Book Review (early online): Empire and Eduards Volters (2026), by Vida Savoniakaitė

“Empire and Eduards Volters is an intellectual biography that examines the career of the linguist, ethnographer, and archeologist Eduards Volters (1856–1941), presenting a ‘reconceptualization’ of his ‘ethnographic legacy […] prompted by the discovery of unpublished scholarly works and unexamined notebooks’ (124). The volume aims to depict the characteristics and development of Volters’ ethnography between 1882 and 1941, broadly divided into two periods of scientific activity: 1882–1918, when he was based in St. Petersburg/Petrograd, and 1919–1941, during which he resided in independent Lithuania. Effectively, the book traces how Volters’ research activities were received with hostility and suspicion by his Russian colleagues and initially by some Lithuanian intellectuals who perceived him to be an imperial official before he integrated into their society. As such, particularly in the earlier chapters, there is a focus on the extent to which Volters complied with imperial policy in the research he conducted as part of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society in respect of the developing political aspirations of Lithuanians and Latvians…“

Read the review in the Journal of Baltic Studies (2026):