Colonial Patterns in Latvian Popular Enlightenment Literature

The article addresses the question of colonial interpretation of Latvian secular literature of the late 18th and early 19th century. It has been argued recently that because of the colonial language used by contemporaries to describe ethnically determined social relationships between Baltic peasants and the German upper class in the Enlightenment era in the Baltics, it would be possible to expand the understanding of peasant enlightenment by applying to it theoretical approaches of postcolonial studies. Aspects of colonial features in the peasant discourse of the 18th century Baltics are analyzed in the article by paying special attention to their role in creating the secular writing praxis in the Latvian language

Otherness and Self in Latvian Theatre: Changes at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

In the article, political and historical interpretations of the first play in Latvian, an adapted translation of Ludvig Holberg’s Jeppe of the Hill (1723, Latvian version 1790) are explored. Although the play has been often interpreted as a work of anti-alcohol propaganda, the article argues that the political motives of the play are no less important. Translated into Latvian during the time of the French revolution, the play mirrors the tense atmosphere of the revolutionary years and reflects changes in Latvian peasant identity. While translating, Baltic German pastor Alexander Johann Stender changed the play’s setting to the late eighteenth century Courland and added new details, emphasizing the social conflict of the play as an ethnic one. It has been argued in the article that since ‘class’ in the Baltics was divided along national lines, the difference between peasants and masters was also the difference between Latvians and Germans, so class and ethnicity merged. When the peasant and the nobleman switch places in the play, this symbolizes a change in the Latvian-German colonial relationship. The colonial interpretation allows for a characterisation of the protagonist as a desperate imitator – a colonial subject who loses his identity as a serf and is not able to form a new identity in any way other than by copying the colonialist op- pressor. But this mimicry turns into ridicule, hence the play acquires a political meaning as it implicitly shows the disastrous consequences of revolutionary pro- test. Therefore, the play can be read as a part of the discussions about the Baltic Enlightenment emancipation project and as a hidden debate on serfdom and the colonial framework of the Courland societ

Valstiečių skaitymo įpročių raida Kurše ir Livonijoje XVIII a.

The article explores the development of peasants’ reading habits over the 18th century in the Latvian-inhabited Lutheran regions of Russia’s Baltic provinces Courland/Kurzeme and Latvian Livonia/Vidzeme. By analysing the transition from intensive to extensive reading patterns, as well as from loud and ceremonial to silent and private reading, insight into the available statistical sources and information from subscription lists is provided and the observations of contemporaries are scrutinized. The views on Latvian peasants’ reading habits expressed by Baltic-German Lutheran parsons Friedrich Bernhard Blaufuß, Joachim Baumann, Christian David Lenz, Johann Friedrich Casimir Rosenberger, Alexander Johann Stender, as well as those published by Johann Friedrich Steffenhagen, are discussed within the context of urban and middle-class reading patterns. While the number of literate peasants in the 18th century was high, reaching one third in Courland and two thirds in Livonia by the turn of the 19th century, the motivation for reading and everyday habits differed, and while extensive reading increased, before the 1840s, the Baltic rural so­ciety did not see a phenomenon similar to the European middle-class rea­ding revolution. The article focuses on differentiating among various types of readers, divided according to their confessional lines (Herrnhutian Brethren or Lutheran Orthodox Church), social stan­ding (reading patterns were different depending on rural professions) or genera­tion (the older generation tended to prefer loud and ceremonial religious reading while the younger generation more often adopted silent, private and secular reading). The collective reading of books has been explored by demonstrating how it allowed combining the reading of books with other activities and also performed a socializing function. The avai­lable sources demonstrate that quiet reading did not replace reading aloud, in the same way that extensive reading did not replace intensive, but all reading practices continued to co-exist alongside each other, creating an increasingly diverse and saturated reading experience.Straipsnyje nagrinėjama valstiečių skaitymo įpročių raida XVIII a. latvių apgyvendintuose Rusijos Baltijos provincijų Kuršo / Kuržemės ir Latvijos Livonijos / Vidžemės liuteronų regionuose. Analizuojant perėjimą nuo intensyvaus prie ekstensyvaus skaitymo būdo, taip pat nuo garsinio ir apeiginio prie tylaus ir privataus skaitymo, pateikiama įžvalga apie turimus statistikos šaltinius ir informaciją prenumeratos gavėjų sąrašuose bei nagrinėjami amžininkų pastebėjimai. Miesto ir vidurinės klasės atstovų skaitymo būdų kontekste aptariamos Baltijos vokiečių liuteronų dvasininkų Friedricho Bernhardo Blaufußo, Joachimo Baumanno, Christiano Davido Lenzo, Johanno Friedricho Casimiro Rosenbergerio, Alexanderio Johanno Stenderio išreikštos, taip pat Johanno Friedricho Steffenhageno publikuotos nuomonės apie latvių valstiečių skaitymo įpročius. Nors XVIII a. raštingų valstiečių skaičius buvo didelis – iki XIX a. pradžios Kuržemėje jis siekė trečdalį, o Livonijoje – du trečdalius, skaitymo motyvacija ir kasdieniai įpročiai skyrėsi, ir, nors ekstensyvus skaitymas populiarėjo, Baltijos jūros regiono kaimo visuomenė iki XIX a. 5-ojo dešimtmečio nebuvo patyrusi reiškinio, panašaus į Europos vidurinės klasės skaitymo revoliuciją. Straipsnyje pagrindinis dėmesys skiriamas įvairių tipų skaitytojams, suskirstytiems pagal jų religinę grupę (hernhutiečiai ar Liuteronų Ortodoksų Bažnyčia), socialinę padėtį (skaitymo būdai skyrėsi atsižvelgiant į užsiėmimus kaimo vietovėse) arba kartą (vyresnioji karta buvo linkusi teikti pirmenybę garsiniam ir apeiginiam religiniam skaitymui, o jaunoji dažniau rinkosi tylų, privatų ir pasaulietišką skaitymą). Kolektyvinis knygų skaitymas buvo ištirtas atskleidžiant, kaip jis leido derinti knygų skaitymą su kita veikla bei atliko socializacijos funkciją. Turimi šaltiniai rodo, kad tylus skaitymas nepakeitė garsinio skaitymo, kaip ir ekstensyvus skaitymas nepakeitė intensyvaus, tačiau visi skaitymo būdai ir toliau egzistavo drauge kurdami vis įvairesnę ir turtingesnę skaitymo patirtį

