Journal of Baltic Studies ISSN: 0162-9778 (Print) 1751-7877 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbal20 Between arts and politics: A postcolonial view on Baltic cultures of the Soviet era Epp Annus To cite this article: Epp Annus (2016): Between arts and politics: A postcolonial view on Baltic cultures of the Soviet era, Journal of Baltic Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2015.1103509 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2015.1103509 Published online: 12 Jan 2016. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data JOURNALOFBALTICSTUDIES,2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2015.1103509 Between arts and politics: A postcolonial view on Baltic cultures of the Soviet era Epp Annus WorkgroupforCulturalArchivesandLiteraryResearch,EstonianLiteratureMuseum,Tartu,Estonia, DepartmentofSlavicandEastEuropeanLanguagesandCultures,OhioStateUniversity,Newark,OH,USA KEYWORDSTheBalticstates;Sovietrule;colonialism;postcolonialstudies;modernity;Balticcultures;Baltic nationalism In October 1953, the Estonian literary magazine Looming published a poem by Vladimir Beekman entitled The Russian Language [Vene keel]: Wemet.Wesoonforgotthespeeches, inourheartsit’swithusanyway, butourfirstwordsinRussian soundedwarmandwelcoming. InKaunasorinanyothercity youmeet acomradefrom adistantplace inRussianyou’ll holdaconversation aboutyourcountryandyourfriendship. Homelandis vast,butinitseverypath ineveryfaraway,yetfriendlyroad, youdon’tneedamorecomfortingfriend thanthegreatlanguageofagreatnation. (Beekman 1953, 1219)1 Thispoem,sotypicalofBalticliteraturesoftheearly1950s,celebratesthegreatnessof theRussianlanguage,whichis,accordingtothepoem,warmandfriendly,yetalsogrand andimportantatthesametime.Thispoem,wemightsay,isnotprimarilyanartifact,but isratherpoliticsinverse.TheStalinistera,withahighlycircumscribedmodelforaccep- tableart,SocialistRealism,repositionedthe artsphereinsidethe sphereofpolitics.Art becameapoliticaltooltoservetheSocialistworldview,underthedirectoversightofthe CommunistParty.AccordingtoEvgeniiDobrenko,SocialistRealismwas“aninstitutionfor the production of socialism,” and its basic function was “to create socialism – Soviet reality,and not anartifact” (2007,xii). In the 1950s, the direct connectionbetween the CommunistPartyandtheartswasopenlydeclaredasofficialpolicy.Underthenameof JohannesKäbin,thefirstsecretaryofEstonianCommunistParty,thefollowingstatement waspublishedinanEstonianliterarymagazine: Experience has shown that Socialist culture develops successfully only when party organiza- tionsworksteadilywithquestionsofliterature,arts,science,andmasseducation,everywhere showing vigilance and zero tolerance for the incursions of bourgeois ideology within one or 2 E.ANNUS anotherculturalfield.Guidingactivitiesinthefieldsofart,literatureandscience,theEstonian Communist Party seeks the creation of works which correspond to the tasks posed by CommunistPartyoftheSovietUnion.(Käbin1953,1417) The post-Stalin years significantly eased the strict subordination of art to politics and enabled the art sphere to gain back some measure of its autonomy, yet the relation- shipbetweenartandpoliticsretainedmuchofitscomplexity.Thearticlescollectedin thepresentspecialissueBetweenArtsandPolitics:APostcolonialViewonBalticCultures oftheSovietEraaddressdifferentaspectsofthiscomplexrelationshipbetweenartand politics, with each article focusingon aparticular situation andbringing inadditional terms and problems. The articles offer “a postcolonial perspective” – that is, a per- spective sensitive to the effects of Soviet colonialism to Baltic societies and cultures.2 Colonialism The central topic in this special issue is the question of the colonial aspects of the Soviet regime and its impact on the Baltic art sphere. Colonialism can be defined as [t]heextensionofanation’spoweroverterritorybeyonditsbordersbytheestablishmentof eithersettlercoloniesand/oradministrativecontrolthroughwhichtheindigenouspopulations aredirectlyorindirectlyruledordisplaced.Colonizersnotonlytakecontroloftheresources, tradeandlaborintheterritoriestheyoccupy,butalsogenerallyimpose,tovaryingdegrees, cultural,religiousandlinguisticstructuresontheconqueredpopulation.