.2.3 Cleaning the Dataset and Final Sample Size

The dataset was rigorously cleaned before analysis commenced. The initial dataset
contained 15,760 entries.
• First, we excluded from the dataset 1235 questionnaires where the respondent
had answered only the first few questions. We assumed that most of them are
people simply checking what the survey was about, so the answers would not be
reliable.
• 408 entries were identified as duplicates and deleted;
• five entries were excluded due to them not meeting the age requirements
(<15 years of age);
• 43 questionnaires were excluded on the basis of low reliability. The logical
checks developed to test the logical consistency of answers showed them as ‘not
reliable’.
The total number of interviews in the final dataset was 14,068. Of these, 9284
respondents (66% of the total number) filled in the questionnaire to the end and
4784 partially completed it.5 This substantial number of respondents makes it the
largest survey of emigrants from one country to others ever conducted in Europe.
Based on estimates of the size of the Latvian diaspora, more than 5% of Latvian
diaspora members abroad participated in the survey.

2.2.4 Correcting the Biases by Using Survey Weights

The various groups in the diaspora population differ both in the intensity of their
internet use and in their willingness to volunteer as survey participants. Self-­
selection associated with web surveys (Bethlehem 2010; Grandcolas et al. 2003) is

5
Only questionnaires where more than eight questions were answered were considered. Most ‘par-
tial questionnaires’ included answers to at least one-third of all the questions.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 23

known to lead to under-representation among certain socio-demographic groups

(McCollum and Apsite-Berina 2015). In The Emigrant Communities of Latvia sur-
vey, men were under-represented relative to women (inclusion probability was 1.8
times lower for men than for women); older respondents were under-represented
relative to younger respondents (inclusion probability of those 55 or older was 2.6
times lower than among those 15–24), and individuals with lower educational
achievement were under-represented relative to those with higher educational
achievement (inclusion probability was 4.5 times lower) (Goldmanis 2015).
However, the largest discrepancies were observed with regard to the ethnic division:
the inclusion probability of Russians was 6.6 times lower than that of Latvians
(overall 21% of respondents spoke Russian at home before leaving the country). No
imbalance was observed with regard to the type of settlement.6 In the presence of
unequal respondent inclusion probabilities, the sample was likely to yield biased
(and inconsistent) estimates of population parameters. To correct for this, we applied
survey weights that were inversely proportional to the estimated inclusion probabil-
ities of respondents, conditional on a series of socio-demographic variables, includ-
ing sex, age, level of education and occupation. It is well known that if these control
variables captured most of the variation in inclusion probabilities, then the weighted
data would yield (approximately) unbiased and consistent estimators (Horvitz and
Thompson 1952). The conditional inclusion probabilities were estimated on the
basis of official statistics on the distribution of immigrants from each country of
origin in each country of destination, as provided by several sources:
(a) The OECD Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) 2010–2011;
(b) The OECD International Migration Database;
(c) Eurostat (datasets migr_pop3ctb and migr_pop1ctz);
(d) National Statistics Offices of destination countries;
(e) National Statistics Offices of the countries of origin.
To approximate the joint distribution of various control variables, a raking (data
balancing) algorithm was applied to produce a joint distribution that has marginal
distributions corresponding to those given by the external data (as in Battaglia et al.
2004).7
If the socio-demographic variables used for the computation of weights fully
determined the inclusion probabilities, the weighted data would be fully
­representative of the underlying population (i.e., they would yield fully unbiased
and consistent estimates of all population parameters of interest). However, we have
to concede that in practice these inclusion probabilities will also be affected by a
series of additional factors that we were unable to correct for with survey weights,
either because these factors were truly unobservable or latent (such as a respon-

6
A more detailed methodological analysis of how well the Web survey has managed to reach dif-
ferent socio-demographic groups (i.e., people of different age, gender, education, occupation,
employment status, type of settlement), is discussed in Mieriņa and Koroļeva’s (2015) article.
7
A more detailed description of the research methodology and the design of statistical weights is
available in Mieriņa and Koroļeva (2015) and Goldmanis (2015).
24 I. Mieriņa

dent’s intrinsic propensity to volunteer to participate in surveys) or because we had

no reliable data on the distribution of these factors in the population (as was the case
with the distribution of Latvian immigrants by occupation in the aforementioned
Latvian survey). Hence, some residual deviations from full representativeness will
remain. However, these deviations are likely to be minor, of an order of magnitude
similar to the deviations that non-response would cause in a simple random
sample.
The latter point is worth reiterating. While an inherently self-selected sample
such as occurs in a web survey might seem fundamentally different from a properly
random sample (even with non-response), the stochastic processes determining the
final sample in both cases are in fact almost identical, as long as there is a substantial
non-response in the simple random sample and all individuals in the population
have the positive probability of being included in the ‘self-selected’ web sample.
Regardless of whether the respondents’ choice is one of opting in (as in the web
survey) or opting out (as in the simple random sample), this choice will nonetheless
result in ultimate inclusion probabilities that depend on the characteristics of the
individual respondents. Correcting for variation in these probabilities in the case of
a web survey is exactly equivalent to using post-stratification weighting to correct
for non-response in the case of a random sample. The differences between the two
cases are only ones of degree, with variations in inclusion probabilities likely to be
larger in the case of the self-selected sample. The bias can increase if the study relies
on just one source of recruiting respondents. Hence, in order to improve the repre-
sentativeness of the sample and to reach different respondents in terms of age, gen-
der, occupation and other characteristics, it is important to employ a wide range of
different recruitment channels to reach groups with differing characteristics and
using a variety of communication platforms and to aim at achieving as large a sam-
ple as possible, as achieved by The Emigrant Communities of Latvia study (Koroļeva
and Mieriņa 2015).

2.2.5 Data Storage and Protection

The Emigrant Communities of Latvia project treats the confidentiality of data and
protection of respondents’ identities with the utmost care. The dataset is stored on a
safe server at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, accessible only to a
restricted group of researchers. In order to protect the identity of respondents the
interviews were anonymised by deleting any information with the potential to iden-
tify the respondent (such as their e-mail address if the respondent wrote it in the
questionnaire, IP address, token information, etc.) before being placed on the safe
server.8

8
The full non-anonymised dataset is available only to the Project Council and not available even to
the project researchers.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 25

In addition, all researchers signed a confidentiality declaration committing to

non-disclosure of any information that could potentially identify respondents, and
agreeing not to share the dataset outside the team of researchers for two years after
the end of the project.
The personal data of respondents is not available and will not be made available
to any other organisations or institutions [state or other] outside the University of
Latvia and the team of project researchers. It is only analysed in an aggregated way,
following the best scientific praxis.

2.3 Collection of the Qualitative Data

2.3.1 Target Group and Recruitment of Respondents

As part of the project, 159 partly-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in

countries where the Latvian diaspora is largest: the United Kingdom, Ireland, the
United States, Germany, Sweden and Norway. In addition, in-depth interviews with
return migrants (18) and diaspora policy experts (16) were conducted in Latvia. The
target group of in-depth interviews were representatives of the ‘new diaspora’, i.e.,
those who left Latvia after 1991. In-depth interviews with representatives of the ‘old
diaspora’ have been covered to a much larger extent in previous research by, for
example, Baiba Bela, Ilze Garoza, Māra Zirnīte, Ieva Garda and others (Bela 2010;
Zirnīte 2010; Zirnīte and Lielbārdis 2015).
Several researchers and experts were involved in the collection of data, and the
methodology was strictly coordinated between them. Respondents were recruited
using social networking sites (facebook.com, linkedin.com, maminklub.lv, drau-
giem.lv), organisations, institutions and in some cases snowballing and personal
referrals. In cases where personal referrals were used, researchers avoided inter-
viewing close friends and relatives. In instances where institutions, organisations
and experts needed to be contacted, researchers agreed between themselves who the
contact points would be in order to avoid inconsistencies in communication.
One of the priorities of the research team was to ensure the diversity of respon-
dents in terms of:
• Age
• Gender
• Social class/employment status
• Time spent abroad
• Family status (e.g. children/no children)
This strategy ensured that the interviews provided insight into the motivation and
attitudes of people with different life experiences and socio-economic backgrounds.
Most researchers applied grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1990), aiming to
26 I. Mieriņa

achieve ‘theoretical sampling’ and ‘data saturation’ as precisely as possible when

recruiting respondents.
No monetary compensation was offered to respondents but where possible
researchers left behind information booklets about the project, as well as business
cards with their contact information in case respondents had any questions. In some
cases, token symbols of gratitude were left in the form of chocolates or sweets.
Respondents were also informed about the quantitative survey and invited to partici-
pate in that too.

