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Sergei Kruks

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis:Passe-partout Ideology,Traumatic Imagination of Community

IN SCHOOL, when I first read passages from Lacplesis, I was convincedit was included in books in order to chastise children. A dull andbulky text was somehow to be appreciated as a sublime story, a sourceof heroic inspiration. Twenty years later, because my academic inter-ests encompass national narrative, I had to coerce myself to approachLacplesis again. How was I to do this analysis? What could one expectfrom this nineteenth-century romantic imitation of the epic genre? Ifound myself setting Lacplesis aside for a while to direct my attentionto the Estonian epic Kalevipoeg. Immediately I was struck by the joyand optimism emanating from the Estonian text, in contrast to thedepression and anguish permeating the Latvian. I was astonished bythe completely different images of the social world created in the twoneighboring nations!

These first impressions resonate with contemporary observationsabout Latvia and Estonia. Despite their similar cultural, religious, andhistorical background, it is common to hear public and private reit-erations of the differences between the two, especially in terms oftheir responses to Soviet domination and to the ways social changehas been accomplished. In this article I argue that the differencesare already coded in the ways distinct communities are imagined andsocial realities constructed in each country’s rendering of its literaryepic. Both epics are particular signs of conscious attempts in thenineteenth-century to invent identities for emerging “nations” (aspart of so-called cultural awakenings) as well as attempts to create a

Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2004Copyright © 2004 Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University

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blueprint for social bonding. The premise of this essay is that theseepics have become reservoirs of symbolic material—mythomoteurs—that have exerted influence on each nation’s sociocultural develop-ment and that continue to shape contemporary discourses. Thus, ifthe value of literary work is defined by contemporary society (Fokkemaand Ibsch 1995), then the analysis of epics might reveal what FredricJameson (1981) refers to as the “political unconscious” and provide aframe for interpreting certain contemporary questions.

Literary epics, in this view, are ideological projects as well as artis-tic creations aimed at the conservation of oral cultures. JanMukarovsky (1970) has argued that the independent value of an ar-tistic artifact depends on its ability to attract non-aesthetic values. Myaim here is to clarify the particular social values—eventually coded inthe Latvian epic—that influence contemporary society. To this end,Kalevipoeg plays the role of the significant Other which allows me toreconstruct Lacplesis’s identity. The Estonian epic provides an addi-tional set of paradigms for “heroic” deeds and characteristics, onesthat are absent in the Latvian text. Paradigmatic analysis enables meto interpret the hero’s identity in absentia—to imagine how the hero’scharacter would have changed should he have behaved differently.

The Latvian cultural hero Lacplesis and his Estonian counterpartKalevipoeg are almost contemporaries. Friedrich Kreutzwald publishedhis poem Kalevipoeg in 1857–61, whereas Andrejs Pumpurs’s Lacplesisappeared in 1888. Both authors intended for their heroes to carry anideological function—namely, that of fostering national consciousness.The epic Lacplesis proved to be highly resonant with Latvian social de-velopments over the next century. As the following discussion will indi-cate, the plot and the main characters as first presented by Pumpurssubsequently were borrowed by Janis Rainis at the turn of the centuryfor his drama Fire and Night (1905). In 1986, Mara Zalite turned thefamiliar story into the rock-opera Lacplesis (2001). Both of these laterworks were written during periods of intense social change.

The epic story of Lacplesis begins in the thirteenth century, asGerman knights arrive and impose their Christianity on the Latviantribes. The pagan gods predict the subjugation of Latvians to foreignpowers and designate Lacplesis as a national hero. Lacplesis is theson of a man and a she-bear, from whom he inherited bear ears, whichare the source of his exceptional physical strength. A sage (closelyidentified with “the nation”) named Vaidelots takes the nursing child

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from his mother-bear at an early age and places him with a tribalchief called Lielvards. At the age of eighteen, Lacplesis gets his name,which means Bear-Slayer, when he saves his adoptive father by killingan attacking bear. Having revealed to Lacplesis his origins and thepredictions about his heroic future, Lielvards sends him to theBurtnieki library—the repository of ancient scripts—which has beensunken by the devil to evict Latvians from their new settlement onthe shore of Baltic sea. Along the way, Lacplesis meets an intelligentyoung girl named Spidala, who is a witch. Imperceptibly, he wormsinto her empty log, which delivers them to the Witches Sabbath, wherehe learns about an oath issued by Kangars to betray his people. Onthe way back, Spidala throws Lacplesis into the whirlpools of theDaugava River, but he is saved by the sorceress Staburadze and herapprentice Laimdota. Lacplesis meets a strong man called Koknesis,and together they continue to Burtnieki. Lacplesis defeats the Esto-nian giant Kalapuisis (Kalevipoeg), who has been instigated againstthe Latvians by Spidala and Kangars. Lacplesis raises the sunken pal-ace/library of Burtnieki. He becomes engaged to Laimdota, but sheis soon kidnapped by Spidala and taken to Germany. Lacplesis un-dertakes the journey to find Laimdota, but it is Koknesis who man-ages to free her. Spidala breaks her contract with evil and becomesengaged to Koknesis. Back from his journey, Lacplesis battles theGermans, liberates several villages, and settles in Lielvarde with hiswife, Laimdota. Here, the German Black Knight, who has learnedthe secret of the hero’s strength from Kangars, arrives. The BlackKnight challenges Lacplesis to a duel, succeeds in cutting his ears,but in the end, both warriors are submerged in the Daugava River.

Lacplesis symbolizes strength, although some commentaries alsostress his leadership capacities. Laimdota is intelligent but placid,viewed as an exemplary wife and often referred to as the symbol ofLatvia. Kangars is the most powerful symbol of treason. The mostcontroversial character is Spidala, who sometimes is defined as a lostsheep saved by Lacplesis for a subsequently restful life, but sometimesshe is a sign of the knowledge the hero should have attained.

In terms of its plot, the Estonian epic Kalevipoeg describes the ori-gins of King Kalev and his wife Linda, who are the parents ofKalevipoeg. After Kalev’s death, a Finnish magician Tuuslar stealsLinda. Kalevipoeg sets out to free his mother. He reaches Finlandand kills Tuuslar, but learns that his mother is already dead. In Fin-

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land, Kalevipoeg buys a sword. In celebrating the occasion of thepurchase a conflict arises between Kalevipoeg and a blacksmith’s son.A drunken Kalevipoeg kills the young blacksmith, whose father proph-esied that the sword would revenge this death. Back in Estonia,Kalevipoeg visits his father’s tomb to ask for advice. His father sug-gests that his son atone for his sin with good offices.

Following Kalev’s will, his sons engage in a struggle with each other,and through this competition they ascertain that Kalevipoeg is thestrongest among them. He becomes the king and undertakes hardwork for his country: he drains swamps, cultivates soil, and introducesgardens. When he hears about the threat of German invaders, hedecides to construct four fortresses and travels abroad to procure thenecessary timber. Meanwhile, a witch steals his sword but loses it in alake. Kalevipoeg requests that the sword cut the legs of the one who“has brought it here.” In another of his adventures, Kalevipoeg de-scends to the kingdom of death and saves young girls. Kalevipoegbuilds a ship and sets off to seek the ends of earth. A stranger, who isthe sage Varrak, agrees to show him the right way, but in exchangedemands an object that is locked up in Kalev’s house. When he real-izes that the earth has no limits, the hero sails back home. In Estoniahe defeats the German knights and learns that the object demandedby the sage Varrak was the wisdom book. The hero must keep his pro-mise to Varrak.

