Housden Martyn. Forgotten Pages in Baltic History: Diversity and Inclusion. (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics) (ENG)
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Rimantas Miknys and Darius Staliūnas
44
Notes
1. Buchowski, 2006, pp. 98–103; Bumblauskas, 2008, pp. 63–65.
2. Bumblauskas, 64.
3. At the beginning of the twentieth century „Historical Lithuania‟ was
associated with the then imperial Russian „North West Province‟ (Severo-
zapadnyy krai) covering the Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev and
Vitebsk gubernias.
4. Römer, 1908, 27; Römer, 1993, pp. 13–138; Römer, 1925, Herbaczewski,
1905, pp. 33, 61; Maliszewski, 1916, pp. 36–37; Kulakauskas, 1989, pp. 9–
24.
5. Bardach, 1988, p. 197.
6. Bardach, 1988, p. 200.
7. Kłoskowa, 1992, p. 8.
8. J.S.[?], 1906, pp. 13–14; Zawisza, 1907, pp. 12–14; Römer,1908, p. 27;
Baranowski, 1911, pp. 1–3.
9. Wł. Dw.[?], 1912, pp. 579–81; Kg. [Kazys Grinius], 1912; Maliszewski,
1918, pp. 4–7; Świechowski, 1917, pp. 44–45; B.H. [?],1915, pp. 46–47.
10. Obst, 1912, p. 31.
11. Kłoczowski, 2000, pp. 149–52.
12. Miknys, 1991, p. 178.
13. Głosy, 1915, p. 2.
14. Bohuszewicz, 1908, p. 18.
15. Staliūnas, 1996, pp. 150–70; Staliūnas, 1999, pp. 99–107.
16. Historians note that even after the 1863 Uprising among Conservatives
and Traditionalists, often called Loyalists it was noticed that the patriotism
promulgated from the Kingdom of Poland was a danger to Historic Lithuania
and so the view became entrenched that the interests of the Kingdom and the
empire‟s western gubernias differed clearly: Jurkowski, 2001, p. 76.
17. Meysztowicz, 1973, p. 117.
18. Korwin-Milewski, 1913, p. 31.
19. Futurus [Skirmunt], 1913; Futurus [Skirmunt], 1907.
20. Szpoper, 2009, p. 180.
21. Korwin-Milewski, 1993, 132, 147, 321, 335, 336; Weeks, 1999, pp. 347–
69.
22. Römer, M., Dziennik, vol. 3, Lietuvos mokslų akademijos biblioteka,
Rankraščių skyrius (henceforth LMAB; Manuscript division of the Library of
the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences), F.138 –2230, l.62, 66.
23. Maksimaitis, 1996, p. 190.
24. Quoted from: Sirutavičius, 1996, p. 272.
25. Herbaczewski, 1905, p. 11; Herbaczewski, 1907, p. 155.
26. Futurus [K. Skirmunt], 1907, p. 33.
27. Herbaczewski, 1905, 11; Sirutavičius, 1996, pp. 278–79.
The “Old” and “New” Lithuanians
45
28. Herbaczewski, 1905, pp. 18–19; Herbaczewski, 1907; Herbačevskis,
1919, p. 10; Sirutavičius, 1996, p. 283.
29. Futurus [K. Skirmunt], 1906, p. 8.
30. Ibid, p. 14.
31. Ibid, p. 7.
32. Herbaczewski, 1905, p. 29.
33. Skirmuntaitė, 1913.
34. Bičiūnas, 1933, p. 28. As J. Sawickis shows, in 1927 Römer referred to
himself in official documents as a Lithuanian pole (Polak litewski):
Sawicki,1998, p. 143
35. M. Römer, Dziennik, vol. 28, LMAB, F. 138–2254, l. 240.
36. K. Buchowski has shown that conservative-traditionalist krajowcy, who
sometimes referred to themselves as “Old Lithuanians”, used this term „to
stress thereby their connection with the Young Lithuanian Movement‟
(Buchowski, 2006, p. 98). Furthermore, he also acknowledges that
democratic krajowcy did not use this term and most identified themselves as
Lithuanian Poles and sought a modus vivendi when stressing the citizen
principle in relations between the country‟s nations, based on the search for
common political interests (ibidem, pp. 99–100).
37. Narutowicz, 1990, pp. 204–205. It should be noted that Otto Zawisza
spoke of the same prospects for Lithuanian Poles: Zawisza, 1907, pp. 12–14.
38. The fact that it proved difficult for them to fit into national Lithuania is
another matter.
