A Hundred Great Latvians The head of the Editorial Board: Viesturs Serdāns The members of the Editorial Board: Jānis Bērziņš, Andris Caune, Ojārs Celle, Lilija Dzene, Juris Ekmanis, Ilma Grauzdiņa, Uldis Grāvītis, Elita Grosmane, Benedikts Kalnačs, Jānis Kristapsons, Valters Nollendorfs, Ojārs Spārītis, Jānis Stradiņš Maija Šetlere managed the project Editor-in Chief: Valdis Veilands Compiler and author of texts: Pēteris Apinis Scientific editor: Jānis Stradiņš Editors: Andrejs Senkāns, Ginta Poriete, Jānis Loja Information: Renāte Kārkliņa, Anna Šmite, Fēlikss Svirskis English translation: Rasma Mozere, Leonīds Brakmanis, Renāte Kārkliņa, Inguna Rimicāne, Sandra Šteina English language editors: Andrejs Senkāns, Viesturs Pauls Karnups, Leonīds Brakmanis Collection of photographs: Pēteris Apinis, Eva Mārtuža, Gundega Cēbere Artist: Guntars Sietiņš Layout: Jānis Pavlovskis Computer Operator: Daina Freimantāle Cover photo: Armands Lācis, Fotocentrs The index of literature is drawn by the Latvian Library of Medicine. Director Velta Pozņaka Publisher: Nacionālais apgāds, Ltd. Director: Zane Kārkliņa Editor-in Chief: Maija Šetlere Riga, Hospitāļu iela 55; LV-1013 S/c Lauku Avīze The Head of the Board: Viesturs Serdāns Director of the publishing house Lauku Avīze: Valdis Veilands Riga, Dzirnavu iela 21; LV-1010 Printed by: s/c Preses nams Nacionālais apgāds, 2006 Latvijas Avīze, 2006 Guntars Sietiņš, vāks, 2006 Boriss Bērziņš, Gunārs Binde, Ilmārs Blumbergs, Jāzeps Danovskis, Jānis Deinats, Eiženija Freimane, Rūdolfs Heimrāts, Gunārs Janaitis, Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš, Gustavs Klucis, Andris Krieviņš, Juris Krieviņš, Juris Krūmiņš, Imants Lancmanis, Aivars Liepiņš, Intis Lūsis, Gints Mālderis, Ingmars Marics, Ojārs Martinsons, Vilis Rīdzenieks, Džemma Lija Skulme, Riga, 2006 ISBN 9984-26-288-X
Materials, used in the book, are from: Ādolfs Alunāns Memorial Museum Aleksandrs Čaks Memorial Flat Andrejs Pumpurs Lielvārde Museum Archive of the Daile Theatre Archive of the choir Kamēr Archive of the Foreign Ministry Archive of the Fraternity Selonija Archive of Latvian National Opera Archive of the Latvian National Theatre Archive of the State Academic choir Latvia Art Academy of Latvia Birzgale Regional Museum Rūķi ( Dwarfs ) Brothers Kaudzītes Memorial Museum Kalna Kaibēni Cēsis Museum of History and Art Chancery of the President of Latvia Emilis Melngailis Memorial Museum The Exhibition Hall Arsenāls of the Latvian National Museum of Art Francis Trasuns Museum Kolnasāta Rozentāls Janis Museum of History and Art Janis Rozentāls and Rūdolfs Blaumanis Museum Jelgava History and Art Museum named after Ģederts Eliass Juris Podnieks Studio Jurjāni Brothers Memorial Museum Meņģeli Kārlis Skalbe Memorial Museum Saulrieti Kārlis Ulmanis Memorial Museum Pikšas Latgale Culture and History Museum Latvia State Archive of Audiovisual Documents Latvian Academic Library Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church Office Latvian Museum of Architecture Latvian Museum of History of Chemistry Latvian Museum of Photography Latvian War Museum Museum of Ainaži Naval School National Library of Latvia Newspaper Latvijas Avīze Latvian National Museum of Art Latvian Sports Museum Latvian Union of Chess Limbaži Museum Literature, Theatre and Music Museum Madona Museum of Local Studies and Art Museum of Friedrich Zander of the University of Latvia National History Museum of Latvia Ojārs Vācietis Memorial Museum The Pauls Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine Rainis Museum Jasmuiža Riga Central Library, Ziemeļblāzma Branch Library Riga Chess Museum Riga Jewish Community Museum Jews in Latvia Riga Methropolyte Rome Catholic Curia Rūdolfs Blaumanis Memorial Museum Braki Rundāle Palace Museum Valka Regional Studies Museum Valmiera Museum of Regional Studies Photographers: Pēteris Apinis, Intars Atstupens, Roberts Auziņš, Gunārs Binde, Alfreds Amtmanis-Briedītis, Jānis Buls, Miervaldis Bušs, Voldemārs Caune, Jāzeps Danovskis, Jānis Deinats, Lauris Filics, Eiženija Freimane, Atis Ieviņš, Valdis Ilzēns, E. Jakobsons, Gunārs Janaitis, Ferdinands Kajanders, E. Kamoliņš, Roberts Kaniņš, Zane Kārkliņa, Egons Kera, Boriss Koļesņikovs, Pēteris Korsaks, Rihards Eduards Kraucs, Anda Krauze, Lūcija Kreicberga, Andris Krieviņš, Juris Krieviņš, Juris Krūmiņš, Armands Lācis, Osvalds Lange, Mārtiņš Lapiņš, Aivars Liepiņš, Intis Lūsis, A. Makarovs, Gints Mālderis, Ingmars Marics, Ojārs Martinsons, I. Mešlauks, Edmunds Mickus, Uldis