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Social and National Currents in Latvia, 1860-1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Stanley W. Page
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Extract

The 1860s ushered a new era into Imperial Russia. In the Baltic Provinces, however, the development of capital and industry by far surpassed the progress made in Russia proper. Among the Lettish people, three major sociological trends can be said to have begun about this time. These were (1) the rising from the peasantry of a rural bourgeoisie; (2) the flow of peasants into the cities and their consequent forming into a Lettish urban bourgeoisie and a Lettish urban proletariat; and (3) a cultural and national awakening which, based on almost universal literacy, spread rapidly among the masses.

The cultural awakening was pioneered by a group of Lettish intellectuals among whom were men of letters, such as Christian Valdemar, Andreis Spagis, and K. Baron.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 1949 , pp. 25 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1949

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References

1 Raissner, M. A., Esti i Latyši (Moscow, 1916), pp. 192, 211 Google Scholar. Valdemar was the first Lett to print calling cards designating him as such. For the 1850s this was quite an audacity, since hitherto any educated person of Lettish origins had been considered either a German or a Russian.

2 Ibid., p. 211. Earlier papers had appeared in the Lettish language, but these had been published by Germans.

3 See Schmidt, P., Die Letten (Riga,1930)Google Scholar. This German translation of a scholarly volume consists of a series of essays—historical, philological, cultural, etc.—by professors of the University of Latvia. It contains a detailed and impressive enumeration of works and authors of the period 1870-1914.

4 Raissner, , op. cit., p. 251.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 178.

6 Ibid., p. 216.

7 Martov, L., Maslov, P., Potresov, A., Obščestvennoe dviženie v Rossii v načale XXgo veka (St. Petersburg, 1909), 1, 271 Google Scholar.

8 After a Lettish poet partiot.

9 Schlesinger, M. L., Russlamd im XX Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1908), pp. 142-45Google Scholar.

10 Martov, et al., op. cit., III, 271.Google Scholar

11 Ames, O., The Revolution in the Baltic Provinces of Russia (London, 1907), p. 12 Google Scholar.

12 That the anti-German revolutionary motif was economic rather than national in spirit is shown by the close associations then existing between Lettish Social Democrats and German workers who came into the Baltic towns in the 1890s. The latter brought along as their gospel the German socialist doctrine as expounded by Kautsky, Bebel,et al. Ames, op. cit., p. 5.

13 Janson, I., “Latvija v pervoj polovine 1905 goda,” Proletarskaja Revoljucija (1922), XII, 3–53.Google Scholar

14 Martov, et al., op. cit., III, 272.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 273.

16 Ibid., p. 276.

17 Ibid pp. 277, 278.

18 Stuchka, P., “Iz prošlogo Kommunističeskoj Partii Latvii,” Proletarskaja Revoljucij., XII (1922), 55, 56.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 59.

20 Levin, A., The Second Duma (New Haven, 1940), pp. 307-49Google Scholar.

21 Vernadsky, G., Lenin, Red Dictator (New Haven, 1931), p. 89 Google Scholar; History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) (New York, 1939), p. 90.

22 Miške, V., “Podgotovka Oktjabra v Latvii,” Proletarskaja Revoljucija (1928), 38.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 50.

24 Vulliamy, G. E., The Red Archives(London, 1929), p.209 Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that even in December, 1916, Riga was described by Generals Brusilov and Ruszky, commanders in chief of separate fronts, as a “center of revolutionary propaganda.” Also in 1916, there were cases of mutiny in the Seventh Siberian Army Corps then stationed in the Riga area. See A. M. Nikolaieff, “The February Revolution and the Russian Army,” Russian Review (Autumn, 1946).

25 Walters, M., Lettland (Rome, 1923), p. 332 Google Scholar.

26 Graham, M. W., The Diplomatic Recognition of the Border States, Part III, “Latvia” (Los Angeles, 1941), p. 400 Google Scholar.

27 Walters, , op. cit., pp. 331, 335.Google Scholar

28 Miške, , op. cit., pp. 38, 39.Google Scholar

29 Walters, , op. cit., p. 333.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., pp. 334, 345.

31 Bilmanis, A., Latvian-Russian Relations; Documents (Washington, 1944), p. 39.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 40.

33 Walters, , op. cit., p. 340.Google Scholar

34 Bilmanis, , op. cit., p. 42.Google Scholar

35 Walters, , op. cit., pp. 339, 340.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 341.

37 Idem.

38 Izvesti., January 20, 1918; also Grimm, C., Jahre deutscher Entscheidung im Baltikum, 1918-1919 (Essen, 1939), p. 44 Google Scholar.

39 See Page, S., “Lenin, the National Question and the Baltic States, 1917—19,” American Slavic and East European Review, VII, No. 1 (February, 1948), pp. 15–31.Google Scholar

40 Grimm, , op. cit., p. 48.Google Scholar

41 Vernadsky, , op. cit., p. 233.Google Scholar

42 Grimm, , op. cit., p. 49 Google Scholar; see also White, D. Fedotoff, The Growth of the Red Army (Princeton, 1944), pp. 18, 25–28.Google Scholar

43 Stuchka, P., Pjat’ mesjacev socialističeskoj Sovetskoj Latvija (Moscow, 1919), Part I, pp. 12, 13 Google Scholar.

43 Stuchka, P., Pjat’ mesjacev socialističeskoj Sovetskoj Latvija (Moscow, 1919), Part I, pp. 12, 13 Google Scholar.