Later as Kalevipoeg crosses the lake in which his sword was lost,the blade, still lying at the bottom, cuts his legs. Kalevipoeg dies,having fallen victim to the unintentional consequence of his curse.Punishment falls on Kalevipoeg, who brought the sword “here,” toEstonia, not on the witch, who brought it to the lake. Thus, the swordrevenges the death of the Finnish blacksmith’s son, though it isKalevipoeg himself who bears double responsibility for this fatal out-come. The sword plays an ambiguous role, realizing the Finnishblacksmith’s prophesy through Kalevipoeg’s curse.

By the nineteenth century, Latvian culture did not have any genu-ine epic songs upon which to build a literary epic. Pumpurs inventedhis hero, drawing inspiration from folk tales about the strong manLacausis (Bear-ear), whose strength is also located in his bear-ears.Lacausis felt rejected by his neighbors, who could offer the hero onlymodest tasks to accomplish. Lacausis left his country searching foran opportunity to demonstrate his exceptional prowess.

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Without great success, Pumpurs tried to imitate Latvian folk songmeter. His pantheon of pagan gods was a pure invention. What ismore, he was not entirely knowledgeable about the historical realityhe sought to depict. Pumpurs endeavored to express in sublime stylehis nation’s aspirations for freedom from the arrogant Baltic Ger-mans who still dominated his country and treated Latvians as a peoplewho lacked an authentic culture of their own. The epic poem, there-fore, sought to fill a gap—to constitute a national “high” culture. Dur-ing the following century, as Latvians experienced intense Germanand Russian domination, the passion of national pride assignedLacplesis a special status.

My argument in this article is threefold. First, the evaluation bydifferent schools of literary criticism suggests that the canonizationof Lacplesis served particular ideological goals. Generic classificationof the poem as epic allowed modern political discourses to claim his-torical legitimacy from the “ancients.” Second, narrative analysis ofthe text reveals its failure to provide a framework for socialization.Although useful for political ideologies, the epic blocked reflectionon the nature of the social bonds essential for nation-building. Third,a psychoanalytic approach to the text demonstrates that the construc-tion of cultural trauma as a loss of freedom is in fact a repression ofthe hero’s unresolved Oedipus complex.

The Significance of the Epic in the Representationof National Identity

In The Republic, Plato considers the didactic role of mimesis. Fictionalheroes instruct their readers through the nature of their achievementsand failures, which point to the legitimacy or unacceptability of cer-tain goals, outcomes, or social institutions. My interpretation of therelationship between nineteenth-century epics and current politicalrealities rests on the notion, articulated by scholars in a number offields, that society represents itself in narratives that create modelsfor understanding the world (see Brooks 1984; Jameson 1981; Lyotard1984). In Lyotard’s terms, narratives “define what has the right to besaid and done in the culture in question. What is more, since they arethemselves part of that culture, they are legitimated by the fact thatthey do what they do” (1984:32). In a similar vein, scholars in anthro-pology, social psychology, and folklore argue that identities are so-

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cially constructed through texts and narratives (Gergen 1999). Psy-choanalysts, in turn, contend that literature, and especially myths,express the fantasies of nations (Freud 1908) as well as satisfy theunconscious Oedipal desires of the audience (Brenner 1974). Narra-tives, thus, are a resource for producing meaning, for providing tan-gible material for “imagining a community” (Anderson 1983). Theyobjectify abstract notions of sociability and effectively transmit themto the members of a community. As a result, the meaning of a textexceeds the author’s subjectivity because it is produced on the basisof a certain “horizon of expectations”—on shared beliefs and con-ventions with predetermined boundaries and parameters (Jauss 1970).

Nineteenth-century literary epics were conscious attempts to inventidentities for emerging “nations.” National Romantics, among themthe authors of Kalevipoeg and Lacplesis, set themselves the task of in-venting a collective past and self (see Berelis 1999; Prieditis 2000). InLatvia, the fervor was so intense that a competition broke out amongthe Latvian literati to accomplish this honorable mission. Five variantsof the national poems were submitted by Fridrihs Malbergis (in 1869and 1886) and Jekabs Lautenbahs-Jusmins (in 1880, 1885, and 1891).While there is a general consensus about the imperfection of Malbergis’squest, the third poem by Lautenbahs—entitled Niedrisu Vidvuds—re-ceived considerable attention from literary scholars, both positive andnegative, thus demonstrating the social and political importance of anational poem and the salience of old forms in that quest.

Evaluated from an ideological point of view, the choice of an out-moded genre as the basis for new literary work is not accidental. Inthe eyes of authors and audiences, the ancient roots of the epic en-dow it with a special legitimacy in culture. The epic is defined withparticular stress on its significance as a fundamental medium for com-municating national identity—for embodying the history and aspira-tions of the nation in a grandiose and lofty manner. Epic heroes, withthe aid of gods and magic agents, perform honorable deeds that serveto authenticate the hero’s claim to represent the nation or race(Beckson and Ganz 1975; Cuddon 1998; Gray 1998). Along with thenational flag and anthem, the epic is a recognized cultural symbol, asign of national distinctiveness.

In Latvia, the epic successfully conjoined with certain ideologicaldesires. Latvians bolstered their self-respect, which had been dam-

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aged by decades of denigration at the hands of Baltic Germans, byimitating ancient cultural tradition. In 1877, K. Ullmann, a BalticGerman priest and linguist, had charged that Latvians had no epicbecause they had created nothing worthy of recording (quoted byVike-Freiberga 1985). Immediately after the publication of Lacplesis,almost as if in answer to Ullmann and other likeminded Baltic Ger-mans, a contemporary Latvian wrote: “Now Latvians have an epic thatallows us to stand with other nations as equals” (quoted in Kalnins1988:10). This idea echoes throughout the twentieth century. In 1990,a prominent Latvian literary critic wrote: “A. Pumpurs placed theLatvian nation beside those nations that had their heroic fairy talesand epic” (Cakars et al. 1990:313), while another asserted that the“epic lent [Latvia] a kind of prestige” (Kalnins 1988:10).

The moral wound from the Baltic German aristocracy affectedthe development of social thought in Latvia in deep and long-lastingways. In both the 1930s and the 1990s, in totally different socio-political contexts, intellectuals contended that certain cultural val-ues played a key role in justifying claims for national independencein broader international arenas (Priedite 1999). In 1988, after thepremiere of the rock-opera Lacplesis, a critic stressed that Latvian cul-ture (finally!) had attained its first rock-opera.1 After the restorationof independence in 1991, the broad international recognition ac-corded to Latvia’s new status provided the new and inexperiencedLatvian establishment with tangible proof upon which to build na-tional self-esteem and a positive identity. The influential poet ImantsZiedonis even invited intellectuals to create a checklist of culturalartifacts in order to isolate a particular Latvian code and its distinc-tiveness in comparison to other cultures.2 Emigré scholar Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who was elected president of Latvia in 1999 and 2003,observed that Latvians constantly imagine themselves

in front of a panel of international judges (and not without reason) forwhom the nation has to assemble a large file of evidence in order toprove itself the bearer of a distinctive culture. Only after such proof willthe world officially admit that Latvians constitute a nation sufficientlydifferent from all other nations to allow them their place among othernations of the world. (1992:190)

The Latvian epic succeeded in “assembling” evidence for nationaldistinctiveness but failed to provide the representation of an active,

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dynamic nation. Concern with identifying signs of distinctiveness dis-placed collective reflection on the nature of the social bond. In 1999,the Latvian literary historian Guntis Berelis argued that Lacplesisactually had created a cultural impasse.

