Paper short abstract:

The environmentalism of 1970-1990 in Soviet Latvia was closely tied to the development of nationalist and other political movements. The environmentalist activities had several layers of meanings. Discourses of cleaning illustrate the multi-layered character of environmentalism and its discourses.

Paper long abstract:

In the final decades of the Soviet Union, the ideological stance of the Communist Party towards environmental problems changed substantially. They were acknowledged as existing, important, and something to be reckoned with in the modernization process of Soviet society. Despite industrial and agricultural practices remaining largely intrusive and oblivious to environmental concerns, the ideological shift allowed for the raising of ecological issues in public debates.

These changes in ideological stance allowed environmentalism to develop on the ideological, institutional, and popular level but also made the environmental issues attractive as a partially legitimate way of protesting against and even resisting the regime. Therefore, it is impossible to clearly separate the evolution of environmentalism in Latvia from the development of nationalist and other political movements in this period. The environmentalist activities often had several layers of meanings that the participants of these processes were aware of and that discursive articulation of these activities both hid and revealed.

Discourses of cleaning illustrate well the multi-layered character of environmentalism and its discourses of this period. Popular movements that had environmentalist aspects were concerned with “neglect” and a “mess” that were considered to be all around. That included contamination of the sea and rivers, for example, but toxic discourse was just one among others. According to these discourses, landscapes, gardens, homesteads, and parks had to be “cleaned up”, and trees had to be “liberated” from the undergrowth. And, no doubt, cleaning up was never just about the natural environment.