Prof. Dr. Valdis Muktupavels

Frans ROBERT

Concept of the Baltic Sea Region

Baltic Sea Region Studies

2013-2014

Introduction

‘We will not organize grand spectacles and pompous shows, as this is not relevant to folklore […]. We do not aim at commercial profit, nor do we want to stage a demonstration of Soviet international friendship. Baltica ’89 attempts to be a folklore festival in the real sense of the word – orientated to man, to the inner values of folklore, to preservation of cultural traditions rather than the exterior and spectacular’[1]

In the Soviet context folklore was defined as an art expressing the collective will of the working class, which was in a constant state of evolution. Folklore was reworked and refined through the process called folklorism. Epic songs, for example, were composed anew to glorify the lives of Stalin and Lenin. During the late 1960s in the Baltic republics, a new form of folklorism emerged in opposition to the official folklorism dictated by the Soviet regime. As the above-mentioned quote shows, urban intellectuals and amateur artists rediscovered the archaic traditions of their native homelands and they started to revive folklore, which, in their eyes, was more ‘authentic’ than the folklore proclaimed by the Soviets. It became an independent, intellectually liberating social movement, the so called neo-folklore movement, and it drew upon folklore’s powerful national symbolism, resonating the desire for national independence. Thus, this movement of folklore revival was closely intertwined with the Baltic national movements.[2]

The Baltic neo-folklore movement is sometimes called lifestyle folklorism, as it tried to integrate folklore in the individual, everyday life. This was in opposition to the staged or folkish folklorism of the Soviet regime. In this paper, I will answer two questions. (1) What characterized the Baltic neo-folklore movement? In what way it differed from the Soviet folklorism and what were its typical features and characteristics? (2) How was the neo-folklore movement related to the Baltic national independence movement? How did folklore ensembles express their national message in a concrete way during, for example, folklore festivals? And what does the folklore ensembles themselves tell us about the national nature of these ensembles? Are there any differences between the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian folklore ensembles?

                      Folklorism is defined in German scholarship as ‘the use of material or stylistic elements of folklore in a context that is foreign to the original tradition’. This definition concentrates on the use and users of folklore, identifying a human need for folklorism, which is filled by the commercial marketers of folklore. Russian folklorists, on the contrary, have placed folklorism together with folklore in a broad view of cultural development. Folklorism is defined as a process that is related to historical progress. So, while West German scholars tend to define folklorism in its commercial context, Russian scholarship looks at the folklorism of government-sponsored cultural programs. Both definitions agree that folklore changed in some basic way after it leaves ‘primary traditions’.[3]

Smidchens believes that no distinction should be made between ‘folklore’ and ‘folklorism’ as the process of transmission, reception and variation of folklore and folklorism are similar. He is in favour of a definition that is based on the function and meaning of folklore in specific contexts.[4] This argument comes from the fact that the so-called ‘secondary tradition’ has always been present in primary folklore processes. In the Baltic countries, for example, folklore and folklorism are similar, regardless of the medium of communication and regardless of the political or economic interest that may frame primary or secondary traditions.[5] Klotins, on the other hand, argues that the term ‘folklorism’ should be used to designate the late-20^th century neo-folklore movement, leaving the term ‘folklore’ to specify uninterrupted singing traditions. Klotins admits that folklore and folklorism have also formed intermediate phenomena.[6] But Klotins adds that the neo-folklore movement is a special kind of folklorism, as folklore heritage was not made subject to any other artistic system in this process of revival. Folklore maintained, in the words of Klotins, ‘the same type of culture, belonging to practical, everyday life, that is the basis of folklore’.[7] I agree with Klotins, thereby arguing that the neo-folklore movement is situated somewhere in between folklore and folklorism.