Ideological Use of the Epic

Pumpurs fulfilled his ambition: his heroes continue to express ideasof freedom as they appear in subsequent literary and dramatic ren-derings. But Lacplesis is more than a reservoir of ideological symbol-ism. In Latvian culture, Lacplesis is available as one of only a very fewanthropomorphic iconographic images. Together with his support-ing cast, he has been represented in theatre, cinema, opera, rock-opera, book illustrations, and sculpture. Lacplesis even materializesin playing cards and a mass-produced cap with bear-ears. Palpable onthe material plane, Lacplesis has created a topography of nationalism.Literary historians agree that the epic has produced a peculiarlyLatvian cultural code, heroic image, and national ideology (Berelis1999; Berzins 1935; Lasmanis 1975; Dravnieks 1976; Rudzitis 1988a,1988b; Cakars et al. 1990; Hausmanis et al. 1998). Lacplesis turns outto be universal and easily adaptable to different political eras andsituations, as illustrated by the following examples that span ninedecades of symbolic use.

As the sign of a warrior, Lacplesis has been used by all politicalregimes. In interwar Latvia (1918–40), Army Day (commemoratedon November 11) and the first state military medal were named afterLacplesis. Lacplesis is represented on the Soldiers’ Monument in Jel-gava (constructed in 1932) and on the Freedom Monument in Riga(built in 1935). The Ulmanis administration of 1934–40 proposed acomprehensive new edition of Pumpurs’s works as a source of the“true Latvian” identity to promote patriotism. Printed in 1935 andintroduced with portraits of state and military leaders, this volumewas designed as a present from the war minister to dischargees frommilitary service.

In Soviet Latvia (1940–91), literary critics canonized Pumpurs’spoem soon after the war. One of the most prosperous collective farms(kolkhoz) was built in the region immortalized by the epic and wasnamed after Lacplesis. Lacplesis Street in Riga was among the fewstreets that retained pre-Soviet names. Wartime communist leaders

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grasped the need to root their discourse in folk traditions and na-tional literature in order to oppose the “antipatriotic appeals of na-tionalists” in Nazi-occupied Latvia (Samsons 1984:108). In a wartimepamphlet entitled Germans in Latvia, the poet Janis Sudrabkalns drewcontemporary parallels to the struggle of Lacplesis against medievalGerman knights. In addition, Pumpurs was said “to have urged Lat-vians to look for friends among Russians” (1942:57). In Sudrabkalns’spoem “Lacplesis” (1943), the resurrected hero, together with the So-viet people, fights against the Nazis. “Lacplesis has always led Latviansin the struggle against their enemy,” the poem declares. The epiccharacters were revived in a poem called “The Sun Gate” (1943) byJulijs Vanags. Soviet authorities demolished “nationalistic” monu-ments, such as the one built in Jelgava in 1932, but immortalizedLacplesis, nevertheless, in such new monuments as the one dedicatedto Soviet soldiers built in Vietalva in 1966.

During the period of Nazi-occupation of Latvia (1941–45), thesame symbolism had been aimed against Soviets. A version of Lacplesissponsored by the occupying Nazi government became analogous tothe German mythic hero Siegfried. Since it was impossible to denythe overt anti-German content of the epic, press accounts avoidedspecific references to the text. Instead, Lacplesis was treated as a signof courage and military heroism in general. However, by introducingthe topic of ancient Latvia, his name served as a pretext for speakingabout the perennial struggle against Russian invaders.3 Toward theend of the war, the newspaper Ventas Balss (on November 10, 1944)urged Latvians to fight against the Soviet offensive: “The spirit ofLacplesis is not dead. Latvia will live!” A clandestine anti-fascist resis-tance group in occupied Latvia even used Lacplesis’s name as a titleof their newspaper in 1944.

During perestroika (1985–91), M. Zalite’s rock-opera, whose librettowas written in 1986 and which was performed in 1988, depicts (albeitstill implicitly) Lacplesis battling against Soviet occupation. In Sep-tember 1988, the literary revue Karogs commemorated the centenaryof the publication of Pumpurs’s Lacplesis and mobilized its symbol-ism during the so-called Third National Awakening in the last daysof Soviet rule. The “topography of ethnicity,” put into narrative formby the epic, rallied ethnic sentiments against communist rule, in asocial movement that started as a protest against the building of athird hydroelectric station on the Daugava River. Soviet industrializa-

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tion efforts were represented as an assault on “Mother Daugava.” Thesecond station, which had been built in 1966, had already inundateda landscape considered to be a typical visual representation of thecountry.

In 2002, a deluxe edition of the epic was published in indepen-dent Latvia. The fact that the preface was written by Latvia’s presi-dent, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, confirms the ideological value of the poem.Indeed, it would seem that ideologies have burdened Lacplesis withthe particular task of struggling on behalf of each and all.

The Author’s Purpose in Epic

Function of the literary epic

Since the epic text is aimed at formulating and conserving the mostimportant materials of identity, it assumes the attributes of a broadervoice, one that explains the reason for the ancients and the nation.Generic definition, thus, deletes the author’s subjective voice; instead,the author takes on the role of a narrator, whose humble task is tosystematize and transmit already existing texts and traditions. Criti-cal metatexts, furthermore, assign the epic the status of a canon. AsTerry Eagleton has written in Literary Theory, “Literary criticism se-lects, processes, corrects and rewrites texts in accordance with cer-tain institutionalized norms of the ‘literary’—norms which are at anygiven time arguable, and always historically variable” (1996:177).

What then was the task expected of the epic author? Was it topreserve tradition or to invent contemporary social criticism? Whywrite an epic if a realist novel could respond just as well to contempo-rary actualities? Scholars today contend that the compilation of anepic is not the restoration of a lost tradition, but is instead an inven-tion, an interpretation of the contemporary situation in what is pur-ported to be the language of tradition.

Expectations of Latvian literary criticsLatvian literary historians have pointed to the “authenticity” ofPumpurs’s epic poem by stressing that in his native village ancienttraditions (without admixtures) were preserved for a much longertime than elsewhere in Latvia (Zeiferts [1922] 1993:400; Kalnins etal. 1963:518). In other words, Pumpurs was deeply connected to the

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“real” Latvian worldview and such a metaphysical connection to thepast grants him the right to teach others the “correct interpretationof ancient beliefs and traditions” (Hausmanis et al. 1998:176).

In contrast, the poems intended as epics by Jekabs Lautenbahsfailed to meet some of the basic criteria that audiences (and schol-ars) perceive as crucial for lending “authenticity” to epic creation.Latvian literary historians note that Lautenbahs lived and worked inDorpat, a seventeenth-century university town in Estonia. He thuswas detached from the Latvian environment. His writings “lacked ideo-logical goal-orientation, elements of national self-consciousness”(Hausmanis et al. 1998:178), and “references to actual problems”(Berzins 1935, vol. 3:33).

