“Soviet Culture and the Collapse of Soviet Modernization”

For Ambersun, et al.

/P, deformed

I was not aware that the Soviet film makers used Baltic actors to mostly portray Nazis or CIA agents. If the populace watched enough of these films and recognized the actors as coming from the Baltic countries, small wonder they later connected the Baltics with Fascism.
I liked the author’s musing about:  “...what Russia may have become in a modern culture had it not been subject to a social and political catastrophe”.
A catastrophe it was but fortunately both Lenin and Stalin appreciated great art and did not destroy their treasures. 
Good article.  Thanks, Peteri.

What fun to read something so unashamedly pretentious and unintentionally funny.  The cosmopolitan Donskis constantly drops names and wants everyone to recognize how worldly and knowledgeable he is. In the end what were his conclusions? Soviet culture through all the contradictions, strove to create ‘socialism with a human face’? He makes it sound very warm and cozy. Why such apology for a brutal, stupid system? What’s the point of creating nostalgia for it? What’s to be gained but continuing that leftist fantasy?  I can only wonder what appeal this has to Peteris.

I’m not sure Donskis is trying to create nostalgia for the Soviet system in the article. The way I read it is that the Soviet effort to create modernism with a human face failed and the longing the Russians felt for some semblance of humanity is what created their nostalgia.
That’s the way I read it.

Ambersun has eliminated gray from her color palate - a shame given how extensively gray is used in Lithuanian political/philosophical writing.

Ambersun misreads badly because she has no point of reference. Donskis could never be accused of being nostalgic for the soviet system or its culture.

Ambersun is a failure in the Baltic context. Sorry, make that the “Baltic” context.

Donskis isn’t part of the Trimda so Ambersun no habla.

Labas rytas, Vidai!

It must be, as some have said, that the entire occupation was a black hole. No one should ever hum a tune composed in that period, all of the paintings and films should be tossed out, and we should resign ourselves to the one true Latvia existing only in exile, which exile strangely continues two decades after independence was restored, what with the “occupants” still disturbing Ambersun’s sleep.

Geriausio,
/P

It must be, as some have said, that the entire occupation was a black hole.

Yet Ambersun proudly entered into the darkness - seemingly without angst from the Trimda.

Or maybe there was angst. She won’t say.

No one should ever hum a tune composed in that period, all of the paintings and films should be tossed out, and we should resign ourselves to the one true Latvia existing only in exile, which exile strangely continues two decades after independence was restored, what with the “occupants” still disturbing Ambersun’s sleep.

Ambersun is incapable of sleep.

Film was a particularly successful medium where the conflicts of soviet life were presented - if one could read between the lines. I remember the very successful film “Velnio Nuotaka”...The humor magazine “Šluota”

These were critically important snapshots of life otherwise difficult to understand from a distance.

Ambersun doesn’t understand any of this, not because she’s separated from the reality by distance - but because she has no connection to Latvia or the Baltics. Her primary advocate, via a Book (chorus of angels - genuflect) isn’t even Latvian.

The black hole of the occupation

Paldies, Aleks, par pēdējo! 

The continuing saga (i.e., episodes 2 through 8 of the 1967 film) concerning the fate of Jūlijs (aka Cēzars: note sub-text!!) - the telephone repairman cum pop song writer – is also worth viewing on YouTube.  A cameo appearance of Imants Kalniņš in his youth occurs in the 2nd or 3rd episode.  I suppose someone knowledgeable about that time could comment whether it is especially significant that the film’s hero shares a surname with IK. 

(Btw, one of the better lines of the film…. From one of the ensemble’s producers, who toward the end is scrambling to save a song from the party’s chopping block - :  “jēga vajaga piedziedāt zemtekstā”.  Rough translation: “the meaning needs to be conveyed between the lines - but only in the refrain of the song.” :)))  Personally, I thought that was a riot - in a black humor type of way! But, also brilliant.  You can’t risk having a song’s verses/narrative exhibit a sub-text;  best to leave that for the refrain that’s repeated throughout the song.)