Muzikants, J. Ore, J. Pilskalns, Imants Puriņš, K. Rake, Vilis Rīdzenieks, Jānis Rieksts, Indriķis Stūrmanis, Kārlis Šulcs, Anita Tukiša, Aivars Vegners, Jānis Vinters Photos used in the book are from personal archives of: Maija Amoliņa, Silvija Apine, Vija Artmane, Guntis Belēvičs, Ilgonis Bērsons, Gunnar Birkerts, Ilmārs Blumbergs, Jānis Busenbergs, Jānis Elsbergs, Guntis Gailītis, Elmārs Grēns, Vera Gribača, Mārtiņš Heimrāts, Alvis Hermanis, Malda Irbe, Astrīda Ivaska, Dainis Īvāns, Velta Kalnača, Imants Kalniņš, Ivars Kalviņš, Imants Kokars, Pēteris Korsaks, Imants Lancmanis, Didzis Liepiņš, Jānis Lūsis, Lolita Ozola, Raimonds Pauls, Andris Piebalgs, Juris Rubenis, Māris Sirmais, Džemma Skulme, Jurģis Skulme, Jānis Stradiņš, Jānis Streičs, Oļģerts Šalkonis, Dace Siliņa, Egīls Siliņš, Juris Upatnieks, Pēteris Vasks, Daina Vīgnere, Bertrams Zarins, Christopher K. Zarins, Imants Zauls
Greatful acnowledgements for the assistance in the creation of this book to: Maija Amoliņa Ināra Ancāne Nita Apsīte National Library of Latvia Vilnis Auziņš Latvian Museum of Photography Guntis Belēvičs Solvita Brūvere Rainis Museum Jasmuiža Ingrīda Burāne Art Academy of Latvia Valentīna Bruzgule Francis Trasuns Museum Kolnasāta Jānis Busenbergs Jānis Cakuls Riga Metropoly Rome Catholic Curia Antra Cilinska Juris Podnieks Studio Alberts Cimiņš Latvian Union of Chess, Riga Chess Museum Inna Davidova Music Agency Hermaņa Brauna fonds Kristiāna Dimitere Ligita Drubiņa Valka Regional Studies Museum Ina Druviete Jānis Elsbergs Ieva Erdmane Aija Erta Latvian Sports Museum Aija Fleija Latvian War Museum Guntis Gailītis Daina Gauja Music Department, National Library of Latvia Miķelis Gediņš Dzintra Geka Oļģerts Grāvītis Jāzeps Vītols Memorial Museum Anniņas Vera Gribača Ilgars Grosvalds Latvian Museum of History of Chemistry Līva Grudule Kārlis Skalbe Memorial Museum Saulrieti Ligita Gūtmane Emilis Melngailis Memorial Museum Roze Ģipsle Mārtiņš Heimrāts Malda Irbe Laimdota Ivanova Madona Museum of Local Studies and Art Astrīde Ivaska Līga Jaujeniece Birzgale Regional Museum Rūķi ( Dwarfs ) and Andrejs Pumpurs Lielvārde Museum Gunta Jaunmuktāne The Misiņš Library of the Latvian Academic Library Inta Kaņepāja Latvia State Archive of Audiovisual Documents Ausma Kantāne Pēteris Keišs Latgale Culture and History Museum Venta Kocere Latvian Academic Library Andra Konste Aleksandrs Čaks Memorial Flat Pēteris Korsaks Sanita Kozuliņa Birzgale Regional Museum Rūķi ( Dwarfs ) and Andrejs Pumpurs Lielvārde Museum Jānis Krastiņš Ināra Klekere-Krekele Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, National Library of Latvia Silvija Križevica Archive of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia Anna Kuzina Rūdolfs Blaumanis Memorial Museum Braki Ieva Ķīse Ojārs Vācietis Memorial Museum Māra Lāce Latvian National Museum of Art Ilze Līduma Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš Museum Riekstiņi Maija Lielause Archive of the Latvian National Theatre Inese Liepiņa Andrejs Upīts Memorial Museum Didzis Liepiņš Jānis Lejnieks Latvian Museum of Architecture Raits Lubinskis National Library of Latvia Inese Mailīte Jurjāni Brothers Memorial Museum Meņģeļi Antra Medne Aleksandrs Čaks Memorial Flat Emīls Melngailis Andra Manfelde Brothers Kaudzītes Memorial Museum Kalna Kaibēni Irina Noriņa Limbaži Museum Māris Ošlejs Lolita Ozola Agrita Ozoliņa Janis Rozentāls Saldus Museum of History and Art Velta Pozņaka Medical Library of Latvia Mārīte Astrīde Pļaviņa Riga Central Library, Ziemeļblāzma Branch Library Arnis Radiņš Latvian National Museum of History Silvija Ribakova Latgale Culture and History Museum Valdis Rūmnieks Jānis Ulmis Limbaži Museum Mudīte Sardiko Archive of Latvian National Opera Dace Siliņa Arturs Snips Ivars Staģītis Culture Palace Ziemeļblāzma Lelde Strazdīte Anita Stonkus Literature, Theatre and Music Museum Oļģerts Šalkonis Georgs Šiliņš Anna Šmite Misiņa bibliotēka Lāsma Timma National Library of Latvia Tamāra Tutina Francis Trasuns Museum Kolnasāta Guntis Ulmanis Gunārs Ulmanis Kārlis Ulmanis Memorial Museum Pikšas Anita Vanaga Aina Vecsīle Archive of the Daile Theatre Marģers Vestermanis Riga Jewish Community Museum Jews in Latvia Daina Vīgnere Andris Vilks National Library of Latvia Mārīte Vīksna Latvian Academy of Sciences Vivanta Volkova Imants Zauls Māra Zemdega Elmārs Zemovičs Literature, Theatre and Music Museum Līvija Zepa Madona Museum of Local Studies and Art Dmitrijs Zinovjevs Department of Small Prints and Grafics, National Library of Latvia Dace Zvirgzdiņa Madona Museum of Local Studies and Art