In general, however, critics are inconsistent in evaluating Pumpursand his rival poets. Lautenbahs is invalidated because he lacked afamiliarity with folk tradition and he falsified folklore and history(Kalnins et al. 1971:90). Pumpurs is perceived positively despite hismanipulation of the folklore incorporated in Lacplesis and his being“too obviously in conflict with historical reality.” As Aija Priedite notesin her article about the history of ideas in Latvia,

to believe that Latvians in the thirteenth century were already familiarwith the philosophical ideas of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment,as manifested in the text, stretches the imagination too far. In fact, theancient heroes conveyed modern ideas, reflecting nineteenth-centurydebates rather than recreating the ethos of an ancient historical era.(1999:241).

Through time, there has been no consensus among Latvian liter-ary critics about the artistic value of Pumpurs’s epic poem or the lackof merit of Lautenbahs’s work. In 1907, Roberts Klaustins comparedLacplesis to a “romantic love story” (180). Ludis Berzins, in 1935, de-clared without reservation that Lautenbahs’s poem “outdid Lacplesisas poetry” (1935:33).

After the war, emigré critics issued reserved statements about theepic. Andrejs Johansons argued that Pumpurs’s “poetic artistry wasweak” (1953:107–9). Janis Andrups and Vitauts Kalve paid little at-tention to attempts at epic creation: they put the epic as a whole mildlyin its place as “only a reflection of the fashion in vogue all over Eu-rope where great enthusiasm had arisen for the folk epic after theNibelungenlied and the Old Norse epics had captured people’s imagina-

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tion” (1954:104). In a school textbook, Ludvigs Viks stressed thatLacplesis was not a genuine national (folk) epic because Pumpurs hadignored the rhythm of folk poetry (1975:5–6). Arvids Dravnieks be-lieved that Lacplesis was not a good epic and that Lautenbahs wasboring (1976:168, 215). Vike-Freiberga argued that Pumpurs’s po-etry was often awkward and stumbling. In her opinion, Lacplesis isnot a folk epic, but it “may be considered as truly a national epic inmodern guise” (1985:524).

Soviet literary criticism issued an unconditionally positive evalua-tion of Lacplesis. By strengthening its metanarrative status, the newideologist sought legitimizing roots in historical tradition. The newcanon was established by the leading writer Andrejs Upits (1947) inthe preface to the first impressive Soviet edition of Lacplesis soon af-ter World War II. His reinterpretation targeted Soviet foes. Lacplesis,for example, was construed as anti-German as well as anticlerical.Moreover, Pumpurs is said to be “the first Latvian intellectual to real-ize his nation’s agnation to Slavic nations” (Upits 1947:8). Expandedideological interpretation was presented by the zealous scholar JanisNiedre, who found in Pumpurs characteristics that would please anyorthodox Marxist. Niedre declared that Pumpurs was a materialist(albeit “naïve”) and a “dedicated Darwinist” (1953:233). Developingthese ideas, the early school texts stressed that “allegorically Pumpursexpressed sympathy with the Slavic nations, especially with the greatRussian nation” (Gaile and Grase 1958:138; Gaile et al. 1966:80; cf.Niedre 1953:250). Authors of more or less de-ideologized textbooksgradually abandoned such claims in the 1970s and 1980s.

The canonization of so important a cultural text as a national epicwas intimately connected to the social class of the writers and theirrespective ideological positioning within the literary movements of“national” and “pseudonational” (or in Soviet terms, “reactionary”)Romanticism. Soviet scholars labeled Lautenbahs a reactionary be-cause he detached literature from the social struggles of his epoch;he was seen as a “poet of the highest circles of the Latvian bourgeoi-sie” (Kalnins et al. 1963:261–63, Kalnins et al. 1971:87, 221). Lau-tenbahs’s disadvantage was his father’s wealth. Pumpurs, in contrast,was born to landless parents and his social descent prohibited himfrom attending high school. Soviet critics pointed out that in “bour-geois” Latvia (the pre-Soviet independent republic), Lacplesis—asPumpurs wrote it—was not positively evaluated. It was not recognized

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as the national epic, but was published merely as an “epic song.” So-viet ideology, on the other hand, assumed the role of rescuer of theprecious ancient tradition, insisting that (contrary to interwar bour-geois criticism) “Soviet literary science considers Lacplesis to be thenational epic” (Kalnins et al. 1963:556–57). As a grand narrative,Lacplesis was interpreted as being in opposition to the upper- and middle-class of pre-Soviet Latvia and hence also to the Latvian emigration thatsought to escape Soviet occupation. Schoolbooks taught pupils thatthe traitor Kangars “represented the upper class and the religious mi-lieu” (Gaile and Grase 1958:138). Gradually, in the new political con-ditions of perestroika, Soviet authorities moved toward rapprochementwith those in the “bourgeois” diaspora. In 1987 the Soviet History ofLatvian Literature stated that “values expressed in Lacplesis exceed bour-geois ideals” (Cakars et al. 1987:309). Three years later, in the revisededition, this argument was omitted (cf. Cakars et al. 1990:317).

Generic definition eased usage of the epic by and for differentideologies. It was an apolitical “voice of the people” par excellence, onethat easily could be adapted to various sociopolitical conditions re-gardless of the specific context of its creation. It might be representedas a voice of the nineteenth century or as a voice of the ancients.Lacplesis as hero could be acknowledged by both the Soviet ide-ologist and the Latvians who fled to the West. Latvian refugees inGermany, for example, printed the epic immediately after the war,claiming that Lacplesis was a symbol of the “nation’s strength andheroism” (Kreicers 1946:47). In 1983 at the conference on Baltic Stud-ies in Stockholm, Vike-Freiberga (1985) presented a paper on Lacplesis.Today, I definitely interpret her treatment of the epic’s dream of in-dependence as a gentle reminder from afar—addressed to Soviet col-leagues attending the conference—about the Soviet occupation.Whether this was really the case or not, the free circulation of theepic in the Soviet Union nevertheless downplayed its eventual anti-soviet or anti-Russian connotations in the nationalist discourse at thattime. Having accepted and circulated the text, Soviet ideology man-aged more or less to neutralize and control its symbolism.

Contemporary critics, it must be remembered, are evaluatingLacplesis after it has been put on a pedestal and canonized as a grandnarrative. A 1996 school textbook affirms directly that Lacplesis is acultural metaphor that “serves as a standard for all of us” (Ausekle etal. 1996:95). Cultural historian Arturs Prieditis argues that Lacplesis is

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among “the most outstanding and impressive artistic and socio-psychological works in Latvian culture” (2000:151). The updated lit-erary encyclopedia considers the poem to be “one of the most excep-tional achievements of Latvian literature” (Latviesu 2003:463). Literaryscholar Biruta Gudrike, though, is more cautious, arguing that it rep-resents merely the author’s highest artistic achievement (Hausmaniset al. 1998:174).

The borrowing of the same symbols by the different political re-gimes is not simply fortuitous. National Romantics in the nineteenthcentury and Latvian nationalists and Soviet ideologues in the twenti-eth were confronting the same problem—the weakening of traditionalsocial bonds as modernization and urbanization developed. Alreadyin 1925 Klaustins predicted that decadent modernist literature soonwould give way to the traditional ethnic ideals and didactic approachesspecific to Pumpurs (151). Differing views over the relative masteryof Pumpurs and Lautenbahs illustrate that the creation of the epic isa project more closely related to ideological goals than to artisticmastery. Lacplesis was acclaimed by “traditionalists” who wanted a grandnarrative in order to root their ideologies in the legitimate heroicpast. “Modernized” urban circles of interwar independent Latvia andpostwar emigration cautiously spoke out about the usefulness of suchattempts to mock history.