2.3.2 Interview Guidelines

To ensure that information on certain themes and issues can be compared across a
number of countries, some topics were included in all of the in-depth interviews
with emigrants. Most of these topics also mirror the topics of the quantitative sur-
vey. This ensures the successful integration of quantitative and qualitative data.
Hence, in-depth interviews have the potential to provide a deeper understanding of
the quantitative data. With some variations, the topics included in all in-depth inter-
views with emigrants were as follows:
• Descriptions of the migration experience, motivation for emigration and, where
applicable, return migration;
• Articulation of identity, sense of belonging, historical memory, celebration of
festivities;
• Significance of family, children, parents, social networks and the maintenance of
social contacts in emigration and after returning to Latvia; social networking
online, use of social media;
• Education in Latvia and abroad;
• Employment, professional mobility and acquisition of information on employ-
ment opportunities;
• Return migration plan: evaluation and impact on personal decisions on whether
to return or not.
Interviews were conducted as partly structured in-depth interviews, following
interview guidelines. The method also allowed for some flexibility with regard to
getting more detailed information on some emerging topics important for a better
understanding of the specific research question. The guidelines differed from one
location and one researcher to the next, depending on the main topic of interest.
Draft guidelines were developed on each of the aforementioned topics which the
researchers built on in their interviews, in addition to the main prescribed topics of
the interview. The full guidelines were checked and approved by the coordinators of
the qualitative research group. The length of the interviews with adults ranged from
26 min to 2 h 16 min, with most interviews taking slightly more than 1 h. Interviews
with children were shorter.
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 27

2.3.3 Data Storage and Protection

All in-depth interviews were transcribed and stored on a safe server at the Institute
of Philosophy and Sociology, accessible only by the administrative assistant and a
restricted group of researchers from the project. Researchers prepared a description
of each interview (an interview protocol) including basic information on the inter-
view and the respondent such as:
• The language of the interview, length of interview, place of interview,
interviewer;
• Place of birth of the respondent, country of emigration, time spent abroad, age,
education, gender, family status, children, employment status, citizenship, his-
tory of activism;
• Main topics of the interview, including respondent’s opinion or experience with
regard to the topic.
The interview protocols are important for the in-depth understanding and inter-
pretation of answers in the light of the respondent’s socio-demographic characteris-
tics, as well as the specific circumstances that the respondent is or was in. These
protocols also make it easier to find necessary information in the interview material,
for example, if the researcher wants to analyse what people of certain characteristics
say about the topic in different countries, or how respondents of different character-
istics feel.
Before being placed on the safe server the interviews were anonymised, in order
to protect the identity of respondents. In addition, all researchers signed confidenti-
ality declarations, committing to non-disclosure of the personal information of their
respondents.
Agreement was reached with the Latvian National Oral History Centre about the
possibility of archiving and depositing the interviews in the Centre’s Archive (www.
dzivesstasts.lv). This would allow the interview material to have more impact on the
scientific community, and be preserved for many years as a testimony of our time.
A consent form was prepared and presented to the respondents.9 Respondents were
asked if they would agree to their interview being deposited in the National Oral
History Centre Archive (led by Dr. Māra Zirnīte), and if so in the specific form it
could be accessed (including whether the respondent’s name could be disclosed or
not) and to whom (for instance, just the researcher, the project researchers,
University of Latvia researchers or anyone). They were also asked to specify any
other limitations on use of the interview. If the respondent did not agree that the
interview could be included in the Archive, their wish was respected, and the inter-
view was not deposited. This procedure also related to interviews where the consent
forms were not offered and not collected. If the respondent allowed the interview to
be deposited in the archive but did not permit disclosure of their name, the anonym-

9
As this agreement was reached only at the end of summer 2014 these forms were not used in the
initial interviews and this material was not considered for archiving.
28 I. Mieriņa

ity of the respondent was ensured as the consent form is not publicly available, and
the entry was saved with a pseudonym and entry code.

2.4 Conclusions and Discussion

The Emigrant Communities of Latvia project has made an important theoretical and
methodological contribution to the field of migration studies, and has laid founda-
tions for future research on emigrants, specifically from the perspective of sending
countries.
The main contribution of the project concerns the quantitative data collection.
Compared to previous studies, it has a number of important methodological
advantages:
1. By conducting a survey aimed specifically at emigrants we avoided the limita-
tions typical of general surveys (ESS, ISSP, Eurobarometer), which are mainly
that the sub-groups of immigrants are too small for meaningful analysis (Ersanilli
and Koopmans 2013; Kraler and Reichel 2010);
2. By developing a new questionnaire instead of relying on existing sources of data
we allowed the inclusion of all the necessary items and crucial social background
variables that the available studies such as the EU LFS do not always cover
(Ersanilli and Koopmans 2013; Kraler and Reichel 2010, Reichel 2010; Westin
2015).
In surveys such as the LFS people who are unable to communicate in the official
language or languages of the country are not interviewed, thus effectively excluding
a significant proportion of migrants. This results in a bias against immigrants whose
proficiency in the language of their country of residence is not good enough to
answer survey questions (Chiswick et al. 2004; Dronkers and Vink 2012; Platt et al.
2015). This is not the case for this survey. The questionnaire was produced in three
languages: in the official language of the country of origin, namely Latvian, as well
as in English and Russian.
Immigrants with an unstable or irregular legal status in the country of residence
might avoid participating in regular population surveys (Dronkers and Vink 2012).
The anonymity provided by a web survey can encourage them to participate.
Harmonisation of translations, methods and weighting is often problematic in
major cross-national surveys. In our case, the data collection and weighting was
centrally coordinated, careful translation procedures were applied and the question-
naire was completed in the language the respondent understood best. The quality of
questionnaires was further tested using cognitive interviews and web probing (Behr
et al. 2012; Willis 2005).
While this study employed a sophisticated procedure to calculate statistical
weights, reaching those who do not use the Internet is still a legitimate concern in
these kinds of studies, especially those in marginal groups, such as the poor and
uneducated, people on the street, Roma communities and those working in low-paid
2 An Integrated Approach to Surveying Emigrants Worldwide 29

agricultural jobs deep in the countryside, and in countries where Internet penetra-
tion is lowest. The marginal groups likely to be under-represented or missing in a
web survey (outlined above) might be especially important for certain kinds of anal-
ysis. To address this drawback of web surveys it would be best in the future to
include a supplementary survey of non-Internet users, aiming at those who do not or
practically do not use the Internet (e.g.; have not used it in the past 3 months).
Another challenge is that studies conducted at one point in time are unable to
overcome the endogeneity problem and to rule out the possibility of reverse causal-
ity between integration policies and societal outcomes, as this relationship may be
bi-directional or dynamic (Bilgili et al. 2015). Hence, it is important to have infor-
mation on immigrants at various points in the settlement process (Platt et al. 2015).
Monitoring the newcomers that arrived in the country at a certain point in time
provides the best data for evaluating the integration process and allows the factors
behind different life trajectories to be revealed (Bilgili et al. 2015; Kraler and
Reichel 2010; Reichel 2010; Wingens et al. 2011). In contrast, a simple comparison
of two moments in time, such as in cross-sectional studies, relates in part to differ-
ent groups of individuals and does not make it possible to distinguish the time
effect (an effect of the length of residence in the country) from the cohort effect (an
effect of arriving in the country at a certain period of time). Despite the clear advan-
tages of longitudinal data, in migration studies they are rare (Kraler and Reichel
2010). Sometimes researchers use a synthetic cohort design combining different
surveys (Martinovic et al. 2009; Beauchemin et al. 2010) but it is not an ideal solu-
tion. Therefore, research should, whenever possible, aim at a longitudinal panel
design. In The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey, respondents were asked if
they would take part in future studies on migration, and if so, to leave an e-mail
address where they could be sent an invitation to participate. Fifty-four percent of
all respondents (7649 respondents in total) left their e-mail address to be used in
future studies on migration, and even more people agreed to be contacted again in
a recent study of Polish migrants in the UK (Platt et al. 2015). In contrast to previ-
ous studies (e.g., Schneider and Holman 2011), it would be best for the subsequent
waves of the study to include those who have already returned home or re-emi-
grated (using an adjusted return-migrant questionnaire, similar to Krings et al.
2013), thus avoiding the potential bias caused by the fact that those who are not
successful (e.g., the unemployed) or, by contrast, those who have achieved their
emigration goals, are likely to return to their home countries (Kleinepier et al.
2015; Stark 1991). In order to ensure the comparability of the first and subsequent
waves of the study and to enable a comparison of various newcomer cohorts, the
next waves should focus not just on those who expressed interest in participating in
the first wave of the study, but essentially on replicating the research design of the
first wave of the study – a similar strategy as used in the POLPAN longitudinal
panel survey.
The use of qualitative methods in this study has also led to important insights, in
particular with regard to situations when information is collected in different
national contexts by researchers focusing on connected yet different themes.
Coordination of interview guidelines and methods and careful planning is required
30 I. Mieriņa

to allow overarching comparisons between contexts. Depositing qualitative inter-

views in a data archive has not so far become a gold standard among researchers yet
it would be invaluable for making possible future use by other scholars of the mate-
rial collected and, if the respondent agrees, the general public. Consent forms should
always be used and should specify beforehand the various permissions and limita-
tions with regard to use of any particular interview. Interview protocols containing
the main information on respondents are useful for quickly navigating through the
information collected.
Overall, this new methodology of surveying migrants has far-reaching potential
to be applied to the study of various migrant groups in Europe and beyond.
Importantly, the study described has tested and empirically proven the potential of
Web surveys in collecting the opinions of large populations of migrants, and has
provided insight into calculating survey weights for multiple countries based on
external data.
The importance of evidence-based policy-making is being acknowledged by
increasing numbers of experts, and in this context studies like The Emigrant
Communities of Latvia play a crucial role. The huge response from the partners of
the project has been truly encouraging, proving that the Latvian diaspora has not
lost touch with its homeland, and that there is great potential for future cooperation
in the area of research and beyond.