Folklore was a source of inspiration for nineteenth century intellectuals and activists who were in the pursuit of native histories and national cultures. In folklore they found the origins of the national community, ancient national heroes and ‘the golden age’ during which the national community flourished. Folklore provided historical information and was at the same time a model for future actions. In recent times, the work of these early folklorists and nation builders is critically reviewed and labelled as ‘ideological manipulation of folklore’. The discrepancies between actual historical facts and accounts written by patriotic scholars are highlighted. Even the nation itself is considered to be an invention of modern people. But there is also the realization that nations do exist in reality, regardless of the fact that nationalist rhetoric is not always true. So the nation as an imagined community is not a false construct, but rather a group of people whose members creatively interpret and acknowledge their common ties with other persons in the community.[8]

A common folk culture defined to the members of a nation their own identity. Different groups of nation-builders created conflicting images of national culture, based on different selections and interpretations of the same folk cultures. Different versions of the nation came to the fore as different groups advance to political power. Nation building is not only done by intellectuals and activists, but also in everyday life. National traditions are created, accepted and maintained by the individual members of living nations, who do so with the expressed purpose of maintaining their national identity.[9] In the national tradition of folklorism variants of folklore texts which best match the ideal version of national folk culture are collected, studied, published and popularized. Not only folklore texts were used, but also folklore theories and methods were disseminated among the people, to become part of folklore traditions. In the Baltic society, for example, people used folksongs to define and strengthen their national culture and national identity.[10]

In the first chapter I will argue why the neo-folklore movement in the Baltic republics can be called a counterculture. First, I will present the folkish folklorism, which was part of the Soviet cultural policy. Afterwards, I describe the neo-folklore movement itself, thereby stressing the differences with folkish folkorism. I interpret the relationship between the neo-folklore movement and the Baltic national independence movement in the second chapter. Firstly, the expressions of nationalism at the Baltica folklore festivals are sketched. Secondly, I show how the folklore ensembles themselves reflect the national aspirations of these ensembles.

The neo-folklore movement as a counterculture

Folklorism and Soviet cultural policy

In the Soviet-occupied Baltic republics two different socio-cultural currents existed in folk music in the late 1970s and 1980s: Folkish folklorism or staged folklorism and the neo-folklore movement. The former was formed as a representative of Soviet cultural policy and was officially supported and oriented towards the stage. The latter emerged spontaneously as a grassroots movement, focused on the individual and aimed at the preservation and popularization of traditional culture.[11]

                      At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet regime was re-established in the Baltic countries. The state began wide scale ideological coercion and re-education, combined with broad repression, in order to ensure loyalty to the regime. With the help of an organized amateur arts movement, propaganda had the chance of reaching those people who were not affected by education or official employment. Participation in an amateur group became almost compulsory for those who were not engaged in other social activities. This kind of folklorism was an instrument of ideological influence and with the aid of amateur art it was applied to broad masses of people. The goal of Soviet folkish folklorism was ideological influence, transformation, socialist indoctrination and control over the people.[12] In the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia was mentioned: ‘Socialist society has created the conditions for the preservation and developments of folk arts. Inheriting and affirming national folk traditions folk arts became imbued with socialist ideas and reflect the new, transformed reality’.[13] Soviet art corresponded to the slogan ‘national in form, socialist in content’.

In the early post-war years ethnographic performances were popular. This type of ensemble presented live, continuous local forms of vocal or instrumental folk music. This form of folklorism was permitted within certain limits. One had to adhere, for example, to the Marxist principle of class awareness and therefore had to be careful not to include a positive representation of past life. Interest in folklore was treated with suspicions of rummaging the past and it was obliged for groups to introduce contemporary symbols. The texts of folk songs, for example, had to be refreshed with Soviet terms.[14]

                      Next to ethnographic groups, also folk dance groups became a popular type of amateur art. Dance could, from the viewpoint of propaganda, attain the optimism as the true sentiment of the nation. Leaders of dance groups thus were instructed to incorporate in their choreographic folklore faster tempos, higher jumps and never-fading smiles on the dancer’s lips. In the eyes of Klotins, this led the folklore dance ‘in the direction of a ballet-like, false representation of folk culture’.[15] Folk dance was turned into ballet character dances, performed in unified and stylized folk costumes, accompanied by arranged folk or folkloric stylized music.  From 1948 onwards, these folk dance ensembles started to participate in the national song festivals, which was renamed into ‘Song and Dance Festival’ in 1960. Choreographers of these folk dance ensembles offered many dances that became similar to theatrical scenes. In the 1970s, for example, ballroom dancing was stylized to the status of the folk dance. In the 1980s these very ensembles even performed ballroom and revue dances. This created a simplified view of the contents and values of folklore in society and facilitated consumerist attitudes towards traditional culture.[16]