Epic Narrative Structure

As a narrative, the epic explains the meaning of shared experiencesand exemplifies the values of a community, at the same time that itserves to illustrate how the individual may be incorporated into thesocial body. The logic of the narrative is subordinated to these socialgoals. According to Tzvetan Todorov, an ideal narrative generally be-gins with a depiction of the social equilibrium being disrupted, andthe subsequent story elucidates not only the nature of the destructiveforces but also characterizes how stability might be restored (1971:50).The narrative shows the hero developing and maturing as he tests hisabilities and compares his behavior to established social norms. In theprocess, as Algirdas-Julien Greimas (1966) points out, the social level,which includes law and contractual social organization, is correlatedwith the individual (or inter-individual) level, where personal valuesare generated through communication among human beings.

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 15

Epic narrative binds individual and social life together. Accordingto Greimas, in the narrative scheme this process consists of the fol-lowing stages. First, the contract is initiated when a hero is assignedthe duty of renewing a former state of affairs by redressing certainwrongs and filling a lack. It is a stage full of tension and intrigue.Subsequently, in order to be able to accomplish imminent decisivetests, the hero must acquire and demonstrate his competence throughwhat might be called qualification tests. Finally, the “glory test” oc-curs at the sanction stage, when achievement is compared to the con-tractual demands. The hero’s development through each of thesestages is guided by four modalities (or ways of being) that demon-strate in concrete ways how he meets the preconditions essential forfulfilling the social duty:

• having-to-do• wanting-to-do• being-able-to-do• knowing-to-do (Greimas 1983:76–81).

When duty is received (“having-to-do”), it must become transformedinto “wanting-to-do.” In other words, the hero’s understanding andconscious acceptance of responsibility indicate that he has internal-ized the value system of the social environment and is personallymotivated to fulfill the proffered duty.

The next two modalities—“being-able-to-do” and “knowing-to-do”—are the essential steps for attaining the necessary qualifications.Both entail the acquisition of communication skills, which are a pre-requisite for obtaining help (magic tools, advice, etc.). As the herotests different ways of behaving, he not only recognizes which of hisown actions are desirable and expedient but begins also to grasp therelated social values. He comes to realize that he cannot fulfill hisduty without the help of others. As helpers offer or withhold assis-tance, they give him positive or negative feedback about his behaviorand thus nurture his growing self-evaluation. The competence thehero acquires in the course of his adventures is vital for accomplish-ing the decisive tests.

In the narrative, of course, things do not develop so smoothly.The hero is not a passive instrument who follows the will of a higherauthority. Instead, he is free to choose from alternatives. For Greimas,the refusal to acquiesce to a contract has positive implications: it brings

16 Sergei Kruks

about “the affirmation of the individual’s freedom” (1970:210). Infact, the availability of choice constitutes a hero’s maturation test.Freedom to choose implies a sense of personal responsibility. Thedynamics of the epic lead either toward a renewal of the contractwithin the framework of the previous order or to the sketching out ofa new order. Similarly, Paul Ricoeur points out that narratives makechoices visible through the depicted procrastinations arising in thecourse of the quest: “by means of the alternatives, the bifurcations,the contingent connections, and finally by the unforeseeable outcomeof the quest as a success or a failure” (1985:48). In this way the narra-tive presents different modes of behavior, while the hero’s trial anderror, his faults and misbehavior as concomitant to free choice, com-prise the motor of the story. Greimas’s model of the hero’s develop-ment through narrative serves to illustrate how Lacplesis—in spite ofhis popular appeal and adoption by nationalist endeavors—evadesthe challenges of heroism and offers an inadequate model for moralcharacter and social responsibility.

Comparative Analysis of the Latvian Lacplesisand the Estonian Kalevipoeg

Comprehending duty

In Lacplesis it is not easy for the reader to define the hero’s task: is itsimply to be heroic or to undertake an important duty? Gods and ter-restrial moral authorities offer little help in answering this questionsince they avoid making unequivocal pronouncements. Perkons (thegod of thunder) is said to have “blessed” Lacplesis for having lofty goalsand forecasts “the life of a hero” for him (Pumpurs 1988b:I, 244).4 Thesorceress Staburadze, a female character who functions as a mediatorbetween the gods and humans, is slightly more specific: “The gods des-tine you . . . to earn glory in your nation” (II, 721). In her estimation,then, the epic is about fame and glory rather than about fulfilling dutyor exacting revenge. The hero’s adoptive father, the tribal chiefLielvards, declares: “Truly you will be a chosen one, just as it has beenpredicted” (II, 39). He is echoing the earlier message of the sageVaidelots: “The boy has been fated by the gods to become a nationalhero” (II, 53). Through such flattery, the narrative loses its social di-mension. The outcome of the final stage—sanction—is independent

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 17

of the hero’s performance, which makes it possible for Lacplesis to beperceived as a hero despite his failure to resist foreign invaders. He,however, is not to blame because the contract stage did not, in fact,take place. Social and divine authorities were reluctant to formulatehis duty explicitly. Pumpurs reveals his bewilderment in the face ofchanging value systems. By making Lacplesis a vacillating character,Pumpurs avoids a straightforward condemnation of the Christianityand Westernization imposed on his country.

Spidala alone comes closest to formulating the hero’s duty explic-itly, but her words are undermined by her rather controversial char-acter role. She once abandoned her gods to enter into a contractwith witches who would allow her access to unorthodox knowledge.Intelligent and beautiful, Spidala is constantly attempting to seduceLacplesis. It is she who urges Lacplesis to undertake his task withoutdelay and as a matter of duty:

While you wander on the distant seaForeigners are burning our fatherland!Hurry, Lacplesis, hurry home,Take revenge on the foreign oppressors! (V, 325–28)

On the one hand, the absence of an explicitly formulated duty byrecognized authorities excuses the hero who is unwilling to act. Onthe other hand, the hero is able to ignore Spidala’s unequivocal pa-triotic interpretation because she is a character who already has daredto defy traditional authorities by acceding to the knowledge of witches.

In the Estonian epic the duty Kalevipoeg must fulfill is unam-biguously communicated to him. Before his death, the father, Kalev,communicates the rules of successorship to his sons. He mandates aritualistic contest among the brothers. When Kalevipoeg proves hisstrength by winning this contest, he confirms his new social positionexplicitly. Furthermore, by consciously taking on the new duties,Kalevipoeg bids farewell to his unfettered adolescent life: “When Iwas made ruler, chosen to be the king, I had to quit my nest. . . . ”(Kreutzwald 1982:102).

Skills and competenceFor contemporary Latvian culture, some rather unwelcome effects stemfrom the epic’s failure to modulate “knowing-to-do” positively. Pumpursprovides Lacplesis with ample occasions for proving his physical

18 Sergei Kruks

strength, especially in the early stage that establishes his qualificationsas a “hero.” In a key episode, for example, Lacplesis sets sail to free hisfiancée, Laimdota. But the reader knows that his friend Koknesis hasalready freed her. The reader is invited to excuse Lacplesis’s delay—the hero lingers on enchanted islands where he narcissistically demon-strates his own physical strength. What is more, having lost his way atsea, he is advised to return home rather than follow a dangerous routein search of his beloved. Lacplesis accepts this advice. Pumpurs, in hisdepiction of the hero, seems to have built in certain fatal characterflaws, while implicating the reader in excusing them.

