Power and knowledge: Arveds Švābe

Arveds Švābe stands beside Kārlis Straubergs in cultural history as one of the leading Latvian intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. However, his life, career, and rise to authority were totally different until the last exile years when both scholars worked at the same institution in Sweden. Throughout his lifetime his political alignment shifted from far left to right, and, always being passionate about his stand, Švābe has left significant heritage in the fields

98 “Our university undergoes reorganisation, perhaps yours alike as well. I have asked the rector for permission to teach the students method of comparative folkloristics. However, if professor Straubergs will be in charge, I prefer working the same way as until now [...].

Please send me some message as soon as possible. I was not sure about the connections of the above-mentioned great person with the censorship of the post, and I had no intentions to inform him about the progress of my scholarly work. Therefore I had no desire to write letters. Now, I hope, other persons work in the post office” (Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi Eesti Kultuurilooline Arhiiv f. 175, m.: 9, 1, 35/35, quoted according to Treija 2008: 41).

of Latvian history, culture, folklore, literature and law studies. A scholarly bibliography consisting of 650 entries and 28 publications of novels and poems speak for themselves, not to mention the multiple texts Švābe edited, including all 21 tomes of the LKV (Caune 1998).

Švābe was born into a peasant family; his father worked as an overseer at a local manor house in Lielstraupe district. The family was rather well off and Švābe started school at the local parish school, then continued in the towns Cēsis, Valmiera, and Jelgava. At the turn of the century Švābe got acquainted with the ideas of Jaunā strāva (The New Current), the politically left ideological movement, centred around the newspaper Dienas Lapa (The Page of the Day); it mobilised broad masses of workers in the industrially developed Latvian-speaking regions using both nationalist and socialist agendas. In Latvia this movement became the main force in the 1905 revolution (cf. Cerūzis 2001).

Still learning in secondary school, Švābe participated in illegal meetings and distributed revolutionary proclamations in his native town. During the response young Švābe was caught and sentenced to death; luckily, he was released due to his status as a minor. Until the end of the decade Švābe attended various courses and obtained the rights of a private tutor, later on taking a teacher’s position in a gymnasium in the north-west Latvian town of Rūjiena. In addition to fulfilling a teacher’s duties, Švābe actively participated in the activities of a local temperance association, which gathered politically left elements from nearby parishes (Švābe 1947).

Švābe terminated his teacher’s career to study at the Московский народный университет Шаневского (People’s University of Shanevsky, Moscow).

During his studies (1911–1915) his interests shifted from the natural sciences to history and philology, sociology, aesthetics, and later to law and economics.

The diversity of his interests is consequently reflected in his early writings on folklore and mythology (p. 109–113). During his studies Švābe lived for the most part in Moscow and returned to Latvia from time to time, to earn some money by publishing in the social democrat newspapers (Jaunā Dienas Lapa and Domas) and public lectures at workers’ associations. Despite not being on good terms with the Latvian leftist student society in Moscow Švābe became one of the most popular lecturers in the leftist circles in Latvia. In 1914, he married Līna Maria Aure and once again became a teacher, now in Riga. After a short period they returned to Moscow and Švābe continued his studies at university, exploring the latest works of English and French folklorists as well as Russian ethnographers in Библиотека Румянцева (Rumyancev’s Library).

Developments of the First World War forced the young family to leave Moscow. Secured by forged documents, they departed to the Far East. In Vladivostok and Harbin there were relatives of Švābe and at the Far East Institute in Vladivostok the already well-known Latvian Sinologist and folklorist Pēteris Šmits worked. Unfortunately, meeting with the fellow scholar brought only disappointment as he was not familiar with works Švābe had studied (Wundt, Frazer, Lévy-Bruhl, Durkheim, etc.), also his library turned out

to be rather poor, with folkloristics represented only by a few German handbooks (Švābe 1947). Consequently, Švābe ordered Frazer’s The Golden Bough from London. He worked as a junior post servant (1916–1919) on the Vladivostok-Harbin railway line, long and uneventful train trips providing the opportunity to work with Latvian folksongs: here some of his early texts were written, published later in Moscow and Latvia. Švābe was also actively involved in the local Latvian political activities⁹⁹ and in the autumn of 1919 returned to Europe by ship, carrying in his luggage secret intelligence documents (Švābe 1947).

