Untitled

LATVIJAS UNIVERSITÂTES RAKSTI. 2004. 666. sçj.: LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA,
MÂKSLA, 149.–157. lpp.
Americanization of Estonia: social mechanisms and
literary manifestations
Igaunijas amerikanizâcija: sociâlais mehânisms un
literârie manifesti
Krista Vogelberg (Estonia)
Department of English, University of Tartu
18 Ülikooli St., Tartu 50090, Estonia
e–mail: vkrista@ut.ee
The article argues for an analysis of processes of cultural Americanization on the basis of a
broad sociological notion of culture, i.e. culture as a “way of life”, via a dialectic of deep–
seated processes of value change and the reception of cultural icons as mediated through these
processes. An attempt to articulate socio–economic mechanisms operant in recent Americanization
of the dominant Estonian value system is checked against tracing the resultant new
ethos in the work of the Estonian best–selling author Kaur Kender.
Keywords: Americanization, Estonia, culture.
The discourse of cultural Americanization, be it couched in negative terms (as “a
discourse of rejection to point to the variety of processes through which America
exerts its dismal influence on European cultures” 1 ) or in positive ones (American
culture as a “zone of liberation or democracy”, America as “a locus for pleasure”,
America as utopia or “a fantasy zone” 2 ), tends to deal with culture in the relatively
narrow sense of the term, as one area of human activity alongside others such as
economy, politics, etc., all of them closely interrelated, of course, yet in the final
analysis separate. Hence the focus on dichotomies such as popular culture/high culture
with the attending laments of American popular culture “invading” European high
culture and undermining its authority or, on the positive side, the exultation over
Whitman’s “word democratic, word en masse” challenging the cozy high cultural
consensus of Europe3 . Within the bounds of this approach to cultural influence, cultural
iconography, symbols, objects, artifacts, operate on their own – via the media,
advertising and other channels – and can be either passively absorbed by the recipients,
contested and resisted, or, to take the middle ground, freely “taken out of their
historical and cultural contexts and juxtaposed with other signs from other sources” 4 .
What seems to be lacking, however, is an explanation for the predilection of representatives
of recipient cultures in particular contexts of one or another of the wide
range of possible responses.
It is the present author’s conviction that reception of culture in the narrower sense
is predicated on culture understood far more broadly – one might say, sociologically
or anthropologically – as “behavior patterns associated with particular groups of
people, that is, /…/ ‘customs’ or /…/ a people’s ‘way of life’” 5 . This broad unified
concept of culture, originally borrowed from anthropologists, in particular Margaret
Mead and Ruth Benedict, a concept that encompasses not only works of art – be it
high or popular – but also institutions, behavior, values, and mentalities, has indeed