Will Brehm  1:15
Iveta Silova, welcome to FreshEd.

Iveta Silova  1:17
Thank you, Will. It’s great to be here.

Will Brehm  1:19
What has happened in the Latvian countryside since the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Iveta Silova  1:26
Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Latvian countryside actually has been in the middle of the national imagination, and it has been at the center of political debates. So, when you hear Latvian politicians, academics, or intellectuals talk about the future of Latvia as a nation, the conversation almost inevitably turns to the problem of the rapidly emptying and decaying countryside. Historically, it really has been perceived as an eternal source of nation’s living strength. But since the Soviet Union collapsed, there are more and more narratives that portray Latvian countryside in almost a state of apocalypse. People talk about declining population, deteriorating services, decreasing number of schools, and in general, this large and very scary phenomenon of rural emptiness which is usually associated with the out-migration of the Latvian population into the European Union. But it’s also connected to low birth rates since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in general, there is just this very grave sense of pessimism which is associated with the Latvian countryside.

Will Brehm  2:47
This narrative of decay in the rural countryside -and it’s a political debate, as you say. Are there other narratives that co-exist that say something about the Latvian countryside?

Iveta Silova  3:02
Absolutely. There are also other competing narratives that exist and perhaps they don’t dominate the political discussion but there are narratives that really place rural countryside in the middle of the neoliberal reimagination of Latvia as a nation. And they really talk about Latvian countryside as a space for economic development and growth. So, these competing narratives suggest that the Latvian countryside is not only a space of decay but it’s also one of  possibility and then opportunity. So, we also can hear, simultaneously, narratives that talk about the country size describing the mid-sized farms co-existing with tourism services. They talk about organic plants that grow alongside the imported ones, or they talk about the industrial pig farms with foreign capital that eventually replace smaller integrated farms. So, there are really interesting competing narratives and narratives that actually are contested on a daily basis. And what I’m trying to look at is how this discussion of the rural countryside in Latvia also shapes possibilities for imagining and reimagining Latvia for socialist futures.

Will Brehm  4:32
So, to do that, you are looking at school textbooks and the images and stories and narratives used across time. So, why do you think that textbooks reveal these different narratives?

Iveta Silova  4:50
My entry point into the textbooks really was through the examination of knowledge and power, and the interplay between the knowledge and power. So, I see textbooks but also policy documents, syllabi, teachers’ lectures, as deliberately-produced acts of knowledge. As educational discourses that are present, that constitute a form of social practice and that are reflecting goals to recursive strategy with respect to power. So, for example, when we look at the textbooks, we can see the different competing discourses that influence how people construct, perceive, interpret the world. But through textbooks, we actually see the dominant social groups’ epistemological framework at work. Basically, textbooks reflect what counts as normal or as good in a particular time and in a particular place. So, as competing networks of power struggle to advance their own discursive visions of truth, this cyclical nature of knowledge and power production may be disrupted, it can be transformed, and it can be broken. And that’s why I think this post-Soviet transition constitutes a very interesting place to study the disruptions in time. So, we can see how some of the hegemonic narratives may be losing their power and how they may be competing with other narratives, and how can they be replaced by some of the other imaginations.

Will Brehm  6:39
And to do this, you looked at three different time periods in Latvian history: basically, the turn of the 20th century, and then the time when the Soviet Union emerged in Latvia in the 1940s, and then after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. So, I say we go through each of these periods. And you can show us a little bit about what sort of images and narratives were being produced in these textbooks and what it says about power and national identity and the imagination of the rural Latvian countryside. So, what happened at the turn of the 20th century? How was the Latvian countryside imagined in textbooks?

