Author:  Dr. Valters Nollendorfs Dr. Valters Nollendorfs has a Ph.D. in German literature from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is a Professor Emeritus of German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught from 1961 to 1995. Dr. Nollendorfs lives in Riga, Latvia and volunteers at the Museum of the Occupation as Director of External Affairs and Project Director for Nakotnes Nams (Building for the Future), a major reconstruction and expansion project that involves planning and development of a new exhibition and major fundraising.

The self-realization of the Latvians as a nation began in the nineteenth century as part of emancipation, modernization and national renaissance all over Europe. Still indentured to their German landlords at the beginning of the century, the Latvians had at least partly freed themselves from the economic and social control of the land-owning German gentry and had disengaged from German cultural paternalism as the twentieth century dawned.