The different expressions of the neo-folklore movement

In reaction to the Soviet folklorism a personally motivated approach to heritage of traditional culture emerged. Its adherents focused on the study, preservation and use of dialects, customs and different forms of oral folklore and musical instruments. This movement, constructing alternative models of living and thinking to the majority opinion, can be considered as a counterculture. The folklore revival movement of the 1970s-80s is identified as neo-folklore movement, thereby recognizing its new approach towards the study, inheritance and interpretation of folklore heritage. This new movement was not oriented towards staged performances of folklore, but towards the introduction of folklore into the personal sphere, making heritage a part of individual life. Therefore this movement sometimes is also called ‘lifestyle folklorism’.[17]

                      As the Soviet system did not tolerate free, uncontrolled subsystems, the neo-folklore movement had to adopt legally permitted forms of social and artistic activity. Therefore folklore ensembles were created. They were treated just as other amateur art units by the Soviet officials and had to perform on stage in ‘culture houses’. All public performances of the ensemble had to be organized in accordance with general norms regulating concert activity. Nonetheless, the folklore ensembles resembled clubs or groups of like-minded friends, who were interested in informal activities aimed at the preservation of traditional culture. The ensemble also was open to people of different ages, sex, occupation, artistic potential and education, in opposition to dance ensembles, where all members were of the same size and age. Besides performing on stage, ensembles served the local community in arranging wedding, baptism or funeral ceremonies in traditional ways. Hereby, folkloric activities became part of their lifestyle and thinking.[18]

                      The neo-folklore movement transformed the concert situation by avoiding unnecessary scenic elaborations as much as possible. They also tried to avoid by any means using the word ‘concert’, replacing it by such words as ‘meeting’ or ‘evening with singing’. It was equally important to diminish the distance between performers and audience. Folklorists did not, for example, perform their activities on the stage, but on the same level as the audience. Another method to diminish the distance between performer and audience was to stand in a circle, facing each other and not the audience, thereby accentuating the reality instead of the artistic conditionality of the performance. The audience was also encouraged to sing and dance along. As an alternative to public performances, informal private meetings, developing into house concerts, were organised. During these meetings, there was a free and informal atmosphere.[19]

                      Folklorists tried to fit songs, dances and traditions into modern contexts. Such situations included joint singing in public events, dancing in seasonal celebrations or the previously mentioned house concerts. All these small performances could not be foreseen, planned or officially approved and therefore were illegal. Yet, the Soviet regime was unable to cope with such situations because of their spontaneity, frequency and integration into everyday life. In contrast to the staged dance groups or choirs, who conducted their performance in accordance with the state approved program, events of folklore ensembles could divert in an unforeseen direction. Honouring the wish of somebody in the audience, for example, they could sing a song that was not included in the program.[20]

                      Authenticity became one of the conceptually most important and essential keywords of the neo-folklore movement. With this word a clear line was drawn between the spheres of folkish folklorism and the movement. Staged dance ensembles or folk music instrument ensembles based their artistic activity on folklore materials arranged by composers or choreographers. A folksong or folkdance was a source for a composition, artistic arrangement or stylization for these ensembles. The activists of the neo-folklore movement, on the contrary, focused on folksongs, dances and customs from the living tradition. For them it was important to respect the style of the traditional singer. Authenticity thus provided the neo-folklore movement with the dimension of age-old tradition and helped to create the feeling of a time and space that had existed before the Soviet which could be identified by everyone as their true, original and rightful inheritance. The criteria of authenticity were symbolic road signs pointing away from the Soviet reality of the 1980s. The Soviet regime strongly opposed to this authenticity.[21] A way in which this search for authenticity was shown, was in the use of traditional musical instruments. While in folkish folklorism concert practice ‘modernized’ or ‘improved’ instruments were introduced, the neo-folklore movement focused on traditional instruments. In reviving these instruments all possible documented sources and living traditions were studied.[22]

