What happens when families and nations fight on both sides of a great power war? Dr. Harry Merritt is a visiting assistant professor in the department of history at Brown University. He shares his research on national and familial feelings among Latvian soldiers in World War II, who were conscripted into the Latvian Legion and Latvian Rifle Corp as the country was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Soldiers in both units spoke Latvian with one another, celebrated national holidays, sang traditional songs, and often thought of themselves and their comrades-in-arms as serving the Latvian national cause. Dr. Merritt explores the human stories underpinning this history and what it means for greater narratives in his chapter for the recently published Defining Latvia.

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