| Abstract: | Recent groundbreaking analyses of the Baltics have focused on decolonization and national and postcolonial subjectivity. A related but somewhat divergent approach to postcolonial, ethnic and global studies in the Baltic context is to explore the response of contemporary Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian cultures to the introduction of consumer capitalism, intra-European community and global pop-culture. A long-awaited independence brought by the Soviet departure has also presented the Baltics with multiple novel challenges, especially the issue of establishing a new identity, on both a national and a personal level. These challenges become the focus of Headcrusher (2003), the debut novel of Latvian-Russian journalists Alexander Garros and Alexei Evdokimov. This essay investigates Headcrusher's fictionalization of Latvian entry into global commodified space and contextualizes the novel's censure of the new consumer-driven realm within a broader Western comparative literary and theoretical perspective. |