                      The idea of syncretism was accepted and circulated among folklorists in the 1980s. For them syncretism meant the original coexistence and unity of text, music, movement, symbolic meaning and functional context. In practice folklorists took documented descriptions of calendar or lifecycle customs as the matrix and filled it with appropriate songs, games, dances, sayings and music. These restored customs were presented to an audience in a concert situation or they could be included in real life. Activists of the neo-folklore movement thus did not feel the necessity in a concert situation to present calendar or lifecycle traditions in detail and the presence of any traditional event was marked symbolically. So, folklorists did not present all midsummer solstice customs in sequence, but incorporated only symbolic signs such as crowns made of flowers and herbs on their head. By these actions folklorists tried to revive traditions and introduce them into their lives. This was different to the practices of the folkish staged dance groups, who also called on traditional customs but only in order to create a plot or story. In these folk ensembles, traditions were perceived as artistic works from the past, which were not modern and not worth paying attention to.[23]

                      Totalitarian art had to be a kind of mobilizing agent of the working class, which was necessary for the implementation of the goals of the Communist Party. Folkish folklorism thus became a tool of ideological manipulation, as this amateur art had to depict ‘the bright reality of socialist life’.[24] Artificially cheerful moods dominated both the vocal and the instrumental spheres of folkish music. Members of the folklore ensembles, on the contrary, preferred the most archaic part of traditional music: recited songs. These songs were neither optimistic nor vigorously mobilizing. The Soviet regime clearly pointed out that these sad, pessimistic moods were incompatible with Soviet reality.[25]

                      Idealism was characteristic for the neo-folklore movement. Especially temperance and vegetarianism are important in this regard. Heavy drinking habits in Soviet society and the resulting degradation were informally perceived as a consequence of Sovietisation. Therefore, abstinence from alcohol was regarded as a form of otherness, as a demonstration of one’s individuality, which made the abstainers different from the mass of Soviet people. In the words of Valdis Muktupavels: ‘Ein Nichttrinker zu sein, war also wieder ein Statement dafür, ein Anti-Sowjet zu sein’.[26] Vegetarianism played a similar role to temperance: it demonstrated individuality and spiritual independence. Though vegetarianism could point toward a healthy, natural lifestyle, its practice raised suspicion in wider society about the cultivation of religiosity or interest in spiritual teachings and this drew the attention of the KGB. So, vegetarianism turned out to be too radical and its supporters could be viewed as a counterculture within the broader counterculture of the neo-folklore movement.[27]

                      Public performances by folklore ensembles were used to propagate views and convictions that differed from the officially accepted position. By recontextualizing folklore texts, conventional expressions, motifs, signs and symbols, the audience was offered a certain message, commonly understood by all present, but never fully verbalized. It was a convention that matters vitally important for people’s lives should not be named directly. Some hidden meanings could be expressed with the help of certain song genres. During the early 1980s, for example, war songs and songs with mythological content were often performed. A national fatherland could not exist in Soviet ideology, but it existed in folksongs, particularly in war songs, which therefore meant that they posed a serious threat to the establishment. The emotional content of certain songs was clearly felt as an appeal to voluntary self-offering for the sake of people’s liberty.[28]

The different expressions of the neo-folklore movement clearly identify it as a subculture. Though it was congruent with legally accepted cultural forms, the movement existed in opposition to folkish folklorism, which was supported by the official cultural system. So, the neo-folklore movement can be seen as a counterculture. This is obvious in the clearly anti-Soviet positions taken by folklorists, in the focus on values of the pre-Soviet period and in the propagation of views at odds with official ideology.[29] The neo-folklore movement found, in the words of Valdis Muktupavels, ‘die Brücke zur mündlich überlieferter Tradition, die auch während der Sowjetzeit auf dem Lande immer noch geplegt wurde’.[30] The cultural significance and the social and political influence of the neo-folklore movement grew to be much greater than that of folkish folklorism in the second half of the 1980s, when it became one of the catalysts of the singing revolution. During this period peaceful, nonviolent mass demonstrations took place and the spirit of resistance was supported through singing.[31]

Folklore ensembles, nations in miniature

Baltica folklore festivals

A significant cornerstone of the Baltic liberation process of the 1980s was the folklore festival Baltica. The festival was an event through which the musical and choreographical folklore of the three Baltic nations could be presented to a broader public. Both staged folkish folklorism as the neo-folklore movement were present at the festival.[32] It would be organized alternately in one of the three republics: Lithuania in 1987, Latvia in 1988, Estonia in 1989 and again Lithuania in 1990. The Soviet authorities stressed the propaganda nature of the festival: ‘With the purpose of propagating the Leninist national and cultural policies of the Soviet government […] the festival “Baltica” is to be founded in the republics of the Soviet Baltic’.[33] By approving this festival, the Soviet government hoped to channel the growing popular appeal of the three unofficial Baltic neo-folklore movements into a path that could be more easily controlled and exploited. So, the Soviet authorities hoped to organize a mass propaganda event which would declare Soviet support for international friendship and ethnic harmony while keeping the Baltic folklore ensembles and their form of performance under strict control.[34]

