Serfdom as entanglement: narratives of a social phenomenon in Baltic history writing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Serfdom narratives belong to the most prominent, emotionalized, and politicized elements of Baltic history writing. We are claiming in this article that serfdom narratives, although used mainly in national narratives, are regionally and globally entangled topics shared not only by historians from very different contexts but also created outside the historical canon in fiction and the arts. To analyze Baltic history writing as a form of entangled literature we are comparing serfdom narratives in Estonian and Baltic German history writing throughout the long nineteenth century.