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Chapter 3
Emigration from Latvia: A Brief History
and Driving Forces in the Twenty-First
Century

Mihails Hazans

3.1 Introduction

In recent years, Latvia has experienced waves of intense emigration, establishing it

as one of the worst-affected among EU/EFTA member states. This is true with
respect to both post-crisis emigration rates of working-age nationals (Fries-Tersch
et al. 2017, Fig. 7–8) and the total (as of 2015) mobility rates of working-age nation-
als (Fries-Tersch et al. 2017, Fig. 9).1 Remarkably, this finding is robust with respect
to data source: the emigration rates come from migration statistics, while mobility
rates are based on EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) data.
Emigration from Latvia is an interesting subject not only because of its intensity.
In many other high emigration countries, population is a redundant factor, but this
is not the case in Latvia. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, loss of
population due to emigration has been reinforced by negative natural change in all
three Baltic countries, as well as in Bulgaria and Romania (Fig. 3.1). In 17 years
(2000–2016), Latvia and Lithuania have lost the largest population shares (about
20%) among EU countries. Moreover, Latvia and Lithuania are among the top three
countries (after Bulgaria) with the largest negative natural population changes dur-
ing this period.
This contrasts with positive demographic developments in the main destination
countries of Baltic migrants – the UK, Ireland, the Nordic countries, and Germany.
Only Germany features negative natural change, but it is not as big as in Latvia and
has been more than compensated by positive net migration (Fig. 3.1).

1
Latvia ranks second in both cases – after Lithuania in the former and after Romania (before
Portugal and Lithuania) in the latter.

M. Hazans (*)
Faculty of Business, Management and Economics, University of Latvia, Rīga, Latvia
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 35

R. Kaša, I. Mieriņa (eds.), The Emigrant Communities of Latvia,
IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12092-4_3
36 M. Hazans

Natural change Net migration

25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
-15%
-20%
Netherlands
Denmark

Germany

Lithuania
Romania
Portugal

Hungary
Slovenia

Slovakia

Bulgaria
Belgium
Norway

Sweden

Czechia

Greece

Estonia
Ireland

Croatia
Austria

Finland
Cyprus

Poland
France

EU-28

Latvia
Malta
Spain

Italy
UK

Fig. 3.1 Natural change of population and net migration, 2000–2016. EU28+Norway. (Source:
Calculation with Eurostat data. For the Baltic countries data and Poland, the migration statistics of
destination countries have been used to correct national net migration data (see Hazans 2013,
2015a, 2016a, 2017a), thus increasing estimates of net migration outflows by 0.7–1.9 points for the
Baltic countries and by 4.6 points for Poland)

Natural decrease of Latvia’s population has been driven both by low total fertility
rate (TFR)2 and high mortality (especially among men).
Latvia’s population is ageing steadily. Between 2000 and 2015 the percentage
share of children and teenagers shrank, while the shares of those aged 40–64 and
especially 65+ grew. The working-age population in Latvia is shrinking faster than
in any OECD country except Japan (OECD 2016). In that period 2000–2015, the
old age dependency ratio (OADR, 65+/15–64) in Latvia was higher and growing
faster than in the main destination countries of Latvian migrants (except for
Germany). According to the Eurostat baseline projection, by 2050 this ratio is
expected to reach 60%, compared to 51% in Germany, 46% in Ireland and 40% in
the UK and Norway (Fig. 3.2; see Fries-Tersch et al. 2017, Fig. 15 for similar evi-
dence regarding OADR 65+/20–64 in 2030).
While at the start of the twenty-first century (covering the period 2000–2016)
Latvia has been a country of labour emigration, in the twentieth century Latvia saw
periods of economically motivated immigration, times of humanitarian catastrophes

2
Latvia’s TFR was well below that found in most destination countries in 2000–2014 but is recov-
ering since and is expected to stabilise at about 1.85.
3 Emigration from Latvia: A Brief History and Driving Forces in the Twenty-First… 37

60%

50%

LV
40%
DE
30% IE
UK
20%
NO

10%

0%
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030 2040 2050

Fig. 3.2 Old age dependency ratio 2000–2015 and forecast for 2020–2050. Latvia and the main
destination countries of Latvian emigrants. (Source: Eurostat data and main scenario projections.
Note: The old age dependency ratio (OADR) is the ratio of population aged 65+ to those aged
15–64)

and associated outflows of refugees and displaced persons, as well as mass deporta-
tions during periods of occupation and episodes of ethnically and politically driven
emigration. There was also mass immigration of labour and military personnel
which was centrally planned by the Soviet regime and, in addition, immigration of
their families.
This chapter starts with a brief history of the main population flows (migration,
refugees and deportation) from and to Latvia in the twentieth century before describ-
ing the scale, main destinations and dynamics of emigration in the early twenty-first
century, as well as its effect on the size and demographic potential of the population.
It proceeds by analysing the four waves of recent emigration:
(i) The pre-EU accession wave, 2000–2003;
(ii) The post-accession wave, 2004–2008;
(iii) The crisis-driven wave, 2009–2010 and
(iv) The post-crisis wave, 2011–2016.
The economic and social contexts of these emigration waves will be considered
and a conceptual framework and set of hypotheses about their nature will be offered,
using the human capital theory, the new economic theory of migration and the net-
work theory, and institutional factors will be emphasised. The chapter also analyses
changes in ethnic composition and educational profile of the four waves of
emigrants.
Issues such as labour market outcomes and the life satisfaction of emigrants and
returnees will not be considered, nor will the economic impact of emigration (see
Hazans 2013, 2015d, 2016a, c, 2017a, b, 2018).
38 M. Hazans

3.2 Latvian Migration in the Twentieth Century3

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century Latvia was part of the Russian Empire.
During the second part of the nineteenth century, after the end of indentured servi-
tude and gradual lifting of other restrictions on human mobility, intensive rural-­
urban migration resulted in rapid urban growth. Riga’s population almost quadrupled
between 1863 and 1897. Growing cities attracted economic migrants from other
parts of the Russian empire as well as from Germany and other European countries.
At the same time, substantial numbers of Latvians moved outside Latvia’s territory.
By the end of the nineteenth century more than 10% of all ethnic Latvians were part
of diaspora, including 112,000 in the Russian Empire (spread from provinces nearby
Latvia to Siberia) and 35,000 living in the West.
‘Migration systems’ (see Bakewell 2014 and references therein) to and from
Latvia kept working in the early part of the twentieth century. Russian, German and
Jewish communities in Latvian cities and towns were strong and to some extent
self-sufficient, and knowledge of Russian, German and other languages was wide-
spread. These were important elements of inward migration systems which, in turn,
strengthened these communities. By 1913, only one-third of Riga’s residents were
native born. Most of Riga’s adult population spoke both Latvian and another lan-
guage: 80% of men and two-thirds of women aged 20+, according to the 1925
census. Outside Riga this rate was lower, but it was still significant: above 50%
among men and almost 30% among women.4
Apart from economic migrants, significant numbers of Jewish refugees from
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland entered Latvia (and other Baltic provinces) in
the 1880s and early twentieth century. This was to escape the growing anti-­Semitism
and violent pogroms. Economic reasons also played a role in Jewish migration to
Latvia, but these are difficult to quantify. Many of these Jewish immigrants moved
on, to the United States and Palestine.
Important elements of the migration systems outwards were the numerous well-­
organised Latvian colonies, organisations and religious communities outside Latvia.
There were also special preferential regime for new settlers in many Russian prov-
inces, and by 1897, more than 70 colonies of Latvian farmers were established
across the Russian Empire. Many Latvians settled in cities and found jobs as profes-
sionals, blue collar or service workers. Between 1897 and 1913, the number of
Latvian schools outside the country more than trebled, increasing from 14 to 52,
while the size of the Latvian diaspora increased to approximately 220,000, includ-
ing 45,000 in the West (mostly in the United States). Following the 1905 Revolution
about 5000 political refugees and 2652 deportees constituted a relatively small but
important part of emigration from Latvia at the beginning of the twentieth century.

