Mapping the symbolic capital of a nation: Riga in fin-de-siècle Latvian novels

Abstract

This article concentrates on the representation of Riga in six fin-de-siècle Latvian novels written by Augusts Deglavs, Jānis Poruks, and Andrejs Upīts. The relations between the country and the city were changing significantly at the time due to growing social mobility in the Baltic littoral. However, in this paper we also argue that to a considerable extent the descriptions of Riga preserve principles previously employed by Latvian writers who tend to focus on minute descriptions instead of mapping a broader territory. The representation of living conditions in Riga thus fluctuates between true-tolife episodes and the recycling of certain stereotypes that determine the overall perception. More specific elements enter into literary texts in two ways. First, as psychological close-ups become more nuanced, they suggest closer links between fictional characters and carefully depicted milieus. Secondly, in our last example we discover an ideologically conscious effort of Latvian identity construction as the author, Deglavs, promotes the necessity of mapping Riga as the symbolic national capital, thus summarising and transforming ideas already implicit in earlier representations of the city.

Walking through the text: The representation of mobility in late 19th-century Latvian fiction

“…To a considerable extent, a similar diversity is characteristic of 19th-century identity formation in the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire (Daija and Kalnačs 2022a;Kasekamp 2018;Kalnačs et al 2017). Until about 1850, the Latvians were still almost unanimously defined not by their national belonging, but were simply characterized as peasants, a socially subjugated group dependent on the local German landowners while also being subaltern subjects of Russian imperial rule.…”