Abstract
In September 2008 I was strolling in central Riga with a Latvian colleague at the close of a day spent at a conference on regional history, memory, and politics. Deep in discussion, in English, of this complex field, we came to an elegant building in the late-nineteenth-century “Latvian national” architectural style. Seizing on this convenient example, my colleague informed me that the building we were facing had recently become the object of heated public debates. Although it had originally been constructed by a wealthy patron in the decades prior to the First World War in order to house an ethnic Latvian school, during the period of Latvian independence following the war it had been converted into a Russian school.
To give a gift is to demonstrate one’s superiority—to become more, higher, magister; to accept without reciprocating, or without giving still more, is to subordinate oneself, to become a client or servant, to become small, to fall lower (minister).
Marcel Mauss, An Essay on the Gift
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Marcel Mauss, “Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaiques,” L’Année Sociologique, 1 (1923–25), 30–186 (p. 174). Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this chapter are by the author.
Alexander Etkind, Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011), pp. 173–93.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. xiii.
Chakrabarty’s project has much in common with the positions of Foucault with regard to European enlightenment. As the French thinker proposed, enlightenment should be considered not as a closed system of institutions and values, but rather as a perpetual impulse toward reflection regarding and critique of any system of thought, social institution, or even conception of the human. See Michel Foucault, “What Is Enlightenment?,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. by Paul Rabinow (New York, Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 32–50.
David Chioni Moore, “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet: Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique,” PMLA, 116 (2001): 111–28; Gayatri Spivak, “In Memoriam: Edward W. Said,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23 (2003): 6–7, 111–28; Vitaly Chernetsky, “Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine,” Ulbandus, 7 (200), 32–62; Gayatri Spivak, Nancy Condee, Harsha Ram, and Vitaly Chernetsky, “Conference Debates: Are We Postcolonial? Post-Soviet Space,” PMLA, 121 (2006): 828–36; Adrian Otoiu, “An Exercise in Fictional Liminality: The Postcolonial, the Postcommunist, and Romania’s Threshold Generation,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23 (2003): 87–105; Monica Popescu, “Translations: Lenin’s Statues, Post-communism and Post-apartheid,” Yale Journal of Criticism, 16 (2003): 406–23; Violeta Kelertas, ed., Baltic Postcolonialism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006); Mark von Hagen, “Empires, Borderlands, and Diasporas: Eurasia as Anti-paradigm for the Post-Soviet Era,” AHR, 109 (2004): 445–68; Sharad Chari, Katherine Verdery, “Thinking Between the Posts: Postcolonialism, Postsocialism and Ethnography after the Cold War,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51 (2009): 6–34.
Population data are derived from the data of the Latvian Central Statistical Bureau. See “Population Census 2011—Key Indicators,” www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistikas-temas/population-census-2011-key-indicators-33613.html (accessed April 9, 2012).
For detailed analyses of ethnic identity and the social dynamics of Latvia, see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Julia Bernier, “Nationalism in Transition: Nationalising Impulses and International Counterweights in Latvia and Estonia,” in Minority Nationalism and the Changing International Order, ed. by Michael Keating and John McGarry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 342–61; Daniel A. Kronenfeld, “The Effects of Interethnic Contact on Ethnic Identity: Evidence from Latvia,” Post-Soviet Affairs, 21 (2005): 247–77; Daniel A. Kronenfeld, “Ethnogenesis Without the Entrepreneurs: The Emergence of a Baltic Russian Identity in Latvia,” in Narva und die Ostseeregion, ed. by Karsten Brüggemann (Narva, Estonia: Narva College Press, 2004), pp. 339–63.
In a reflection of the broad application of the term “occupant” (okupants) to Russian-speakers in Latvia, in 2009 Latvian President Valdis Zatlers made a special appeal, calling on ethnic Latvians to reject this usage, which is understandably offensive to many Russian-speakers. Although this appeal did not lead to the intended result, it did provoke widespread discussion of the term itself; see n. a., “Papildināta—Zatlers: jāvienojas, ka vārds ‘okupants’ vairs netiks lietots,” Diena (Riga), December 7, 2009, www.diena.lv/sabiedriba/politika/papildinata-zatlers-javienojas-ka-vards-okupants-vairs-netiks-lietots-702651 (accessed August 23, 2011).
For a study of the cultural activity of this segment of the Latvian population, see my “Eccentric Orbit: Mapping Russian Culture in the Near Abroad,” in Empire De/Centred: New Spatial Histories of Russia and the Soviet Union, ed. by Sanna Toruma and Maxim Wildstein (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 271–296.
