Who Are You: Identification, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe.
Valentin Groebner.
Translated by Mark Kyburz and John Peck.
New York: Zone Books, 2007.
Distributed by MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
ISBN: 1–890–95172–72, 349 pages, 22 illustrations. US$30.00.
Years ago, my father gave me his father’s papers — a collection of Czarist documents created in the nineteenth century that essentially created an identity for my forebearers over a century ago. These documents troubled my grandfather because they created a specific Russian identity for my ancestors, the result of an intensive Russification program in the Baltic states, especially in Lithuania. My grandfather, on arrival at Ellis Island at the beginning of the twentieth century, tossed aside his Russified surname — and Russian identity — for his real Lithuanian name, Valauskas. I re–examined my grandfather’s papers — large documents on Czarist watermarked paper in fine bureaucratic Cyrillic script — after reading Who Are You, wondering about my family and their complex identities in Plunge in Samogitia, the northwestern part of Lithuania. This stimuating book raises many questions about our modern identities, as complicated as those our ancestors centuries ago.
Imagine the task of verifying your identity before photography, computers, credit cards, licenses, birth certificates, or social security numbers. The Renaissance stimulated travel and communication, and a need for individual identity, first for the privileged and well–connected, eventually for everyone. Even my family! Groebner provides an excellent historical context for personal identity in the first half of the book, entitled “Natures.” Clues for these identities can be found in paintings, books, and documents — once your eye has been trained for clues. The first five chapters of this book help you learn how to look.
The second part of the book, “Objects,” provides a more modern perspective on identity. In many ways, Groebner would argue that it would be easier now for my grandfather to negate his Russified identity, with relative ease of access to computer records and multiple virtual characters. I can’t imagine creating a forgery of those Czarist documents — and none of my family dared to attempt it in the nineteenth century.
Valentin Groebner brings together a rich variety of diverse resources in the course of eight chapters. Who Are You is one of the most interesting books that I have read in the past year. Ths book should be required reading for classes on information policy and privacy; Who Are You should be in the collections of college and university libraries as well as larger public libraries.
Edward J. Valauskas is Follett Chair, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University.
Email: ejv [at] email [dot] dom [dot] edu
© 2007 Edward J. Valauskas