(Nagai2007,234)3 From the perspective of the colonised culture, colonialism refers to a political, eco- nomic and cultural control over a territory by a foreign power. StrategiesofSovietcolonialismareformedandexpressedbycolonialdiscourse–that is,byanetworkofinterconnectedstatements,ideas,beliefsandsubjectpositionsthatare institutionally grounded and find expression in different colonial practices. Modern colonialdiscourseenunciatesandcontinuously(re)createsthecolonialsituationthrough thepathosofprogressandcivilization,whereasthelatterare(re)definedthroughvalue systemsofthecolonizingculture.InSovietcolonialdiscourse,thepathosofprogresswas presentedintermsofacommunistvaluesystem,whichincludednotonlyamodification of the Marxist rejection of capitalism but also selected principles of the European EnlightenmentembeddedinMarxistvaluesandrearticulatedbySovietideologists. AnotherterminologicaldistinctionhasalsoprovedusefulinthinkingabouttheBaltics: Jürgen Osterhammel distinguishes between “colonisation” as “a process of territorial acquisition” and “colonialism” as “a system of domination” (Osterhammel [1995] 2009, 23;Kangilaski,thisissue).Thisdistinction,thoughrelativelyrecentinpostcolonialcriticism, allows one toconceptualizeseparately the initialprocess ofterritorialcolonizationand thesubsequentperiodofcolonialrule.Here,onecanarguethattheBalticstateswerenot precisely “colonized” by the Soviet Union, but were instead “occupied,” since the term “colonization” is not quite apt for describing the process of annexing modern nation states, as the Baltic states had been by the end of the 1930s. Yet the authors here nonetheless share a conviction that the Soviet period in the Baltic states can be char- acterizedasacolonialsituation,whereincolonialstrategiesweredeployed.Soonemight saythatthe“occupation”oftheBalticstatesbyaforeignpower(theSovietUnion)was JOURNALOFBALTICSTUDIES 3 years of discursive confusion, where two different value systems, Soviet and pre- Soviet, clashed unhappily.5 Gradually, Soviet discourse established its hegemonic position in the sphere of public authority – people learned “to speak the right way” – while at the same time also adapting patterns from pre-Soviet local discourses. Yet different social spheres adopted different modalities of Soviet discourse. While in official parlance the dominant discourse remained the unreserved expression of Soviet values, the art sphere, though imbued with Soviet discourse, also established a certain distance from it. The gradual divergence of national and Soviet colonial discourses turnedinto a clearseparationof thetwo discourses inthemid-1980s, and the radical opposition between the two value systems resurfaced in distinct and radically opposing interpretations of the past. This painful discursive clash persists todayinopposingaccountsoftheeventsofthe1940s,interpretedasthediscourseof liberation (declarations of the type “we liberated you from capitalist oppression”) or the discourse of occupation (accusations of the type “you illegally occupied our country for half a century”), and still fuels ethnic tension in the post-Soviet Baltic states. Certainly, the Soviet period intheBaltic states can also becharacterised inseveral different ways – as a period of occupation, Sovietization, totalitarianism or statism. “Sovietization” is a term that was used by the Soviet authorities to describe not only theeconomicoradministrativechangesinsocietybutalsothe“deepinculcationofa new Socialist way of life” (Kotkin 1995, 34). Violeta Kelertas observes of the term “totalitarianism” that “The label seems to imply that those occupied are merely dissatisfied with the form of government” (Kelertas 2006a, 2); this comment might equally apply to “Sovietization.” Sovietization, if used as a single dominant term in Soviet-era research, involves the danger of foregrounding the form of the Soviet regime and thus flattening out fundamental differences between the Soviet experi- ence in Russia and Soviet experience in the Baltic states. The term “colonialism” enables us to stress the fact that the regime was, in the Baltic states, forced from theoutsideandbroughtwithit,inadditiontoeconomicimbalanceandlong-distance political supervision, also specific ethnic and cultural tensions, related to the effort to privilege a non-local cultural tradition. One finds ample evidence of the foregrounding of Russian culture with its pre- sumably“enlightening”rolein“uplifting”Balticcultures,especiallyinthenewspapers and journals of the first Soviet decade. For example, in the Estonian journal Looming, one finds declarations like: Itisimpossibletooverestimatetheimmenselyformativeand educationalrolethathasbeen given to us by the literature of the brotherly republics, especially the immensely rich con- temporary and classical literature of the Russian nation. The questions of our offspring in literary cadres are directly related to how thoroughly they learn to know and are able to adoptthisliteratureastheirown.