Exile and Liminality: Experience between Cultures and Identities

Author(s): Eva Eglāja-Kristsone / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

To describe the exilic condition, many scholars have made use of the concept of liminality. Being neither here (Great Britain as a place of exile) nor there (Latvian exile society as a substitute of a nation) characterizes the life of one of the best Latvian existentialist prose writers – Guntis Zariņš (1926–1965). In Zariņš’ life and work he negotiated several liminal areas – from his war and professional experience, literary presentation to his standing in the Latvian exile community. Whether it is voluntary/involuntary or internal/external, the process of exile is one where an individual is removed from a place of origin (a homeland) therefore one of the crucial questions to solve is a relationship between the experience of cultural displacement and the construction of cultural identity. The time when Guntis Zariņš became prominent in Latvian exile literature, coincided with the time when the change of generations had started. Guntis Zariņš was one of the first exile writers who visited Soviet Latvia in order to personally meet colleagues-writers from the other side of Iron Curtain and cooperate with them in the field of literature but he was trapped between two powers – Britain and Soviet secret services that eventually led to his mental instability and suicide. Zariņš’ case is an example of an individual and undesired exile where prolonged liminal phase and inability to integrate neither into the host society nor to establish apolitical and cultural contacts with homeland resulted in an excellent existentialist prose on the one hand and ruined individuality on the other.

Modernity, Intertextuality and Decolonization: Some Examples from Estonian and Latvian Literature

Author(s): Anneli Mihkelev / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Colonization influences the colonized country politically, economically and culturally, and colonial traces persist everywhere in a colonized society, particularly in social manners, behaviour and culture. After a period of colonization, a period of decolonization is needed. According to W. D. Mignolo, decolonization is the long-term processes involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, and psychological divesting of colonial power. The result of decolonization is a new people and community. The processes involved depend on cultural transfer, cultural relations and modernisation of smaller and peripheral national cultures. All of these processes make it possible for small and peripheral nations to find their own originality within European culture. An “external” or “alien” culture may function as a metatext in an “own” culture and it can describe the “own” culture itself via auto-communication. The literary works of smaller national cultures, such as Estonia and Latvia, represent cultural processes in the process of modernisation and the modernist period in literature at the beginning of the 20th century and also in the 21st century. The paper analyses different texts from “alien” cultures (Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Bible etc.) which function as metatexts in “own” culture. Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a literary figure has been a very important and influential motif in Estonian literature and culture: Gustav Suits’s and Paul-Eerik Rummo’s poems used the motif of Hamlet to describe Estonian history and culture. The Bible has influenced Estonian literary culture for a long time. The function of the old biblical myths is to create the eternal, mythical dimension in literary works and create contact with old nations (e.g. Käsu Hans’, Juhan Liiv’s and Ene Mihkelson’s poetry.). Prose writers Rūdolfs Blaumanis’ and Eduard Vilde’s works represent the Baltic lifestyle, which affected peasants and aristocrats in different ways. Both writers used more of their “own” cultural system and language as metatext to describe the cultural system, rather than using external cultural systems and languages. They transformed realist, romantic and psychological realist styles and languages into internal or “own” cultural systems. All of these stories and poems demonstrate how smaller and peripheral cultures find their own original national cultures and how cultural influences and transformations work through cultural dynamics. Small nations can communicate with other cultures, and they can communicate with us; we can describe our “own” culture via auto-communication.

Female Experience and Language in Monta Kroma’s poetry

Author(s): Anna Auziņa / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Monta Kroma (1919–94) is one of the key female representatives of Latvian poetry in the 1960s–80s. She is one of the most uncommon Latvian poets of this time as well – a brilliant modernist, whose poetics are different from the mainstream in both subject and form. Kroma started writing in the 1940s composing stanzas of socialist realism. From the 1960s onward, after completing her studies in Moscow, she mostly writes in vers libre, revealing the inner worlds of women living in the city, which, in the context of the Soviet ideology, makes her poetry unique and not always officially sanctioned. The focus of the paper is the poetics of Monta Kroma from the viewpoint of feminist theories. The main purpose is to explore the feminine features of her poetics, analysing the female subject and writing in accordance with gynocriticism and post-structuralist French feminism, paying attention to the language and means of expression. Though a feminine or masculine way of writing exists apart from the author’s gender, Kroma’s poetry can be viewed in the light of a specifically female language, an alternative to patriarchal discourse. Such a way of writing – the so-called écriture féminine is emphasised as a concept and also demonstrated in the works of poststructuralist feminists Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray. As écriture féminine is deeply related with the body and sexuality, Kroma’s sensuous poetics with its semiotic elements presents a fruitful field of research in the context of these ideas.