3
This section combines information compiled from various sources by Zelče (2011) and the National
History Museum of Latvia (2016) with our own elaboration on data from the Central Statistical
Bureau of Latvia (2016a, b, c, 2017a, b, c) and OECD (2008, 2017).
4
Calculations by the author based on data from the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (2016c).
3 Emigration from Latvia: A Brief History and Driving Forces in the Twenty-First… 39

Period net migration Annual average net migration (right scale)

40% 8%
30% 6%
20% 4%
10% 2%
0% 0%
-10% -2%
-20% -4%
-30% -6%
-40% -8%

1949-50
1900-1913

1914-18

1920-24

1925-29

1930-38

1939-41

1942-45

1946-48

1951-60

1961-70

1971-80

1981-89

1990-99
Fig. 3.3 Net migration and net migration rate by sub-period of the twentieth century (% of the
initial population). (Source: Data cited in Zelče (2011) and the National History Museum of Latvia
(2016), Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (2016a, b, 2017a, b), OECD (2017), and author’s own
calculation)

Despite intensive migration both to and from Latvia, the migration balance dur-
ing the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was significantly positive. During
the period 1900–1913, the increase in Latvia’s population due to net migration was
13% (nearly 1% per annum) of the initial population, or 264,000 persons5 (see
Fig. 3.3).
During World War I and the Russian civil war, around one million Latvia’s resi-
dents moved to other territories (mostly in Russia) as refugees, displaced persons,
evacuees or after being mobilised into armed forces. In 5 years Latvia lost 37% of
its population (Fig. 3.3). Around half died outside Latvia, while others settled in
Soviet Russia, Estonia, Lithuania and Germany. Less than one-third returned after
the war. Many former Latvian soldiers, known as ‘Red Riflemen’ settled in Russia
after the war, serving in the new Soviet government’s security forces or as Bolshevik
Party functionaries, while others resumed their lives as civilians in some of the
Latvian colonies or in cities.
In 1918, the independent Latvian state was created. Over the next 10 years,
around 300,000 people returned to Latvia, most of them in the period 1919–1921.
Net migration during the 4.5 years between the 1920 and 1925 censuses was 200,000
people, or 13% of the country’s population in 1920 (Fig. 3.3). Political refugees and
deportees accounted for a small but not negligible part of these migration flows.
More than 10,000 people moved to Soviet Russia or were expelled from Latvia for
engaging in ‘anti-state activities’, while around 15,000 moved to Latvia fleeing the
Soviet regime.
The period between 1925 and 1938 was characterised by the low intensity of
migration. The annual average net migration rate was 0.04% in 1925–1929 and

5
Ironically, 100 years later (in 2000–2014), Latvia lost the same number of people to migration.
40 M. Hazans

0.02% in 1930–1938 (Fig. 3.3). Land reform largely eliminated the motivation
among farmers to emigrate. The economic situation was perceived as good by the
majority of the population. Self-employment accounted for more than 60% of total
employment, while the unemployment rate was below 1%. Nevertheless, about
5000 people moved from Latvia to the US between 1920 and 1939, while 2700
moved to Brazil and 4500 to Palestine.
The largest Latvian diasporas in the 1920s and 1930s were found in Soviet
Russia (151,400 according to the 1926 census), the US (38,000), Lithuania (30,000),
Estonia (12,300) and Brazil (7000).
From a migration perspective, the decade between 1939 and 1949 can be
described as an ‘era of displaced persons and refugees’ for Latvia (Zelče 2011,
p. 62). In 1939–1940, 51,000 ethnic Germans left for Germany in a ‘repatriation’
programme launched by Hitler’s government. Another 10,500 Germans followed
during the winter of 1941, after Latvia’s incorporation into the USSR. Overall, these
two waves reduced Latvia’s population by 2.6%.
On 14 June 1941, 15,424 people (0.8% of Latvia’s population) were deported as
‘class enemies’ by the Soviet regime. Some were arrested and sent to camps in
Northern parts of Russia. Administrative deportees were settled in Siberia, the
Kazakh Republic and elsewhere. About 40% of the 1941 deportees died in camps or
in exile. In June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR and Latvia was occupied by the
Nazis, prompting around 53,000 people to leave Latvia for other regions of the
USSR; some were evacuated while others found their way as refugees. Overall, in
the period 1939–1941 Latvia lost about 6.6% of its population as repatriates, deport-
ees and refugees (Fig. 3.3).
According to conservative estimates, another 242,000 people (13.4% of the pop-
ulation) were lost due to different types of forced migration in the period 1942–
1945. This figure covers:
(i) Those who were mobilised and sent outside Latvia in the ranks of the Nazi
army or the Red/Soviet Army (excluding those who were killed during the
war);
(ii) Those who chose (or were forced) to work in Germany during the war;
(iii) Refugees who left Latvia for Germany and other Western countries (Austria,
Belgium, Denmark and Sweden) at the end of the war (or immediately after it)
to avoid life under the Soviet regime.
The total also accounts for return migration from other parts of the Soviet Union
which started in 1945 (estimated inflow in that year is 15,000 persons).
Most refugees, as well as members of the Latvian Legion who had served as
soldiers in the German army, ended up in Displaced Persons camps, but in 1947 a
programme began to close these camps, and refugees began to move to countries
which were ready to receive them. This was the starting point of the post-war wave
of the Latvian diaspora. About 45,000 went to the US; Australia and Canada received
about 20,000 each; 17,000 ended up in the UK; 15,000 settled in Germany, 4000 in
Sweden, 5000 in South America and 5000 elsewhere. One of the key elements facil-
itating the respective migration systems was the International Refugee Organisation
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"He hasn't simply disappeared; he has deliberately run away, after
notifying the registrar that he was going. He was forbidden to go,
but he went nevertheless."
"I know nothing whatever about him."
"Nor I," said Amos.
"It was three days ago."
"I've been praying that he would resist temptation," said Grandfather
boldly. "Perhaps this is the answer."
"I'm not concerned about temptations," answered Levis impatiently.
"Matthew is no fool. I'm concerned for his health. Where is he?"
Then Levis felt the door against which he stood move slightly and
turned with tigerish swiftness and threw it open. In came the wind
and sleet, and in came also Matthew, rain-soaked, bedraggled, with
bent head. He pressed hard against the door until it was closed and
then stood panting with bright, sullen eyes.
Levis spoke first.
"How long have you been out in this storm?"
"Only a little while. I walked yesterday and the day before, but to-
day I got a long ride in a market wagon."
"Have you any clothes here that he can put on?" This in a physician's
sharp tone to Amos.
Amos beckoned Matthew to the other room.
"When did you eat?" asked Levis.
"At supper time," said Matthew and shut the door.
Levis sat down by the table. "Have you any stimulant in the house?"
"God in Heaven, Edward, now that he is here and safe, would you
ruin him deliberately? Aren't you satisfied?"
"Have you anything that he can take hot?"
Grandfather rose and opened a cupboard door, his hands trembling.
"I will make durch-wax tea."
"Make it then, or let your acolyte make it." In the midst of his rage
Levis was pleased with having found exactly the right word.
"It's very bitter tea," said the old man as he poured hot water upon
the dried leaves.
"The bitterer the better," said Levis grimly.
When Matthew appeared from the inner room, there came into his
father's white face the expression of amazed and intolerable pain
which Ellen had once seen. Matthew was unshaven; the dark shade
on his cheek was not put there by the soil of travel, it was a curling
beard, which, above Amos's black suit, had a significance not to be
ignored. For a single second his father thought that this could not be
Matthew, it was Amos. He laid his hand against his side as though
his heart ached sensibly.
"Are you tired?" he asked.
"Not very."
"Then I think we'd better settle this matter at once. Since you've
chosen to come here and to pass your father's gate, we'll discuss it
here and for the last time. Why did you leave school?"
"I couldn't see any use in it."
"Do you expect to be a physician without going to school?"
"I don't want to be a physician. I have no interest in it. I want to
farm." Matthew burst into tears.
Levis met tears without a change of expression.
"Suppose you do want to farm, there's no reason why you shouldn't
go to school. There are new methods of farming which you could
learn. You could at least learn how to live. Do you want to remain an
ignoramus?"
"I'm not an ignoramus. And I don't want to take your money."
Levis made no answer.
"Because I'm going to be a Seventh-Day Baptist. I'm under
conviction. It wouldn't make any difference how long I went to
school, the result would be the same. I can't have peace unless I
come out openly."
Now it was the heart of Grandfather which threatened to stop
beating. Did God hear the prayers of the faithful, or did He not? He
poured into a cup some of the steaming brew.
Levis folded his arms and settled himself more closely against the
back of the straight pine chair.
"Drink your tea," he commanded. "Then I have something to say to
you."
Matthew swallowed the scalding fluid. It warmed him, put heart in
him, like a sacramental wine. The storm was almost over; the roar in
the chimney had ceased, the roar outside had almost died down; it
seemed as though the stage were set for Levis.
"I don't wish to be interrupted," said he. "I'm speaking to my son
and you are perfectly welcome to listen. Afterwards you shall have
your chance if he wishes to hear you."
Levis began in the fifteenth century.
"The Reformation was a protest against superstition, but only
against the more gross superstitions, and the Protestant Church
retains to-day the essential superstitions of the Roman Church. The
idea of the Son of the Creator of the universe in human form is a
fantastic one, now fading from the minds of the more intelligent.
Matthew, are you listening to me?"
"Yes," said Matthew in a whisper.
"The idea of a blood atonement, of the sacrifice of a single innocent
being for the sins of all the world, is monstrous, a development of
the idea that the crimes of men could be laid upon the back of an
animal, which, driven away, took them with him. To these ideas the
Seventh-Day Baptists have added others as fantastic as any invented
in the history of the queer mind of man. I could just as easily
worship the bones of a human being as I could believe it essential to
have my feet bathed at a church service. Your denial of opportunities
is as ridiculous as that of the hermit who prefers to live in bodily
uncleanness. You live in mental sloth and blindness! Your founder
was a charlatan of the worst sort who beguiled women away from
their husbands and mothers away from their children, to live in
fancied holiness in this grim place. Generation by generation his
followers have grown fewer in number. In Matthew's generation
there will not be half a dozen.
"Now, Matthew, this is my last word. You may return to school for
the year—that is one alternative. Or you may come home and live
like a normal human being and farm if you wish and without further
education if you insist, under the condition that you don't join the
Seventh-Day Baptists or attend their meetings until you are twenty-
one years old. Or, you may stay here, allied with the past, letting the
world go by, alienated from your father and little sister who have a
right to your society and your love.
"You must choose now, Matthew. I can't continue to hope for years
to come that you'll be an honor to me and then have you fail me.
You'll have to make up your mind."
It seemed to Levis that he had been talking a long time. He changed
his position, driving his hands deep into his pockets and crossing one
knee over the other. Seated easily, his clenched fists invisible, he had
the appearance of a man too firmly grounded in his philosophy of
life to be seriously affected by any chance which might befall.
Matthew sat with bent head; Amos in the shadow held his hand
across his lips. Once he remembered a cool, soft cheek. Grandfather
seemed to have shrunk within himself; his eyes were half closed, his
lips moved. It was evident that against the influence of Levis's
eloquence he was opposing all his supplicatory powers. He looked at
no one; he seemed to be in a trance. The wind began to blow
louder, whistling round the corners. The silence within became
nerve-racking.
"Well, Matthew?" said Levis, sitting suddenly upright.
Matthew answered without raising his head.
"I'm under conviction. It would be wrong for me to waste my time
studying when nothing was to come of it."
Levis got to his feet quickly.
"You mean you're going to stay here?"
"Yes."
Now Grandfather folded his arms across his breast and bent his head
almost upon them. Did God hear His children, or did He not?
Levis lifted his hat from the pine table.
"Matthew, look at me!"
Matthew lifted his eyes. For an instant, with torn heart, he longed to
throw himself on his father's breast. But his Heavenly Father was
more dear. He dropped his eyes once more.
"You've entirely made up your mind?"
"Yes," he whispered.
Levis lingered another instant, his back against the door.
"Listen to me. I have my creed. I believe that no man can behave
foolishly or wrongly without having it somehow returned to him. I
hope that this hour will never be visited upon you."
Then Levis went out to return no more. He stumbled as he crossed
the step and then straightened up in the face of the wind which blew
clear and strong from the north. He went through the gate into the
graveyard, and saw the full moon, unveiled with mysterious
suddenness, illuminating the white stones. The experience through
which he had passed, the stormy and magnificent night, the
moonlight making so purely white the tallest stone in the little
graveyard—all would have moved and racked another man. But he
had the power, cultivated through long years in uncongenial
surroundings, of detaching himself from the present. He began to
repeat a passage of description of which he was fond and which
brought before his eyes a foreign landscape which he had never
seen, but of which he often dreamed. When it was finished he
repeated another passage and yet another, and so came at last to
his own door.
The light burned dimly, but a dimmer light would have revealed to
his seeking eyes that for which they looked. Under a gay pieced
afghan lay Ellen, a book in her arms. Beside her her father drew up
a chair and there sat down, scrutinizing each childish lineament,
each crisp curl. She slept heavily, and it seemed to him that there
was a shadow under her eyes and he bent still more closely over her
to discover that the shadow was only that cast by her long lashes.
He put out his hand and laid it softly on the bright cover.
Sitting thus, he faced at last his extraordinary situation. Ten o'clock
struck, eleven, twelve, and still he was there. His mind traveled to
Matthew's babyhood, to Matthew's childhood—would things have
been different if he had been different? He was still young then, and
thinking not so much of his children as of his own miseries of mind
and body, he had not realized that he was guilty of neglect. Even yet
he did not feel like a middle-aged man, much less like an old man—
but he had a son mature enough to defy him and to leave his house!
His pride was deep and high, the pride of a man of intellect—he
contemplated with horror the strange atavistic trick played upon
him.
 CHAPTER IX
A GROWING MIND

