Personnel records as a source for studying the role of the national factor in the history of the Latvian Conservatory (1919-1941)

The study aims to identify the significance and information potential of the Latvian Conservatory’s personnel records for researching the role of the national factor in the history of this educational institution between 1919 and 1941. The article analyzes individual and group service records of faculty members held in the Latvian Conservatory collection (fond) at the State Archives of Latvia. Using the personal file of A. Daugulis (1879-1955), head of the special piano class, the author examines various stages of personnel record-keeping throughout the 1920s and the first half of the 1940s. The scientific novelty of the research lies in its being the first source-critical analysis of the entire complex of personnel documents from the Latvian higher school of music during its first two decades. Furthermore, the work examines a range of standardized personnel record forms dating from the periods of independent (interwar) Latvia, Soviet Latvia, and the Nazi occupation. The study establishes a clear continuity between interwar Latvian record-keeping and pre-revolutionary Russian administrative practices. It is concluded that personal files – particularly the individual service records of the 1926 model, as well as documentation from the Soviet era and the period of Nazi occupation – serve as vital sources for identifying and studying issues of ethnicity within higher music education in Latvia.