Iveta Silova  7:24
From the very beginning, there is this really interesting tension in how the Latvian countryside imagined. When in the rest of Western Europe, the countryside really was looked at as something backwards, something that needed to be developed both economically and politically for the purposes of industrialization and nation-state formation. That was not necessarily the case in Latvia. In Latvia, the countryside really was always a space that was kept away from modernity, that was really imagined as the nation’s lifeline and a foundation of the national ethos and identity. And so, already going back -even to the pre-Christian, pagan mythology and spirituality- we see this very powerful celebration of the sanctity of nature and honoring its gods. And so even during the modernization period, at the turn of the century, Latvians really resisted participating in these modernization discourses. So, what we see instead is using while the modernization is happening, obviously, at the same time in parallel, we also see the construction of the national identity based on the imagery of the rural landscapes basically. So, it’s this really interesting attempt to, on the one hand, participate in modernization but then, on the other hand, also resist it by building national identities that is not linked to modernization, but that is opposite to it.

Will Brehm  9:22
And that the opposite of modernization was perceived to be the countryside where nature –

Iveta Silova  9:27
Untouched countryside that is not touched by modernization.

Will Brehm  9:33
And how did this notion appear in textbooks at the time?

Iveta Silova  9:39
Actually, the very first textbooks that appeared in Latvia were really trying to construct this idea of merging between the self, the nature, and the nation. And this is, I think, where my research on textbooks and schooling could really interestingly intersect with research on critical geography or some of the scholarship in critical geography. And so, one of the notions that I use to try to understand that which I borrow from colleagues in the geography literature, is this idea of the pedagogies of place. And so, it’s the idea that we do develop socio-spatial consciousness that links us to particular locations. And that influences how we think about ourselves and how we think about our place in the world. Right? So, it’s really directly linked to national identity. So, these pedagogies of space help us then think about how the identity is mapped onto the geographic landscapes.

Will Brehm  10:55
And can you give an example? I guess the example that stood out to me when I read your article or chapter was “The White Book”. Can you tell us the story of The White Book that was found in textbooks?

Iveta Silova  11:09
Yes. In the early 1900’s when the Latvian national movement was developing, when the national identity was being constructed, a lot of the literature at that time actually was highlighting biographical and autoethnographic work. And a lot of the biographic work really revolved around the childhood memories. One of the most popular books that was written at that time was called The White Book by Janis Jaunsudrabins. And this book is still read as a required reading in schools in Latvia throughout generations. So, this particular book actually is a great example of how the self, the nature, and the nation is all merged into one. And I can read you a very short part of the description of how the author is remembering his own childhood in the rural countryside in Latvia. So, he writes, “I remember shiny black birds, how they whistled around me and invited me to look up into the blue sky. There, they were swinging in the beautiful bird buds. All around our house were fields, groves, forest, Hills, they all waved at me and invited me. Hail to you gray sand which once received my footprints in your soft hands. Hail to you, dear people who so often steered my steps and thoughts to the good. Hail to you old buildings where I once dwelled and warmed myself”. I think this is a very interesting and powerful example of almost seamless merging of the self, the nature, the farm, and the childhood. And this is a very typical narrative that we can find not only in literary work, but also in school textbooks, during various historical periods in Latvia.

Will Brehm  13:17
And you would make the argument that what the children were learning by reading The White Book was teaching them how to understand themselves but also how they understand their place in the world using this notion of the pedagogy of place.

Iveta Silova  13:35
Absolutely. Yes. So, it’s this idea of a very conscious location of the child in a very particular space. And so, we can see that done through literature, through school textbooks, but obviously it’s also done in just socialization outside of the school, obviously. I think the point that I’m trying to make here is that school textbooks play an enormous role in this socio-spatial socialization as well.

Will Brehm  14:13
Right. And when the Soviet Union occupied Latvia in 1940, this kind of reluctant embrace of modernization that happened previously seemed to be shattered. Where modernization now became something that was fully embraced rather than distant by imagining the rural countryside to be seamless with nature. So, can you give us some examples of what did the school textbooks look like during the Soviet period? And what did it say about the rural countryside?