39. The fact that in 1921 Michał Römer, the renowned Lithuanian public
figure and one of those who might be categorised as an „Old Lithuanian‟ tried
to organise an „Old Lithuanian‟ (Staro-Litwinów) club in Kaunas would
support this thesis. Landowners of ancient Lithuanian extraction featured on
the list of potential club members including Wacław Bielski, Czesław
Milwid, Stefan Billewicz, General Sylwester Żukowski (Silvestras
Ņukauskas), Dominik Dowgiełło, Jerzy Dowiat, Oskaras Milańius and others.
They did not wish to accept the unfavourable conditions developing for them
as persons of Polish culture and attempted to mark out a place for themselves
in the New Lithuania: Sawicki, 1998, p. 141.
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Regional Identity in Latvia:
The Case of Latgale
Andrejs Plakans
1. Identity and place
Europe is a continent of nation states and federations, but it is also a
continent of regions, some supra-national (e.g. Scandinavia) and others sub-
national (e.g. the Banat in Romania); some carefully demarcated and others
closer to what Benedict Anderson meant with his concept of “imagined
communities”.
1
How these variously defined regional entities produce in their
inhabitants a sense of personal and collective identity has been an intriguing
question for a long time, generating many different models not only of
“identity” itself but of how “place” is linked to it.
2
These three
matters―identity, place, belonging―were easier to think about in the distant
past, when Europeans tended to remain in or near their birthplaces and took
their sense of self from them. But a definitive understanding of the three
became more difficult when normal lives began to include long-distance
migration, return migration, and the crossing of many man-made boundary
lines. Identity became malleable and protean, referring not only place but to
language, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and other such hard-to-define
variables.
The history of Latvia and Latvians contains a chain of identity-
transforming processes that started in the early nineteenth century when serf-
emancipation led Latvians to cease thinking about themselves as peasant-
serfs (Ger. Leibeigene, Latv. Dzimtļaudis) “belonging” to a particular estate
owner and residing in a particular landed estate. These reforms now required
them to take on a new identity: subjects of the Tsar. The evolution of their
sense of self and of collective belonging became an important theme of their
subsequent history; significant socio-political changes enlarged the number
of identities to which they could lay claim and each passing generation
brought with it the possibility of identity shifts. The questions “Who am I?”
and “Who are we?” were never answered in quite the same way and with the
same conviction from one generation to the next, unlike in well-established
societies with fixed borders and stable national consciousnesses. Even after
the founding of the Republic of Latvia in 1918, the older tradition of
identifying oneself more with a region, a status group, or religion than with
the national state remained alive among many of the republic‟s citizens.
Furthermore, a close reading of the historical record will suggest that in this
respect categorical and one-dimensional self-definition was less widespread
than ambiguity at both the individual or collective level. Gradations of
identification were much more likely, and they ranged from complete
commitment to complete indifference regardless of the entity of which one
thought oneself a part.
Andrejs Plakans
50
The present essay deals with these broad themes―place, identity,
belonging―in the recent history of Latvia and Latvians but focuses on one
aspect of them: regional thinking as it relates to the county‟s eastern-most
region now called Latgale. In 1917, Latgale decided to join a unified Latvia
and in 1918 became the “third star” in Latvia‟s national symbolism together
with the old “Baltic provinces” of Kurzeme (Courland) and southern
Vidzeme (southern Livland). Some residents of this eastern territory,
however, did not totally embrace the inclusion of Latgale in the Republic,
and some insisted on having written guarantees. Ever since 1918 a portion of
the Latgalian intelligentsia has continued to articulate grievances about their
native region‟s treatment by the Latvian state. This dissatisfaction, expressed
in different ways at different times and against different regimes, has
remained barely discernible to external observers unfamiliar with Latvian-
language publications. Moreover, most Latvian political leaders, planners,
and administrators from 1918 onward have believed the Latvian national
state to be a fait accompli and its internal policies a true expression of the
will of the state‟s population, speaking either through the electoral process,
the voice of an authoritarian leader, or the dictates of the Communist Party.
The temptation to minimize internal disputes and dismiss regional
dissatisfaction has therefore been strong and often overwhelming. The post-
Soviet years, however, brought a new energy to regional thinking in Latvia,
particularly in relation to economic development. Yet the recent entry of
Latvia into the European Union in 2004 was again a mixed blessing for
champions of Latvia‟s regions. On the one hand, the EU‟s policies have been
increasingly solicitous and protective toward the regions of national states,
“indigenous” peoples, and minorities of various definitions, and have
promoted investment in the development of sub-national areas. On the other,
the EU‟s encouragement of free movement of labour across national
boundaries has created a persistent drain of regionally defined sub-
populations in many states, including Latvia, as people have sought better
economic opportunities elsewhere and thus have willingly entered life
situations that threaten assimilation and dilute personal identification with
one‟s region of birth.