That Matthew had returned, that he was to live henceforth with

Grandfather, that he was not even to come to the house, were facts
which Ellen found difficult to comprehend, yet which she accepted
with a child's willingness to accept what her father told her. The
family separation caused comment, but no great astonishment in a
neighborhood where differences of opinion and the separation of
dissenters were frequent.
Life went on quietly, yet not without interesting events. Study under
the driving spur of her father's encouragement was an absorbing
occupation for Ellen. Presently catalogues were sent for and schools
considered and compared. When a sample examination paper
arrived, it seemed possible that she might enter college, thoroughly
prepared, in two years.
Once, before Christmas, her father took her away. When they drove
to the station the pale winter sun had not yet dispelled the pearly
mist which lay over the landscape, nor thawed the ice on farmhouse
windows. The fields were covered with snow and it was difficult to
imagine them dressed in summer's richness of corn and wheat and
tobacco. The farmhouses with their huge barns looked like rich
manorial properties, as well they might in this deep-soiled country.
Until they reached the outskirts of the larger towns nothing was to
be seen that was not beautiful, the white stretches of snow, the
frozen streams which showed here and there dark pools, the fine
clumps of forest trees, white trunks of sycamores, dark masses of
evergreens, and willows tipped with yellow beside old spring houses.
Nor was there anything that was not indicative of prosperity and
peace. The houses were built of brick and stone, the fences were
straight and in good repair, there were no weeds; ignorance might
laugh at Mennonite and Dunker, Amish and Seventh-Day Baptist,
who had tilled the fields and built the houses, but their thrift and
labor had founded a great commonwealth.
The ride across the country did not compare in Ellen's mind with the
ride between the Susquehanna River and the miles of furnaces and
mills. The sight of the towering Capitol, viewed at first from the train
above a low stretch of sordid buildings, filled her with delight. When
they had climbed the steps to the esplanade, her father turned her
away from the Capitol so that she might look down the broad street
to the river.
"Oh, Father!" said Ellen holding his hand tight.
"It isn't very long since this was only a frontier fort and the Indians
came floating in canoes from far away to barter furs for flintlocks
and powder, and for mirrors and baubles for their squaws. Sometime
we'll go across the river and get a view of the city and the
mountains."
"Shall we really come again?" asked Ellen.
When they went indoors, she had nothing whatever to say. The
rotunda was at first simply bewildering, its pictured dome was so far
above her, its walls were so white, the angels who held glittering
lamps on high were so majestic. Led from place to place she saw
interpreted for her the history of her State. William Penn stood, an
austere young figure, before an angry father, waited in audience
before stern magistrates, or faced westward high on the prow of a
boat against a stormy sky. Her eyes dwelt with delight upon each
detail; here a blue sky mirrored in a tiny pool, here bright grass,
here velvets and laces, here a lean greyhound's body, here leaping
flames and young scholars casting their books upon the fire.
There were other pictures; the cold, miserable, intrepid troopers of
Valley Forge; William Penn and a magnificent Indian under a yellow
tree; the reading of the Declaration of Independence; and last of all,
a glorious tableau in which a hundred heroes figured. There was no
doubt in Ellen's mind that she had seen the most magnificent edifice
in the wide world.
But there were new joys to follow. At sunset the two walked hand in
hand upon the long street by the river, keeping on a path close to
the brink. When Ellen's eyes left the golden surface of the water,
they saw old houses firmly built, stately and well kept. After a while
the houses were newer and farther apart. Far across the river trains
thundered.
When they retraced their steps the glow had faded and lights
sparkled in interminable lines and were reflected in the dark, velvety
water. Ellen was young and eager, a warm hand held hers, she could
not help dancing by her father's side.
"I'm choosing a house," she said. "There was one gray stone house
on a corner—I'm watching for it. It is where I should like to live. I
see it now, people are going in!"
Halted by the tightening of her hand, Levis looked across at the gray
house. An automobile drove away, another was drawing up to the
curb. Wrapped in furs, a lady waited on the pavement for her friends
from the second car. The door of the house was open and a maid
stood on the upper step.
"Is that a party, Father?"
Levis did not answer. When the door closed he crossed the street.
The house fronted both on the river and on the side street, and in
the wing there was apparently a suite of offices. He went closer and
read the gilt name on a small black sign—"Stephen Lanfair, M.D."
Then he took Ellen's hand and walked on. So this was where
Stephen lived when he was not traveling about the world! He smiled
without bitterness, remembering Stephen's vows of friendship.
Ellen looked up at him, a vague impression growing stronger. She
believed that he would like to be here; that he belonged here, rather
than with people like Grandfather and Amos.
"Would you like to live here, Father?"
"Would you, Ellen?"
"Oh, yes!"
She answered still more ardently that night. After their supper they
went to a huge lighted building, where it seemed all the ladies had
gathered from the fine houses. There were also many gentlemen
with such an expanse of shirt-bosom as she had never seen. Here
was something to tell Mrs. Sassaman—what would she say to such
ironing as that?
"What is going to happen?" she asked in a whisper when they had
been taken to seats in the first row of the balcony. Merely to sit
there would have been entertainment enough, but it was clear that
some additional joy was at hand.
"Wait!" said her father.
She watched the rising curtain; she saw standing on a platform a
slender young man with a violin in his hand. Now violins were
wicked—Millie's brother, who had long since vanished, was said to
have brought one from the city and his father was said to have
broken it over the corner of the stove.
Then she took her father's hand. The violinist moved his arm lightly
and her blood raced through her veins. Her mind filled with pleasing
images, detached from one another, leading nowhere, dreamlike,
heavenly. She had never seen dancing, but she felt an impulse to
rise and discover whether she was really light as air, whether she
could really fly.
"Oh, Father!" she cried, when the dancing tune was over.
Then she said no more, had no vocabulary with which to say more.
She felt both sorrow and gladness, but most of all she felt the pains
of growth. There were tears in her eyes, then on her cheeks.
When on the way to the hotel her father asked whether she had
liked it, she answered his question in a curious way.
"I wish Matthew would come back to us!"
The identical desire filled Levis's heart.
"I wish so, too. Perhaps you can persuade him."
"May I take him a Christmas present and speak to him then?"
"Certainly. To-morrow we'll find one for him."
The carefully chosen present was a picture which reminded Ellen of
the view from Matthew's window. It was clear to Levis why she liked
it, but he had small hopes that either persuasion or art would move
Matthew.
"May I get a pair of gloves for Grandfather and something for
Amos?"
"Yes, if you wish."
He took Ellen and her packages to the outer gate of the little
cemetery on the afternoon before Christmas. The location of the
cemetery suggested to him always a memento mori—the brevity of
life was not to be forgotten by the residents of the Kloster! The
whole place under the covering of snow seemed horribly dreary and
forlorn. Ellen clambered out of the buggy and he held her packages
out to her.
"In an hour and a half at most, I'll be here."
"May I invite them for Christmas dinner?"
"Yes."
"And Amos?" asked Ellen hesitatingly.
"Yes, and Amos."
She held her packages with care. She had tied them with red cord—
such festive packages were not often carried through the cemetery.
So accustomed was she to the path that she gave no thought to the
white stones. When she came to the second gate she laid her bundle
down and fastened the latch, as Grandfather liked to have it
fastened, and went up the little walk to the cottage, already
shadowed by the Saal and Saron. It had never been her habit to
knock at the door, and she did not knock now, but balancing her
picture carefully on one arm, she lifted the latch and entered.
It could not have been that the three men had not seen her coming
—Grandfather sitting by the stove meditating, and Amos sitting by
the table studying, and Matthew sitting idly by the window, all
commanded a view of the gate and the graveyard. Each now had in
secret a throbbing heart, each longed to let his eyes rest upon her,
to devour her. But none had gone to open the door, and now none
rose to welcome her.
But her smile was not to be resisted. It brought a faint motion to
Grandfather's lips and a red flush to Matthew's cheek, and caused
both heart and cheek of Amos to burn. All saw a change in Ellen,
added height, a brighter color, a longer dress. Her dress was,
moreover, gayer. Hitherto Mrs. Sassaman in selecting her clothes had
remembered that she was destined to be a Seventh-Day Baptist and
that therefore plainness was her portion; now her father had
selected a new coat and hat, with a very decided intention that she
was not to be plain in any sense of the word. Her coloring and his
own masculine taste inclined him to red, but the clerk had
persuaded him to take brown, and Ellen in a brown coat and a fur
cap gratified him beyond all his hopes.
