Volters, Eduards (1856-1941)

Latvian ethnographer, linguist, folklorist and archaeologist Eduards Volters (1856-1941) conducted pioneering ethnographic fieldwork in neighbouring Lithuania – then divided between Russia and Prussia – between 1882 and 1918. Volters provided a new interpretation of ethnographic statistics; he directed his identity studies to help reveal political processes, thereby providing a new look at the Baltic region’s history and ethnography. He was an active member of the Baltic national movements, particularly in Lithuania, and put forward nation-building ideas through studies of Baltic ethnicities, antiquities and old books, language, migration and borderland identities. An obscure figure in the history of anthropology, Volters was a cosmopolitan scholar and a teacher at the University of Saint Petersburg for over thirty years.

“Ethnography and Nation-building in Lithuania (1882-1918): The Life and Work of Eduards Volters”

Vida Savoniakaitė, 2021

Latvian ethnographer, linguist, folklorist and archaeologist Eduards Volters (1856-1941), an obscure figure in the old history of “world anthropologies”, conducted pioneering ethnographic fieldwork in neighbouring Lithuania – then divided between Russia and Prussia – between 1882 and 1918. (…)

“Ethnography and Nation-building in Lithuania (1882-1918): The Life and Work of Eduards Volters”