                      The first festival took place in Vilnius in 1987. The five-day festival began with concerts in the Vilnius Old Town courtyards. The four massive closing concerts of the festival, however, got the most attention. These shows began with a ten-minute performance by Lithuanian ethnographic ensembles, followed by a spectacular array of stylized, ballet-like dances and contemporary song arrangements performed by the official song and dance troupes.[35] Strong criticism of the festival appeared as it became clear that the officially sanctioned Soviet folklore ensembles did not emphasized the everyday folklore that was most important to most. Therefore, the organizing committee for the Baltica ’88 split into two, with one side supporting the stylized folklore and the other side supporting the neo-folklore movement. Eventually, neo-folklore groups dominated and dance ensembles and other amateur arts played a secondary role.[36]

Baltica ’88 was still to be a very large event of international scope, but there was to be nothing like the mass ‘ethnoshow’ which dominated Baltica in Vilnius. Most of the performances, for example, were diffused throughout Latvia. The opening of the festival and the first performance, however, were held in a huge sports hall in Riga where participants performed in the middle (thereby avoiding the use of a stage) and the audience sat in the surrounding amphitheatre. Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian neo-folklore groups secretly brought in the historic flags of their national states occupied in 1940 by the USSR. They placed these, unauthorized, in improvised stanchions and put symbolic guards around them.[37] Valdis Muktupavels, who played bagpipes at the opening ceremony, recalls: ‘Ich wusste es. Die beteiligten Musiker und Künstler wussten das es geschehen wird. Aber die Organisatoren und die zwei oder drei Tausend Zuschauer in der Halle wussten es nicht. Wir präparierten die originalen Nationalfahnen so, dass wir sie während der Zeremonie ausrollen konnten, ohne das jemand die Aktion hätte verhindern können’.[38]

The following procession, the first post-World War II procession in Riga to be led by the maroon-white-maroon flag of the independent republic of Latvia, broke from the traditional route of Soviet parades in order to pass the Latvian Liberty Monument. The realization that there was a true possibility for political change made the procession the culmination of the festival in the memories of many participants.[39] The greatest achievement of the neo-folklore movement was the ability to transform the artificial cultural presentations of previous Soviet festivals into natural and organic culture situations, thereby merging folk-related activities with everyday practice. Folk music became a part of ethnic culture for the people.[40]

                      The year 1989 saw the beginnings of collapse in the centralized Soviet administrative structures. Freedom of public assembly was appropriated by hundreds of thousands of people in political demonstrations. Three folklore societies emerged in the Baltic republics, each representing one of the republics hosting the Baltica festival. On April 15, the three societies founded the Baltica Association, which applied for membership in CIOFF (Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d’arts traditionnels - International Council of Folklore Festival Organizations) as an entity independent of the USSR delegation. The Estonian organizers of the Baltica ’89 festival opted for a less spectacular festival, highlighting small nations of the Soviet Union. While Estonians had managed to maintain some cultural autonomy under the Soviet government, many of the performers and ensembles were struggling for cultural survival in the face of complete Russian domination. The festival did not attract the public in massive numbers as the two previous festivals had done. The essential character lay in relatively formal, smaller concerts attended by an audience intent on listening and learning about the regional traditions of Estonia and the folklore of visiting nations[41].

