The Communist Way: a Look upon Soviet Archaeology in Occupied Latvia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4467/2543702XSHS.22.010.15976Abstract
This article examines the history of archaeology in Latvia during the Soviet occupation (1940–1941; 1944–1991), trying to understand the consequences brought in the field of archaeology by the single-party led experiment of communism. The research is based on archival studies and uses the historical method, source criticism and historiography. Author explains the nature of the prescribed theoretical and methodological guidelines as well as actual implications of the ‘communist way’ in archaeology. The article challenges the common belief that archaeology and prehistory were ideologically freer than other branches of history during the Soviet era.
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Kluger, Anne 2020: Between pottery and politics? “Slavic archaeology” in communist Poland and East Germany and its interrelations with politics and ideology. A biographical-comparative approach. Studia Historiae Scientiarum 19, pp. 287–326. DOI: 10.4467/2543702XSHS.20.010.12566.
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Reichenbach, Karin; Milosavljević, Monika; Broka-Lāce, Zenta 2021: Between Autochthonism, Marxism and Turboslavism: Concepts of Slavs and Slavic Origins Through Space and Time (178). [In:] K. Kleinová, ed., EAA 2021 Kiel, 6–11 Sept. Widening Horizons. Virtual Meeting. Abstract Book. Prague: European Association of Archaeologists, p. 178.
Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff 2013: Class theory and history: Capitalism and communism in the USSR. London and New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315023519.
Rozenvalds, Juris 2021: marksisms, ideoloģija. URL: https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/88128-marksisms,-ideolo%C4%A3ija (accessed on 27 December 2021).
Sne, Andris 1999: Social archaeology in Latvia: a survey. [In:] O. W. Jensen, H. Karlsson, A. Vijups, eds., Inside Latvian archaeology. Gotarc series A, Vol. 2, Göteborg: Novum Grafiska AB, pp. 89–114.
Stamati, Iurie 2019: The Slavic Dossier, Medieval Archaeology in the Soviet Republic of Moldova between State Propaganda and Scholarly Endeavor. Leiden. Boston: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004391437.
Strods, Heinrihs 2005: Sovietization of Latvia 1944–1991. [In:] V. Nollendorfs, E. Oberländer, eds., The hidden and forbidden history of Latvia under Soviet and Nazi occupations 1940–1991: selected research of the Commission of the Historians of Latvia. Rīga: Institute of the History of Latvia, pp. 209–227.
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