A New History of Latvian Literature

Reconsidering Principles of Literary History Writing

In recent decades, a remarkable revitalization has been taking place in the discipline of literary history.¹ Following a prolonged period of crisis in the second half of the twentieth century, literary history writing has gained new momentum and inspiration through an interplay of several interconnected factors: the postmodern era created new types of literary histories, organized in the form of a collage of many-faceted interpretations from scholars of various research fields;² the discipline benefited from the strengthening of the ties between literary history and literary theory;³ the late twentieth-century political transformations contributed to the relevance of social and historical contexts, providing a new stimulus for literary history writing;⁴ the rise of regional literary histories has ←9 | 10→mirrored the growing importance of diversity at the core of society;⁵ an emphasis on these entangled histories has further stimulated the recognition of the importance of social interaction and cultural transfer.⁶

Taking into account these recent trends, in this volume we opt to provide an analysis of the social structure of nineteenth-century Latvian literary culture that looks beyond the traditional confines of national literary histories, bringing into focus the close interaction among different ethnic communities in the region and their cultural creativity from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. We are seeking to pluralize literary history studies by looking for novel insights into Latvian literature and contributing to the research of East-Central European literary cultures more generally. To complete this task, scholars from diverse but related research fields (literature, history, art history, and folklore studies) scan the nineteenth-century cultural scene from various intersecting perspectives, taking into account important links between literature, oral culture and visual art, changes in reading practices, periodicals, and the book market as well as the complex interactions between social transformations and aesthetic developments. Nineteenth-century Latvian literature is looked upon as an important laboratory of various ideas that provide a melting pot for new, at times contradictory, but sustainable trends that later had a substantial impact on the cultural scene.

Latvian Culture and Society in a Comparative Perspective

Our study covers the long nineteenth century as a decisive period in national identity-building as well as a time of important expanding ties among different ethnic and religious communities in the Baltic provinces or, in other words, the so-called Western borderlands of the Russian Empire.

From the late eighteenth century, the whole territory of modern-day Latvia became part of the Russian Empire which had gradually acquired the provinces of Livonia (the northern part, Vidzeme, or Livland, in 1721; the south-eastern ←10 | 11→part, Latgale, in 1772⁷) and Courland (Kurzeme, in 1795). These territories had been conquered and Christianized in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and had an established upper class of Baltic Germans (and Poles in Latgale). Within the Russian Empire, the privileges of Baltic Germans were largely preserved due to the special status of the Baltic provinces granted by Tsar Peter I (1672–1725). The abolition of serfdom in Courland (in 1817) and Livland (in 1819) did not mean an immediate radical change, as long as the local aristocracy retained ownership of the land. However, during the long nineteenth century considerable social mobility of the local people took place. It also had an ethnic dimension and contributed to the process of nation-building through the rise of Latvian secular and elite culture, which we trace in this book.

In order to provide an adequate interpretation of nineteenth-century transformations, our main emphasis is on the social history of literature. Thus we intend to unveil the inner logic and the complex set of reasons that had an impact on the nineteenth-century public and cultural sphere. Characteristically, during this period for the first time in history the Latvians commenced participation in literary activities alongside the Baltic German upper class. This shift is best described in terms of obtaining agency as readers and authors that gradually led to rearranging the previously established hierarchy in literary communication. At the same time, writing in the Latvian language took place alongside the efforts of Baltic German authors, in both cases an important source of inspiration being German elite culture. Out of this connection, there arose a vital and intriguing atmosphere of mutual interplay and internal competition.

By focusing on the tensions between the outgoing trends of the Enlightenment (especially the so-called Popular Enlightenment, or Volksaufklärung, that takes into consideration the lower social classes), the growing undercurrent of political and aesthetic aspirations mounting in romantic nationalism as well as the later advance of realism, naturalism, and modernism, we elaborate a multi-faceted perspective on the literary and cultural specificity of the nineteenth century. Important aspects of this study are linked to the intersections of literature and politics, and literary and art history, and to the role of folklore-collecting as a source for the development of culture and creative inspiration. The proposed ←11 | 12→analysis of the interaction of the different levels of social structures and their links to aesthetic transformations is instrumental in providing a new interpretation of nineteenth-century Latvian literary culture in a comparative perspective.

The main aim of the German Popular Enlightenment is to spread ideas of the Enlightenment among the peasantry, carefully measuring the needs of this particular class of society. Taking into account the different situation in Livland and Courland, where the main issues in the early nineteenth century were, first, the abolition of serfdom, and later its social and psychological consequences, the main role was taken by the representatives of the liberal wing of the Baltic Enlightenment. Instead of the consensual approach characteristic of the German Popular Enlightenment, in the Baltic provinces the principal task is that of educating local peasants and guiding their way to spiritual adulthood. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century this approach stimulates the creation of moral short prose, secular poetry, and didactic drama that intend to portray an idyllic rural life and to elaborate the idealized figure of an emancipated model peasant, or the so-called Musterbauer. This is not a utopian ideal and has its roots in reality, however, the intended side effect of this communicative process, ←12 | 13→at least partially, is the relationship established between writer and reader as that between teacher and his pupil. Nevertheless, the didactic aspects of literary production are not overwhelming, and enough space remains for potentially centripetal developments. Thus, alongside fables and moral stories that categorize good and bad characters, there also appear forms of Anacreontic and subjective lyrics, student songs, popular fiction, considered valuable within the context of the main aim of civilizing peasants.⁸ The close link between sentimentalism and rationalism is preserved through the less outspoken but still inherently didactic intent. Important publications that fit into this pattern are Karl Gotthard Elverfeld’s (1756–1819) Līgsmības grāmata (Book of joy, 1804), Alexander Johann Stender’s (1744–1819) Dziesmas, stāstu dziesmas, pasakas (Songs, ballads, and fairy tales, 1805), and the almost simultaneous but posthumously published collection by Christoph Reinhold Girgensohn (1752–1814), Stāsti, pasakas, dziesmas un mīklas (Stories, fairy tales, songs, and riddles, 1823). At the same time, literary contributions by pedagogical philanthropists, closely linked to the Popular Enlightenment, are widely translated.⁹ The intensification of the literary process is also significantly influenced by the activities of the radical fraction of the Baltic Enlightenment, such as the German language publications by Garlieb Helwig Merkel (1769–1850) that call for a principal change of attitude with regard to the conditions of peasant life, including a serious improvement in the education of socially lower classes.

As an alternative to Enlightenment literature, an underground trend of unpublished handwritten texts develops, the authors being members of the Herrnhuterian brotherhood that had established strong roots in Livland already in the eighteenth century. Created by ethnic Latvians, these texts, besides their ethnic differences, also mark a contrast between official and unofficial culture. Whereas the Enlightenment rationalists approach daily existence as a ‘paradise on earth,’ the Herrnhuterians, being oriented toward life beyond the grave, from their pietistic perspective look at the world as a ‘vale of tears.’ In accordance with their preferences, the Herrnhuterians are eager to write sermons and religious ←13 | 14→poetry, also developing various biographical genres and historical overviews. Already at the turn of the nineteenth century handwritten translations of religious texts by John Bunyan (1628–1688), and others were circulating among this peasant community. In addition, the Latvian translation of Friedrich Schiller’s (1759–1805) Die Räuber (The Robbers) in 1818 suggested the inherent potential of social protest among the lower classes.