Ukraine is what the late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington called a “cleft country,” where large groups belong to different civilizations. Cultural tensions inevitably arise in cleft countries, Huntington noted, “when a majority group belonging to one civilization attempts to define the state as its political instrument and to make its language, religion, and symbols those of the state.” As Huntington pointed out, “Cleft countries that territorially bestride the fault lines between civilizations face particular problems maintaining their unity.”

Latvia is a cleft country, with ethnic Russians making up nearly 30 percent of the population and the Russian language being the native tongue for nearly 40 percent. Like Ukraine, Latvia must grapple with the cultural complications stemming from its cleft-country reality and the cultural sensibilities of its Russian minority.

But there is a big difference between Latvia and Ukraine. While the latter has been part of the Russian sphere of influence for centuries, the former is by temperament, ethnicity, religion, culture and history a predominantly Western nation. The primary religion among Latvians is Lutheran, except for the southeastern region, which is largely Catholic. It has been part of the West for centuries

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine-latvia-welcome-the-clash-civilizations-10441?page=show