Paper short abstract:

How deeply anthropology was involved with the representations of different ethnic groups in the construction and maintenance of a specific culture? The aim of my paper is positive self-reflexive critique of (post)colonial and political compromise in Volter's ethnography and anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses how deeply anthropology was involved not only with (racial) ideology, but also with representations of different ethnic groups, material culture and folklore in the construction and maintenance of a specific culture. One of "uncomfortable ancestors" for totalitarian regime was Eduard Volter (Wolter 1856-1941). Known Latvian academic of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society and Saint Petersburg University withdrew to Lithuania from Russian totalitarian regime in 1918. He was actively involved in Lithuanian nation-building movements. In the Russian Imperial Geographical Society Volter developed ethnographical-statistical studies in order to determine the 'tribal' composition of the population. These concepts he distinctively integrated with the European anthropological approach to ethnic group, material culture, and regional studies. In Lithuania he shift the anthropological object from the Other to the self and developed the postcolonial self-confidence discourses of "the soul of a nation", the holistic rhetoric of historicism and etc. What was Volter's legacy and the impact on later/actual Lithuanian anthropology in different political contexts? The aim of this paper is a positive self-reflexive critique of colonial and political compromise in Volter's academic legacy and the role for the later rise of anthropological discipline in Lithuania. I'll focus on the following questions: the academic legacy in Russian Imperial Geographical Society, the approach to anthropology and beyond in Lithuania, and the opposite sides of academic activities and legacy in a healthy dynamic of the scientific growth.