Monument to Peter I on Riga’s central square, by Prof. Gustav Schmidt- Kassel, dedicated in 1910. Prerevolutionary postcard. Available online: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Рига_памятник _Петру_Великому_открытка.jpg?uselang=ru (accessed May 31, 2013).
At first the disassembled monument was held in the Arched Gallery of Riga’s Dome Cathedral. Later, following the war, it was moved to a ware-house of the Riga Office of Amenities. In 1977, the Riga City Executive Committee proposed to rebuild the monument, but this proposal was not acted upon. However, sometime in the 1980s, retired Soviet officer Stanislav Razumovskii reassembled it and deposited it in a military ware-house—without, however, Peter’s head, which Razumovskii entrusted to the Russian consulate as an especially valuable element of the sculpture. The head was reunited with the monument at a somewhat later date. A detailed account of the history of the monument is to be found in A. V. Gaponenko, ed., Pribaltiiskie russkie: istoriia v pamiatnikakh kul’tury (Riga: Institut evropeiskikh issledovanii, 2010), pp. 337–39.
Igor’ Vatolin, “Petru stoiat’. V Viesturdarzse,” Chas (Riga), April 25, 2003, www.chas.lv/win/2003/04/25/g_072.html (accessed August 18, 2011).
Restored monument to Peter I at the offices of Evgenii Gomberg’s firm Teikas Nami in 2009. Available online: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki /Файл:Памятник_Петру_Первому_в_Риге.JPG (accessed May 31, 2013).
See, for instance, the essay of historian Inesis Feldmanis “Latvijas okupācija: vēsturiskie un starptautiski tiesiskie aspekti” [The Occupation of Latvia: Aspects of History and International Law] on the official site of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One may note in this document a rather typical slippage between political and ethnonational terms— “Soviet’ is transformed into “Russian”: The secret protocol [of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact] did not directly change the status of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania under international law (they were relegated to the Soviet sphere of influence on 28 September 1939). The determination of spheres of interest did, however, demonstrate disrespect for the sovereignty of these states and placed their independence in doubt. The USSR gained from Germany a free hand in future “territorial and political rearrangements” in the Soviet sphere of influence. On 23 August 1939, both aggressive great powers agreed that “sphere of interest” signified the right to occupy and annex territories. The Soviet Union and Germany divided the spheres of interest on paper so that this “division could become a reality.” By referring repeatedly to a single resolution of the Polish or Baltic “problem,” the Germans and the Russians clearly insinuated their understanding of this resolution. Undoubtedly, without the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, it would not have been possible to completely occupy the Baltic States ten months later. It is also interesting to note that in the English translation of this document available on the site, this slippage has been eliminated: “By referring repeatedly to resolving “the problem’, be it the Polish or the Baltic problem, they insinuated clearly what lay behind such terms.” In addition, one must note that while the majority of content on the site is presented in three languages—Latvian, English, and Russian—there is no Russian version of this document. Inesis Feldmanis “Latvijas okupācija: vēsturiskie un starptautiski tiesiskie aspekti,” Latvijas Republikas Ārlietu ministrija, www.am1.gov.lv/lv /Arpolitika/latvijasvesture/okupacijas-aspekti/ (accessed September 11, 2012); Inesis Feldmanis, “The Occupation of Latvia: Aspects of History and International Law,” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, www.am1.gov.lv/en/policy/history/occupation-aspects/ (accessed September 11, 2012).
Concerning the city’s acceptance of the monument to Barclay de Tolly, see: Igor’ Vatolin, “Barklai pobedil! I biudzhet tozhe priniali,” Chas (Riga), December 18, 2002, www.chas-daily.com/win/2002/12/18/l_019.html?r=9 (accessed August 8, 2011); regarding the monument to Armistead, see: n. a., “Gombergs piedāvā jaunu projektu,” Diena (Riga), June 25, 2005, www.diena.lv/arhivs/gombergs-piedava-jaunu-projektu-12450947 (accessed August 25, 2011).
