Trois des numéros de cette revue - Zvaigzne (L'Étoile) - remontent à 1961.
A la "une" de l'un d'eux, un visage d'une jeune femme en tenue traditionnelle. Tresses blondes, col blanc et nœud noué autour du cou, nœud rouge comme il se doit, rouge comme les lèvres qu'elle a entrouvertes: Zvaigzne est la revue éditée par le Comité central du Parti communiste letton.
La descente de rivière terminée, je fais une petite recherche sur Internet. Pour tomber sur un article consacré à Zvaigzne, écrit par un historien letton ayant analysé son contenu entre 1956 et 1959, en pleine période khrouchtchévienne. La revue y est décrite comme l'un des principaux véhicules d'un "communisme national" letton, soucieux de perpétuer des valeurs quasi patriotiques et parfois critique à l'encontre de certains travers du régime soviétique.
Inclus dans un volume consacré aux "régimes d'occupation dans les pays baltes, 1940-1991", l'article en question - signé Ilgvars Butulis - est disponible ici dans sa version longue, en letton (pages 697 à 707). Voici son résumé en anglais (les extraits noircis sont de mon fait):
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A Few Expressions of National Communism in the Magazine Zvaigzne (1956–1959)
Ilgvars Butulis
Summary
The paper gives an insight into expressions of national communism in the magazine Zvaigzne (Star) in the period from 1956 to 1959. At that time, the magazine was one of the most important mouthpieces of national communism in Latvia. The author analyses those publications in Zvaigzne that in some way express ideas of national communism. The paper outlines the themes of these materials and the range of expressed ideas.
The paper relies not only on articles, but also on pictures (photographs, reproductions of pieces of art, drawings) and comments to them. An important part of the source basis include transcripts of the meetings of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party. The analysis of these sources allows outlining the major activities of Zvaigzne connected with national communism.
In communication with its readers, the magazine to a large extent avoided the didactic tone. It spoke a language untypical for a Soviet publication and depicted the daily life or ordinary citizens. Zvaigzne no longer strictly observed the hierarchy and treated even the highest authorities in a down-to-earth manner. The freer way of thinking of the magazine’s editors manifested itself also in a new approach to the depiction of the woman, without shunning elements of eroticism. The magazine was not even afraid to address painful social ailments; it showed the harsh life in collective farms, the disastrous situation in commerce, and contemplated the declined level of social culture. The image of the leader, the chairman that emerged from its pages was not at all flattering to the nomenclature.
Speaking about Latvia’s history, Zvaigzne specially focussed on proto-history and the Red Latvian Riflemen, underlining the specifics of the national history and cultivating love for the Fatherland. The magazine was the first press publication in Latvia at that time that dared openly to mention the deportations of 1949. In numerous articles and pictures on cultural and historical monuments the publicists of Zvaigzne called for rejection of the nihilistic attitude towards the heritage of the past, for organisation of its protection and for enlarging the borders of cultural heritage. The published pictures and articles cultivated traditions of national festivities: song festivals, wedding customs and especially the Midsummer celebrations.
The depiction of Latvia’s nature almost developed into idolatry under the slogan “Look at the beautiful Latvia and admire it!” Materials on art occupied an important position in the propaganda of national communist ideas. Publications on fine and applied arts to a large extent built the Latvian-in spirit environment of the magazine, called for rejection of the narrow understanding of realism underlining as the key values the national character and modernity of art. Articles and pictures on architecture also advocated modernity and national traditions. Materials dedicated to theatre called for brilliant theatricality and open combat of the shortcomings and negative features of the society.
Remaining typical representatives of their time and environment and without leaving the concepts and frameworks of socialism, authors of the magazine Zvaigzne advocated a more Latvian and democratic model of socialism than the official Soviet Russian-style stereotype of socialism.
[In OCCUPATION REGIMES IN THE BALTIC STATES 1940–1991. Symposium of the Commission of the Historians of Latvia, Volume 25; Research of the Commission of the Historians of Latvia, 2008
and Proceedings of the International Conference “Occupation Regimes in the Baltic States (1940–1990): Research results and problems”, 30–31 October 2008, Riga]
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Me reviennent alors à l'esprit des choses lues ou entendues il y a déjà pas mal d'années. Une fois passée la fureur stalinienne, des leaders communistes lettons tentèrent - après la mort en 1953 du camarade Iossif Vissarionovitch Djougachvili - de promouvoir des mesures visant à préserver des valeurs "nationales". Tentèrent aussi de réduire l'arrivée de migrants en provenance du reste de l'URSS, de freiner la russification en cours.
Dans ma bibliothèque, je pioche Latvia in Transition, publié en 1996 au Cambridge University Press. L'auteur, Juris Dreifelds, professeur canadien d'origine lettonne, évoque ce courant "national" au sein du PC letton, animée par Eduards Berklavs, alors vice-président du Conseil des ministres de la République soviétique de Lettonie. Pour plus de détails, l'extrait du livre de Dreifelds est à lire ici (en anglais).
Berklavs, tout comme le 1er secretaire du PC letton, Jānis Kalnbērziņš, et quelque 2 000 autres "communistes nationaux", furent écartés en 1959. Une purge qui n'empêcha pas la parution en 1961, à la "une" de Zvaigzne, du visage - certes radieux, contemplant un avenir forcément meilleur encore - d'une mystérieuse femme en costume traditionnel letton.
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D'autres "unes" du même magazine:
1961
1961
1973