Nineteenth-Century Sentimental and Popular Trends and their Transformation in Fin-de-siècle Latvian Literature

In this paper, the role of popular culture in fin-de-siècle Latvian literature has been explored by analysing the mid-nineteenth century Latvian translation of Christoph Schmid’s novel Genoveva (1846) by Ansis Leitāns, and unfinished drama Genoveva (1908) by Rūdolfs Blaumanis. While the first version of the Genoveva story was created according to the patterns of popular literature and played a significant role in the development of the Latvian reading public, the author of the second version attempted to turn the plot of popular fiction into a work of elite literature, elaborating the issue of female agency and adding psychological ambiguity to the plot. The mixture of popular melodramatic imagination and modernist themes, as observed in Blaumanis’s work, provides a deeper insight into fin-de-siècle literary techniques by turning attention to the conscious use of different literary styles and narrative levels and illuminating interactions between popular and elite culture. By comparing both works and interpreting their aesthetic innovations in terms of the relationship between idealism, realism and modernism, this paper traces the ways in which fin-de-siècle Latvian literature appropriated and reworked models of popular culture and developed new aesthetic insights by merging elements of low and high culture

Mapping the symbolic capital of a nation: Riga in fin-de-siècle Latvian novels

This article concentrates on the representation of Riga in six fin-de-siècle Latvian novels written by Augusts Deglavs, Jānis Poruks, and Andrejs Upīts. The relations between the country and the city were changing significantly at the time due to growing social mobility in the Baltic littoral. However, in this paper we also argue that to a considerable extent the descriptions of Riga preserve principles previously employed by Latvian writers who tend to focus on minute descriptions instead of mapping a broader territory. The representation of living conditions in Riga thus fluctuates between true-tolife episodes and the recycling of certain stereotypes that determine the overall perception. More specific elements enter into literary texts in two ways. First, as psychological close-ups become more nuanced, they suggest closer links between fictional characters and carefully depicted milieus. Secondly, in our last example we discover an ideologically conscious effort of Latvian identity construction as the author, Deglavs, promotes the necessity of mapping Riga as the symbolic national capital, thus summarising and transforming ideas already implicit in earlier representations of the city

Christian Felix Weiße’s Poetry in Latvian and Estonian Literature

The article analyzes the translations of Christian Felix Weiße’s poems in Latvian and Estonian within the context of cultural transfer during the age of Enlightenment. Translations of Weiße’s poems were of great significance because they paved the way for the emergence of secular poetry in both languages. First translations appeared in the 1770s, and others followed in the next decades. While the first Latvian translations were connected to the popular enlightenment efforts of Baltic German pastor Gotthard Friedrich Stender and addressed to the peasant readers, the first Estonian translations were written in the context of experiments with the language and addressed to the Baltic German intellectual elite. First translations that were addressed to Estonian peasants appeared in the early 19th century. The frame of reference of the poems was transformed when they were addressed to peasant reading public: they acquired didactic meaning. At the same time, these translations demonstrated the poetic possibilities of Estonian and Latvian languages. The analysis as a case study reveals the multifaceted influence of German poetry on Estonian and Latvian literary cultures

