SEER, 96, 3, JULY 2018 590 Smith, David (ed.). Latvia — A Work in Progress? 100 Years of State- and Nation-Building. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, 142. Ibidem, Stuttgart, 2017. 320 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Index. €34.90 (paperback). Latvia as we know it today might have found international recognition in 1991 but, of course, an independent Latvian state had roots in the closing stages of the First World War. The Republic of Latvia was declared in November 1918 and, as a result, 2018 will be celebrated widely as Latvia’s centenary. The title reviewed here (edited by David Smith and drawn from a workshop help in Uppsala in December 2013), attempts to contribute to the forthcoming anniversary celebrations by presenting a strong selection of essays discussing the state’s history. The first essay in the collection is perhaps one of the most memorable. Andrejs Plakans argues in a refreshing style that it is misplaced to try to interpret the development of a Latvian state in terms of a ‘master narrative’. In particular he disputes any attempt to view the 1918 declaration as ‘a transfiguratory act that was supposed to invest the immediate and distant future with new meaning’ (p. 41). It was not inevitable, he maintains, that centuries of foreign domination should yield, one day, to the creation of Latvians’ own political structure. Rather than emphasize a clear historical trajectory, Plakans stresses the role of contingency and uncertainty in Latvia’s origins. Hence, he emphasizes that the people who laid the foundations for the declaration were only presenting an ‘imagined’ united national community (pp. 46–47) and that the general population was far from dedicated to the creation of their own, independent state (pp. 49–50). It was symptomatic that, as the state was emerging, thousands of Latvian riflemen were in Russia fighting for Lenin. Maria Germane also presents an engaging, argumentative essay dealing with the tensions between Latvia as a civic, political and ethnic nation. Germane’s discussion makes use of some interesting sources as she dissects the way early Latvian authors approached the question of nationality. In particular she draws on the pre-First World War work of Margers Skujenieks and Mikelis Valters. Based on their texts, Germane comments: ‘all available historical evidence suggests that in 1918, the founders of the Latvian state perceived national unity and ethnic harmony to be integral parts of the future political system, and were firmly committed to the principles of equality and inclusiveness’ (p. 58). Much of the essay considers attempts made during the 1920s to imbue the new state with principles and structures appropriate to these underlying values — and here the Citizenship Law emerges as centrally important. By way of conclusion, however, Germane strikes a rather depressing note: Latvian ‘civic nationalism’, she says, was ‘ultimately a failure’ because ‘Latvia’s civic nation does not exist to this day’ (p. 69). Nonetheless, she still maintains that Latvia has both its own theory of civic nationalism and its own history of enactment. REVIEWS 591 David Smith’s article about the cultural and political theorizing of Paul Schiemann meshes well with Germane’s piece. Schiemann’s work from the 1920s was full of zest and remains attractive to contemporary audiences. He argued forcefully that ethnocultural affiliation was less a matter of birth and more a matter of free association; that minority ethnocultural identities need not be at oddswithloyaltytothestateinwhichonelived;thatminorityidentitiesreflected, in some ways at least, the place where the minorities grew up; and, not least, that ‘politics must be for the good of the place where one resides — any diversion to other ends is suicide’ (p. 80). Even if it is correct that Schiemann’s thought was also stamped by a certain cultural elitism, nonetheless (as Smith makes plain) his ideas were on a different level to those of most of his contemporaries. Deniss Hanovs and Valdis Teraudkalns discuss popular paganism in Latvia 1934–40. The ‘Dievturi’ movement rejected the predominant Lutheran church as too German, and too much associated with 700 years of Latvian serfdom, to be appropriate to the needs of an independent Latvia. Nevertheless, Ulmanis never reached a full accommodation with paganism, not least because some key characters associated...