On Thursday, June 20, 2013, Jordan Kuck will give a public talk on the role of Mazpulki, or Latvian 4-H, during the authoritarian period colloquially known as “the Ulmanis Years” (1934-1940). Given that Mazpulki was the single largest youth organization in Latvia, was led by Kārlis Ulmanis himself, and was (and still is) a member of the worldwide 4-H organization sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Cooperative Extension Service, it is surprising that there has not yet been any scholarship on Mazpulki. In his talk, Jordan will investigate the pre-1934 history of Mazpulki and its ties to America. He will then highlight how Ulmanis’s coup affected the growth and role of Mazpulki. Jordan will show how Mazpulki serves as a microcosm of the Ulmanis regime, as it became a hybrid organization that, while retaining some aspects of its American heritage, nonetheless took on a number of fascist trappings.

Jordan is a PhD Candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a former BALSSI student. His talk is based on a portion of his research for his dissertation, titled “The Dictator without a Uniform: Kārlis Ulmanis, Agrarian Nationalism, and Interwar Latvia.” Jordan’s research has been facilitated by a Fulbright Fellowship to Latvia, by a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, and by the Association for Baltic Studies (AABS) Dissertation Grant.