Is a region‟s loss of identity inevitable as population loss continues?
Resistance to such an outcome can be felt in the realm of culture, as
suggested by the recently reported demand by the Second Congress of
Latgalistics in Riga (2009) that written Latgalian be granted the status of a
“regional language”. And this may also have to be the interpretation placed
on two other reports: one, entitled “„Trench Warfare‟ about the Latgalian
written language”; and another the claim, made by the Centre for Traditional
Latgalian Culture in February 2010, that the post-1991 Latvian government
failed to meet the requirement in the Language Law of 1999 that it protect the
“Latgalian language”.
3
To those familiar with the history of Latvia‟s first
period of independence, such headline-producing charges seem a throwback
Regional Identity in Latvia
51
to 1917 when disgruntled Latgalian activists feared the loss of their
traditional way of writing and speaking if Latgale were to join the “Balts”
(i.e. Latvians-speakers in Livland and Courland) within in a single-state
framework. These current headlines also give the first impression―which
needs to be tested against evidence―that in present-day Latvia the “language
question” is not reducible solely to the Lettophone-Russophone controversies
that have been at the centre of the language debate within the country for a
long time.
4
How aspects of the language question came to be intertwined with
aspects of the regional question and both of these with aspects of the identity
question seems a puzzle worth unraveling.
2. Regions and identities around 1900: Courland, Livland, and Latgale
Regional concerns have played a significant role in Latvian political and
cultural history ever since the nineteenth century. When in the 1850s a handful
of Latvian intellectuals began to articulate a philosophy of nationhood, they
were confronted with the hard fact that the Latvian-speakers of the Russian
Baltic provinces and adjoining areas had not thought of themselves as a single
collectivity―let along a nation (Latv. tauta)―for many generations, if ever;
and therefore diluting the cultural importance of provincial boundaries in
popular thinking became a major task. A bit later in time, at the proclamation
of the Latvian national state in 1918, its architects had to make decisions about
dividing the new country into regions for the purpose of effective
administration. Viewed solely from the political and administrative angle,
however, regions by themselves do not provide a sufficient understanding of
how wrenching the supersession of regional identity can be to people strongly
attached to place. Strong feelings may linger even when a population can
choose a more inclusive identity, rendering the coherence of the state and a
national culture problematic. Among Latvians, national integration has never
been inevitable, and the country‟s relatively small size has not been able to
counteract the complications created by its fragmented history.
Among Latvia‟s regions, Latgale has always evoked special concerns.
Accounts of how the Latvians living in the two Russian Baltic provinces of
Livland and Courland developed complementary cultural-political attitudes
during the second half of the nineteenth century suggest a process of
attitudinal integration that, if not wholly unproblematic, was nonetheless
comparatively successful. Cleavages on the “national question” in the Latvian
population around the year 1900 were not so much along Livland-Courland
provincial lines as along ideological ones: by the 1890s, Marxism had made
headway among the Latvian population, a strong social-democratic party had
been founded in 1904, and its discourse emphasized class division. In the
wide-ranging, pre-1900 public discussions about the future of the Latvian
tauta, however, Latgale remained something of a conundrum, decidedly an
outlier. Indeed, the term “Latgale” itself gained currency only after 1900.
Before that date, “Polish Livland” or “Inflanty” were more frequently used in
Andrejs Plakans
52
Latvian and Baltic German writings. Latgale consisted of three districts
(Daugavpils, Rēzekne, and Ludza) of the Vitebsk gubernnia (province)
adjoining Livland and Courland to the East. The population of these districts
in 1897 was not negligible: about 501,000 persons, as compared to about
674,000 in Courland and about 753,000 in Livland. Accounts in Latvian-
language newspapers reported that a large proportion of the population of
these districts spoke what sounded like a “dialect” of the Latvian spoken in
Livland and Courland. In line with their language-centered nationalist
ideology, most western activists opined that this “branch” of the tauta should
be included in all discussions about the future of Latvians as a whole.
Nationally oriented activists in Latgale agreed, hoping to initiate a “national
awakening” in their constituencies, and continued the self-assigned task of
persuading the population of Latgale to think of themselves as part of a larger
Latvian tauta, i.e. to re-orient their sense of collective identity.