Her appearance, her gayety, and above all her greeting moved, alas,
every heart against her. If she had come humbly, plainly dressed,
remembering the circumstances under which she had departed, her
grandfather would have taken her to his arms. If she had been a
little less lovely, Amos would not have been afraid of her. If she had
been quieter, as suited her sex and station, Matthew would not have
turned away from her.
But she cried out with singularly poor judgment, "Merry Christmas,"
forgetting that Grandfather believed in searching of heart rather than
gayety upon such occasions. Upon her grandfather's cheek she
bestowed a granddaughterly kiss, and to Amos she gave her hand.
Then going to Matthew, she put her arms round him. He longed to
respond, to put both his arms round her and to hide his tearful eyes
against her curls, but the expression which he gave to this desire
was a sharp,
"You're getting too old for such foolishness, Ellen."
Ellen backed toward the table.
"I brought you Christmas presents—gloves for you, Grandfather, and
handkerchiefs for Amos, and a picture for Matthew." She handed
them round, one by one, then stood, a bewildered fairy-godmother,
in the midst of unresponsive beneficiaries.
"I go out very little in cold weather"—this from Grandfather.
Amos did not lift the handkerchiefs from the table.
"I don't approve of pictures, Ellen," said Matthew. "We would much
better be reading our Bibles than looking at pictures."
She knew suddenly that Matthew would not come home, that they
would not come to dinner, but she hurried to give her invitation
before she should lose her voice.
"Father and Mrs. Sassaman and I would like you all to come to
dinner to-morrow. Every one. We're going to have turkey."
"We have no heart for gayety, Ellen," said Grandfather.
The two young men, with the healthy appetites of their age, had a
second of inward rebellion against this decision, then they
acquiesced. Perhaps it was his recollection of the Christmas dinner
table with its handsomest white cloth with a red border, its smoking
fowl, its hot mince pies, that made Matthew's voice still sharper, his
words more cruel.
"You can wrap your picture up."
"You won't come, any of you?" whispered Ellen, her eyes seeking
first one, then the other.
Leaving the picture in Matthew's hand she moved toward the door.
To all she was a most precious creature about to slip away forever.
Her grandfather leaned forward in his chair, pleading like an ancient
prophet.
"Oh, Ellen, if you could only see the true light! There is only one
thing worth while and that is peace with God. Not education, but
your salvation should be your concern."
Matthew's attack was savage. A strange, fierce jealousy filled his
narrow heart. Ellen had always obeyed him, she should obey him
now!
"You aren't dressed properly. You should know better if Father
doesn't."
Amos did not speak, but his eyes burned. If he might only talk to
this poor lamb!
"You shan't speak against Father!" cried Ellen. "I don't see why we
can't live at peace and love one another. It's wicked for Matthew to
make Father feel badly. I would rather"—she knew that she was
saying a monstrous thing, but it was true—"I would rather lose my
soul than hurt any one like that. I wouldn't believe a religion that
made me act like that. I wouldn't believe"—she was now too excited
to know exactly what she was saying—"I wouldn't obey a God that
wanted me to act like that. I—"
Her sentence unfinished, she got outside and shut the door between
her and them. It was beginning to snow and it might be more than
an hour before her father came, but she could not stay in the little
house.
The snow thickened and twilight fell and she waited, pacing up and
down, and feeling the chill of the raw night air through her whole
body. She did not go beyond the turn of the road, nor would she
start home, for then her father would go into the cottage to inquire
for her and he might be met by reproaches and impertinence. Lights
shone out from comfortable warm rooms in Ephrata; men returning
from their work in the village to homes in the country and women
laden with packages looked at her curiously; but she did not forsake
her post, though she might have walked home easily.
When at last her father arrived she was shivering. He held his
restless horse with one hand and put out the other to help her. He
was late—the fastening of a box to the back of the buggy had taken
time.
"What in the world are you doing out here?" he asked.
"I'm waiting for you."
"But why here?"
"They wouldn't take my presents," wailed Ellen. "They didn't want
them; they think I'm wicked. They won't come to dinner. They were
all there. Matthew has a—a—beard, Father! I—" But she could say
no more.
When she had changed her clothes, she and Mrs. Sassaman taking
counsel together over the proper method of pressing the beautiful
coat, and had had supper, Levis asked for an account of the
afternoon.
"We'll think no more of it," said he when she had finished. "Matthew
has chosen for himself. We've done everything we can and it's
useless to cry or worry."
But she refused to give up hope. She thought of Matthew in the
night; she thought of him the next morning, when, wakened by the
strains which she had heard Kreisler play, she ran down the stairs to
find the source of the miracle in a victrola at which Mrs. Sassaman
and her father stood beaming; she thought of him at intervals
through the snow-bound, pleasant day; she thought of him when,
with Mrs. Sassaman, she went to the Lutheran celebration and
listened to the children singing their carols and saw—oh, beautiful
sight!—a tree all set with gleaming candles.
Mrs. Sassaman felt the Christmas spirit, and her heart warmed to
those whom she served. She was a loyal soul and she often
defended Dr. Levis when her friends blamed him for Matthew's
departure. Her marital aspirations had grown less keen; she asked
only to stay and serve. With this thought in mind she visited Levis in
his office.
"I would rather be Manda," said she, as though the day of her
request to be called Mrs. Sassaman were but yesterday.
"Very well," said Levis. "I like it better, it is friendlier."
She sat down uninvited. She gathered now and then from her
friends descriptions of extraordinary diseases, and these she
reported to Levis, believing them to be professionally useful. She
told now of the fearful pain which "took" the friend of her friend, of
the treatment by the medical doctor and by the pow-wow doctor
and of the "awful witality" of the sufferer's constitution. When she
had finished she rose quickly and went happily away.
Ellen thought of Matthew every day through the winter—in the short
mornings when there seemed to be so much to learn; in the
afternoons when the world moved more slowly; in the evenings
when she recited her lessons. If he had stayed in school, he would
be very wise indeed. But instead of studying he preferred to work in
the stocking factory at Ephrata—that was what Levis's son was doing
now!
One spring evening Ellen went for a walk. The frost was out of the
ground; the April air was full of the odor of wet earth, and when one
stood still one could hear little, pleasant sounds of running water.
She had passed the time when her æsthetic sense was limited to
pleasure in a glass filled with wild roses, or a gratifying arrangement
of autumn leaves; she had begun to observe the delicate colors near
the horizon, the soft purple of the old fences, the shapes of trees
and of groups of trees. On this spring evening it was heavenly to be
alive; one forgot one's haste to be older, one's regret that learning
was a slow process, one's desire to see a thousand places, the
cathedral of Rheims, for one, and the Doge's palace and the church
of St. Sophia for others, which one would, which one must, see
some day. She forgot even Matthew.
Then Matthew recalled himself. Ellen was walking slowly, but not so
slowly as two persons who came toward her. At the beginning of the
descent into the little hollow where the stream ran, she stopped and
stood still to listen to the bubbling water and from there discerned,
silhouetted against the yellow sky, two dark figures that might well
have been ghosts of the early settlers of the land. The man's figure
was tall, the woman's short; she wondered what couple was
courting on this pleasant evening. Imagination made her flush
suddenly, but before she had time to translate the incident into her
own experience, the familiarity of the man's outline startled her.
There was only one person who had shoulders like that and that was
Matthew, who was now a Seventh-Day Baptist, having been plunged
one morning in the cold waters of the creek.
The girl with Matthew was Millie König, could be no other, and the
young people of the Seventh-Day Baptists did not walk with each
other unless they were betrothed!
She hurried home with her miserable news.
"Father, I saw him walking in the road, and Millie was with him."
Levis knew the significance of this companionship. Under his breath,
he said scornfully, "Good Lord!" and aloud, "We'll try not to think of
it, Ellen."
He had thought often since his visit to Harrisburg of Stephen. He felt
with increasing frequency the uneasy sensation in his heart and he
knew that he ought to have a word with some one about it. Stephen
was an eye specialist, but he was also acquainted with general
medical practice. There was a certain disease of the heart which
warned gently for a long time and then leaped with tigerish
swiftness—but it could not be that!
There was another problem which he should like to lay before his
friend. Life on the farm would be intolerable without Ellen and he
believed himself still young enough to find another place. Stephen
might be able to tell him of a practice and to help him to it. Neither
favor was too large to ask if the old friendliness continued. He
planned to go to Harrisburg at some convenient season, but he
postponed his journey week after week, believing that there was still
time enough.
 CHAPTER X
UNEXPECTED GUESTS

