Spaces of ‘national indifference’ in biographical research on citizens of the Baltic republics 1918–1940

ABSTRACT

In her influential article, Tara Zahra works to develop a new style of historical analysis that functions without presupposed national or other identities. However, it is difficult to integrate her concept of ‘national indifference’ into a practical program of research. The present article argues that this can be achieved by a broader usage of the term. First, instead of excluding national and ethnic affiliations from research altogether, it stresses what functions they fulfill in individual lives. Second, it argues that nationality has a meaning in some contexts, while it is unimportant in others. Therefore, the concept ‘spaces of national indifference’ is developed. This concept is exemplified by discussing the biography of the Baltic German banker Klaus Scheel in interwar Estonia.

KEYWORDS:

• Baltic Germans
• national indifference
• Klaus Scheel
• history of banking
• Estonia
• biographical research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Norbert Angermann claims that there was an ‘ethnic hierarchy’ and a process of ‘Germanification’ (Eindeutschung), yet he makes clear himself that in the eighteenth century, Estonians and Latvians were sometimes called ‘Germans’ without actually speaking the language.

2. This approach was developed in feminist theory that criticized essentialistic gender roles that were taken as fixed constants (cp. Dausien and Kelle 2005, 207).

3. Between 1920 and 1922, almost 420 tons of gold were transferred through Estonia. In these years, Tallinn was the center of Russian valuta transactions (Valge 1994, 182–183).

4. In 1925, in an interpellation, the Estonian Social Democratic Party estimated that the bank Georg Scheel & Co earned 3–4 billion Estonian Marks in this trade (Sotsialistid 1925).

5. Throughout his career in Estonia, there were also rumors about an allegedly Jewish background. In fact, while such rumors were exploited by the National Socialist propaganda as well as in Baltic German denunciatory letters up to 1940, even the National Socialists ruled this possibility out after Scheel had documented his ‘arian’ background. Nevertheless, the rumors are still taken for granted in some publications on Scheel, for instance, Erelt (2003).

6. Harry Koch to Werner Hasselblatt. BArch 31.01/19658. 10 October 1931.

7. Dr. E. Munzer: Die Lage des Bankhauses G. Scheel & Co. A. G. in Reval (Estland). BArch 09.01/45366. Mitte März 1934.

8. Klaus Scheel: Denkschrift betreffend die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen dem Deutschen Reich und dem Baltikum. BArch 09.01/66291. 7 November 1933.

9. Deutsche Gesandtschaft für Estland an das Auswärtige Amt 1932, BArch 31.01/19658. 12 January 1932, 2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Feest

David Feest is a research staff member at the Nordost-Institute of the Hamburg University. He received his PhD from Georg-August-University, Göttingen, in 2003 for a thesis on “The Sovietzation of the Estonian Countryside, 1944–1953”. Since then he has been working as coordinator of the collaborative research center “Representations of Social Orders” (SFB 640) at Humboldt-University, Berlin (2004-2007), as assistant professor at the chair for Eastern European History at the Georg-August-University Göttingen (2007–2012) and as project coordinator and research staff member at the memorial Berlin-Hohenschönhausen (2012–2013). He is specialized on the history of the Baltic region and the Soviet Union. His publications include: Zwangskollektivierung im Baltikum. Die Sowjetisierung des Estnischen Dorfes 1944–1953, Köln/Wien: Böhlau 2007; and Imperiale Herrschaft in der Provinz. Repräsentationen politischer Macht im späten Zarenreich (co-edited with Jörg Baberowski and Christoph Gumb), Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2008.