(Schmuul1953,1430) TheconceptofSovietizationisnotquiteaptforthesekindsofemblematicexpressions of the Soviet colonial discourse. The notion of Soviet colonialism does not aim to categoricallyreplaceconceptslike“Sovietization,”butrathertoopenupanadditional conceptual sphere, while at the same time acknowledging work that has been done 4 E.ANNUS Soviet coloniality and its relation to Soviet modernity WhilereferringtoSovietcolonialism,oneshouldkeepinmindthegreatcomplexityof the processes described. What makes history interesting is the impossibility of disen- tanglinghistoricalprocessesintostraight,thematiclinesofdevelopment.Manyrecent works have researched the mutual embeddedness of discourses of coloniality and modernity, with the focus of interest ranging from Latin America, Africa, and eastern Europe to the all-encompassing global coloniality. “Coloniality” refers here to a con- ceptualandideological“matrixofpower”(MignoloandTlostanova2008,109)6:Soviet colonialism as a complex of strategies brought with it Soviet coloniality as a general state of affairs or cultural logic. The Sovietized part of the world figures in this context as a distinctive kind of modernity:“weshouldrememberthatmodernityinthetwentiethcenturywasimple- mentedintwoforms–theliberal/capitalistandthesocialist/statistone.Eachofthem had a sunny side and a darker side, each of them had its own form of coloniality,” writes Madina Tlostanova (2012, 137). The modernity–coloniality perspective is espe- ciallytimelyforscholarsstudyingtheSovietera,giventhegreatinteresttowardSoviet modernity in recent Soviet scholarship.7 Soviet modernity will remain a controversial term,yetthereisno doubtaboutthe discursivecontinuitybetween theSovietideals and Enlightenment values. Even though many Soviet efforts turned into large-scale wasteofproductivepotential,onecanstillconceptualizeSovietmodernityasaneffort to establish welfare, general education, culturedness (kul’turnost’), and large-scale industrialization. When one takes a closer look into recent scholarship on Soviet modernity, one is struck by how central efforts of Soviet modernity are understood as civilizing efforts, much as in typical colonial discourse. Sheila Fitzpatrick writes about the “Soviet regime’sself-conceptionasanenlightenedvanguardcarryingoutacivilizingmission” (1999, 227); Michael David-Fox repeatedly characterizes Soviet modernity as both “mission civilicatrice,” and an “enlightenment crusade” (David-Fox 2015); David Hoffmann stresses the Stalin era effort to civilize its population: “Marxism and social- ismmoregenerallydrewuponEnlightenmentnotionsofprogress,improvement,and civilization,soitwasnaturalthattheSovietgovernmentsoughttocivilizeitspopula- tion with regard to hygienic habits and orderly living” (2003, 18).8 Here, we can discern a coloniality–modernity paradigm without epistemological difference. The colonialist, no less than the Soviet modernist, strives toward what it considersprogressandthusassumesamissiontoenlighten,educate,andmodernize “wild savages,” that is, populations in need of uplift in order to fit into the value systems established and legalized by the hegemonic power. The Soviet discourse of modernity is the discourse of Enlightenment and civilizing mission; it supports an effort to enforce value systems that are progressive according to the standards of its era. True, the geographical question helps to distinguish the exclusively colonialist orientation: the effort of “civilizing” another culture in another geographical area is understood as colonialism, accompanied, as it is, by a de facto privileging of the “civilizing” nationality and by a disregard for local interests. Here, coloniality appears as not a product of modernity but as an ideology co-constituted with