Singing a Nation: The Latvian Song Festival as an Intercultural Medium for National Identity
Singing a Nation: The Latvian Song Festival as an Intercultural Medium for National Identity

Summary/Abstract: Though there is a tendency to overstate the historical and contemporary importance of the Latvian Song Festival for Latvia, to a degree, where it almost seems redundant to talk about the subject, the gravitational field and the multidimensionality of the Song Festival is indeed remarkable, especially the more it is reflected on from a theoretical standpoint. This article is an attempt to give an interdisciplinary overview of the immense gamut of topics revolving around the Song Festival, which could and should be addressed with the help of in-depth research. This cultural phenomenon is a nexus that is comprised of aspects from the history of education and choral singing, society and fraternity building, cultural transfer and localisation, social communication, cultural memory, national ideas and icons reflected onto and derived from it, Aesopian communication forms and many other anthropological, cultural and media phenomena. Even modern infrastructural questions are integral part of the success of this project, for instance, the railroad system and electricity networks. Above all, the Song Festival was a means to create a common national space, with a collective memory and national iconography. Among many other researchers, Jan Assmann’s work in particular shows how fundamental celebrations and rituals are for a collective cultural memory. His theses are enlightening, when applied onto the matter of Latvian Song Festivals, which can be considered an exemplary instance for creation of collective memory through a central cultural event. The article contextualizes Latvian Song Festivals not only within the German tradition of the festival, but also on a more theoretical level, describing it as a part of the nationalization process in Europe and as one of many ritual forms, which are fundamental to a cultural group’s collective memory, identity and nationality.

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