Colonial Patterns in Latvian Popular Enlightenment Literature

The article addresses the question of colonial interpretation of Latvian secular literature of the late 18th and early 19th century. It has been argued recently that because of the colonial language used by contemporaries to describe ethnically determined social relationships between Baltic peasants and the German upper class in the Enlightenment era in the Baltics, it would be possible to expand the understanding of peasant enlightenment by applying to it theoretical approaches of postcolonial studies. Aspects of colonial features in the peasant discourse of the 18th century Baltics are analyzed in the article by paying special attention to their role in creating the secular writing praxis in the Latvian language

The Genesis of Latvian Literary Culture in the Context of European Literature

This paper traces the main transformations in the formation of Latvian literary culture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Looking at these processes from a comparative perspective, we detect four major turning points that are of special interest here. First, we observe how religious literature turns secular during the second half of the eighteenth century in the context of the Popular Enlightenment, and what this change means for the perception of written texts. Secondly, we scrutinize the process in which former readers among ethnic Latvians become interested in writing. Thirdly, we put the dawn of romantic nationalism in Latvian literary contexts into comparative perspective. Finally, we argue that the representation of urban life at the end of the nineteenth century testifies to the swift rise of Latvian literature overcoming the constraints of belated modernity and marking participation in European literary trends

Otherness and Self in Latvian Theatre: Changes at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

In the article, political and historical interpretations of the first play in Latvian, an adapted translation of Ludvig Holberg’s Jeppe of the Hill (1723, Latvian version 1790) are explored. Although the play has been often interpreted as a work of anti-alcohol propaganda, the article argues that the political motives of the play are no less important. Translated into Latvian during the time of the French revolution, the play mirrors the tense atmosphere of the revolutionary years and reflects changes in Latvian peasant identity. While translating, Baltic German pastor Alexander Johann Stender changed the play’s setting to the late eighteenth century Courland and added new details, emphasizing the social conflict of the play as an ethnic one. It has been argued in the article that since ‘class’ in the Baltics was divided along national lines, the difference between peasants and masters was also the difference between Latvians and Germans, so class and ethnicity merged. When the peasant and the nobleman switch places in the play, this symbolizes a change in the Latvian-German colonial relationship. The colonial interpretation allows for a characterisation of the protagonist as a desperate imitator – a colonial subject who loses his identity as a serf and is not able to form a new identity in any way other than by copying the colonialist op- pressor. But this mimicry turns into ridicule, hence the play acquires a political meaning as it implicitly shows the disastrous consequences of revolutionary pro- test. Therefore, the play can be read as a part of the discussions about the Baltic Enlightenment emancipation project and as a hidden debate on serfdom and the colonial framework of the Courland societ

Ideas of the Popular Enlightenment in Latvian Secular Literature at the End of the 18th Century and the Beginning of the 19th Century

Anotācija Promocijas darbā tiek pētīta tautas apgaismības ideju ietekme latviešu literatūrā 18. gadsimta otrajā pusē un 19. gadsimta sākumā. Minētais tēmu loks tiek analizēts, pievēršot uzmanību kultūrpārnesei, koloniālismam un latviešu un vācu vēsturiskajām attiecībām. Tautas apgaismības ideju ietekme latviešu literatūrā tiek aplūkota kontekstā ar latviešu literatūras sekularizāciju un literāro komunikāciju, kā arī vācbaltiešu intelektuāļu lomu latviešu kultūras nostiprināšanā. Pētījuma pamatproblēma ir saistība starp latviešu literatūras attīstību aplūkojamajā laika posmā un eiropeisko ideju tīklu, kas ietver ne tikai tautas apgaismības idejas, bet arī koloniālo atklājumu pārskatīšanu, fiziokrātijas idejas u.c. Pētījums izseko apgaismotas personības konstruēšanas modeļiem, dzimtbūšanas, kārtas lojalitātes, patriotisma un valstiskās apziņas, kā arī sentimentālisma reprezentācijai latviešu literatūrā. Atslēgvārdi: latviešu literatūras vēsture, literatūras sekularizācija, tautas apgaismība, kultūrpārnese.Annotation The influence of the ideas of popular enlightenment in Latvian literature at the second falf of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century has been researched in the PhD work. Those topics have been analyzed turning the attentio to cultural transfer, colonialism and Latvian – German historical relationship. Yje influence of popular enlightenment in Latvian literature has been observed within the context of the secularization of Latvian literature and literary communication as well as the role of Baltic German intellectuals in the making of Latvian culture. The main issue of the research work is the interconnectedness between the development of Latvian literature within the scope of the time and European network of idejas including not only the idejas of popular enlightenment, but also reevaluating of colonial discoveries, phisiocratic ideas etc. The reserach focuses upon models of enlightened personality, representations of serfdom, loyality of social class, patriotism, as well as sensibility. Key words: history of Latvian literature, secularization of literature, popular enlightenment, cultural transfer