modernity. JOURNALOFBALTICSTUDIES 5 revolutionaryRussia.TheSovietregimehadacomplexandchangingrelationshipwith theearlier tsarist empire: bythe time of theBaltic annexations, the restoration of the tsaristempirehadbecomeadiscursivetoposlendingsupporttoSovietexpansionism (Zubkova 2008, 93–94). Moreover, both the tsarist and the Soviet empires were situated in the context of global modernity–coloniality and were influenced by and reacting to other modern colonial power centers. This effort to mimic and compete with the economically and culturally more developed West positioned both Tsarist Russia and later the Soviet Union as “paradigmatic second-class empires” (Tlostanova 2012, 135).9 Nationality question Whiletheinterrelatednessofcolonialityandmodernityisacornerstoneofthisspecial issue,wealsoneedtostresstheunavoidablynationalcharacterofmanyofthespecific tensions in the Soviet Union and especially in the Soviet-era Baltic states. The loss of national self-determination and the colonial overwriting of national histories defined the tenor of the Baltic experience of the Soviet regime; also, in decolonization processes,nationalremobilizationwasacrucialfactor.HowdidBalticnationalthought relatetothecolonialmatrixofpower?HowdidSoviet colonialismtransform national feelings in the Baltic states? How did national aspirations, colonial pressures, and the influenceofWesternmodernistmovementstogethershapetheBalticculturalsphere? And what happened to the nationality question in the process of decolonization? National feelings and attitudes lie at the heart of many central topics of Baltic development. Nationalismisgenerallyunderstoodasoneofthediscoursesofmodernity.Thus,in the Baltic states, one can observe the emergence of nineteenth-century national thought out of the Enlightenment tradition, its popular spread made possible by modern print capitalism. In the Soviet era, however, national thought (with the exception of dissident thinking) lost not only its power of self-determination but also part of its modern sensibility. The aim of national discourse turned toward survival; national attitudes were sustained by valuing tradition and by an effort to keep alive the values of the past. The easiest way to nurture national values in the Soviet era was through reference to “acceptable” periods of the national past in historical fiction, by relying on mythical topics in painting or by rearranging folk tunesinmusic.Here,anewdiscursiveturntookplace:suchartisticreworkingscarried astronglymoderntone,thuseffectivelyrelinkingthenationaldiscoursetomodernity. The music scholar Kerri Kotta has written how the folk tunes in the compositions by EsterMägibecomeindividualized:“Itisquitestrangeindeedhowafolktune,whichis akindofmusicalgeneralization,theconcentratedblendofmanyindividualmelodies, has,inMägi’smusic,againbecomeindividual”(Kotta2012).Oneseesinthisreproces- sing of traditional values into modern aspirations a method of the modernization of traditionaswellasa deconstructionof thefrequentoppositionbetween themodern and the traditional. Yet the values of modernist national culture were different from Soviet modernity: instead of Soviet “ethos of progressive social intervention” (Hoffmann2000b,246),nationalistmodernismstressedalternativevaluesofamodern 6 E.ANNUS force. As in a typical decolonization process, the discourse of nationality became a dominant voice in a changing society. This in turn led to the emergence of different, opposing divisions within Baltic societies, based to a great extent on different con- ceptualizations of the past. Different directions for research in Soviet colonialism As one might expect, the deeper one delves into these topics, the more complicated the situation becomes. Our general framework can and should be further broken down into smaller units, stretching back in time, ranging across geographical and social mappings, revealing different aspects for different social classes, gender roles, and cultural movements. To articulate these issues in relation to the Soviet era in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, one can outline several areas of interest or clusters of problems. First, the historical layers of colonial rule in the Baltic states involve relationships between different colonial orders. This includes, for Latvians and Estonians, the