What is it about?
This article examines how philosophy in Latvia changed after the restoration of independence in 1991. It asks whether the de-Sovietization of philosophy should be understood as a sharp break with the Soviet past or as a more gradual process of intellectual reorientation. We focus on several aspects of this transformation, including debates about the role of philosophers, changes in philosophy textbooks and terminology, the translation and publication of Western philosophical works, and the rewriting of the history of philosophy in Latvia.
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Why is it important?
Latvia provides a useful case for examining how philosophical cultures were transformed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The experience shows that transforming philosophy was not simply a matter of removing Soviet ideas and adopting Western ones. It involved renegotiating intellectual identities, institutional practices, philosophical terminology and interpretations of the past. By examining these processes through the concept of metanoia, the article offers a way of understanding de-Sovietization as a gradual intellectual transformation rather than a simple rupture. This perspective can also contribute to comparative research on the transformation of knowledge and intellectual cultures across the post-Soviet space.
Perspectives
The discussion opens up several further questions. If de-Sovietization is understood as an unfinished task, how far does it extend beyond the Russian intellectual landscape to the former Soviet republics? The Latvian case also raises questions about the status of “Western philosophy”: during the Soviet period, its study was institutionally sanctioned and, in certain contexts, encouraged, but largely within the framework of the “critique of Western philosophy”. How was “Western philosophy” therefore constructed under Soviet ideology, and how did its description change over time? These questions point towards a broader examination of how philosophical cultures in the former Soviet republics negotiated their relationship to the Soviet intellectual legacy and to Western philosophy.
PhD Andris Hiršs
Latvian Academy of Culture
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: De-Sovietization as metanoia: rewriting the history of philosophy in Latvia, Studies in East European Thought, September 2026, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s11212-026-09895-2.
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Resources
Conversions and ruptures: epistemic strategies in Latvian philosophy during the Soviet period (1944-1991)
This article is part of the ongoing research project “Conversions and Ruptures: Epistemic Strategies in Latvian Philosophy during the Soviet Period (1944–1991)” (No. lzp-2024/1-0650).
Behind the Paper: De-Sovietization of Philosophy
A Behind the Paper article for Springer Nature discussing the background to the research, the broader question of de-Sovietization beyond Russia, and what the Latvian case reveals about the transformation of philosophy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Andris Hiršs (2026) “Thinking under Ideology: A Case Study of Philosophical Practice in Latvia under Soviet Rule”
Conference abstract for the 2026 SEP conference in Manchester.
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