Another Baltic Postcolonialism: Young Latvians, Baltic Germans, and the emergence of Latvian National Movement

Abstract

This article looks at the emergence of Latvian nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century from the intercultural perspective of postcolonial theory. The writings of early Young Latvians, and the reaction to them from the dominant Baltic German elite, show that the emergence of a modern Latvian nationalism is to a large extent due to postcolonial mimicry, as described by Homi Bhabha. Attempts to imitate German cultural models and to develop a Latvian high culture lead to hostile reactions from the German side, which, in their turn, lead to increasing consolidation of Latvian nationalism. Since the Baltic German elite increasingly legitimized its rule in terms of cultural superiority, the Young Latvians' alliance with the Russian Slavophiles led it to treat the Latvian nationalists as culturally inferior and partly Asiatic, like the Russians.

Keywords:

• Nationalism
• Young Latvians
• Baltic Germans
• nineteenth century
• Postcolonialism

Notes

1. The notion Young Latvians itself does not have clear borders. It is generally used to refer to the activists of the first Latvian awakening (Plakans 2008, 129–130), sometimes including such diverse people as pro-German Ansis Leitāns and Juris Neikens, as well as Latvian romantic nationalists – Atis Kronvalds, Auseklis, and Andrejs Pumpurs. In this article, the notion of Young Latvians will refer to the smaller group to which it was originally attributed – to the group of Dorpat University students, who eventually founded Pēterburgas Avīzes.

2. Herder himself lived in Riga in his youth and was interested in the Baltic peasant cultures. On the role of his legacy in the context of Baltic enlightenment and the emergence of the “Latvian question”, see Stavenhagen (1925).

3. In the 1840s, in accordance with imperial minister Uvarov's doctrine of “orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality”, peasant conversion into orthodoxy was promoted in Livland. Expecting from this conversion an improvement in their material conditions, some portion of peasants responded to it (Švābe 1958, 204–216).