experience of a both tsarist and Baltic German colonialism in the era of nation formation during the second half of the nineteenth century; it also includes the role of the early nineteenth-century Enlightenment ideas in the Baltic provinces (see Kalnačs, this issue; Kangilaski, this issue).10 Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian national thought developed under colonial conditions, inspired by the dissemination of Enlightenment ideas in the Baltic German and Polish communities (sometimes in supportof,sometimesinoppositiontotsaristcolonialism),aswellasbytheoccasional waves of modern aspiration rippling through the tsarist empire more broadly. Second, the entanglement of different discourses during the Soviet era produced a complex texture of Soviet modernity–coloniality discourse, discourses of Western modernity, and the subdued but persistent presence of national discourse. In the Baltic states, Soviet modernity and coloniality were inevitably situated in relation to Western modernity, to what was perceived as the “free” world, so close to the Baltic states both historically and geographically. These and similar cultural connections, as wellasmemoriesofpre-Sovietindependence,formedacommonlysharedinterpreta- tional matrix for the Soviet era. In the late Soviet era, Finnish television with its Western programming (Dallas, The Benny Hill Show) and Western music videos dominated the home life of northern Estonians. Mesmerizing images of Western modernity with its everyday seductions (jeans, t-shirts, and colorful plastic bags) constantly contaminated official efforts to systematically establish Soviet values. Third, different regimes of arts emerged within the colonial matrix of power. Modernism and postmodernism in the arts stand in relation to the patterns of the grand sociopolitical narratives of modernity, yet developments in the art sphere will alsofollowitsownlogic,assoonaspoliticalpressurewillallowit.Stalinist-eraSocialist realismdidnotoffercreativespaceforacomplexculturallogictodevelop,yet,inthe post-Stalinismperiod, theart spherebecame quickly morediverse. At the sametime, and especially in the sphere of the visual arts, Soviet modernist and postmodernist trends emerged under the heavy influence of Western avant-garde and pop art. In literatureofthelate1960sand1970s,Balticliterarycanonstookupcomplexquestions JOURNALOFBALTICSTUDIES 7 where artistic postmodernism with its ironic positioning merges with high-spirited sincere nationalism of the decolonization period (Annus and Hughes 2004). Fourth, one must consider links, connections, and interactions within the Soviet sphere. Benedikts Kalnačs (this issue) refers to a development of a “pattern of mutual understanding” – a topic still very much open to further research. Fifth, one should not forget a critical consideration of differential developments in Estonia,Latvia,andLithuania.Sovietcolonialismlookeddifferentinthecityandinthe countryside,aswellasindifferentSovietrepublics.Theessaysinthisissuealsoreflect culturaldifferencesamongthethreeBalticcountries.SovietLithuaniaisanalyzedinits post-WWII general enthusiasm over the “return” of Vilnius (Davoliute, this issue); the Latvian perspective brings in heightened national tensions in the post-Soviet era (Hanovs, this issue). The contributions about Estonia also shed light on the particular dynamics in the visual arts and folk dance (Kangilaski, this issue; Kapper, this issue). Theareas ofinterestoutlined here definitely donotexhausttheresearch interests intheculturalsituationundertheSovietcolonialregime,nordothearticlescollected inthisissueofferexhaustiveviewsofanyofthesesubjects.Thearticlesanalyzesome patterns of Soviet colonial rule in the Baltic states, together with its pre- and post- history; also, several case studies of specific problems and phenomena are provided. Benedikts Kalnačs (“Comparing Colonial Differences: Baltic Literary Cultures as Agencies of Europe’s Internal Others”) situates the question of Soviet colonialism within the framework of earlier layers of colonial rule in the Baltic states. He outlines historical parallels between developments in East-Central Europe and refers to pat- terns of mutual understanding between different parts of the Soviet Union. In the Baltic context, Kalnačs points out how the period of