RESEARCH CHALLENGES CONCERNING THE LATE 20th-CENTURY ARTS IN LATVIA: CONTEXT FOR MUSIC THEATRE STUDIES

The article attempts to articulate a few research challenges and problems faced by a scholar working actively in the field of art and culture studies. The aim is to foster the discussion about common problems and opportunities dealing with relatively recent history (late Soviet period of the 1980s, the transition period (National Awakening) and the 1990s) of performing arts and musical theatre among them. Focusing on the necessity of critical assessment of the existing published sources, the structured interviews with the persons involved in the culture processes of the research period help in gathering important information, but do not exclude selective memories and “out of records” issues that lead to the ethical choices of the scholar on research design, content and potential outcomes. The case study of the history of the Latvian National Opera is contextualised with relevant theoretical approaches that discuss the decolonisation of knowledge and the activation of multidimensional critical thinking in musicology, theatre, and culture studies.