                      The Soviet economic blockade against Lithuania made it impossible to organize a festival in 1990. The Baltica ’91 festival procession in Latvia concluded at the Monument, thereby repeating what had been done in 1988.[42] The Baltica festivals reveal differences in the character of folklore revival in the three republics. Lithuanians enjoy large gatherings of singers and dancers that are kept in order by the voices of powerful lead singers or the instrumental mastery of musicians. Latvians spotlight relatively orderly demonstrations of overt political significance, for example, in the form of a festival procession. Estonians maintain the feature that is common to folklore festivals in all three republics: a concern for the maintenance of folk music traditions in inclusive groups based on face-to-face communication, as close as possible to those of the rural communities of past centuries.[43]

                      On September 1 1991, thousands of Lithuanians gathered on the Song Festival grounds in Vilnius, to celebrate the independence that had suddenly become a political reality. Three folklore ensembles led off the performances on stage: the Vilnius University Folklore Ensemble, Ratilio; the Estonian group from Tallinn, Leegajus and Skandinieki from Latvia. The neo-folklore movement developed differently in each of the three Baltic republics, but it also became a Baltic movement. Influences and ideas constantly crossed the national borders. Most powerful of all was the impulse that the massive Lithuanian movement exerted on Estonian and Latvian folklore activists. The leaders of Skandinieki, for example, founded the professional advice needed in problems of ethnomusicology in Lithuania. Influences also arrived in Lithuania from its two northern neighbours. The Estonians were the first to revive the playing of bagpipes. The Latvian and Estonian neo-folklore movements were also intertwined from the very beginning. Empathizing with the fate of the endangered Livonian culture in Latvia, Estonian folklorists encouraged the creation of the first Livonian folksong ensembles, from which emerged Skandinieki.[44] Personal friendships between the leaders of the folklore ensembles led to a common purpose and organizational unity in April of 1989, when the Baltica Association was founded. When the Association was granted membership in CIOFF in 1990, it became the first Baltic organization to gain an international organization’s recognition of independence from the USSR.[45]

                      The Baltica festivals transformed the Baltic folklore festival from the Soviet model. It turned the large-scale spectacle, watched by a passive audience, into a festival that attracted active, massive public participation. The flags of the independent Baltic republics declared visibly that this was a national festival that rejected Soviet leadership in cultural life. Baltica brought the ideas of independence out into the open. Attempts to steer the festival from above into the structures of Soviet folklorism were unsuccessful because the folklore performances that were most popular turned out to be immune to censorship and government planning.[46]

Folklore ensembles

Between the masses of a nation and the individual members of that nation lie groups within which individual and national identities are mediated and synthesized. They provide the national movement with a means of local activism that transforms passive individuals into active participants in the nation. In the Baltic national movements of the 1980s, such grass-roots groups were a major force of political transformation. These Baltic organizations flowed in the currents of Soviet government policy after 1985, but their mass appeal grew out of pre-Gorbachevian traditions of opposition to the Soviet state. Folklore ensembles won a degree of independence from the Soviet cultural bureaucracy a number of years earlier. When they were chosen to perform at the mass demonstrations and celebrations of the Singing Revolution, the singers were recognized as leaders in the battle for national culture.[47] The folklore ensembles strengthened their members’ sense of national identity, gave them the feeling that they belonged to a historic Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian territory, to a common culture. Folklore ensembles caused individuals to become activists who sought, through singing, to awaken and strengthen feelings of national identity in others.[48]

                      In Vilnius, the group as a whole drove meetings of Ratilio. Individuals (even the leader) may come and go or pass from room to room, but the rehearsals continued as energetically as ever. In Latvia, the rehearsals of Skandinieki centred on the leader. In the meetings of Leegajus, however, each member gave a unique contribution and the atmosphere of every evening varied according to the members present. The importance of individuals in Leegajus, as compared to the Lithuanian Ratilio, was characteristic for Estonian folksong traditions as compared to those of Lithuania. The call-response style demanded that the leader alone sang the entire text of every new line; whereas in typical Lithuanian songs, the leader began each stanza and set its tone, but was immediately joined by the group.[49] As in Estonia, the most common performance style of Latvian folksongs, that of a leader calling lines that are repeated by the group, allowed the group repertoire to change constantly, independently of rehearsals. But unlike the members of Leegajus, the lead singers in Skandinieki often improvised new songs at performances.[50]

                      The histories of these three folklore ensembles, Ratilio, Leegajus and Skandinieki resemble each other: folk singing is associated with pride in national heritage. The groups are considered to be heirs of the earlier generations of Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians, with a mission of continuing the archaic traditions of these ancestors. The group members place their performances into a political context, that of the recent Baltic independence movements. These ideas correspond to the basic ideas in national history: ties to a venerable past strengthen the desire to elevate and maintain national culture in the present day, for the benefit of future generations. This shared view of history reaching into the future is a strong link in the bonds holding the ensembles together.[51]