Visu labu,

E.

Very well written and interesting Essay. Thanks for the link. About the use of Baltic actors as “Westerners” (and Riga and Tallinn as Berlin-or Paris-style filming locations), I think it happened not all with the worst intentions. Not long ago, I talked to a Russian writer. As a university student in Moscow he loved Riga, which, with all the cultivated blonde, tall people, the small, but vivid Hippie scene and the skyline of protestant church towers was very much like the incarnation of the golden West to him.
Might not be too important for the whole text, but I fear, Donskis misunderstood Adorno’s interpretation of Beethoven.
For example in his “Fragments” Page 129, Adorno describes an “immanent Momentum of Resistance” in Beethovens Music (esp. Satz 1, op. 111). Beethovens op. 111 seemed to Adorno as a work of “wilderness, madness rather than an expression of individualism.” In other words: Very anti-burgeois. Adorno saw Beethoven (“Beethoven”, page 182) as the first “modern” composer, with Beethoven “Subjectivity begins to vanish off artwork” (later progressed by John Cage and others), creating a kind of “objective” music.
Short: According to Adorno, listening to Beethoven was absolutely PC for Soviet Salon bolshevists..

I’m watching the Soviet-made Sherlock Holmes at this very moment. Its opening scenes take place at the Esplanade and in the Old Town.

Colour me ignorant, but I dare say “Četri Balti Krekli” is persuasive evidence of Latvians in Latvia living under occupation striving to preserve their culture, language, identity. But hey, what do I know?...

I love this one....

Elizabete, I too would love to hear more about how this film came to be…

Pjērs

The whole movie: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=71D032C77BC80F98&search_query=balti+krekli+01

Sveiks, Pierre! :)

“Elizabete, I too would love to hear more about how this film came to be…”

So would I!  I’m not at all knowledgeable about Latvian films produced during the Soviet era, but this one is somethin’ else.  I’m personally amazed that it was ever released and passed the censors.  In the late 1960’s, a western Lett friend, who was a bit older than I,  spoke about the ‘sneak politics’ occurring in LV, i.e., nationalists attempting to gain positions of power.  For that matter, since then I’ve met native LV artists working in that time period, who’ve spoken about attempts to rebel against the order.

Even so, to release a film that so clearly questions the Soviet system (the hero outright mocks the critic/censor – face-to-face – who derailed his moonlighting career) is simply astonishing.  Well, the film was made a year before the Prague Spring, which had such a huge effect on my life as a teenager.  Clearly, those years must have been a helluva time in LV.

Visu labu,

Elizabete

Pierre writes:”...persuasive evidence of Latvians in Latvia living under occupation striving to preserve their culture, language, identity. But hey, what do I know?...”  What’s your point - and what do you know?  Anything of value about human psychology and the power of the human spirit to resist enslavement and repression?  Latvians in Siberia strove to preserve their culture, language, identity.  Say what you’re trying to say. Latvians are survivors and every Latvian knows what we have done or do to keep ourselves alive as Latvian people - “culture, language, identity.” .

Peteris,
Remove the “Soviet” from the “culture” and you’d really have something from those years, huh, dude?  Then again, maybe you think it takes being abused and repressed to bring out the best in Latvians or all those whose “culture” was created with the “Soviet.”  Such remarkable creativity of Latvians and slaves!  One can only wax nostalgic about their cleverness to create between the lines.  Undeniably one has both good and bad memories of one’s past life, even if one had to create new and clever “tautasdziesmas” - even if in Siberia - if one survived to remember. Best, however, if the memories are of a wonderful life, much happiness, and freedom to have the spirit soar.  Like in tiny Denmark or tiny Switzerland during the years of Latvia’s occupation.  Talking too nostalgically about one’s life as an abused woman should make one cringe.  I know, you do love those children conceived in rape. It’s not all bad, ever.

”...What’s your point - and what do you know?”

My point is to show how little I know about Latvian culture. To my credit, I said it in fewer words than you.

Pjērs, an ignorant non-Latvian who uses diacritics