Authors

Discussion

According to the stereotype, Russian speakers in the Baltic countries are strictly monolingual and either refuse or are incapable of learning the official language of the State. Since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the attitude towards Russian-speaking communities has steadily worsened, as they are suspected of hiding their actual loyalty, as if the use of the language of the aggressor was per se an endorsement of their action. New school reforms in Latvia, and the linkage of language teaching possibilities only to the official languages of the European Union in Lithuania, thus heavily reducing the content taught using Russian, seem to be informed at least partially by this view. But do the Russian-speakers themselves agree? To answer this question, I conducted a set of semi-structured interviews directed towards “Russian-Speakers” in Latvia and Lithuania in 2024, asking about their language habits and their language attitudes. The qualitative analysis of their answers shows that, contrary to the stereotypes, the attitude towards multilingualism is positive and the knowledge of the State language is highly valued.