Most crucially, Lacplesis does not demonstrate skills associatedwith learning from social contacts, from helping others, or from thenecessities of everyday life. On the contrary, all the helpers encoun-tered during the journey provide assistance without ever testing thehero and his companions: “They lacked nothing, everyone was happy,thus no one thought to leave the island and sail home” (Pumpurs1988b:IV, 641). Another time, on another island, they “spent many apleasant day. . . . the land’s natives one after another hastened to pro-vide pleasure” (IV, 916–17). Sorceress Staburadze saves Lacplesis frombeing turned into stone, a fate that befalls everyone else who fallsinto her whirlpool.

In this case, the helpers function is a means for testing the hero’smoral qualities. It is in the nature of the epic genre that the acquisi-tion of magical tools and support depends on the hero’s ability tocommunicate effectively with others and to gain their respect by dis-playing socially acceptable behavior. Language skills, thus, are an in-dicator of socialization. But Lacplesis is taciturn. He does not evensing lyric songs to his beloved.

The epic manifests the hero’s pathological narcissism: he accom-plishes heroic deeds alone; his companions frequently annoy him.They are represented as lazy and irresponsible. Lacplesis alone de-feats the ogres because he has failed to lead his men. In liberatingLaimdota, he boldly refuses help and then fails to do it by himself.His lack of intellectual astuteness thwarts his ability to anticipate fu-ture events. After wining back his native village of Lielvarde, for ex-ample, Lacplesis organizes a feast for all his warriors, divides the bootyamong them, and then lets them go home without thinking aboutfuture defense needs and capacity. Lacplesis and his spouse Laimdota“lived for themselves, rewarded for their glorious deeds” (VI, 846–47).

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 19

In contrast, Kalevipoeg experiences constant self-development, andthe social environment that imposes different tests on him activelyshapes his character. He learns from his adventures. While he admitsthat searching for the ends of the earth was totally meaningless, herecognizes that the adventure nevertheless increased his knowledge:“on our errant route . . . we found many truthful tidings: that the wideworld has no end” (Kreutzwald 1982:212). Unlike his Latvian coun-terpart, Kalevipoeg ignores an opportunity to show off his exceptionalstrength to his travel companions. He is aware of his shortcomingsand admits the necessity for continual self-improvement: “On turn-ing back a man has more wisdom than he had upon departing” (212).Kalevipoeg’s power is not his exceptional physical strength. Occasion-ally he provides assistance to ordinary humans and small animals.Such acts do not require extreme effort and therefore do not high-light his prowess. His strength, rather, is in his character and his abil-ity to interact with others.

Lacplesis: Fearing freedom, shrinking from blameLacplesis’s indifference to social duty stems from a double bind. Thegods pick him as a hero but simultaneously prophesy his subjugationto a foreign power. They thus consign him to failure. If he fulfils theprescribed duty, he realizes the divine wish but destroys the gods’ au-thority by proving his ability to influence social events. The documentsbelonging to the ancients—found in the recovered Burtnieki librarydepository of the nation’s knowledge—acknowledge that a human canvie successfully with the gods, but that such a presumption makes amockery of the old gods. Pumpurs refrains from direct comment onthis dilemma except to say “Human will is free” (Pumpurs 1988b:III, 94)and to imply thereby that the days of the pagan gods are numbered.

Lacplesis makes excuses for himself, explaining his captivity interms of a prophecy of the gods. He avoids situations where he wouldhave to make a subjective decision. In the Latvian epic, warriors arenot in a hurry to fulfill their duty. Instead, when Lacplesis’s belovedLaimdota is stolen, he first grows despondent and locks himself in hisstepfather’s castle, then spends a lot of time traveling to distant landsand visiting enchanted islands before calling off a rescue attempt andreturning home.

Lacplesis does not hasten to fulfill his duty because he is already ahero by definition. In Rainis’s words, “His fate is to become a hero.”

20 Sergei Kruks

He is preoccupied with safeguarding an institutional position, keep-ing honor and glory pure. Social action could test his skills and com-petence and throw doubt upon his heroic status. Lacplesis thereforeis afraid of responsibility that entails freedom of choice: he dreadsmaking a wrong decision. At one point, Lacplesis’s friend Koknesisvoices an indirect criticism of the hero’s sterile lifestyle. Koknesismakes clear that he recognizes the importance of social tests for shap-ing character when he praises Spidala (with whom he had fallen inlove) for finally bringing to an end her contract with evil: “Who fallsto rise again—that person will stand more firmly than the one whohas not yet fallen” (Pumpurs 1988b:V, 538–40). In the epic, a nationunwilling to challenge the gods clings to its identity in tradition, evenif by doing so it deprives itself of the freedom to resist divine proph-esies about subjugation to foreign power.

Lacplesis displays manic depressive psychosis. In his behavior, pe-riods of passivity and melancholy are followed by demonstrative, ifmeaningless, outbursts of force that do not jibe with social need. Hisaccess to the skills essential for proving his decisiveness is impeded byhis recurrent depressive states and his fixation on bolstering his self-confidence by demonstrating physical strength. It is not Kangars’streason (revealing to the crusaders that the hero’s strength was in hisears) that takes Lacplesis’s life, but rather that his amour-propre is fa-tally wounded by the German Black Knight, who doubts his physicalstrength. Wishing to save his reputation, Lacplesis accepts a duel withhim and loses his life.

Kalevipoeg: Pragmatic actorThe Estonian epic Kalevipoeg constructs a completely different conceptof individual freedom. The hero, Kalevipoeg, has not been selected bythe gods but has won his status through his own actions. The epic mod-els an active individual who manifests pragmatic and socially respon-sible behavior. Warned about impending war, Kalevipoeg prepares bybuilding shelters for the women, children, and elderly people.(Lacplesis, on the other hand, devastates villages as he chases crusad-ers.) Kalevipoeg acts tirelessly: “Don’t throw today’s chores ontotomorrow’s peg! If you want to . . . see a profit in your work, then don’twaste time—hesitate no longer!” (Kreutzwald 1982:43).

When individual physical strength and determination are insuffi-cient, Kalevipoeg, in contrast to Lacplesis, seeks out and relies upon

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 21

the advice and assistance of others—his brothers, foreigners, andmagic animals:

In Finland, in that granite country,I’ll be sure to find some kinsmen,acquitances in Lapland,old friends from the isle,who’ll put me on the path,direct me toward the right trail. (200)

He not only appreciates external help and advice, but also repays itin kind. Communication with helpers requires language skills, andKalevipoeg talks and sings freely. He even seeks discursive resolutionof conflict.

The Kalevipoeg provides a more useful, usable past by characteriz-ing the people as equal and capable social actors. In one instance,Kalevipoeg shames his frightened compatriots when he urges themto action against invaders: “What are the young men doing then? Arethere no brave ones growing, no strong men rising?” (251). The herofully trusts his people and perceives himself as their partner. The epicdoes not bind the nation’s fate to his exceptional physical strength,but instead underlines the importance of collaborative action: “Whenthe strife seems more severe . . . then I myself will come to stride aheadas your helper!” (111).

