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Press Release No. 3, September 11, 2005
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The Baltic
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The Baltic as a psycho-geographical term is a phenomenon in its lack of direction and definition. This incoherence can apply to politics, economics, infrastructure and mentalities. You can and can’t be Baltic simultaneously, but also you can be more or less Baltic.
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Though the derivation of this word has many theories, for example, in Latin balteus means belt (perhaps a fake Coco Channel belt) or it means white and shining from its Indo-European root, the latter seeming a more eloquent etymology. It is clear that the Baltic is a hypothetical term but without doubt we can associate it with the creation of a discourse and simulation of shining white that does not characterise the region at all.
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Today the term can refer to the sea or all of the countries that surround it, or only a group of three ( Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Baltic has a drifting geographical definition. Germanic nations ( Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) call the Baltic Sea the Eastern Sea despite it resting west of Finland. It means that for the so-called West the Baltic is a phenomenon of the East. The epithet of shining white does not contradict this speculation although it is not clear if the light still come from the east (Ignalina nuclear power station built to the same plans as Chernobyl is counting down its last days in the EU). In a stricter sense the Baltic states helped to collapse the Soviet Union — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, although only the latter two are home to the historical baltai — another paradox of historiography. It is strange that even before the Iron Curtain became scrap metal the Baltic was the most western point of the USSR and now holds the most eastern position in the EU.
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An important reason for the successful circulation of the Baltic is Baltxploitation — the use of the Baltic trademark to name inadequate paradoxes and phenomenon. Baltic languages are the least transformed from their Indo-European roots and world linguistics believed that farmers here understood Sanskrit fluently as recently as a hundred years ago. The Baltic reached beyond the sea: it was a Baltic plumber whose image helped the no vote for the EU constitution in France; the small village of Dieveniskes is near the Easter islands. Lithuania was the last pagan country in Europe and its new religions include basketball — just one of the many signs that Lithuania is becoming more American that America. With supermarkets and pseudo ethnic pizza chains, the Baltic is shaking off the Wild East label it was given by the ‘real’ West. The Baltic is the Wild West in the Wild East, but is it so wild? No, it is just a result of successful marketing. Depending on a client’s origin and wishes, the Baltic may be both East in the West and West in the East.
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However, the Baltic utopian ambition with its analysis and developing discourse moves away from the idea of Baltic. Like the surplus of discourse of sexuality outrivals the sex itself, so the Baltic as shining white alienates the realisation of the phenomenon. That’s why the mentality of Baltic is revealed through negative forms of whiteness — shadows and even darkness. The antonyms of shining transparency are everyday manifestations of Baltic. Maybe that is where we should start? |
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