Contents Jānis Cimze....................................................14 Krišjānis Valdemārs.............................................16 Juris Alunāns..................................................18 Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis.........................................20 Krišjānis Barons................................................ 22 Reinis and Matīss Kaudzītes....................................24 Andrejs Pumpurs...............................................26 Augusts Dombrovskis..........................................28 Kristaps Helmanis..............................................30 Ādolfs Alunāns................................................32 Kārlis Mīlenbahs............................................... 34 Wilhelm Ostwald..............................................36 Andrejs Jurjāns.................................................38 Konstantīns Pēkšēns........................................... 40 Jānis Čakste....................................................42 Antons and Emīlija Benjamiņi................................. 44 Aspazija....................................................... 46 Jānis Misiņš................................................... 48 Rūdolfs Blaumanis..............................................50 Paul Walden...................................................52 Jāzeps Vītols.................................................. 54 Francis Trasuns................................................56 Rainis..........................................................58 Janis Rozentāls................................................ 60 Pēteris Šmits...................................................62 Vilhelms Purvītis.............................................. 64 Jānis Endzelīns................................................ 66 Jukums Vācietis............................................... 68 Emilis Melngailis................................................70 Jānis Pommers.................................................72 Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš............................................74 Kārlis Ulmanis..................................................76 Alfrēds Kalniņš.................................................78 Kārlis Skalbe................................................... 80 Kārlis Reinholds Zariņš..........................................82 Oskars Kalpaks................................................ 84 Vilis Rīdzenieks................................................ 86 Eduards Smiļģis............................................... 88 Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics...................................... 90 Friedrich Zander...............................................92 Pauls Kundziņš................................................ 94 Arveds Švābe................................................. 96 Kārlis Zāle..................................................... 98 Ēvalds Valters................................................ 100 Kārlis Zemdega.............................................. 102 Gustavs Klucis................................................ 104 Julijans Vaivods.............................................. 106 Pauls Stradiņš................................................ 108 Andrejs Paulāns...............................................110 Zenta Mauriņa................................................112 Mikhail and Sergei Eisenstein.................................114 Žanis Lipke....................................................116 Aleksandrs Čaks...............................................118 Vilis Lācis..................................................... 120 Jānis Daliņš................................................... 122 Edgars Dunsdorfs.............................................124 Walter Zapp................................................. 126 Leonīds Vīgners.............................................. 128 Andrejs Eglītis................................................ 130 Eduards Berklavs..............................................132 Elza Radziņa.................................................. 134 Imants Kokars............................................... 136 Gunnar Birkerts.............................................. 138 Džemma Skulme............................................. 140 Rūdolfs Heimrāts............................................. 142 Edgars Siliņš................................................. 