Iveta Silova  14:49
So, the Soviet occupation definitely interrupted this very idyllic image of the Latvian rural countryside with the childhood, nature, and nation intersected and co-existed. What we see in the 1940s is a total, very radical transformation of the rural countryside, which, in political terms included nationalization of land, forced collectivization of agriculture, liquidation of the individual homesteads. And this is often referred to by Latvians as the three acts of violence against the Latvian farmer and the Latvian citizen. But the goal here was to transform the landed peasantry into the rural proletariat. And one of the goals basically, of the Soviet government, was to unmake the nation of farmers and at the same time, unmake this very close link to the rural countryside that hosts the Latvian identity in a way. So, what we see in textbooks is that suddenly the images of rural landscapes become much more secondary. And they really become overpowered by the images of collective farms, by factories, hydroelectric stations, metro stations, railway stations, construction sites. Anything to highlight modernity’s power over nature. But I think what is really interesting also, here, that this iconography of modernity, of industry and urbanity tries to arise the same kind of awe and reverence in children that historically has been invoked by this very classical, romantic imagery of rural landscapes. So, it’s as if the process of modernization is losing its association with destruction and instead, the idea is to emphasize kind of this miraculous power of modernization.

Will Brehm  17:00
So, the exact opposite in many ways.

Iveta Silova  17:02
The exact opposite in many ways. But the associations that these images raised in a way is very similar. Something if children before were awed at the sight of the rural landscape, now they are awed at the sight of the modernization landscapes.

Will Brehm  17:18
Some of the images in the textbooks at the time were just incredible to see how romanticized the images of the factories or the dam right alongside some of the nature, as if man was able to control the natural elements for industrialization.

Iveta Silova  17:41
And I think this is an interesting point is that the nature never really was erased from the Soviet textbooks. And even when we see the images of modernization, usually the factories or hydroelectric stations, very often they’re almost drowning in greenery of the nature. And so, it’s very counterintuitive. I think one would imagine that the nature would completely be lost or destroyed. But what we see is a coexistence side by side of some of the modernization efforts but also this very strong persistent line of the natural landscapes.

Will Brehm  18:21
Why do you think that is? Why do you think there has to be the imagery of the nature coinciding with the imagery of industrialization and modernization?

Iveta Silova  18:32
Oh, that’s a very good point. But I think, so this is one of the competing narratives to the modernization. And I think in the context of the Soviet Latvia, I think that pure modernization imagery would simply not fly. I think it would be too far removed from the people.

Will Brehm  18:51
People would reject it?

Iveta Silova  18:53
I think people would absolutely reject it. So, I think it was an extremely delicate act of balancing some of the values that were really dear to Latvians during the Soviet period with some of the Soviet values. So, a very delicate balance of you could say, the opposite values. So, it’s like the two are really coinciding. But I think also what I found in these textbooks also, they, the authors were able to squeeze also these very alternative narratives and imagery of the countryside which would really take us back to the pre-Soviet and pre-modern times where we actually would see some of the nature that is untouched by the modernization very rarely, but now and then some of the texts or illustrations would find their ways into the textbooks.

Will Brehm  19:53
I know this is perhaps beyond the scope of your current research, but it occurs to me that: who are these individuals that are balancing the competing narratives inside the textbook during the Soviet period? Who were these authors?

Iveta Silova  20:13
So, these authors were obviously under major political control and pressure. And I think what they were doing were major political acts of trying to maintain some of the national imagery and spirit in the Soviet textbooks. But what I want to say is that they also were not the only ones that were doing this. So, this also was happening outside of the school in cultural life in particular. The Soviet government tried to ban some of the Latvian national holidays that many of the holidays actually are very directly linked to pagan traditions. At some point  in the ’40s and the ’50s, some of these pagan holidays were banned but the national drive was so strong to come together for these celebrations that eventually the Soviet government would close their eyes on it and would allow people to come together and celebrate the summer solstice or the winter solstice. So, this kind of parallel rendering of life was happening during the Soviet times both in school but also outside of the school. But we can see some of this parallel life captured in textbooks as well.

Will Brehm  21:36
Right. So, it’s like an official unofficial recognition of other imaginations.

Iveta Silova  21:42
Absolutely.

Will Brehm  21:44
So, almost overnight, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapses. What effect did that have on textbooks in Latvia? Or on the imagination of rural countryside and modernization and industrialization and national identity?