Kalevipoeg does not try to avoid unexpected situations that mightexpose his weaknesses. When he acts badly, he reflects upon the con-sequences. For example, Kalevipoeg seduces a girl; another time, whilein a drunken stupor, he kills the son of the blacksmith who carved hissword. Through such episodes, the topics of guilt and personal re-sponsibility enter into the narrative, and internal psychological dy-namics are represented as the foundation for individual growth. Inthe final analysis, faults and misbehavior constitute the intrigue thatguides the whole story. War and the hero’s own death are the nega-tive consequences of his unacceptable behavior. In contrast to theLatvian epic, Kalevipoeg interprets war as the necessary cost for theabuse of morals rather than as the whimsical decision of gods:

The spilling of innocent bloodpasses judgment on you;blood strives for blood’s wages,death brings forth more death. (115)

22 Sergei Kruks

Military defeat is represented as an unintended by-product ofhuman curiosity and aspiration for knowledge. Kalevipoeg deliber-ately relinquishes the precious wisdom book—the legacy of his fa-ther Kalev—in exchange for the chance to satisfy his curiosity aboutthe end of the Earth. He accepts the freedom to make decisions andto act, but he also accepts responsibility for his actions.

Kalevipoeg suggests that perhaps the hero’s failure stems from his hav-ing forgotten about or ignored the nation’s wisdom book. Future suc-cess will derive from knowledge, not from physical strength. Pumpursactually comes to the same conclusion in Lacplesis when he implies thatGermans conquered Latvian territory through a reliance on the Chris-tian word. Both epics inserted their heroes into similar social conditions,but the Latvian text failed to render the hero’s successful socialization.The reason might lie in the different personal dispositions caused byprobable flaws in Lacplesis’s individual identification process.

Psychoanalytic Approach: The Epic Constructs Trauma

Lacplesis sounds a low-spirited note: the gods announce a long periodof slavery for the people. Pumpurs depicts a world in fragments. Themain female characters—Laimdota and Spidala—are motherless.Lacplesis’s own origins are unclear. Nothing is known about his fa-ther. His mother is a bear. From her he inherits the bear ears thatendow his supernatural strength. In the beginning of the epic, it issaid that the sage Vaidelots had taken the suckling child from hisbear mother. The epic’s tone suggests that the deprivation of hismother’s breast at so early an age has caused Lacplesis’s depression.Repeatedly he seeks the mother’s womb: he holes up in a log and incaves, is almost swept away when he falls into a whirlpool. WhenLacplesis drowns in the Daugava River, it is a logical relief for hisanxiety: he has at last fulfilled his desire to find “happiness at thebeloved breast” of which Vaidelots deprived him.

The theme of fragmented families suggests that the story lendsitself to a psychoanalytic approach. In understanding the process ofinfant identification, psychoanalysis assigns a paramount role to theOedipus complex (Freud 1924; Lacan 1966). A child, given the physi-cal proximity to his mother, considers himself to be the object themother lacks. The father’s role is to interfere in these dyadic rela-tions by demonstrating that the mother does not constitute a part of

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 23

her child’s ego. Slavoj Zizek describes how the child is forced into achoice between le père ou pire—father or worse (1992:75–76). By ac-cepting the father’s prohibition against being-with-mother, a childattains autonomy. Thereupon he may become a subject, able to acton his own desires rather than remain an obedient object to hismother’s desires. The process known as “symbolic castration” deniesthe child his sense of omnipotence but sets him free from sub-mission. The path to freedom entails accepting the interdiction andrealizing one’s own imperfection. Pumpurs himself has associatedsymbolic castration with access to culture. With regard to his epicpoem, he commented that the bear ears that are the source of physi-cal strength symbolize the half-wild Latvian people. In order to be-come cultured, the hero must have his ears cut (Pumpurs 1988a). Inthe epic there is no father figure capable of accomplishing this func-tion. Spidala undertakes several tentative moves to do it. In the guiseof a witch, for instance, she leads the assault when a monster tries toslash off Lacplesis’s ears. The foreign German Black Knight finallyaccomplishes the function, but even this act does not save the hero.Having lost his ears, Lacplesis sinks into the Daugava River, thus meta-phorically returning to the maternal body. The wild ears seem in-deed to annoy Latvian culture, and it would seem that iconographictradition has accomplished the symbolic castration. In book illustra-tions, sculptures, and in theater depictions, Lacplesis’s ears are dis-guised under his hair or shown as an element of his hat.

In Kalevipoeg, family matters are the exact opposite. The Estonianepic begins with a joyful delineation of the origins of the tribe. Thesuccession of weddings and births creates a sense of wholeness andcompleteness. Kalevipoeg draws strength from his mother: he nursesuntil the age of three and his mother “sought help for her son . . . and[gave] the feeble babe strength” (Kreutzwald 1982:100). Also, thefather is actively present and, even after death, is a continuing re-source. When Kalevipoeg and his brothers need counsel or have losttheir moral vision, they visit the father’s tomb: “Your dead father’sshade will lead his son’s steps even from the grave” (93).

For Lacplesis, water usually reminds him about his regressive de-sire to be-with-mother. In the Estonian epic, water does not representa menacing force that weakens Kalevipoeg’s strength of will. Whethersea, lake, or river, all are simply impediments to overcome as he pur-sues a particular goal:

24 Sergei Kruks

Haven’t I tried my luck,earlier, one hundred times:in Lake Peipsi, without fear,in Vorts Lake without a quiver,with no dread at Kaiu Pond;I’ve waded through the Baltic Sea,with a burden, without falling. (200)

The Latvian epic articulates the hero’s infant trauma—the sageVaidelots has deprived Lacplesis of his mother, and the child per-ceives it as an assault on the freedom to make his own choices. Theepic expresses sympathy with Lacplesis’s wish to refuse the prohibi-tion of the father (or whoever attempts to fulfill this function) andconstructs trauma on the social plane as deprivation of the land byforeigners. For example, the German knights are advised to intro-duce Christianity in the village of Turaida because it is “fertile groundin which to plant [their] seeds” (Pumpurs 1988b:III, 130). Later, theepic recounts the effects of this “planting”: “in fertile fields barleyand rye swayed in golden waves . . . fat cattle, cows, bulls grazed ingreen pastures” (VI, 561–65). There are no other illustrations of thewealth and fertility of the land in Pumpurs’s poem. The native land isunderstood merely as a distinctive sign that permits the narration ofa common identity rather than as an object that allows and requireshuman management. Here, symbolic coitus projects the individualtrauma onto the social plane: “to plant seeds” is to penetrate the wombof the mother-land, perceived as an act of violence. From the child’spoint of view, the man is an enemy because he hurts the mother;from the community’s point of view, he is a foreign conqueror whohurts the land. It is Vaidelots, the sage of the nation, who takes thechild away from his mother, but the subsequent feelings of hate aredirected against the traitor Kangars and against foreigners who con-quer the land. Mother and land are precluded from concrete rela-tions; they are idealized and imagined in such a way that they are notsubject to real activity.

Society in Search of Social Values

Subsequent renditions of the Latvian epic plot in the play by Rainisand the rock-opera by Zalite give more insight into the relative sig-nificance of “being-able-to-do” and “knowing-to-do” as national iden-

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 25

tity and the existing political order were problematized during timesof significant change—the first Russian revolution in 1905 andperestroika in 1980s. The theme of Lacplesis’s reluctance to chooseaction is picked up in Rainis’s play in an exchange between Lacplesisand Spidola.5 She taunts him to take a stand:

Lacplesis: “I was sent to struggle against evil.”Spidola: “Oh, you’ve been sent! It’s not your choice?”

