Harry C. Merritt

Historian working on the social history of war in 🇱🇻🇷🇺🇩🇪. Opinions my own, not those of my employer.

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

I will also be ending my active participation on this app in 2026, but you can find me elsewhere by following the link in bio. I'm also told that the actual release date for the book is March 2026, but will leave this link here: https://t.co/7eBIeCF8PU

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

Coming in 2026!

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@MissPavIichenko @yabokusmargiela In the 1950s and 1960s, the founder of the Latvian fascist Thunder Cross movement, Gustavs Celmiņš, taught Russian Studies at St. Mary's University in San Antonio 🙃

[Marsh's Library @MarshsLibrary]

A break from Christmas content to enjoy this capybara eating a banana. From François Froger's 'A relation of a voyage ...' (London, 1698).

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@Mkaprans Īstais prototips visticamāk bija Rods Ansels (Rod Ansell). Viņš viens pats izdzīvoja 56 dienas Austrālijas Outback-ā; pēc tam, Ansels bija slavens cilvēks Austrālijā. Blūmentāla dzīvestāsts arī bija sarežģītāk nekā liecina "krokodilu mednieka" apzīmējums.
https://t.co/Ci1A85Otf2

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

"At least two of the Brown University students who were on campus when a deadly shooting unfolded there on Saturday have survived school shootings before."
https://t.co/DZLOpGEH3d

[csz @cszabla]

been sitting here pining against all reasonable hope for the restoration for years like a russian émigré in 1927 paris

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@BeilinsonOrel It’s comparable with Estonia (Estonian, German, and Russian needed) and Latvia (Latvian, German, and Russian needed). You may also need additional languages if looking at certain minorities in those countries too (e.g. Polish for Latgallian Poles or Yiddish for Latvian Jews).

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@RuffPhilip It lives in my office! (and can in others' offices as well, if the National Library of Latvia still sells these prints)

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

Tomorrow at UMass Boston, I will give a talk on historical narratives of/memory work by veterans of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion as an interesting case of "overcoming defeat"

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@cszabla To be fair, I still laugh at this Chinese attempt to market the Five-Year Plan to a Western audience in English. It's noteworthy that in trying to present the concept, they decided to use the colloquial name in Chinese: https://t.co/2ABAUSAvm5

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@ViljamsMauhuds @DrFrancisYoung @MarijaSmits There are some publications from the Occupation Museum and the Commission of Historians in Latvia that overlap in terms of themes, but the best comparable work in English is probably Valdis O. Lumans, Latvia in World War II.

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@MissPavIichenko @CogentCEO I had first read it in Europe on Trial by István Deák, but I screenshotted this version from a book titled Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War: Goals, Expectations, Practices

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@DrFrancisYoung @ViljamsMauhuds When Henning Mankell had Wallander visit Latvia, the title was The Dogs of Riga, a missed opportunity for sure…

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

Greatest misallocation of resources in my lifetime, with no positive possible outcome. The AI bubble bursts = serious economic recession/depression. If it "succeeds," then massive disruptions in employment, beyond strains on electricity/water supply, etc.
https://t.co/xqrdVtO4lV

[Daniela Gabor @DanielaGabor]

the state of the AI investment bubble, in plain English:

overcapacity projected at USD 2 trillion, higher energy prices, higher water wastage, for a technology we dont need at that scale

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@esjesjesj Correction: the posted photo is not of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, rather of a different female Red Army sniper, Lyudmila Nikolaevna Trosk, who is credited with at least 46 kills. https://t.co/dfQU136fog

[csz @cszabla]

I recommend an ancient but now obscure failsafe backup technology for these situations called “books”

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@bucephalus424 Have you seen Fantasy Mission Force? Worth it for the film's bizarro version of World War II on its own...

[Harry C. Merritt @HarryMerritt]

@isadesisto @skytteUT Are you aware of Kogu Me Lugu? They are based in Tallinn and have collected oral history testimony for the past 12 years by thinking through the occupations through the lens of family history.