Estonians in Latvia: History, Language and Culture by Marjo Mela (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 567 individualswho committed mistakes,but that they were indicative of 'faults' inherentin the social,psychologicaland spiritualstructuresofcertainsocieties. There is at least one study where the protagonist emerges more positively than the general historical assessment of him, that of Regent Horthy in the years 1937 to 1944. The reports of US Minister John F. Montgomery concerning Horthy's attitude towards the Anglo-American alliance strengthens the opinion that Horthy sympathized with the Allies and was forced into a pact with Germanyby intensepressurewhich he abhorred. Despite his self-deprecatingremarkin the preface, Frankwrote thisbook in faultless English. Publisher'sreaders nowadays prefer to unify a volume in either the English or American style, but here they must have opted for the 'Transatlantic', which uses 'center' and 'catalog'. There are chapters in the volume thatbeg to be continued, such as 'LiteratureExported'which tells the story of nTe Hungarian Quarterly.Nothing could be more illuminating for the relationship of literary powverpolitics and changing ideological stances than the transformationof the journal's title from he Hungarian Quarterly to TheJew7 Hungarian Quarterly andbackagain. NiationalUniversity of Ireland THOMAS KABDEBO Mela, Marjo. Estoniansin Latvia. Histogy,Language and Culture. Bibliotheca Historica, 69. Finnish LiteratureSociety, Helsinki, 2001. 214 pp. Maps. Illustrations.Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. Priceunknown. MARJO MELA'sbook is the firstsystematicstudy of the culture, language and historyof the Estonian ethnic minorityin Latvia.Her socio-linguisticanalysis of the Estonian language in contemporary Latvia at the end of the study is ground-breaking. Despite its rather narrow ethnographic focus, the book should be of interestto all anthropologists,as well as scholarsand studentsof ethnicity,identityand migrationstudiesin general. The author'sapproach is descriptiveand she makesuse of as wide a range of different source materials as possible. Combining data from historical documents, interviewsand her own observations,Mela looks at the past and the present of Estonian communities both in urban and in rural Latvia, drawing a comprehensive picture of the Estonian ethnic minority in Latvia fromthe I86os to the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury. Historically the Estonian community in Latvia has consisted of three distinct groups. The Leivu people were the members of the original Estonian population inhabiting the Koiva (Gauja)area. The Luts (Ludza)formed an ethnic enclavein Latgaleareaandwerebroughtthereasserfsin theeighteenth century. The third group consists of Estoniians living in the border areas, in Riga and in other major urban centres and constitutes the main focus of XIela's study. The author starts by looking at the major influx of Estonians to Latvia which began in the i86os. People came in search of land and jobs. Nearly half of the Estonians who came settled in Riga, which was a larger city than Tallinn and, due to rapid industrialization, especially the rise of textile and metal industries, offered better opportunities for employment at that time. 568 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 Riga was also geographically closer to Southern Estonians than Tallinn and hence an obvious destination point in search for employment. Mela's main focus is thus justifiably on Riga, although other Latvian regions are also included in her study. Valka and Aluksne had and still have considerable EstonianpopulationsbesidesRiga. Statisticalmaterialsfrom the nineteenth century and the firstRepublic of Latvia are few, but Mela manages to support her qualitative analysis with demographic data. Her major interest is Estonian ethnic identity and its maintenance and thus she concentratesmost extensively on culturalsocieties and education as the major vehicles of ethnic identity. The study presents a comprehensive overview of the history and the activities of the Estonian Society in Riga, the Estonian Temperance Society, Estonian students' societies, and the Riga EstonianSchool. It is slightly disappointing that only four pages are dedicated to Estonians in Latvia during the Soviet times. The Soviet regime suffocated ethnic awarenessand minoritymovements, but mechanismsof identitymaintenance at that time, probably in the form of oral histories,would have constituted a particularlyinterestingavenue of researchfor thisstudy. The culturalactivitiesof the Estonianminorityhave increasedsince Latvia regained independence in I99I. The Estonian Society was re-establishedin I988 and the Riga Estonian School in I989. They workagainstthe complete assimilationof Estonians in Latvia, but as Mela concludes, Latvia today is so multiculturalthat it seems a hopeless project.Although Estonian culture and identity is more easily maintained in Riga than in rural areas, Estonians in contemporaryLatvia, as in the...