Tendencies of Expressionism in Rainis’ Writings: Spēlēju, dancoju (I Played, I Danced, 1915)

Author(s): Zane Šiliņa / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The paper focuses upon the specific tendencies of Expressionism in the outstanding Latvian poet and playwright Rainis’ (Jānis Pliekšāns, 1865–1929) writings. Rainis always tried to follow the current trends in art, at the same time elaborating his own specific style of expression, therefore his oeuvre is characterized by a peculiar combination of the traditional and modern or, in other words, specifically Latvian elements combined with European modernist features. One of the brightest examples is his play Spēlēju, dancoju (I Played, I Danced, 1915), which is marked by trends akin to Expressionist art, as well as their very specific translation into Latvian tradition. Although Expressionism in its most impressive manifestation appears in German literature, a kindred world vision can be also found in other countries, in some cases even earlier than in Germany. For instance, expressionistic tendencies are characteristic of the literary works of the Russian writer and playwright Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919). Rainis’ diaries, letters and notes demonstrate a stable and permanent interest in Expressionism and particularly Andreyev. Although the Latvian poet’s attitude to his Russian colleague’s literary works mostly can be characterised as negative, Rainis’ notes show that in Andreyev’s artistic quests he has also found some impulses for his own writings. While exploring the tendencies of Expressionism in Rainis’ writings, the paper discusses the specific use of grotesque and the intensified relations between the living and the dead in the play Spēlēju, dancoju. It is significant that the relations between life and death, the living and the dead is one of the central themes in Expressionism, and its relevance is determined by the political events at the beginning of the 20th century (especially, the First World War), as well as the development of industrial society. In order to demonstrate the most significant points of interaction shared by Spēlēju, dancoju and Expressionism, as well as the uniqueness of Rainis’ artistic manner, the paper gives an insight into the aesthetics of Expressionism and provides a comparative analysis of Rainis’ play and some examples of Expressionist art (e.g., writings by Leonid Andreyev, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller).

Functional Cinematic Elements in Works of Alberts Bels: Allusions, Themes and Clichés

Author(s): Jūlija Dibovska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Alberts Bels is a Latvian author whose literary works contain the most notable cinematic elements in Latvian literature. He is also one of those authors who uses a lot of functional cinematic elements alongside with structural ones. Both of these cinematic elements frame the intertextual depth of a text and also make characters dynamic, understandable and ironically toned for a reader.

Science Fiction In Latvian Literature

Author(s): Bārbala Simsone / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The present paper is devoted to the overview of the beginnings and development of the genre of science fiction in Latvian literature. Similarly to other popular fiction genres, science fiction in Latvian literature has not been very popular due to social and historical reasons; however, during the course of the 20th century several authors have at least partially approached the genre and created either fully fledged science fiction works or literary works with science fiction elements in them. The paper looks at the first attempts to create science fiction-related works during the beginning of the 20th century; it then provides an insight into three epochs when the genre received comparatively wider attention: 1) the 1930s produced mainly adventure novels with elements of science fiction mirroring the correspondent world tendencies of that time period; 2) the period between the 1960s and 80s saw authors who had the courage to leave the strict platform of Soviet Social Realism, experimenting with a variety of science fiction elements in the postmodern literary context which allowed for a wide metaphoric interpretation. This epoch also saw the emergence of a specific phenomenon – humorous / satiric science fiction which the authors employed in order to offer social criticism of the Soviet lifestyle; 3) the beginning of the 21st century saw the emergence of several science fiction works by a new generation of writers: these works presently comprise the majority of newly published science fiction. The paper outlines the main tendencies of the newest Latvian science fiction such as authors experimenting with a variety of themes, the preference for dystopian future scenarios and humour. The paper offers brief conclusions as to the possible future of Latvian science fiction in context of the current developments in the genre.

Nineteenth-Century Sentimental and Popular Trends and their Transformation in Fin-de-siècle Latvian Literature

Author(s): Pauls Daija,Benedikts Kalnačs / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

In this paper, the role of popular culture in fin-de-siècle Latvian literature has been explored by analysing the mid-nineteenth century Latvian translation of Christoph Schmid’s novel Genoveva (1846) by Ansis Leitāns, and unfinished drama Genoveva (1908) by Rūdolfs Blaumanis. While the first version of the Genoveva story was created according to the patterns of popular literature and played a significant role in the development of the Latvian reading public, the author of the second version attempted to turn the plot of popular fiction into a work of elite literature, elaborating the issue of female agency and adding psychological ambiguity to the plot. The mixture of popular melodramatic imagination and modernist themes, as observed in Blaumanis’s work, provides a deeper insight into fin-de-siècle literary techniques by turning attention to the conscious use of different literary styles and narrative levels and illuminating interactions between popular and elite culture.

