Postcards in the National Library of Latvia: Options for the Interpretation of Photographic Materials
Postcards in the National Library of Latvia: Options for the Interpretation of Photographic Materials

Summary/Abstract: Real photograph postcards are widely found in private collections and scrapbooks, serving as commemorative objects; in libraries, archives, and museum collections as documentary heritage, memory tools, as testimonies to and proofs of historical events. In the history of Latvian photography, real photograph postcards, their circulation, and their accrual in memory institutions have been little studied and interpreted through contemporary theories. This paper problematizes the question of how to interpret large photographic collections consisting of photographs taken by professionals and amateurs which, in memory institutions, have been reduced to their visual content, serving as reference material. At the center of the research are the 1920s–1930s postcards, produced by photographic techniques, in the postcard collection of the Konrads Ubāns Art Reading Room of the National Library of Latvia (NLL KUML). The paper is part of the early stage of a larger study, the aim of which is to afford real photograph postcards a role in research into the history and theory of Latvian photography, utilizing the NLL KUML collection as an example. Accordingly, the tasks of the paper are: to introduce the collection and its systematization practices; to appraise the theories current in photography; and to find an interpretative model for a large-scale collection of printed images that treats real photograph postcards produced by both professionals and amateurs equally. The research methodology is derived from materiality studies of photographs, a field which has developed in the last decades, based on new materialism and post-humanism theories. Materiality studies address the agency of photographs, material aspects and storage conditions, and social circulation, as well as attempt to overcome the hierarchical model for interpreting photographs, which is based on authorship, originality, and art-market value. The research utilized qualitative research methods: research into historical sources; identifying periodical resources from the 1920s–1930s; case studies, analyzing sample postcards from the KUML collection; discourse analysis, analyzing the fluidity of the significance of KUML real photograph postcards in different social contexts.

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