Political Transitions in Latvian Classrooms (1940 – 1956) and Pupil’s Memories

Author(s):

Iveta Kestere(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 05, Inside the Classrooms

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

11:00-12:30

Room:

427.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Geert Thyssen

Contribution

The Baltic States, including Latvia, experienced three dramatic political changes from 1940 to 1945: Soviet occupation was replaced with Nazi occupation, which in turn was replaced, again, by Soviet dictatorship after World War II. Stalin died in 1953 and the 1956 condemnation of the personality cult associated with his totalitarian rule gave the Soviet citizen an opportunity to take a breath during the Khrushchev “thaw”.

Both foreign dictatorships – communist and Nazi – entered all spheres of Latvian life, and, of course, education was no exception: school as the shaper of future society is always significant for political forces. However, educational institutions become a particularly strategic place during times of political change: school accumulates the opinions of various groups in society, which are important to channel into views favorable to the new political force (Carretero, 2011). The entire education process was adapted to reflect the interest of the Nazis and communists. Specially created institutions made drastic changes in Latvian schools.

Under the both periods of Soviet dictatorship (1940/1941 and from 1945) religious studies and Latin were taken out of the educational curriculum, and great stress was put on teaching Russian, as well as the geography and history of the Soviet Union. A greater role in the educational program was given to the natural sciences. Communist ideology was propagated in educational materials and pedagogical press, and the personality cult of Stalin dominated until 1953. Political supervision was brought into the schools and carried out by the supporters of the new power from the local inhabitants, or ‘missionaries’, sent in by the Soviets. Teachers, who were not trusted by the Soviets were repressed – thousands of teachers were forced to change their workplace or were deported.

During World War II under German occupation, revision of the educational curriculum according to Nazi ideology began in the Baltic States. The pedagogical press paid special attention to the physical training of youth, as well as maintenance of order and discipline during the teaching process. German had to be studied intensively and was the only foreign language offered. Religious studies were restored at school; teaching plans for geography and history were reformed. Strict censorship ruled with lists of forbidden books to be taken out of circulation. Nazi symbols were required to be exhibited in schools. Teachers hostile to the regime were dismissed from work in schools. The Nazis closed Jewish schools, and their pupils and teachers were put into ghettos.

These turbulent changes in the history of the Baltic States has been described by historians of education based on primary sources. However, most research has ignored school reality in the following questions: How are changes in power perceived by students and teachers? Which changes were considered significant from the viewpoint of the students and teachers? And to generalize – looking back, what do students consider to be really significant events in school?

Therefore, the goal of my research is to discover what seemed important in school life during a period of political transition from the perspective of pupils.

Method

The theoretic framework of my research is based upon literature on school and classroom culture; literature about research on memoirs about education, as well as research on totalitarianism, communism and Nazism and emotions in school. In order to detect the frame of transitions in the Latvian schools, I set up a theoretical model of classroom daily reality or classroom culture. I define the classroom as physical, ideological, social, psychological and intellectual space, which includes images, symbols, rhetoric, rituals and traditions practiced by students and teachers. This model will be presented in a table. Previous studies have found that the classroom cannot always be strictly separated from school culture. Therefore, at times in my work, classroom boundaries will be expanded, and I will touch on school culture, as well. I will observe classroom culture in circumstances of transition through the perspective of student memories. For this purpose 42 published autobiographies were selected, the authors of which are representatives of various professions. All of the authors were pupils from the 1930s-1950s, but their purpose for writing was not exclusively to tell about school life. The choice of a source with such a subjective nature, as are published memoirs, was based on several considerations: 1) the time perspective reveals which events really played a role – those that have long remained in the mind; 2) memoirs vividly present the details of classroom culture – images, rituals, etc. and their mutual "choreography" (Herman, 2010); 3) published memoirs has been carefully thought-out; 4) official documents and press prepared under censorship of communists and Nazi are not reliable evidence and should be compared with other sources; memoirs is suitable for this purpose; 5) the memoir genre flourished in Latvian after regaining independence in 1991, and, consequently, issues about their use in historical research became topical. Analysis of memoirs indicates the importance of the publishing date – 33 memoirs were published after Latvian regained independence in 1991, but I have only found nine memoirs published during the 50 years of Soviet era. Of course, the political context of these publications differs greatly. For analysis of pupil memoirs, I used content analysis, revealing which elements of classroom culture were chosen for memoirs and how changes that affected these elements were described.

Expected Outcomes

Most attention in pupil memories was devoted to the following elements of classroom culture: pupil visual image – lack of social equality in the form of appearance; wall decorations – symbols of the political regime; songs sung at school; prohibited and permitted celebration of holidays; exceptional events of daily life – a book burning, disappearance of classmates and teachers; and resistance to political power. Virtually no attention was paid to changes in curriculum, often described by professional historians as one of the central events during periods of transition. Presenting my research results, I will reveal, from a historic perspective, that pupils mostly recall emotions, attitudes towards their freedom and external school events. Consequently, these are the spheres of daily life, which are extremely important for pupils. I will especially highlight emotions revealed in the memoirs. When comparing memoirs published in Soviet times under censorship with those published during today’s democracy, we can see that the narrator's personality in Soviet memoirs is more encoded and hidden. The concept and tone of memoir writing reflects the values of the regime, both in the Soviet era and also today. The political price paid is often a trivialization - primitively glorifying totalitarianism then or blanket criticism of that time today.

References

1) Literature on school and classroom culture: Braster, Grosvenor, Pozo, eds., The Black Box of Schooling. A Cultural History of the Classroom (2011); Herman, School Culture in the 20th Century. Mentality and Reality History of the Primary School (PhD theses, K.U. Leuven, 2010); Depaepe, Order in Progress. Everyday Education Practice in Primary Schools – Belgium, 1880 – 1970 (2000); Grosvenor, Lawn, Rousmaniere, eds. Silences and Images: The Social History of the Classroom (1999); Jackson, Life in Classrooms (1990); Johnson, West Haven: Classroom Culture and Society in a Rural Elementary School (1985/2012) a.o. 2) Literature on research on memoirs about education: Carretero, Constructing patriotism. Teaching history and memories in global worlds (2011); Trahar, ed. Narrative Research on Learning comparative and international perspectives (2009); Rousso & Golsan, eds., Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared (2004); Goodson & Sikes, Life History Research in Educational Settings (2001); Jüttermann & Thomae, hrsg. Biographishen Methoden in den Humanwissenschaften (1999) a.o. 3) Literature on totalitarianism, communism and Nazism: Kestere & Krūze, eds. History of Pedagogy and Educational Sciences in the Baltic Countries from 1940 to 1990: an Overview (2013); Fridell, Dictatorship (2007); Jarausch, ed., Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (1999); Arato, From Neo-Marxism to Democratic Theory: Essays on the Critical Theory of Soviet-Type Societies (1993); Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973) a.o. 4) Literature on emotions: Landahl, ‘Emotions, power and the advent of mass schooling’ (Paedagogica Historica, 2015); Landahl, ‘The eye of power(-lessness): on the emergence of the panoptical and synoptical classroom’ (History of Education, 2013); Sobe, ‘Researching emotion and affect in the history of education’ (History of Education, 2012); Boler, Feeling Power: Emotions and Education (1999).

Author Information

Iveta Kestere (presenting / submitting)

University of Latvia

Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art

Riga

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