EUROPEAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND PROJECT “RETHINKING STATELESSNESS: RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION DURING THE SOVIET AND NAZI OCCUPATION OF LATVIA (1940–1953)”

Project no.: 1.1.1.2/VIAA/4/20/738
Implementation period: 1 March 2021 – 30 June 2023
Total costs, UL contribution: Planned total costs: EUR 104 071.24; UL contribution 5 % – EUR 5203.57
Principal investigator: Dr. hist. Uldis Neiburgs

The main goal of the project is to research and reinterpret resistance and collaboration with two totalitarian powers in occupied Latvia. The research tasks of the project will be achieved based on a four comparative case studies: 
(1) Activities of national partisan/self-defence units at the beginning of the German-USSR war in summer 1941; 
(2) Political and military aims of the political centre of national resistance movement – the Latvian Central Council and its military section - General J. Kurelis’ group in 1943–1944;  
(3) Activities of Soviet partisans during Nazi occupation, especially evaluation of Soviet partisan unit Sarkanā bulta in Kurzeme in 1945;  
(4) Postwar activities of national partisans (1944/45–1953) against Soviet military forces and local collaborators.

The main activities of the project will include: 
1) training to acquire new knowledge; 
2) data collecting and analysis; 
3) dissemination of the research results; 
4) public engagement and outreach activities. 

Expected results
1) New academic findings presented in a scientific monograph (submitted for publication);
2) Academic articles in SCI journals, as well as reported at conferences, seminars and presented to society at large;
3) Raising the qualification of the postdoctoral researcher by developing new competences in research and by ensuring mobility that will activate international cooperation and training.