Iveta Silova  22:01
So, almost immediately after regaining independence, the depictions of urban life of modernization really became few and far between. And in some textbooks, they almost completely vanished. And instead, what we see is the representation of the world as overwhelmingly pre-Soviet, agrarian, and overgrown nature with abundant vegetation and animal life. So, it’s almost like you’re taken back in time to these kinds of pre-Soviet pre-modern images of the Latvian landscapes which almost always reveals these visual motives of sprawling, bountiful, colorful nature almost on every page, and almost bursting off the margins of the pages. And when humans and society penetrate this natural space it’s usually in this very idyllic countryside home context, which shows families harvesting land, tending to the flock, or just enjoying the nature.

Will Brehm  23:09
I was amazed to read that in some of those textbooks after the Soviet Union collapsed, the images of nature would change over the course of the textbooks as if the different seasons were coming into bloom.

Iveta Silova  23:29
This is another really interesting observation because not only do these textbooks disrupt the modernization process, and kind of revert us back in time but we also see how this linear understanding of time is disrupted. And it’s turned back into this cyclical, natural conception of time that revolves around the natural seasons. So, we see it on both scales. Kind of the reversal of the landscape itself back from modernization and into the kind of natural state but also the reversal of time. Kind of really undoing the linear progression of time that was, again, really constructed and solidified during the modernization period, but also obviously, during the Soviet period, and really kind of reorienting the child in time too.

Will Brehm  24:40
And so, although in the textbooks, post 1991, there is this embrace of nature and of the Latvian imagination before the Soviet Union. But at the same time, you say that there is a neoliberal imagination that also exists. How does that happen? And where do you see manifestations of that?

Iveta Silova  25:09
This neoliberal conception really appears more outside of the textbooks. Although, I’m sure that it is just a matter of time when we will see it appearing in textbooks as well. So, the textbooks really still portrayed mostly this idealized rural nature and the child in the nature. But outside of the textbooks, we see many, many other discourses. And some of them are really associated with the economic growth and rural development. And so, one of my favorite examples is the discussion of rural countryside in the context of a bank loan where the bank advertisement tries to convince people to buy land in the countryside by saying that the very first reason why you should consider moving to the countryside and buying land there is for the sake of your children. And what we see here is that the rural countryside is associated with a healthier lifestyle, more physical activity. And then at the same time, another argument is made that ,and if your house is located in a picturesque location, you can also turn your farm into a tourist location. It’s very interesting.

Will Brehm  26:39
So, it’s a blend. It’s a blend of this historical narrative of nature and self and nation, blending in with this neoliberal notion of profit-making.

Iveta Silova  26:53
Exactly, yes.

Will Brehm  26:55
So, what does all of this tell you about maybe the post-socialist futures of Latvia?

Iveta Silova  27:01
Well, I think one of the main points that I have been trying to highlight across many of my publications is that the whole process from the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet has been so far from linear or predictable. It has been very diverse the growth across the different geographic locations, and it has been fairly unpredictable. What I wanted to try to show here was that the Soviet transition in Latvia has not necessarily been associated with a neoliberal transition, or with the Western idea of what Latvia should be. It also raises a lot of tensions of what it means for Latvia to be a part of the European Union. So, what we really see through these textbooks is that these new stories are really strongly rooted in other stories, and they are transmitted from generation to generation. They are not necessarily always rooted in political and economic realities. The way that the textbooks try to imagine children and their future is really, very strongly located in very particular landscapes. And it’s rooted in very particular stories which limits what the future can hold for us. So, what we see here, just to summarize really quickly, is that the temporality of childhood is fundamentally reimagined. It breaks the linearity of progress. It invokes the cycle of nature. And so, the child remains bound to and conditioned by a very particular national landscape where neoliberal imaginaries really appear hardly hegemonic. And post-national aspirations are very elusive. And contemporary narratives of progress are very ambiguous. So, what I’m trying to say is that the future is actually wide open, and it’s being written as we speak.

Will Brehm  29:26
Well, Iveta Silva, thank you very much for joining FreshEd.

Iveta Silova  29:30
Thank you, Will.

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