Crossroads of Global and Local Identity in Contemporary Latvian Migrant Literature: Reflections on the Novel Stroika with a London View by W. B. Foreignerski (V. Lācītis)

Author(s): Ojārs Lāms / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This paper deals with the contemporary migration experience as seen through the subjective lens of a literary text. The analysis focuses on the novel Stroika with a London View by the Latvian diaspora writer William B. Foreignerski (Vilis Lācītis in the Latvian version). Foreignerski combines the portrayal of proletarians’ survival with entertaining and comical scenes from daily life. In the novel the story is told from the perspective of the narrator in the first person singular, thus the different relationships between the protagonist and the surrounding environment are already defined by this choice. In the novel the image of London is of great significance as a metropolis and multicultural city in which most of the events described in the novel occur. London is the key determinant for the poetics of intercultural literature in the novel – London can be a labyrinth, an initiation, a trap or a springboard. London as a city that can provide everything that life can offer gives one a chance not only to break away from the economic limitations at home but also from the ideological narrowness of the protagonist’s homeland as it is depicted in the novel. The start of the quest for a new life at the beginning of the novel is to a certain extent traumatic as it is characteristically in traditional emigrant literature. However, with the intercultural approach used by Foreignerski, the migration experience results in the freedom to accept new ideas and in gaining new horizons for the protagonist as well as for the reader.

Latvian Moravian Manuscripts: Historical Overview and Research Perspectives

Author(s): Pauls Daija,Beata Paškevica / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The article explores Moravian manuscripts as a source of literary and social history, focusing on the Latvian part of Livland with the aim of providing an overview of Latvian manuscript literature and highlighting the most significant research perspectives. Written and rewritten in the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, Moravian manuscripts build a heterogenous body of texts, including religious speeches, hymns, biographical writings, historical treatises, letters, and devotional literature. The development of the tradition of Moravian handwritten literature has been viewed in the article from the point of view of literary history by focusing special attention on historical texts and life stories. The effects of Moravian manuscripts have been analysed within the context of social change and emancipating trends brought about by the Moravian movement.

Latviešu literatūras vēstures recepcija no 1945. līdz 2015. gadam

Author(s): Māra Grudule,Benedikts Kalnačs / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 40/2019

This article focuses on the reception of Latvian literary history in the period between 1945 and 2015. The authors pay attention to the following aspects: a) the beginnings of Latvian literary history in the 19th and early 20th centuries; b) the role of Soviet ideology in the aftermath of WWII; c) literary history writing in exile; d) new trends in literary history at the turn of the century; e) the development of regional literatures and comparative aspects of literary history. Following a rather modest initial phase in the 19th century, the histories of Latvian literature matured during the period of independence in the 1920s and 1930s. A major achievement was marked by the publication of the three-volume history by Teodors Zeiferts, Latviešu rakstniecības vēsture (Latvian Literary History; 1922–1925), which summarized the earlier literary history writing focusing on texts in Latvian from a comparative perspective. During the authoritarian regime in Latvia established in 1934, great emphasis was put on a detailed description of national features in the literary process and close observations of a particular author’s biography. Attention was also drawn to the discussion of specific literary texts that might fit into the literary canon. To this aim, a six-volume history edited by Ludis Bērziņš “Latviešu literatūras vesture” (Latvian Literary History; 1935–1937) was created. Alongside it many other state-supported activities promoted the unique qualities of Latvian letters. However, it must be kept in mind that these descriptions were made against the background of extensive studies of other literary cultures. The outbreak of WWII and the occupation of Latvia marked the beginning of a new phase. Research of Latvian literature in Soviet Latvia was strongly influenced by the ideological pressure of the regime. The presence of ideology was also considered to be an overarching principle of literary history writing. The most representative text of this new era was “Latviešu literatūras vesture” in 6 volumes (Latvian Literary History; 1956–1962), created by a research team at the Soviet Latvian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Ēvalds Sokols. This publication alongside others manifested an almost complete omission of the comparative approach to any literary phenomena beyond the possible exception of proletarian literature. The idea of literary history as a process through which a certain nation establishes its values and identity, while at the same time constantly remaining in contact with other literary cultures, was completely abandoned. Only gradually within the following decades a certain recovery of the complexity of interpretation of literary processes became possible. Literary history writing in exile was initially focused on the practical needs to provide school textbooks. The most brilliant publication on literary history during this period was Andrejs Johansons’s monograph, “Latviešu literatūra” (Latvian Literature; 1953–1954), published in Sweden. In this as well as in his other publications Johansons exemplified the comparative approach of exile scholars to demonstrate deep affinities between Latvian and European cultural history and creative thought. Only gradually research trends in exile and in Latvia became mutually comprehensive as exemplified by the publications of literary and book historian Aleksejs Apīnis. A new wave of literary history writing intensified at the end of the 20th century with the publication of the 1999 monograph “Latviešu literatūras vesture” (Latvian Literary History) by Guntis Berelis, as well as the collective monograph on the history of Latvian literature in three volumes (1998–2001) where researchers from Latvia and exile co-operated under the guidance of Viktors Hausmanis and Valters Nollendorfs. A new tradition is currently being developed by a new series of individual monographs that so far have covered the period up to the mid-19th century. Publications in exile also paid close attention to the cultural specificity of the development of a literary tradition in Latgale, the Roman Catholic region of Latvia. Current research is continuing the evaluation of this tradition, alongside other investigations that pay attention to comparative contexts of Latvian literature. The article is concluded with an evaluation of the importance of case studies and relevant methodology for the development of the 21st-century literary history writing.