Enlightenment, though opening doors for peasant emancipation, aimed to limit the Volksaufklärung to constructing “an ideal peasant aspiring toward economic prosperity” while not challenging the social order and colonial relationships of the era. KalnačspositionsSovietcolonialismintheBalticstatesinthecontextoftheglobal powerracebetweencapitalismandsocialism,aswellasintheframeworkofhistorical developments of Russian colonialism. He stresses how Soviet policies “followed the pathearlierestablishedbyotherimperialpowers(includingtheRussianempire).”Asa difference from earlier Baltic colonial periods, which initiated a move toward more complex cultural forms, Kalnačs points how socialist realism “led to an extreme over- simplification of creative practices.” The later move of critical appropriation and aesthetic recovery first involved a turn to realistic description of everyday realities andthentheboldermovetowardmodernistpoeticsandarenewedinterestinhistory and mythology. Kalnačs points to realistic descriptions of daily lives in the Baltic communities as acquiring the potential of “anti-systemic movement,” and he inter- pretstheturnsofBalticliteraturetomodernistpoeticsandtothetopicsofhistoryand mythology as deconstruction and inversion of the existing patterns of representation in the Soviet literary canon. Jaak Kangilaski (“Postcolonial Theory as a Means to Understand Estonian Art History”) provides another introductory approach to wider questions of postcolonial terms and research perspectives. He analyzes vocabulary used in descriptions of the SoviettakeoveroftheBalticstatesandlooksatthechangesinthelegalvocabularyin 8 E.ANNUS Homi Bhabha’s anti-essentialist approach to colonialism as giving rise to ambivalent and ambiguous cultural phenomena. Kangilaski also looks into the continuities between Tsarist and Soviet rhetoric. He outlines different periods of both Tsarist and Soviet regimes and draws attention to interaction between Tsarist and Baltic German colonial powers, which sometimes worked in unison, sometimes in disagreement. Thus, Kangilaski points to Enlightenment impulses of the tsar Alexander I, which contradicted the interests of Baltic German nobility. Similarly, Kangilaski envisages the Soviet era as a “mix of different ideologies and principles,”whichresultedindifferentresponsesfromlocalpopulations.Accordingto Kangilaski,threedifferentdiscoursesdominatedthepost-StalinistEstonianartsphere: pro-authority, Western avant-garde-oriented, and national–conservative discourse, whereas “[t]he character and complex interrelationship between these discourses changed significantly over the years.” Kangilaski also outlines a highly hierarchical model of the Soviet art sphere, where the status of an artist was achieved through belongingtoaprofessionalassociation,whereastheadmittanceofnewmemberswas controlled at the all-union level. ThenextthreeessaysturnthefocusfromvisualartstowardBalticliterature.Violeta Davoliute (“The Sovietization of Lithuania after WWII: Modernization, Transculturation andtheLetteredCity”)explorestherelationshipbetweenmodernityandcolonialityin Soviet Lithuania, focusing on developments in Lithuanian literature of the era. If “the Baltic condition” seems broadly similar in many respects, Davoliute outlines some particularities of the Lithuanian post-war situation: the merging of discourses of modernization, urbanization, and Sovietization, and also the joyful re-emergence of Lithuaniannationalfeeling.Davoliutedrawsattentiontotheprocessesofurbanization inpost-warLithuania,where,in1946,theurbanproportionofthepopulationwasjust 10–15%. Less than 25 years later, the urban population rose to over 50%. Here, with reference to the work of Katerina Clark, a fascinating link is drawn between the construction of cities and social identities. Davoliuteaddsanadditional conceptualtwisttoher discussionofBalticliterature: heruseoftheterm“narrativetransculturation,”coinedbyLatin-AmericancriticAngel Rama,refersto“aprocessofadaptation,appropriation,selection,andreinventionthat gives rise to new cultural forms that affirm the meanings and continuity of a culture marginalizedbythecolonialpower”(Davoliute,thisissue).Transculturationisthusnot simply a relationship of dominance and subordination; rather, it refers to a hetero- geneous relationship of two cultures and to