0000000000175267
AUTHOR
Benedikts Kalnačs
showing 6 related works from this author
20th-century Baltic drama: comparative paradigms
2014
The paper pays attention to the issues of commensurability in the development of 20th-century Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian literatures. It focuses upon thematic and aesthetic patterns of Baltic drama during this time period which is further subdivided into two parts, the first and the second half of the 20th century. The discussion about the genesis of Baltic drama during the late 19th, early 20th century is followed by an analysis of the impact of the nation states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania upon the institutionalization and development of drama and theatre during the 1920s and 1930s. Special attention is then paid to the notion of socialist realism as the ideological tool of So…
Rūdolfs Blaumanis, the Dreyfus Affair and the Anglo-Boer War: Colonial difference and identity construction infin-de-siècleLatvian society
2017
This article offers an insight into the social and cultural scene in Latvia at the end of the nineteenth century. The territory of this Baltic state was then still part of the Russian Empire, divided among several of its provinces. However, this was also a period when the cultural aspirations of the rising Latvian middle class were represented by the gradual attempts to raise the self-esteem of the entire local population. The article focuses on the role that Latvian writer Rūdolfs Blaumanis (1863–1908) played in encouraging Latvians to understand themselves as a self-confident people during the fin-de-siècle period. The first part examines articles published by Blaumanis in the Latvian pre…
Comparing colonial differences: Baltic literary cultures as agencies of Europe’s internal others
2016
ABSTRACTThe article discusses the Baltic colonial experience in historical and comparative perspective. It sketches the ways in which Baltic societies are best linked to theoretical discussions on postcolonial issues, and whether they might be looked upon in a more global context. The main question posed by the article is in what ways Baltic identity has been determined by processes of foreign settlement, occupation and colonization of the territory of each respective country and whether we can see Baltic societies as potential agencies of Europe’s internal others.
The Blaumanis Moment: National Literature Enters the Stage of Art
2012
My aim in this article is to discuss the literary field in Latvia slightly before 1900. More specifically, I want to focus on the particular situation when literature written in the Latvian language ceases to be a product of didactic intention and moralizing value, and makes the crucial step in recognizing its rights to submerge into primarily aesthetic issues. It is also the moment when the personality of the author cuts through the still mostly realistic surface of literary works, making him (or her) be perceived as unmistakably present, even if this move often remains unnoticed by most contemporary and even later observers.1 The author who in my article represents this departure, which u…
Latvian Writers’ Strategies of Resistance during De-Stalinisation: The Case of Gunārs Priede
2017
This paper traces developments in the Soviet Latvian literary scene between the late 1950s and early 1970s. The first part examines aspects of social organisation as demonstrated by the daily routines of so-called creative unions characteristic for the overall pattern of the way in which social mechanisms worked under Soviet rule, even if there were constant attempts to overcome the limits set to expression by the communist system. The second part provides a case study of the biography and creative work of Latvian playwright Gunārs Priede 1928–2000, a leading representative of the young generation of authors of that period. The paper not only points towards the parallels in social and aesth…
Latvian Multiculturalism, Postcolonialism, and World Literature
2020
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the complexity of the self-consciousness of the inhabitants of contemporary Latvia from a postcolonial perspective. This approach demonstrates how the experience of a small nation helps to reveal the common roots of Europe and to build both theoretical and practical bridges between different societies and their members. It also contextualizes the relation of so-called small literatures to the global literary field. The highly acclaimed novel of contemporary Latvian author, Inga Ābele, Klūgu mūks (2014), about the life and work of the Catholic priest and politician Francis Trasuns, provides the focus of attention and serves as the background for a case s…