Latvian language
Upper Latvian dialect is spoken in Eastern Latvia. It is set apart from rest of the Latvian by number of phonetic differences. The dialect has two main varieties – Selonian and Non-Selonian. There is a standard language, the Latgalian language, which is based on deep Non-Selonian varieties spoken in south of Latgale. The term "Latgalian" is sometimes also applied to all Non-Selonian varieties or even the whole dialect. However, it is unclear if it is accurate to use the term for any varieties besides the standard language. While the term may refer to varieties spoken in Latgale or by Latgalians, not all speakers identify as speaking Latgalian, for example, speakers of deep Non-Selonian varieties in Vidzeme explicitly deny speaking Latgalian.
Latvia
In the post-war period, Latvia was made to adopt Soviet farming methods. Rural areas were forced into collectivisation. An extensive programme to impose bilingualism was initiated in Latvia, limiting the use of Latvian language in official uses in favour of using Russian as the main language. All of the minority schools (Jewish, Polish, Belarusian, Estonian, Lithuanian) were closed down leaving only two media of instructions in the schools: Latvian and Russian. An influx of labourers, administrators, military personnel and their dependants from Russia and other Soviet republics started. By 1959 about 400,000 people arrived from other Soviet republics and the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62%.