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Pride of Place: Interethnic Relations and Urban Space in Riga 1918-1939

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Pride of Place: Interethnic Relations and Urban Space in Riga 1918-1939 Title Page Pride of Place: Interethnic Relations and Urban Space in Riga 1918-1939 by Adam Michael Brode Bachelors of Arts, Washington and Jefferson College, 2008 Master of Arts, University of Minnesota, 2011 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2014 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 Committee Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Adam Michael Brode It was defended on September 27, 2019 and approved by Christopher Drew Armstrong, Associate Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture William Chase, Professor Emeritus, Department of History Irina Livezeanu, Associate Professor, Department of History Thesis Advisor/Dissertation Director: Gregor Thum, Associate Professor, History ii Copyright © by Adam Michael Brode 2019 iii Abstract Pride of Place: Interethnic Relations and Urban Space in Riga 1918-1939 Adam Michael Brode, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2019 This dissertation examines the physical and symbolic transformation of the city of Riga, Latvia during the period 1918-1940. The creation of an independent Latvian state triggered processes of ethnic reversal in politics, economics, culture, and civil society that manifested themselves in and through urban public spaces in the capital of the new Republic of Latvia. What was already a profoundly multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan Northern European trading city in 1914 was “given a Latvian face” by national activists over the course of two decades. This process was shaped by, and often contested between, the ethnic Latvian majority and the city’s ethnic minority populations, with urban spaces figuring prominently in the political discourse of the period as bargaining chips and symbolic battlefields. The dissertation engages with questions of spatial belonging, collective memory, and urban ethnicity that remain crucial in contemporary Europe. The dissertation argues that rather than merely being an arena in which an already-achieved ethnic coup belatedly manifested itself, the unique historical and ethno-symbolic qualities of various prominent urban spaces in Riga dictated the course taken by the decades-long process of ethnic reversal. In analyzing the role of spaces and their attendant institutions in shaping interethnic relations in interwar Riga, the dissertation also highlights the persistence of pre-WWI traditions of peaceful cultural competition (in theater, architecture, and city government) into the interwar period. This illustrates the extent to which the new national states of 1918 disrupted previously developed paradigms for ethnic coexistence, ones which took multi-ethnicity as a permanent state of affairs. In focusing on the role of urban spaces in shaping new ethnic hierarchies, the iv dissertation both illuminates the functional mechanics of ethnic reversal in East Central Europe after the First World War and highlights previously understudied instances of interethnic cooperation, presenting a more nuanced picture that complicates more simplistic narratives of ethnic antagonism in the interwar period. v Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................................................................... xii 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Multiethnic City as an Object of Scholarly Inquiry ............................................ 9 1.2 Riga at the Start of the First World War ................................................................... 32 1.3 Riga at the Start of the Interwar Period .................................................................... 35 2.0 Ethnic Reversal and Political Space: Saeima, Castle, and City Hall .............................. 40 2.1 Democracy, Ethnicity and Political Space: The Saeima Building ............................ 45 2.2 Sovereign Power and Political Space: Riga Castle .................................................... 72 2.3 Local Patriotism and City Hall: Municipal Government in Interwar Riga ........... 88 3.0 Finding Common Ground in Commerce: The Bourse and Central Market ............... 106 3.1 The Riga Bourse ......................................................................................................... 113 3.2 The Central Market ................................................................................................... 136 4.0 Ethnic Prestige and Education: The School of Commerce and Herder Institute ........ 154 4.1 Establishing School Autonomy .................................................................................. 161 4.2 The Riga Bourse School of Commerce ..................................................................... 170 4.3 The Herder Institute ................................................................................................... 185 4.4 An End to Autonomy .................................................................................................. 195 5.0 The Topography of Memory: Streets, Cemeteries, and Monuments ............................ 197 5.1 A City Without Statues .............................................................................................. 200 5.2 City Streets and the Topography of Memory .......................................................... 204 5.3 War and Memory ....................................................................................................... 224 5.4 Victory or Freedom? .................................................................................................. 247 vi 6.0 Shared Faith and Sacred Space: Riga’s Churches ......................................................... 256 6.1 Multi-Ethnicity and Multi-Confessionalism: Borders and Boundaries ............... 256 6.2 The Orthodox Church: Latvians, Russians, and The Cathedral of the Nativity 269 6.3 The Lutheran Church: Latvians, Baltic Germans, and St. Mary's Cathedral .... 282 7.0 Cultural Diplomacy and Cultural Heritage: The Theaters and Guilds ....................... 311 7.1 Imperial Cosmopolitanism, National Culture, and Urban Space .......................... 315 7.2 Trading Spaces: Ethnic Reversal and the Afterlife of Empire ............................... 320 7.3 The Baltic German Theater ....................................................................................... 331 7.4 The Russian Theater .................................................................................................. 346 7.5 The Dispossession of the Guilds ................................................................................ 351 8.0 Epilogue: Flight before the Storm and the End of a Baltic German Heimat ................ 366 9.0 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 380 10.0 Sources ............................................................................................................................... 394 10.1 Archival Collections ................................................................................................. 394 10.1.1 LVVA – Latvijas Valsts Vēstures Arhīvs, Riga, Latvia. State Historical Archive of Latvia. ..................................................................................................... 394 10.1.2 DSHI – Dokumentensammlung des Herder Institutes, Marburg, Germany. Document Collection of the Herder Institute. ....................................................... 394 10.1.3 RAV – Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amts (Berlin) [Political Archive of the Foreign Office] ............................................................................................... 394 10.2 Unpublished Memoirs and First-person Accounts in Archives ........................... 395 10.3 Printed Primary Sources ......................................................................................... 395 10.4 Periodicals ................................................................................................................. 398 vii 10.5 Secondary Literature ............................................................................................... 399 viii List of Figures Figure 1. Saeima building, interwar period. ............................................................................ 45 Figure 2. House of the Livonian Knighthood, early 20th century. ......................................... 52 Figure 3. Assembly hall of the Saeima shortly after the fire. .................................................. 61 Figure 4. Riga Castle, postcard, watercolor, 1930s. ................................................................. 72 Figure 5. Riga Castle in the 1920s. ............................................................................................ 73 Figure 6. Riga Castle from the air, 1930s. ................................................................................ 79 Figure 7. Three-Star Tower, circa 1938. .................................................................................. 83 Figure 8. The Riga Bourse, circa 1910. .................................................................................. 113 Figure 9. Riga Bourse, east façade, 1938. ............................................................................... 115 Figure 10. The main hall of the
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