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Land reform
Two centuries of life in the Baltic States is the research focus
of Andrjes Plakans
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Andrejs Plakans left his native Latvia as a child in 1944. And while
his family immigrated seven years later to the U.S., the professor of
history has always been interested what has and is happening in his homeland.
"I've worked my whole professional life on the history of Eastern
Europe, especially the Baltic area," he said.
This semester Plakans has been named the Distinguished Humanities Scholar
by the Council on Scholarship in the Humanities. The organization is charged
with stimulating scholarly growth in the humanities at Iowa State.
"The award is a recognition by my departmental colleagues and the
committee that I have done something to be rewarded for," Plakans
said. "It's very gratifying."
The honor allows Plakans to take the semester off from his teaching responsibilities.
While not a sabbatical or leave, this gives him the opportunity to continue
his research on Eastern Europe.
In particular, Plakans is using the time off to complete his research
and writing on 19th and 20th century land reform in three Baltic countries.
He plans to submit a final draft of his book to the publisher this summer.
"The release time from teaching is the practical payoff of the honor,"
Plakans said. "I now can get this book finished quicker."
Plakans' book will focus on the social consequences of the land reform
in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Scholars typically look at these three
countries together since they all have similar histories.
In particular, Plakans will look at four different time frames and the
land reforms that occurred during each. The three Baltic states were part
of the old Russian Empire before World War I, independent countries between
World War I and World War II, then a part of the Soviet Union for the
next 40 years before gaining their independence again when the Iron Curtain
fell in the early '90s.
The first sets of reforms divided up the land estates from the large landowners
and transferred them to the peasant population. Under Soviet domination,
all private farms were abolished and collective farms were established.
For the last decade, agricultural land has been back in the hands of private
farmers in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
"All these land reforms completely changed the nature of the rural
population," Plakans said, "and the leaders at the time were
always claiming that these reforms would modernize the countryside. However
modernization has always proved to be elusive to the rural populations.
"Each generation has had some type of reform and they have had to
adapt to these circumstances."
Plakans has also had to adapt to different circumstances in researching
land reform. Most of the records are located in Riga. The Soviet government
didn't like former ÎmigrÎs such as Plakans from "poking around"
in those archives.
"In order to gain access to the archives you had to get permission
from Moscow," he said, "and that was very difficult in my case."
That has changed since Latvia became an independent country once again.
During the Soviet Union's rule of the country, Plakans was only able to
visit Latvia three times.
"I've been able to go there once a year for the last ten years,"
he said. "I know people there now and it's very easy to get the materials
I need for my research."
Change hasn't come easy to the Latvia farmer however.
"In a sense, they have fallen back on old patterns," Plakans
said. "If they can't afford to buy a small tractor, they buy a horse
to work the fields.
"But the commitment is deep for these people to the land," he
continued. "The virtues of rural life is very strong and important
to the Latvia identity."
Around LAS
March 5-18, 2001
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