Wiersz "Do przyjaciółki" ze zbioru "Carmina Rivipullensia" – głos w dyskusji o przekładach średniowiecznej poezji łacińskiej

Author(s): Maria Judyta Woźniak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

The article is a voice in the discussion on contemporary translations of medieval Latin poetry: accepted and possible ways of translating Latin poetry for todayʼs readers, situated within the field of translation studies and poetics – it is part of the research on the reception of the ancient tradition, of which translations are a particular manifestation. The subject of interest is a poem from the medieval collection Carmina Rivipullensia: the only existing collection of Latin love lyric of the Middle Ages from Spain. It testifies to the very lively presence of the Latin poetic tradition in the Iberian Peninsula at that time.This article presents a translatorʼs proposal, accompanied by a commentary, in which arguments for the chosen solutions are indicated. The aim of the article is to present the translatorʼs ideas, mainly concerning the chosen strategy for the translation of the rhymes in Latin medieval poetry, which are an important feature of the Songs.

Friedebert Tuglase sõnavõtt läti kirjanike päeval riias läti seltsi saalis 31. Mail 1940

Author(s): / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 03/2016

1938. aasta 16. detsembril avati Riia Läti Seltsi ruumes Läti Kirjanduse- ja Kunstikoda. See oli üks organisatsioon nn Läti kodade süsteemist, mis loodi K!rlis Ulmanise valitsemise (1936-1940) ajal ning mille eesmärk oli läti kultuuri edendamine.

Burvju apļa vilinājums

Author(s): Ieva Kalniņa / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 35/2017

Review of: Anita Rožkalne. Kārļa Zariņa burvju aplis. Rīga: Latvijas Universitātes Literatūras, folkloras un mākslas institūts, 2016. 511 lpp.

Latviešu Nacionālā fonda publikācijas un padomju dezinformācija

Author(s): Viesturs Zanders / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 50/2023

Collecting and disseminating of information was the most important field of work for Latvian National Fund (further in text – LNF), founded in Stockholm in 1947. For almost 50 years LNF has published books and brochures in different languages telling about the occupied Latvia and the Baltic states overall. This article sheds light on how the publications by LNF were prepared and what resonance they had in Western democracies. It should be noted that the article uses protocols of the LNF board which are kept in the Academic Library of the University of Latvia. The article provides information not found in other sources concerning the editors (translators) of some of the LNF’s publications as well as about the circulation numbers of the publications and distribution channels. The article examines the first publication in 1951 providing the list of persons deported by the Soviets – These Names Accuse – and the making of the reference book Latvia: Country and People (1967). LNF prepared several publications objecting the biased depiction of soldiers from the Baltics interned in Sweden in the novel The Legionnaires (Legionärerna, 1968) by the Swedish writer Per Olov Enquist (1934–2020). Starting in the 1950s and up to the 1980s LNF published – using cover names – several texts of authors living in the occupied Latvia which revealed the truth about the repressions carried out by the Soviet occupation regime and the degraded environment in Latvia. Among these texts the collection of descriptions and photo evidence, The Diary of Occupied Latvia(1976, 1980), by Žanis Skudra (1924–1994) gained a significant resonance.

