The New Current ( lv, Jaunā strāva) in the

history of Latvia The history of Latvia began around 9000 BC with the end of the last glacial period#Weichsel glaciation, in Scandinavia and northern Europe, last glacial period in northern Europe. Ancient Balts, Baltic peoples arrived in the area during the sec ...

was a broad

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

social and political movement that followed

the First Latvian National Awakening The First Latvian National Awakening or the First Awakening ( lv, Pirmā Atmoda) was a cultural and national revival movement between 1850 and 1880 among the Young Latvians, a group of well-educated Latvians, who, opposed to the Baltic German dom ...

(led by the

Young Latvians New Latvians ( lv, jaunlatvieši) is the term most often applied to the intellectuals of the First Latvian National Awakening ( lv, Tautas atmoda), active from the 1850s to the 1880s. The movement was modeled on the Young Germany (german: Junges ...

from the 1850s to the 1880s) and culminated in the

1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

. Participants in the movement were called ''jaunstrāvnieki''.

History

The beginning of the New Current is usually given as 1886, when the movement's newspaper, ''

Dienas Lapa ''Dienas Lapa'' ('Daily Sheet') was a Latvian newspaper published from 1886 to 1905. It espoused progressive politics, including workers' rights and Latvian cultural autonomy. The editors of the newspaper included Pēteris Stučka (1888–91, ...

'' ("The Page of the Day"), was founded by Pēteris Bisenieks, who ran the

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

Latvian Craftsmen's Credit Union.

Pēteris Stučka Pēteris Stučka, sometimes spelt Pyotr Ivanovich Stuchka (russian: Пётр Ива́нович Сту́чка, german: Peter Stutschka (in contemporary writings); – 25 January 1932), was a Latvian jurist and communist politician who served a ...

, who later headed the Latvian

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

, became the editor of ''Dienas Lapa'' in 1888. From 1891 to 1896, the paper was edited by Bisenieks and

Rainis Rainis was the pseudonym of Jānis Pliekšāns (September 11, 1865 – September 12, 1929), a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician. Rainis' works include the classic plays ''Uguns un nakts'' (''Fire and Night'', 1905) and ''Ind ...

(the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of Jānis Pliekšāns). Rainis, who became Latvia's foremost dramatist and the literary figure "inseparably linked to the birth of the independent Latvian nation and the struggle for freedom" ivars Stranga was also the leading figure in the New Current. Under Rainis and Stučka—the latter was again editor in 1896-97 -- ''Dienas Lapa'' turned to

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

; shut down by the Ministry of the Interior in 1897, the paper took a moderate turn under the editorship of the philosopher and publicist

Pēteris Zālīte Pēteris Zālīte (1 December 1864, Rauna Parish (now Smiltene Municipality), Kreis Wenden, Governorate of Livonia – 18 August 1939, Riga) was a Latvian philosopher, journalist and politician. He became a member of the 3rd Saeima in January 19 ...

(formerly an editor of ''Mājas Viesis''—see the

article) between 1899 and 1903; despite its moderation under Zālīte, the paper was again shut down by the censors, re-emerging in 1905 as the

Social Democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

newspaper before its permanent closure.

Evaluation

The historian Arveds Švābe describes the New Current as "connected to the political awakening of the Latvian working class, its first organizations, and the propagandization of socialist ideas.". Most historians point to what the painter Apsīšu Jēkabs called "the beginning of a cleft between the Latvian farmer and his farm hand" in the 1870s, and by 1897 there were 591 656 landless peasants in what is now Latvia (compared to 418 028 smallholders and their dependents). Their partial urbanization led to a growing proletariat, fertile ground for the ideas of western European socialism, and this coincided with a loss of momentum for the Young Latvians, whose ideas had been enfeebled by

national romanticism Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...

as a gulf grew between the

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

and the poor, the leading

nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

of the era having been arrested and exiled. Rainis smuggled German

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

literature into Latvia in two pieces of luggage in 1893: the work of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...

. This "luggage with the dangerous contents," as the historian Uldis Ģērmanis called it, was the seed of the

Latvian Social Democratic Party The Latvian Social Democratic Party ( lv, Latvijas Sociāldemokrātiskā Partija, LSDP) was a political party in Latvia formed by a reformist wing of the Communist Party of Latvia. On 14 April 1990, a pro-independence faction under Ivars Ķezbe ...

.Daina Bleiere, Ilgvars Butulis, Inesis Feldmanis, Aivars Stranga, Antonijs Zunda: ''Latvijas vēsture: 20. gadsimts.'' Rīga: Jumava, 2005.

References

{{Latvia topics Political history of Latvia