144 Juris Hartmanis............................................... 146 Vija Artmane................................................ 148 Boriss Bērziņš................................................ 150 Vizma Belševica.............................................. 152 Imants Ziedonis.............................................. 154 Ojārs Vācietis................................................. 156 Jānis Stradiņš................................................. 158 Elmārs Grēns................................................. 160 Raimonds Pauls.............................................. 162 Juris Upatnieks.............................................. 164 Māris Liepa.................................................. 166 Knuts Skujenieks............................................ 168 Jānis Streičs...................................................170 Mikhail Tal.................................................... 172 Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga...........................................174 Jānis Lūsis.....................................................176 Imants Kalniņš................................................178 Richards, Bertram and Christopher Kristaps Zarins............ 180 Imants Lancmanis............................................ 182 Teodors Ķirsis................................................ 184 Mariss Jansons............................................... 186 Ilmārs Blumbergs............................................. 188 Pēteris Vasks................................................. 190 Gidon Kremer................................................ 192 Ivars Kalviņš.................................................. 194 Juris Podnieks................................................ 196 Ulyana Semyonova.......................................... 198 Dainis Īvāns.................................................. 200 Andris Piebalgs.............................................. 202 Egils Siliņš.................................................... 204 Juris Rubenis................................................. 206 Alvis Hermanis............................................... 208 Artūrs Irbe....................................................210 Māris Sirmais..................................................212 7
A Hundred Great Latvians The book A Hundred Great Latvians tells you about outstanding sons and daughters of Latvia who have lived their lives, developed their talents and shown their achievements both in our country and in many others around the globe. Dedication, integrity and the pursuit of excellence are traits that are common to most of them, whatever their career or profession. Outstanding among them is the iconic figure of Krišjānis Barons, a man who became a legend already during his lifetime. He first attracted public attention as the young acting editor of a Latvian newspaper published in St Petersburg, which soon drew the ire of Baltic German censors for being too democratic and too progressive. Placed under police surveillance and forbidden to return to his country, Barons devoted the rest of his life to the classification and publication of a vast corpus of lyrical folk songs, which he named the Latvian dainas. Assembled and transposed to the written medium, these songs revealed a rich heritage of immaterial culture which until then had left few traces in historical records. Through them, the Latvian people found that they were recovering their past, restoring their dignity and strengthening their sense of collective identity. Barons Latvju dainas had an immense influence in raising the level of national self-esteem and collective self-confidence of the Latvian people, as well as being an endless source of inspiration to artists in every domain of the arts. Barons Latvju dainas contains close to 36 000 (35 789) numbered type songs, accompanied by clusters of related variants representing about 182 000 additional texts, for a grand total of 217 996 different recorded text versions, most of them quatrains, but about 10 percent made up of longer songs. While Barons man aged to condense all this information into eight tomes of his six official volumes, the total size of his corpus comes to the staggering number of approximately one million lines. Ninety years after the last volumes of Barons collection were published, the dainas still present a daunting challenge to scholar and poet alike the challenge of taking them through the sound barrier that is their special language and bringing them to their