                      Kinship among many members of Leegajus and Skandinieki is apparent in the member list of these two ensembles. Kinship provided a natural group of persons who could be trusted in Soviet society, and thus was a means of avoiding the state-controlled system of surveillance and coercion. Each of the two clans made up a nucleus of the ensemble that could not be infiltrated or corrupted. Kin relations of a different sort have always been present in Ratilio. Romantic love emerges in Leegajus and Skandinieki as well, but less frequently than in Ratilio. Kinship, love and friendship, bonding forces in the face-to-face communities of folklore ensembles, are nevertheless not required among all members of the group. The folklore ensemble turns out to be a miniature version of the imagined community. Imagined because members may dislike other members, but in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. The bonds of kinship, love and friendship that crisscross each group strengthen each individual’s feelings of belonging to the group. These bonds are joined by another cohesive force that of a common culture as mediated by a charismatic leader.[52]

                      The goals of the folklore ensembles recall Hobsbawm’s definition of ‘invented tradition’. The members of folklore ensembles believe that they are continuing archaic traditions inherited from their ancestors; among their ancestors are people belonging to all of the regional cultures of their nation. Therefore, the songs performed by the three folklore ensembles should be defined as national culture, since different regional traditions are performed together by the same people, for the reason that belong to the cultural heritage of the Lithuanian, Estonian or Latvian nation. The ensemble, a nation in miniature, maintains a miniature version of national culture in its song repertoire.[53]

Conclusion

Members of a nation define their nation by a common folk culture. Different groups of nation-builders, therefore, can have conflicting images of national culture. The Soviet regime, on the one hand, used folkish or staged folklorism as a part of propaganda. The neo-folklore movement or lifestyle folklorism offered an opposite image of national culture, thereby introducing folklore into the personal sphere of everyday life. This feature provides the neo-folklore movement with a special kind of folklorism, somewhere in between folklore and folklorism. The neo-folklore movement provided alternative models of living and thinking. By stressing the ‘authenticity’, its members created the dimension of an age-old tradition. The anti-Soviet positions of folklorists, the focus on values of the pre-Soviet period and the propagation of values at odds with the official Soviet ideology made the neo-folklore movement a counterculture. During a performance by the Skandinieki ensemble in the early 1980s, for example, the idea of de-occupation of Latvia was expressed with the help of a traditional, altered recipe against cockroaches: ‘To get rid of cockroaches, one has to utter: ‘The red lords, from now on you have no place here!’ And then one should […] drag them across the border (originally: threshold)’.[54]

                      The Soviet authorities wanted to use the Baltica folklore festivals as propaganda and as a means to control the upcoming neo-folklore movement. During the festival of 1987 in Vilnius, Soviets succeeded in having a strong control. From 1988 onwards, however, the neo-folklore movement transformed the artificial cultural presentation of the Soviet festival into natural and organic cultural situations. The flags of the independent Baltic republics declared visibly that this was a national festival that rejected Soviet leadership in cultural life. Baltica brought the ideas of independence out into the open. The neo-folklore movement developed differently in each of the three Baltic republics, but it was also a Baltic movement as influences and ideas crossed the national borders. Folklore ensembles were understood as heirs of earlier generations, which had the mission to continue the archaic traditions of these ancestors. This made these ensembles nations in miniature. Cultivating the renewed ethnic music traditions, the folkore ensembles allied to the national resistance movement, opposing Soviet totalitarianism and russification.[55]

 Bibliography

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MUKTUPAVELS, V., ‘Latvia’, The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, VIII, New York and London, 2000, 499-508.

MUKTUPAVELS, V., ‘The “Dangerous” Folksongs: The Neo-folklore Movement of Occupied Latvia in the 1980s’, I. PEDDIE ed., Popular Music and Human Rights. Volume II: World Music (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series), Ashgate, 2011, 73-90.

SCHORNO, R., Die “Singende Revolution” der Volksmusiker. Lifestyle-Folkorismus und Post-Folklore im politischen und gesellschaftlichen Wandel Lettlands, 2005.

SMIDCHENS, G., A Baltic Music: the folklore movement in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, 1968-1991, unpublished doctoral thesis, Indiana University, Department of Folklore, 1996.