A large store of information may be put into a receptive mind in two

years. Levis, watching his sturdy young Ellen to see that her bright
cheeks did not grow pale or her alert step slow, proceeded to find
out how much she could acquire. It was a new and interesting
occupation, but his pleasure was tempered by a remorseful wonder
as to how much could have been accomplished if he had not been
so certain that his own blood and the spirit of the age would keep
Matthew and Ellen safe.
Ellen continued her mathematics and concluded her geography. She
had studied Beginner's Latin with Amos, and her father required her
to translate French. Furnishing his pupil with an outline of English
history, he prescribed reading and the relating of what she read.
Elementary astronomy, botany, and physiology she absorbed like a
sponge.
He sent for books which he had long wished to possess, but had
denied himself, a many-volumed illustrated history of art, a history of
music, a history of architecture in sumptuous dress. He sat late at
night thinking over plans for Ellen, and even brought his accounts up
to date and sent out bills, so that nothing might be denied her.
The summer and another winter passed and between the farm and
the Kloster there was no communication. Ellen saw Matthew and
Millie walking together, and hid by the roadside or turned back.
There drifted to Levis's ears a report that Matthew wished to marry,
but that Millie's father was obdurate. Millie should not marry a
penniless man, the two must wait; when Matthew's prospects
improved, then marriage might be discussed. He had, it was
reported, spoken his mind plainly.
"You should have stayed in the nest. What if you couldn't go to
meeting for a while? You are now near twenty-one and then you can
do as you choose. You should have consulted with some one."
Ellen had little idea of what college would be like, and still less of
what life would be like, but she knew that they must be glorious and
she longed intensely for both experiences. The second summer of
preparation passed slowly. She was sure that much was happening
elsewhere and she knew that little was happening to her.
One Sunday afternoon she went to sit on her favorite stump in the
woodland. Before starting she looked at herself in the mirror, at her
curls and rosy cheeks, made redder by a reflection from her scarlet
tie. She held up her hands and saw with satisfaction that they were
whiter than any other hands she knew.
Her inspection had the result which usually follows the self-
inspection of seventeen—she wished that there was some one at
hand to admire. Perhaps in the woods she would meet a stranger!
There she could at least dream of meeting one.
She had been established on the stump for an hour, now reading,
now sitting idly, her chin in her hands, when, lifting her head, she
observed that the farmhouse was about to receive an unusual
visitation. Since the house stood near the main road, she saw daily
the cars of tourists who were starting across the country, or who
journeyed to Gettysburg or Pittsburgh. Once, sitting on the fence,
she had talked to several elegant ladies who walked about while a
tire was being repaired.
Now a car, more beautiful than any she had ever seen, was turning
up the lane and approaching the farmhouse. Its passengers had
come, no doubt, to ask for some small favor, and she, alas, was not
there to wait upon them! A month ago she would have run, now she
descended in as rapid a walk as dignity would permit.
To her astonishment she found when she reached the porch that the
occupants of the car, except the driver, had gone into the house.
Curious as she was, she was seized with sudden shyness and wished
herself back under the trees. But in plain view as she was from the
office windows there was nothing to do but to proceed.
Her father appeared at the office door, his face flushed and smiling.
Stephen Lanfair, halting for a moment at his gate, had seen his
name on the letter box and had come in with his wife. He had
passed unknowing, he said, many times. Levis's heart throbbed so
that he had to draw deep breaths of air. Stephen was the old
Stephen; his renewal of their friendship seemed to make possible all
he had dreamed. Mrs. Lanfair's presence suggested the solution of
another problem which had troubled him. Ellen needed associations
and opportunities which he did not know how to give her; Mrs.
Lanfair might help him to provide them.
"Oh, Ellen, come here," he said, not without pride. "I was just going
to find you!"
Ellen felt his arm across her shoulders. It was silly to be afraid of
meeting strangers. She lifted her head and went in smiling.
"This is my daughter."
She felt her hand taken in a long, firm grasp, and received a general
impression of height and grayness and alertness and very bright
eyes. She looked up into them and smiled, feeling the blood rush to
her cheeks. She was sensitive and she had as yet received few
impressions which were not those of childhood. This stranger, who
was younger than her father and much older than herself, was the
first person like her father whom she had ever met.
"Your daughter!" said a low voice.
Then she heard another voice, and courage vanished and
embarrassment returned. It was that of a woman, seated in her
father's chair, and looking about with appraising eyes. She was
small, and the old chair in which she sat seemed much too large for
her. Ellen saw in a flash the handsome and slightly bizarre dress,
through the yoke and sleeves of which her flesh showed faintly pink,
the strange and pretty face with brows which almost met. It was not
in the least a happy face, but Ellen was not critical. Hilda was not
interested in this plain ménage or in Stephen's old acquaintance,
recalled thus suddenly to his mind. But it pleased her for the
moment to be friendly.
"Come and shake hands with me," said she, and Ellen obeyed,
feeling young and awkward and ill at ease.
"Do you go to school?"
"I go to school to my father."
"Have you brothers or sisters?"
"I have—"
"One brother who is at his grandfather's," Levis answered for her.
"Lanfair, it is doubtless difficult for an observer to realize that you
and I were in school together."
"In school together!" Hilda looked from one to the other.
"Impossible!"
Stephen halted suddenly. He had been moving about restlessly, now
picking up one of Ellen's books, now reading the titles on Levis's
shelves. He was at once glad and ashamed to have found Levis. But
he should have come alone, he should not have brought Hilda. He
stood close to Levis, his tightly closed hand thrust into the pocket of
his coat.
"Levis was an instructor and a Senior at once, and I was a
Sophomore," he explained. "He left school and married and I
continued to study. I didn't begin to practice till he was well settled
in life." He turned his head and looked at Levis, and from eye to eye
a message flashed. In Stephen's there was regret and a childlike
desire to be restored to the good graces of an older person.
Levis returned the glance steadily and with the same expression with
which he looked at Ellen, as though Stephen needed, as Ellen
needed, love and care. She saw the exchange and curiosity and
admiration quickened. She glanced at Hilda who was taking in from
under half-lowered eyelids the old sofa, the little table, and the
doctor's medicine cupboards. Her stare made Ellen determine to
examine carefully all these articles of furniture. Had the never-failing
broom of Mrs. Sassaman left lint, or had her own dust-cloth touched
them too lightly?
A restless step brought Stephen to her little table.
"Are these your books?"
Ellen explained her course of study. His bright eyes were kind; she
looked frankly into them and smiled while she talked.
"I'm going to college in the fall. I can hardly wait."
Levis, after a second's reflection about the present temper of Mrs.
Sassaman, spoke to Hilda.
"Won't you stay and have supper with us? Now that we have you
here, we'd like to keep you."
Hilda uttered effusive regrets and Levis looked at her curiously. Her
expression had changed; it was no longer that of slightly bored
curiosity, but of anger, sharp and unpleasant. Her eyes darted to her
husband, then back to Levis, and then back again to the little table
where Stephen and Ellen stood together.
"Oh, thank you. It's really very good of you, but it's impossible,
really. We have guests ourselves this evening. We should be going
now. We sail for Europe on Tuesday."
"Medical convention at Vienna?" asked Levis, his keen, curious eye
fixed upon her.
"Yes; that is, my husband is going there. I'm going to Paris for
clothes. I don't like conventions. Nor medicine," said Hilda as she
