161879 20260112133144.0 doi 10.35539/LTNC.2024.0055.08 sideral 144515 ART-2024-144515 eng Preciado-Azanza, Gonzalo Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-7743-1691 Embodying Spanishness in Latvian Ballet (1923- 1941): Exoticism, Identity, and Propaganda. 2024 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Spanishness, the imagined perception of Spain, played a major role in interwar Latvian ballet. We located forty-five Spanish-themed ballets, divertissements, and concert miniatures performed between 1923 and 1941. Dancing bodies act as cross-cultural archives that enable us to comprehend the identities projected through inherited gestures. This article proposes that Spanishness, perceived as an exotic and distant Other, may have enhanced the identity of the prewar Republic of Latvia. We examined the ballets Paquita, Jota Aragonesa, Don Quixote, Boléro, and Laurencia through primary visual sources supported by Latvian press data. These case studies depicted a polyhedric image of Spain firmly based on Andalusian archetypes, intertwined with Orientalist motifs, and the jota of Aragon. Spanishness can be seen as an integral aspect of the multicultural manifestation of Latvian interwar society. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 marked a turning point that increased interest in this multilayered mirror. In late 1930s with increasing political and military pressure of the Soviet Union, Spanishness evolved into a soft power strategy and, ultimately, became a Soviet propaganda tool. info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess All rights reserved http://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/ 0.226 2024 Literature and Literary Theory 2024 Q1 Visual Arts and Performing Arts 2024 Q1 History 2024 Q1 Music 2024 Q2 Cultural Studies 2024 Q2 1.1 2024 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 3007 465 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Historia del Arte Área Historia del Arte 55 (2024), 144-180 Letonica Letonica 1407-3110 1856201 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/161879/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 708055 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/161879/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:161879 articulos driver 2026-01-12-12:36:10 ARTICLE