Latgalian activists were in fact replicating later in time the efforts that
by 1900 had already engaged the “western” Latvians of Courland and
southern Livland for almost a half century. As increasing numbers of
ambitious Latvian-speakers in the Baltic provinces left behind their rural
origins and entered the largely German-speaking urban social environment,
many of them “germanized” (Latv. pārvācojās). The “national awakeners”
among them, however, wanted to ensure that upward socio-economic
mobility among persons of Latvian origin would not diminish the numbers of
the tauta and thus worked to arouse among Latvian-speakers a sense of
Latvian nationality (Latv. tautība) and the desire for membership in it. In
other words, they wanted to change in their audience both the sense of self
and the sense of group identity. An important symbolic act was the use by the
accomplished activist Krišjānis Valdemārs of the nationality designator
“Latvian” on his calling card. The basis of a visible collective identity was to
be expanded through the creation of a broad range of cultural activities that
used the Latvian language and were managed by Latvians themselves:
newspapers, cultural organisations, singing festivals, primary schools, and a
written literature. This cultural superstructure was necessary to persuade
Latvians that they did not need to change their national identity as they
entered adulthood, became more educated, and entered urban-based
occupations. Yet perceptive members of the Latvian intelligentsia continued
to complain, even until 1918, about drainage from the tauta caused by
assimilation, which meant that although Latvian culture-building efforts had
succeeded, the process of de-nationalisation had not ceased entirely. In any
event, few Latgalians were included in the Latvian-language cultural
superstructure that was a significant element in the life of the Baltic
provinces by 1900. The fact that the two “awakenings” did not correlate
temporally saddled the Latgalian population with the burden of being
perceived as “backward.” Not only did their speech sound suspicious to
western Latvian ears, but public elementary schools in the Latgale districts
Regional Identity in Latvia
53
were scarce and the level of literacy much lower than in either Courland or
Livland, in spite of a strong tradition in Latgale of home schooling.
5
Public discussions about these matters in the second half of the
nineteenth century, of course, did not use the relatively modern concept of
identity (Latv. identitāte) but relied on the older terminology drawn from
early nineteenth-century German thought (most importantly, J.G. Herder and
J.G. Fichte). These ideas were centered on the concept of Volk (Latv. tauta;
Engl. a people, a nation). Among Latvian intellectuals, as elsewhere, the
tauta was reified: it had a soul or spirit (Latv. gars, dvēsele) that expressed
itself in language, historical patterns, “low” and “high” culture, folklore, and
customs. The tauta was a reality regardless of the attitudes of its individual
members; moreover, all human beings had such membership (Latv. tautība),
and could be classified into one or another of the tauta(s) comprising the
population of Latvian-speaking territory. A modern reading of these
discussions and a re-casting them in terms of nationality, ethnos, ethnicity,
ethnic identity and the like de-emphasises the compulsion inherent in the
nineteenth century conceptualisations and brings to the fore the element of
agency. The modern usage of the concept of identity implies much greater
personal freedom and choice: one “constructs” an ethnic identity and
“chooses” a collectivity for oneself; people are always “actors” and the
essentialism implied by the earlier terms is laid aside.
Shifting to the modern terminology, we can say that by stressing the
centrality of the tauta the nineteenth century national awakeners among the
western Latvians hoped to persuade the rural population of the Russian Baltic
provinces to forget other sources of personal identity (place, occupation,
economic standing, religion) and to think of themselves as more than
peasants (Latv. zemnieki), more than “non-Germans” (Ger. Undeutsch) as the
medieval Livonian Confederation documents described them, and more than
Livlanders (Latv. vidzemnieki) and Courlanders (Latv. kurzemnieki). By
realizing and accepting their “Latvianness,” the Latvian-speakers of the
Baltic provinces would acquire a collective identity, and, as individuals,
would draw from this new collective identity their sense of self, a personal
identity. By the early decades of the twentieth century much of the work of
fashioning (or constructing) a consciousness had succeeded but was by no
means completed. Even so, some ten percent of the Latvian-speaking
population of the Russian Empire lived dispersed throughout other provinces,
and their sense of identity was decidedly problematic. Though in the first
decade of the twentieth century the Latgale activists had declared themselves
(and their immediate audience) part of the Latvian tauta, such a declaration
was not based on any hard evidence (other than the activists‟ personal
observations) about what this audience actually thought collectively or
individually. In fact, Latgalian activists in the period 1900–18 were
themselves few (though their numbers were growing) and many if not most
lived and worked outside Latgale territory, primarily in St. Petersburg.