rose. She laid one hand in the other and kneaded them together in a
strange gesture.
"It's time to go!" said she.
Hearing the sharpened voice, Ellen turned swiftly. How fairylike this
stranger was, now that she was standing! She determined in a flash
to live on bread and water, to take some sort of medicine, to do
anything to resemble her. She saw the small, arched foot, set in
absurd, high-heeled shoes—how did she manage to stand, and how
to walk? But she did both gracefully. Ellen had heard the invitation;
she hastened to second it.
"I do wish you'd stay!"
Stephen looked down at her. There was a quality in Ellen which was
hard to describe unless one said that she gave herself with every
smile. He had dismissed the thought of children as he had dismissed
his father's creed, but from his deeper consciousness an instinctive
longing rose. "I wish I had her or one like her!" said he to himself
with sudden startled hunger.
"Won't you stay?" said Ellen to him.
Then Ellen was conscious that something unpleasant had been said
or done. She could not tell what it was, but she felt that she had
given offense. Hilda went out quickly into the hall and stood waiting.
She did not speak to Levis or to Ellen; she only said once more, "I
said that it's time to go!"
"You're not really going this minute!" protested Levis, his sharp
disappointment quickening his throbbing heart.
"Yes," said Stephen. His voice was louder than it had been and even
a little more pleasant. "We really must be off." He held out his hand.
"I haven't forgotten anything, not anything!"
Hilda followed across the grass to the car and stepped in. From the
car Stephen waved his hand and Levis and Ellen waved theirs. Hilda
did not look back. The car started noiselessly; they sat like king and
queen in a state chariot, a silent retainer conducting them.
"I think she behaved in a very queer way," said Ellen.
"I agree with you," said Levis. He went into his office and stood
looking at the books in his case, and Ellen followed closely.
"Who are they?"
"He was a friend in college. I haven't seen him for years." Frowning,
Levis took down one of a set of volumes and went to his desk. "He
was a nice boy."
"Was he married when you knew him?"
"No; I remember hearing that he had married a rich wife."
"She must be very rich. Did you know they were coming?"
"No, indeed."
"Where do they live?"
Levis had opened his book at the letter "D," and did not answer. The
uneasy sensation in his heart had sharpened once or twice in the
last hour to an acute though fleeting pain, gone as soon as it was
felt. He had seen Stephen, but the visit seemed to make impossible
all that he had hoped for.
For a moment, in curiosity about Hilda's behavior, he forgot his own
problems. He had found the article which he wished to consult under
the letter "D," but he could not fix his mind on what he read. It was
in reality something within his own breast which disturbed him, but
it seemed to him that it was Ellen hanging over his shoulder and
cutting off the air which he needed.
"I wish you'd run away, Ellen, for a little while. I'll talk to you later
about these people."
"All right," said Ellen cheerfully, remembering her own unwillingness
to be interrupted. She read over his shoulder—"'Dementia'—Father,
who has that?"
"No one that I know of, Missy."
"I expect you think I have it. Well, read away, I won't bother."
Levis smiled at the tone of maternal indulgence, then he returned to
his book. Again he put his hand over his heart uneasily. The
sensation was now of weak fingers moving gently. He coughed, then
he looked at Ellen who had sat down at her table. What a strange
woman Lanfair's wife was! What had annoyed her? Most wives who
brought fortunes proved to be impeditive in some fashion—there
was unquestionably an impediment here! He turned a page and read
for a moment. There was a mental disorder difficult to distinguish in
early stages from sheer devilishness of disposition; and patients had
peculiar traits and nervous ways like this woman. Poor Lanfair!
Perhaps he would return and confide in his old friend. He had looked
as though he needed a refuge.
Presently Ellen returned to her place on the stump and there sat for
half an hour.
"I think she was very disagreeable," she said, beginning to speculate
about married life. She, Ellen, would never make her husband
uncomfortable!
"If I get one!" said Ellen. "And he was splendid!"
They must live in a very grand house—perhaps she and her father
might some day visit them. She realized that she didn't even know
their name—how strange the whole incident was!
At the end of half an hour curiosity sent her back to the house. Her
father had now had time to read all he wanted, she was sure. She
remembered that to-morrow a dressmaker was coming to get her
ready for school and she sang for joy as she walked.
But in the half-hour that she spent in the woodland, life had taken a
long stride. Levis sat with his treatise open at "Dementia," his eyes
still bent upon the page. He had not moved since she went away.
"Father!" she cried gayly.
He answered without lifting his head.
"I've been taken suddenly with a bad stitch in my side, Ellen, and I
don't wish to move until I've had medicine. You'll find it in the right-
hand cupboard in a blue bottle. Bring me a pellet."
Ellen obeyed quickly, growing pale. Levis broke the pellet in his hand
and held it close to his nostril, then he straightened his shoulders. It
was exactly like a tiger that the thing leaped upon one!
"I'm going over to the couch. Don't be frightened if I go slowly. Lend
me your shoulder."
Ellen made her shoulder like iron.
"Telephone Dr. Wescoe."
Ellen flew. It seemed when she returned that her father's face was
less terribly gray and drawn.
"What shall I do now?"
Levis managed a wry smile.
"You'll make a capital doctor. Bring paper from your desk and sit
here, beside me. You must be brave and steady."
Ellen obeyed swiftly.
"I've known for some time that my heart was a bit out of order. I'm
likely to have another attack, but probably not before the doctor
gets here. I want you to write something down."
Ellen looked steadily at Levis. If she held his eyes with hers, they
could not become blank, unseeing, as they were a moment ago!
There was in his face now a dreadful eagerness. In spite of the last
hour he turned in desperate need to the memory of Stephen's old
affection. Stephen had forgotten for a while, but he meant to
remember and he would help him now. He felt the same fearful
despair which he had felt as a boy when he needed food and did not
know where to get it. He had heard the Creator called upon at too
many death-beds to ignore entirely that refuge, but he was not one
to turn even in such a moment to a help which he had denied. The
"sum and term" of education had not been his, the loss by death of
one whom he had deeply loved. If his wife had died in their earliest
married life, or if Ellen had died, his spiritual history might have been
different.
But what was it he had meant to do? Ah, yes! Ellen was waiting,
pencil in hand.
"I give to my daughter Ellen all my property and make my friend—"
"'Make my friend,'" repeated Ellen after a pause.
"Can you remember his name, Ellen?"
"I don't think I heard it!"
"It'll come to me! Listen! You and Matthew inherit this farm from
your mother. What I have besides you must take. Don't let them
shame you out of it! Remember it's my will. If you wish, you can live
economically and share with Matthew after you've had your
education. I feel better, darling." He took suddenly a long, relieving
breath. After all he was not to be cut off now from life, from Ellen.
He looked deeply into her frightened eyes. It was now that she
would need him! He had, he felt suddenly with amazement, not yet
really lived; he could not die! Tears rolled down upon his cheeks. "I'll
be able to eat supper with you, I'm sure. We needn't worry to
complete the paper. The doctor will write it for me. Don't look so
horrified. I think—"
His smile stiffened suddenly and drops of perspiration appeared
upon his forehead. Was everything then over? He put out his hands
and took Ellen's face between them.
"Don't let them keep you here! Remember!"
"I'll remember," promised Ellen.
Her head dropped to his breast, pressed by his hands close to his
heart. She could see nothing, but she could hear a strange beating
sound like a wooden hammer upon flesh. Her body was cramped; it
seemed to her that she could not breathe; then her father's embrace
relaxed and she rose quickly.
Her wild glance sought the window. Mrs. Sassaman drove slowly up
the lane, Dr. Wescoe's car turned in from the highway, but their
coming now made no difference.
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