After returning to the now independent Republic of Latvia, Švābe made capital of his established connections: he was for seven years enlisted in the Social Democrat Workers Party, worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a short period, stood as a candidate in elections and became a member of the parliament. Participating in the work of the Committee of Education and Culture, he passed laws on libraries and archives. The status of parliamentarian provided access to the archives of Livonian knightage, containing multiple unique sources of history which Švābe explored. In 1921 Švābe matriculated the Faculty of Economics and Law at the University of Latvia. He graduated with a lawyer’s degree in 1926. During the 1920s Švābe occupied various different roles as head of Latviešu rakstnieku un žurnālistu savienība (the Latvian Writers’ and Journalists’ Union), board member of Latvijas Nacionālais teātris (the Latvian National Theatre), etc.

While studying (1921–1923), Švābe rewrote the history of Latvia for schools according to the official ideology and published a collection of articles on folkloristics called Raksti par latvju folkloru (Articles on Latvian folklore, 1923). Considering the authors and theories referred to, it was the most up-to-date research in the field. In the same year Švābe pioneered the publication of Latvian folktales and legends according to the Antti Aarne classification.

Simultaneously he worked in other directions – publishing his first anthology of poems and a substantial study of feudal rights. 1926 turned out tragically due to the suicides of his, and his close friend Pāvils Rozītis’, wives, followed by a loud scandal in the local tabloids. Švābe became the chief editor of the LKV, which was intended as an embodiment of all national knowledge; in subsequent years he authored about 300 entries in this edition. During the 1930s Švābe published several articles on Latvian writers and Latvian folklore in Enciclo-pedia Italiana (Italian Encyclopaedia). In 1930 Švābe became an associate professor of Latvian legal history in the Faculty of Economics and Law Scholarship at the University of Latvia. Apart from the overall importance of national history in the construction and legitimation of the nation-state

99 Initially it is Vladivostok’s department of the leftist Latvijas pašnolemšanās savienība (Union of Latvian Self-Determination), then the central office of Sibīrijas un Urālu latviešu Nacionālā padome (National Council of Latvians of Siberia and the Urals). In 1919 Švābe took the position of office secretary.

(Hobsbawm 2009, Leerssen 2006 et al.) Švābe’s Grundriss der Agrargeschichte Lettlands (1928, English, French, and Latvian 1929) also played a practical role: it was used to defend against the claims the Baltic German landed gentry and nobility made to the League of Nations. Consequently, for this research into legal history, Švābe was decorated with a third degree Three-star order.

Although Švābe returned to folkloristics with several publications in a folksong edition by Roberts Klaustiņš (Švābe 1930a, b; 1931a, b), his main field of interest was legal history. In 1932 Švābe defended the thesis Livonijas bruņinieku senās tiesības (Ancient Rights of the Livonian Knights) and obtained the degree of Doctor of Law. Further, Švābe became a professor at the same faculty, actively published and took multiple responsibilities at various public and educational organisations. After two years he started a professorship in the Faculty of Philology and Philosophy, reading courses on the modern and general history of Latvia. At the end of the 1930s Švābe occupied the position of vice-director of the Institute of Latvian History (Latvijas vēstures institūts).

He also continued his creative career, took up public responsibilities, and among all these activities became an associate of the Estonian Science Society (Švābe 1947, Caune 1998).

History, as written by Švābe from the Latvian/nationalist position, contradicted the Soviet and German scholars’ elevation of events and their meaning; for the former, the questions of class struggle and connections with Russian progressive forces are undermined, while for the latter the Baltic German role in history is depicted in a rather unpleasant light. Naturally, the established research institutions of Latvian history could not continue to operate under the Soviet or German occupation powers during World War II. In 1940 Švābe’s, as well as Strauberg’s, posts at the Institute of Latvian History were reorganised as without salary (Zelmenis 2007: 17). In 1943 German institutions forbad Švābe from lecturing and examining students; later the department of Latvian history was closed and the professor dismissed. The Approaching battle-front forced him to leave Latvia. In the same year Švābe was arrested and imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp in Germany. After release, Švābe lived in Germany for a few years, contributing to Latvian exile society with publications and membership of various exile Latvian political organisations (p. 90–93).

To conclude, as with the case of Straubergs, Švābe’s research into folklore and mythology was shaped by the scholar’s other activities and political position. As folklore was only rather secondary in Švābe’s interests, his scholarly production cannot be analysed apart from the wider context, which touches on approaches utilised, purposes of research, and opportunities of time for production.