Through the Bunghole: Postcolonial Latvia According to Agnese Bule

Latvia, a small country with a difficult history, rarely appears in discussions on postcolonialism and postcolonial identity. Latvian studies within this field are still modest, but there is one voice in the discourse which cannot go unnoticed. In 2002 a very unusual book by Agnese Bule, Latvian dream (Latviešu sapnis) was published. The author, not only by means of words but also images, reviews the Latvian national and social symbols from very old ages till the moment of the public discussion about accessing the European Union. She reckons with the German and Soviet colonisation and finally, from her reflections about Latvian national identity, a picture emerges ‒ of a Latvian man who cannot deal with his freedom and hides from it inside a barrel, a synonym of “the postcolonial trap”.

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Prusinowska	[pdf]	[245 KB]