the active role played by the colonized culture. Rasa Baločkaitė (“Bourgeoisie as Internal Orient in the Soviet Lithuanian Literature: Roses Are Red by A. Bieliauskas, 1959”) reveals another facet of the Soviet colonial situation:thewaytheSovietculturalsphereemployedcolonialmodelsofrepresenta- tion. In the typical colonial novel of the nineteenth century, white colonizers domi- nated the discourse of modernity. While the discourse of the colonizers was understood as the voice of rationality, equated with culture and civilization, the nativeswerepositionedonthedarksideofcivilizationandweredepictedasirrational, backward, exotic, and erotic. Baločkaitė points to similar structures in the Soviet JOURNALOFBALTICSTUDIES 9 pre-Soviet elites are presented as inferior in all respects: they are lazy and bored, infantile, and corrupt; their home-life is static, ritualized, and eroticized; they follow impulsesandemotionsandlackdiscipline.“Thetypicalgenderrolesamongthehaute bourgeoisiefollowthetraditionalpatternsofOrientalimagination–weak,effeminate malesandexotic,mysterious,eroticfemales,”writesBaločkaitė(thisissue).Theoppo- sitionbetweenthehigh(communist)andthelow(formerbourgeoisie)isconsolidated into the familiar colonial pattern of light versus darkness: the perpetual twilight of bourgeoishomesisopposedtothesunnyandenthusiasticenvironmentofthe“Soviet activists” apartments. “Soviet” in the novel is synonymous with progress, humanity, andmodernity,anditconstitutestheonlycorrectvaluesystem.InBaločkaitė’sphras- ing,“TheSovietsystemisequatedwithcultureandcivilizationitself,incontrasttothe alleged ‘barbarism’ and ‘brutality’ of bourgeoisie” (this issue). Baločkaitė’s essay, writtenaboutaSovietLithuanianauthorwhoreproducescolonialstereotypes,points to the paradox of Socialist realism, the only officially acceptable art form in the Stalinistera:underthesurveillanceoftheCommunistParty,Sovietcolonialhierarchies are reproduced by Baltic authors. Maija Burima (“Orientalism, Otherness and the Soviet Empire: Travelogues by Latvian Writers of the Soviet Period”) addresses the role of Latvian travelogues in shaping Latvian subjects under the Soviet empire. Over the Soviet decades, many cultural delegations of Baltic writers visited other parts of the Soviet Union and later published their travel impressions. This strategy was intended to cement the integra- tion of the Baltic nations into the Soviet sphere, yet Burima points to some unex- pectedresults:thetraveloguesofthepost-Stalinyearsfamiliarizedreaderswithhuge andunsuccessfulSovietconstructionprojectsandwiththeresultingecologicaldevas- tation in other parts of the empire. In addition, these travelogues provided Latvian readers with images of exotic others specifically contrasting their scenes with more familiar Latvian cultural landscapes: Armenian, Uzbek, Tajik, and Kyrgyz cultures were paintedwithanorientalisttouch,thusexemplifyingthepeculiarorientalisttendencies among culturally different borderlands of the Soviet empire. Burima’s article thus points to the complex relationships subsisting between different Soviet borderlands, wherefeelingsofashareddestinyandacommongroundemergedthrougha“shared negativeexperienceofthedestructivenatureoftheSovietregime”(thisissue);atthe same time, a nationalist Latvian identity found subtle support through its juxtaposi- tions with different, “exotic” cultures elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Sille Kapper (“Post-Colonial Folk Dancing: Reflections on the Impact of Stage Folk DanceStyleonTraditionalFolkDanceVariationinSocialistandPost-SocialistEstonia”) movesdiscussionfromliteraryandvisualartstoartisticbodypolitics:sheinvestigates changes in the bodily behavior of dancers on the Estonian national dance stage. Again, wemeet the familiar trope of the “civilizing mission”: inthe caseof traditional folk dance, it needed to be “ennobled” with elements from classical ballet, according to the example of the Soviet Moiseyev Ballet. The new, Soviet “ennobled” national stage dance included “technical and artistic peculiarities of classical ballet, (...) extreme synchronicity in performance and choreographic symphonism in composi- tion.”(Kapper,thisissue).Improvisationdisappeared;newcompositionslikeCollective Farm Dance or Foreman’s Polka were staged. In the Baltic literary scene, works of