rightful place within the literary heritage of the world. Barons was never able to go out collecting folk songs in person. Between the years 1877 and 1886 another great Latvian, Fricis Brīvzemnieks, had published a long series of articles in the Latvian language press, urging all Latvians to take the time to record and send in any folk materials that they could find in their region. All available folk song materials, both new manuscripts and older collections, were then entrusted and transferred to Krišjānis Barons, who was elected the official classifier and compiler of the songs. His would be the task of publishing them and preserving them from the tooth of time, as Brīvzemnieks put it in a classical phrase. Over the years the songs, transcribed by many hands, kept coming in, some similar to ones already in the corpus, others quite new and different, all needing to find their place in a coherent system of classification. With the mathematically inclined and rigorous mind of a man whose university studies had been in the field of astronomy, Barons set about imposing order on a continuously growing mass of manuscripts, much as an astronomer orders glimmering dots in the night sky into galaxies and constellations. The system that Barons developed was a marvel of logic, lucidity, and coherence. The in genious solution he devised for presenting masses of related and partly similar texts has never been equalled for sheer efficiency in presenting staggering amounts of information in a clear, concise, and incredibly economical way on the printed page. What Barons managed to achieve in his classification of the Latvian folk songs was far more than the mere lining up of row upon row, case upon case of dead butterflies, as in some museums of Natural History. Through his hierarchically ordered scheme of thematic clas sification, Barons made use of the songs themselves and their se quence to reconstruct, at least partly, some sense of the wider context in which they would originally have been sung. In this way the texts not only become more accessible and understandable to the patient reader, they also form an encyclopedic compendium of information about the ancient Latvian way of life, about the daily tasks, cares, joys, sorrows, beliefs, customs, and values of the people who composed them and transmitted them. The songs, recorded across the land, kept flowing to Barons in a tangled, shapeless, confused mass. Barons transcribed them onto tiny slips of paper in his precise, spidery hand, cut up the sheets sent in by others to reduce them all to the same format, read, pon dered, sorted, filed them, arranged them in little boxes, transferred them to his custom-built cabinet with seventy special drawers. Thus, slowly, working painstakingly and meticulously over four full dec ades of a dedicated life, from tens of thousands of little strips of paper Barons came to reconstruct the world of the dainas as a con ceptually coherent, aesthetically sophisticated and emotionally mov ing accomplishment of the human spirit. From the inchoate mass of longer or shorter strings of verse, Barons selected the quatrain as the fundamental building-block of the huge edifice that is the Latvian folk song corpus. The four-line strophe is the atom of the daina tradition, its smallest semantically and poetically integrated unit. Cast in a metrical mold of mathe matically rigorous double symmetry, constructed according to an intricate geometry of parallels and contrasts, each quatrain, taken separately, is a self-contained epigram or a poem in miniature, like the Japanese haiku. But arranged thematically into cycles and se quences, the shorter texts combine to form the echoes of an ancient cosmogony, a mythology, a social order; they take on a breadth and scope which acquires an epic flavour. The lyrical quality of the dainas derives primarily from the fact that they are never objective descriptions presented by a detached narrator. On the contrary, they are live testimonials from active participants, cast in the first person singular of the lyrical I. This lyrical I is not to be confused with the person of the singer, since it starts talking before leaving its mother s womb and goes on to make comments at its own funeral. While the two most frequent words in the dainas are es and man, two declensions of the first-person singular pronoun, the dainas do not express unique, individualised experi ence so much as collective wisdom. Similarly, the time-frame of the dainas is an eternal present, with no attempt at historical documen tation in any Hegelian sense, no apparent desire to record any one unique event, precisely located 8
