Territoriality of signs: amber in the State’s semiotics in Latvia

Abstract

Amber-signs in the Latvian nation-state’s semiotics, constructed during the interwar period, are only bits and pieces of a complex system such as the State. However, the resonance that amber semiotics effectuated, despite its actual rarity, was and still is remarkably influential. Amber was extensively deployed as a signifier to the territory and its people, places and things; it signified patria, belonging and the homeland. Such State semiotics, according to Deleuze–Guattarian concepts, is distinguished as a signifying regime of signs characterized by its universal deception and regulated by State-controlled interpretations, facialized centres, and a high degree of deterritorializations. We examine the thresholds of territoriality-deterritorialization relations and expressions of amber signs during the Latvian nation-state’s and the Soviet Union’s semiotic regimes, conceptualized as indexes, symbols and icons. By tracing and mapping of these territorialisation movements we enrich our understanding of how effective the created semiotics are, and in what variety of forms and territorialities, including linguistic, craftsmanship, and varied place makings, they are expressed in a particular regime. Such territorial perspective thus shifts the focus from what and why these signs mean (e.g., national identity, homeland) to where, when and how (e.g., dynamics of various State’s territorialities) they become operational. Among other national products that emit signs, amber proved to be most effective in the functioning of State’s signifying semiotics in Latvia, representing thoroughly the strangleholds and the continuity of such deceptive semiotics.