For examples of politicized press discussions surrounding the monument to Peter, see, for instance, Aleksandr Shunin, “ ‘Kak Petra pytalis’ ‘deportirovat’,’ da ne vyshlo,” Chas (Riga), August 20, 2001, www.chas.lv/win/2001/08/20/l_21.html?r=32 (accessed August 28, 2011); Reinis Kļavis, “Pēteris I var kļūt par nākamās domes mantojumu,” Diena (Riga), December 15, 2003, www.diena.lv/arhivs/peteris-i-var-klut-par-nakamas -domes-mantojumu-11866658 (accessed August 28, 2011); for a US journalistic account, see Kim Murphy, “His Former Kingdom for a Parking Spot,” Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2004, http://articles.latimes.com/2004 /jul/13/world/fg-peter13 (accessed August 28, 2011).
See Bruce Grant, The Captive and the Gift: Cultural Histories of Sovereignty in Russia and the Caucasus (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009).
See, for instance, the introduction to Nikolai Karamzin’s History of the Russian State, where the historiographer notes that “One need not be Russian—one must simply be capable of thought, in order to read with interest the history of a people who has with daring and bravery won mastery of a ninth of the world, discovered countries previously unknown to anyone, brought them into the common system of geography, history and enlightened them with the divine faith—and without violence, without those misdeed committed by other zealots of Christianity in Europe and America, but instead solely by means of a good example”; N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo, 5th ed., 12 vols. in 4 (St. Petersburg: Eduard prats, 1842–44; reprint, Moscow: Kniga, 1988), vol. 1, p. 2.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. by Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press: 1963), p. 51.
See: Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1978), pp. 24–25; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak,” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. by C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (Urbana and Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1988), pp. 271–313; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Righting Wrongs,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 103 (2004): 523–81.
Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
On the political culture of postcolonial Uganda, see Mikael Karlstro, “Imagining Democracy: Political Culture and Democratisation in Buganda,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 66 (1996): 485–505.
Vlad Filatov, “Kto vstal na p’edestal?,” Chas (Riga), December 14, 2001, www.chas.lv/win/2001/12/14/g_027.html?r=12 (accessed August 18, 2011).
For one late nineteenth-century example of Russian conceptions of the relationship between the ethnic Latvian population and the benevolent domination of the empire, see ethnographer Pavlov’s account of the Latvian people of January 1878, which credits the Russian Empire with the betterment and emancipation of the Latvian peasantry, formerly under the unfettered harsh rule of Baltic Germans: “In the course of six centuries of subjection to the power of the Germans, the Latvian people was forced to endure extraordinary degradations and calamities—more than may be smoothed over and forgotten even after long years of more congenial relations”; Pavlov, “Latyshi,” in Narody Rossii: Etonograficheskie ocherki, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1878), pp. 179–96 (p. 181).
Ernest Renan, “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?” in Oeuvres Completes, 10 vols. (Paris: Calmann-Lovy, 1947–61), 1: 887–906 (p. 892).
Ernst Bloch, “Nonsynchronism and the Obligation to Its Dialectics,” trans. by Mark Ritter, New German Critique, 11 (1977): 22–38 (p. 22).
Concerning the “orientalization” of Eastern Europe, see Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); regarding the Balkans: Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
See Yuri Andrukhovych, “Europe—My Neurosis,” Sight and Sound, March 23, 2006, www.signandsight.com/features/670.html (accessed September 12, 2012). Kundera’s longstanding project of distinguishing Prague from Moscow is well known, as is the increased difficulty of this project given accusations of the author’s complicity as a Soviet informer. One may note that Joseph Brodsky’s answer to Kundera demonstrated avant la lettre, that defense of the “imperial” value of the Russian cultural matrix is not automatically equivalent to a straightforward political identification with the Russian or Soviet powers that be. Brodsky’s complex cultural-political pose in some ways foreshadowed the position of many Russian intellectuals of contemporary Latvia; see Milan Kundera, “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” New York Review of Books, 31.7 (April 26, 1984), 33–38; Milan Kundera, “Die Weltliteratur,” New Yorker, January 8, 2007, 28–35; Joseph Brodsky, “Why Milan Kundera Is Wrong about Dostoyevsky,” New York Times Book Review, February 17, 1985, 31.
Aleksandr Etkind, “Fuko i tezis vnutrennei kolonizatsii: postkolonial’nyi vzgliad na sovetskoe proshloe,” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 49 (2001): 50–74.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Uilleam Blacker, Alexander Etkind, and Julie Fedor
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Platt, K.M.F. (2013). Occupation versus Colonization: Post-Soviet Latvia and the Provincialization of Europe. In: Blacker, U., Etkind, A., Fedor, J. (eds) Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322067_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322067_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45826-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32206-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)