(Rainis [1905] 1980:190)

Rainis reinforced the importance of Spidola by associating her withknowledge. The interaction between Spidola and Lacplesis is particu-larly instructive in this regard. Having evicted Germans at the earlystage of conflict, Lacplesis believes that the struggle is over and thathis heroic duty has been fulfilled: “I have achieved everything, nowI’ll live for myself (284). In vain, Spidola warns him to strengthendefenses in anticipation of a new assault by the Germans. Lacplesisignores her repeated urge “to grow up.” Knowing the cunning of theGermans, she tries to talk him out of dueling the Black Knight: “Youhave a greater task: to live for the people, not to die!” Lacplesis over-estimates himself and boldly rejects Spidola’s advice because he ispublicly provoked by the Black Knight and must take vengeance. As aresult, the hero dies in the duel, leaving the nation with neither physi-cal support nor an ideal symbol of resistance.

Zalite aggravated the problem in terms of the messages conveyedto eager audiences in her perestroika-era rock-opera produced in 1988.She eliminated the question of “knowing-to-do” altogether by doingaway with Spidola as a character. In the black and white terms ofZalite’s work, the nations’ subjection to the foreign power is formu-lated in terms of treason. Compare this to the popular Latvian sloganof perestroika: “Look for Kangars in our nation!” Implicitly, Zalite in-vited the audience to accept Soviet occupation on the grounds thatLatvia lacks and cannot obtain what would be decisive for restoringnational freedom—namely, physical force. In contrast to Rainis, shetreated knowledge as insufficient.

In his 1905 interpretation of Lacplesis, Rainis concluded that thenation is rendered passive because it “has bound its destiny to oneman.” In his play, the people do nothing but lament. Eighty yearsafter Rainis, Zalite also invited the people to “cry out more loudly”for the one and only exceptional man.

26 Sergei Kruks

Implications for Contemporary Identity Discourse

Ernest Gellner claims that “nationalism is not the awakening of na-tions to self-consciousness,” but the invention of “nations where theydo not exist” (1964:168). The ideology of nationalism has not suc-ceeded in inventing solidarity and social cohesion. Though oftenconsidered as a natural phenomenon, in reality nationalism must al-ways be created from scratch. In the Latvian case, Pumpurs and sub-sequent literary historians have ignored the social dimension ofLacplesis. Epic as a genre has been understood only as an artifact, as acompulsory attribute of a community and as that which makes it dis-tinctive from other communities. In the 1880s as in the 1980s thediscourse of ethnonationalism required compiling a checklist of cul-tural things, but it failed to realize the full implications of the culturalprocess of creating social meaning. Culture embodies a potentialpattern of meanings inherited from the past, immediate or distant.As Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood contend in The World of Goods,culture is a canopy for the interpretative needs of the present(1996:42–43). Lacplesis steers its readers toward understanding thepresent through the prism of failure, passivity, and self-victimization.Kalevipoeg, by contrast, encourages the collective action and risk thatare essential for development.

As a blueprint for contemporary action, the Latvian literary epichas failed to project a lofty hero. Lacplesis neither fulfils the tasks setfor him nor proves capable of mobilizing society around an articu-lated goal. Despite these failures, the epic insists that the long awaitedand much desired national freedom can be realized only through hisresurrection—through his heroic actions alone. At the same time,Lacplesis precisely delineates the root cause for the successive culturaltraumas that Latvians endure: through its characters and plot actions,it demonstrates that society depends on collective action rather thanon a supernatural hero. Sociologists argue that civic passivity is borneout in contemporary Latvian society. The rates of political participa-tion and non-governmental collective activity are rather low (cf.Tabuns and Tabune 1999; Zepa 1999). Public opinion echoes theepic’s conclusion, namely, that the nation’s success depends on anoutstanding leader. Although there is no lack of contenders for po-litical leadership and time and again a new candidate occupies theabsent hero’s position, the chosen leader loses popularity and sup-

The Latvian Epic Lacplesis 27

port soon after new parliamentary elections. Also studies of profes-sional values among contemporary business managers in Latvia haveshown that they avoid risk-taking and decision-making because theyvalue individual achievement more highly and are eager for fame.These behavioral values manifest a low commitment to social respon-sibility (King 1996; Kenins Kings 1999).

The Latvian epic constructs the cultural trauma as the conquestof the land, thus displacing the source of anxiety, locating it outsidethe ethnic community. Slavoj Zizek, applying a psychoanalytic ap-proach to ideological discourses, argues that a traumatic event is firstof all a phantasmal construction that fills in the void in a symbolic struc-ture. It is the retroactive effect of a given structure (1980). NationalRomantic Pumpurs provided the emerging nation with symbolic re-lief for a social identity injured by the disdainful attitude of BalticGermans. But as soon as the effect of the imagined trauma is removed —once the land is regained and an independent state is (re)established—the national community is left to face the very real social deficienciesthat escaped the epic’s concern and direct symbolization. Persistenttraditional symbolic forms preclude contemporary public discoursefrom coming to grips with changed social realities. The epic divertsconcern from the flaws of individual self-development to objectivesocial constraints. The reader is asked to excuse Lacplesis’s unwill-ingness to learn from Spidala, co-operate with others, and assumeresponsibility because his freedom to act is said to be limited by eviland foreign powers. Today foreign pressure and immoral politiciansare blamed for the drawbacks of society. The renewed order is notacknowledged: the desire that materialized as the recovered inde-pendent state is denied and the state is now said to have been “sto-len” by corrupt politicians. Political and media discourse attempts toconstruct a new national identity deriving from social bonds acrossdiverse economic and political interests. Politicians and ordinary citi-zens are presented with a moral imperative defined as “thinking onthe state scale” (“valstiska domasana”). Literally this call invites citi-zens to “look beyond their own private courtyard,” to assume responsi-bility for the state that finally has become “ours,” a matter for the citizensthemselves. The identity discourse is seeking new heroic personagesand symbolic forms to communicate such characteristics as self-reliance, social activity, responsibility, and accountability (cf. Lerhisand Ancans 2003).

28 Sergei Kruks

Whenever Latvians read Lacplesis or see it performed or other-wise indexed, they are reminded that the hero perished without hopeof fulfilling his duty. They are asked to wait for his return instead ofconcerning themselves with figuring out ways to assume responsibil-ity and undertake redressive action themselves. Perhaps Lacplesis onceprovided relief for a nation subjugated to foreign power. Perhaps byinviting readers to accept the lack of freedom, the epic secured au-thoritarian political ideologies with a passe-partout cultural frame thatdownplayed civic activity. Today civic society requires a cultural framethat supports the imagination of an active, confident community.

University of LatviaRiga

Notes1. See Literatura un maksla, November 18, 1988, p. 8.2. See Laiks, August 14, 1991, p. 1.3. In 1941–44, such articles were published in the leading Nazi newspaper,

Tevija, on November 11, the date for Lacplesis or Army Day.4. References indicate canto and line number.5. I retain the spelling of her name as used in Rainis’s play. This spelling is

the most common usage today. Rainis changed the spelling of several names inorder to differentiate his work from Pumpurs’s epic.

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