“The Career of ‘Latvian’ Count Michał Jan Borch at the convergence of the humanities and natural sciences,” in Synergy Between Humanities and Natural Sciences in Cultural History and Theory, ed. Ojārs Spārītis et al. Riga: LMA, 2023. (2025)

‘Baltic catacombs.’ Translating corpisanti catacomb relic-sculptures between Rome, Polish Livonia, and the Lithuanian Grand Duchy circa 1750-1800

Open Research Europe, 2021

This article offers a first study of the traffic of corpisanti catacomb relic-sculptures between Rome and sites in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Livonia in the decades just before and during the Age of Partition (c. 1750-1800). The article firstly frames an overview of current knowledge on corpisanti more broadly against cases in Livonia and the Grand Duchy. It secondly provides a clearinghouse of secondary and primary source evidence on this topic, with particular attention to providing previously largely unpublished or under-studied texts pertaining to corpisanti cults in the north in translation, included as appendices. This article also presents a study in methods of collaborative scholarship in the pandemic era, investigating across distinct genres of source materials and material and artistic cultural heritage objects accessed via scholarly networks both in the field and online, representing historic sites and institutions in present-day Italy, Ukraine, Belarus, Pola...

Evidence of the Reformation and Confessionalization Period in Livonian Art

Baltic Journal of Art History, 2015

“Count Michał Jan Borch as patron and collector: art between Italy and the Inflanty Voivodeship in the Age of Partition.” Baltic Journal of Art History 22 (Autumn/Winter 2021): 9-70.

This article reevaluates the lifelong artistic patronage and collecting practices of Polish-Lithuanian Count Michał Jan Borch (1753-1810/11) against the historical background of Enlightenment Europe more broadly and specifically the Age of Partition (c. 1750-1810). This article examines how despite persistent financial shortcomings and political difficulties, Borch staked for himself a strategic position as patron and collector, staging a renovation of the present by engaging with late baroque, rococo, and neoclassical Italianate forms that inflected Italy and the antique not as fixed entities but as a malleable or notional fragments that could be arbitrated, reassembled and transformed through the intermediating agency of persons and objects, and related to the past in form, style and language, thematizing the temporal passage between venerable and modern in a way that reanimated the grandeur of the past in honor of Borch’s re-envisioning of his restored homeland. As a case study in period self-fashioning, the article is structured around four portraits of Borch and his family executed at crucial inflection points in his life and career.

[version 1; peer review: 5 approved] This article offers a first study of the traffic of corpisanti catacomb relic-sculptures between Rome and sites in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Livonia in the decades just before and during the Age of Partition (c. 1750-1800). The article firstly frames an overview of current knowledge on corpisanti more broadly against cases in Livonia and the Grand Duchy. It secondly provides a clearinghouse of secondary and primary source evidence on this topic, with particular attention to providing previously largely unpublished or understudied texts pertaining to corpisanti cults in the north in translation, included as appendices. This article also presents a study in methods of collaborative scholarship in the pandemic era, investigating across distinct genres of source materials and material and artistic cultural heritage objects accessed via scholarly networks both in the field and online, representing historic sites and institutions in present-day Italy,

Applied Arts and the Beginnings of Industrial Design 1840-1890. Art History of Latvia. 3d volume, Book 2. Ed. by Eduards Kļaviņš

Applied Arts and the Beginnings of Industrial Design. 1840-1890. Art History of Latvia. 3d volume, Book 1. Ed. by Eduards Kļaviņš" by Silvija Grosa, 2019

ART HISTORY OF LATVIA III 1780–1890 in two books Book II Edited by Eduards Kļaviņš 2019 ISBN 978-9934-8824-1-8 (2)

Artistic Life. 1840–1890. – Art History of Latvia. Vol. 3: 1780–1890. Book 2 (2019)

Art History of Latvia. Vol. 3: 1780–1890. Book 2 / Ed. by Eduards Kļaviņš. Riga: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art; Art History Support Foundation, 2019

Protection of Architectural Heritage in the Latvian SSR (1945–1991

Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls 3, 2017

This article examines the protection policy of architectural heritage in Latvia in the period of Soviet occupation. The author analyses the basic protection principles towards monuments, and their connection with the prevalent ideology of the Communist Party, as well as the protection peculiarities in terms of the typological groups of architectural monuments (sacred buildings, the centres of former estates and the objects of urban construction). The author has drawn attention to the practice of list-making, analysing the inclusion of architectural monuments protected by the state. The article is concluded with an overview of the condition of architectural monument protection in the Latvian SSR and the public attitude towards this area during the Soviet occupation era.

A framework for Exploring Cultural and Creative Industries in Regional Contexts: The Role of Cultural Intermediaries

Letonica, 2022

Artistic Life. – Art History of Latvia. Vol. 4: Period of Neo-Romanticist Modernism. 1890–1915 (2014)

Art History of Latvia. Vol. 4: Period of Neo-Romanticist Modernism. 1890–1915 / Ed. by Eduards Kļaviņš. Riga: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art; Art History Research Support Foundation, 2014

The whole book in print can be ordered from the publishers (https://lma-mvi.lv/en/publications/art-history-of-latvia/publication/art-history-of-latvia-iv) and at neputns.lv (https://www.neputns.lv/products/art-history-of-latvia).