Laikmetīgi par Blaumani

Author(s): Ivars Ījabs / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 50/2023

Review of: Benedikts Kalnačs. Pavērsiens. Rūdolfs Blaumanis latviešu un Eiropas literatūrā. Rīga: LU Literatūras, folkloras un mākslas institūts, 2022.

The Transition from Song to Poetry in Latvian Literature in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Author(s): Māra Grudule / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The Latvian nation is a singing nation. The Singing Revolution and similar song- and singing-related references are traditionally associated with the image of Latvians. The origins of written Latvian are also related to song: the oldest known Christian song in Latvian, dating from 1530, is also one of the oldest examples of Latvian-language text. In the second half of the 18th century, as a result of transferring from a German to a Latvian cultural space, a new genre of song was created by the German pastor Gotthard Friedrich Stender, the secular, didactic and sentimental ziņģe (a term coined from the German verb singen, ‘to sing’). As the level of education among Latvians was low and most information spread by word of mouth, the German pastors and the first generation of Latvian poets made use of ziņges as an informative tool. Around the middle of the 19th century, the Latvian national revival began. Without denying the importance of Latvian folk songs in the creation of national culture, the main focus of this article is on the secular ziņģes that were adopted from the German literary tradition, which up until the second half of the 19th century were a favourite tool for entertainment (singing) and spreading information orally. As the level of literacy among Latvians rose, the ziņģes receded to the periphery of the literary landscape, paving the way for a new concept for denoting a rhythmic text that was for the first time not melody-bound: dzeja, or ‘poetry’. The emergence of the new concept in 1869, which was related to the Latvian national revival and the formation of a national literary culture, at the same time also marked a turning point from orality to literacy in Latvian society

De vita, studiis laboreque Professoris Sbignei Danek, czyli rzecz o Profesorze Zbigniewie Danku

Author(s): Sylwia Krukowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

Sofistyczna antylogika – wprowadzenie w problematykę

Author(s): Zbigniew Nerczuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

The article discusses the sophistic method of “antilogic” (“double arguments”, “contrasting arguments”, “opposed speeches”, “two-fold arguments”). The main goal is to show that it is a method that, in the light of the doctrine presented in Plato’s Theaetetus, is based on philosophical foundations. The work of G.B. Kerferd was crucial for the research on the art of antilogic, as it broke with the unequivocally negative understanding of this method adopted by the earlier research tradition. Late testimonies of Diogenes Laertius, Clement of Alexandria, Seneca and Eudoxus point to Protagoras of Abdera as the creator and promoter of the antilogic. These testimonies are confirmed by references to the method of “opposed speeches” contained in the comedies of Aristophanes, in the tragedies of Euripides and in the anonymous treatise Dialexeis. Plato’s report on the doctrine attributed to Protagoras in the Theaetetus reveals the philosophical context of the antilogic. The so-called “secret doctrine”, based on the acceptance of appearances and of the privacy of perceptions (man-measure doctrine), the rejection of truth and falsehood, and acceptance of the contradictory judgments results from the new vision of reality in flux. Therefore, the “secret doctrine” presents a consistent and coherent project leading to a new concept of logic and language and lays the foundations for the method of “double arguments”.

Problem winy i odpowiedzialności za zbrodnię w Orestesie Eurypidesa

Author(s): Jadwiga Czerwińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

The myth of Orestes provides an excellent opportunity to trace the issue of guilt, and thus responsibility for the crime of matricide. This theme was taken up in their dramas by all three greatest Greek tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The subject of consideration in the article will be Euripides’ Orestes and the way the poet highlights the relationship between the personal motivation of the play’s protagonist and the divine command. The main issue will be an attempt to answer the question whether the protagonist’s actions in Euripides’ play were autonomous in nature or caused by divine determinism. Apart from Orestes, the analysis will be supplemented by commentaries by scholastics and their way of explaining and interpreting the issues outlined in the article.

Arbërisht Literature as an Example of Preserving a Cultural Identity Abroad

Author(s): Artur J. Katolo / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the origins of the literature of the Arbëreshë people and its impact on the survival of the language outside the country of origin. The cultural identity of the Italo-Albanians is marked by Byzantine influences: religion, economy, culture and military. The centuries-long, harsh Turkish occupation of Albania contributed to the cultural stagnation. Albanians in the territory of the Ottoman Empire were deprived of all rights, including the right to use their own language and profess their faith. The teaching of the Albanian language, as well as teaching in that language, and all publications were banned. Groups of Albanian refugees were welcomed in southern Italy as heroes and defenders of the faith. The few Albanian humanists were the descendants of immigrants educated in Ragusa, Padua or other Italian centres of research and education.