Latvians Stage Rally for Independence in Capital

MOSCOW —  Hundreds of thousands of people thronged the Latvian capital of Riga on Saturday to celebrate the small Baltic state’s declaration of independence in 1918--and to protest its incorporation into the Soviet Union two decades later.

Singing “God Bless Latvia,” the national anthem, and other patriotic Latvian songs, the crowd surged through the center of Riga to rallies where speakers demanded independence once again from Moscow. It was the first official observance of Latvian independence since 1940, when it was occupied by Soviet troops.

The red and white flag of independent Latvia flew from most homes and public buildings in Riga, according to Soviet journalists in the city, and tens of thousands of people waving small flags lined the banks of the Daugava River through the capital in a protest impressive for its solemnity.

“A page of history was brought back to life, preserving the memory of the events of 1918, when the Latvian state was proclaimed,” the official Soviet news agency Tass reported from Riga in a rare appreciation of what independence meant to the Latvians after centuries of Russian, Polish, Swedish and German rule.

“We must fight for independence,” Janes Chakste, the grandson of the first of independent Latvia’s three presidents, told the main rally. “Latvia must be independent, as it was before.”

The main complaint, as elsewhere in the Soviet Union’s constituent republics, is the deteriorating economic situation, which is matched by a conviction, also shared by other republics, that local leaders could do better alone.

According to state-run Latvian television, more than 550,000 people participated in the citywide demonstrations, although Riga has a population of little more than 900,000 and Latvia a total population of about 2.7 million.

Anatoly V. Gorbunov, the republic’s Communist Party chief, said in a televised address that the independence-day observance should “unite all the people of Latvia” and “enrich and deepen the understanding of our historical roots.”