on a measurable, linearly conceived time-frame. What the dainas depict is a composite picture of many different lives, all following the same archetypal pattern. What they offer is the essential distillate of all that the experience of many generations holds in common, of what is universal to human beings, but expressed in a manner and in a style that is uniquely Latvian. The main psychological axis around which the world of the dainas revolves is the mystical correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm. It appears in the daina quatrain as the metaphorical parallel between nature and culture, the first two lines of the classical quatrain presenting a poetical image from nature, the last two ech oing it with an analogue from human life. The periphery of this poetical world of the dainas is traced by the cycles of eternal return, a never-ending spiral of existence in which each individual and each event only re- embodies and re-enacts a pattern set down at the be ginning of time. The visible embodiment of this immutable law of existence is the Sun (Saule) with the lesser heavenly bodies in a secondary role. The Sun, with its daily ride up the Hill of Heaven and its yearly circuit of sunrises and sunsets around the horizon, is the celestial timepiece, it is the cosmic clock which sets the rhythms and the patterns which everything on earth, including man, must follow. Separate individuals enter this world, only to leave it. Humanity goes on forever, each gener ation repeating in essence the path followed by its predecessors. The order set by cosmic and biological rhythms creates a frame work for religious beliefs, ethical values, and social order. The dainas offer a wealth of information about these systems of beliefs, even if there is little in terms of explicit articles of faith or of mythology organised in terms of narrative structures. The basis of personal virtue rests on reverence for the gods, respect for one s elders, and the indefatigable ability to work hard all one s life. The more archaic layers of the dainas also reveal a strong belief in sym pathetic magic as well as in the creative power of the logos, the power of the word, acting through magic incantation on the physical world and imposing man s will on the forces of matter. While Barons accomplishment has not received the full extent of international recognition that his work deserves, it is easy to see why the Latvian people hold him in the same sort of veneration that others reserve for their patron saints or their most illustrious kings. For Barons accomplished far more than an astounding scholarly feat in publishing a truly enormous corpus of folk songs. From tens and hundreds of thousands of lyrical miniatures, he built a verbal mon ument unparalleled in the cultural heritage of humanity. If in his classification system he gave each text its identity card, its personal reference and identification, then it might be truly said that he did the same for the whole Latvian nation. He gave the Latvians of his time what amounts to a certificate of spiritual maturity, an international passport of cultural citizenship, with which they could con fidently issue forth into the modern world and assert their equal rights and equal worth as an ethnic group and as human beings. President of the Republic of Latvia Dr Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga 9
Some introductory remarks Together with Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia (population 2.3 million, area 64 900 km 2 ) is one of three Baltic States, which are often perceived by the world as a united whole. The three states are similar in their history, but quite fundamental differences are also evident, each nation having its uniqueness and its individuality. Along with Lithuania and Estonia, Latvia is one of the new member States of the European Union and NATO (since 2004), but it is still a relatively unknown country to the rest of Europe. The countries of Old Europe might rather mistily remember the ideas of Kurland and Livonia from the distant past, perhaps recognising Riga; we would emphasise that all these places nowadays form the State of Latvia. National independence was only established in Latvia on 18 November 1918, following the end of World War I and the collapse of the Russian and German Empires. This independence was won, and held fast, by the bitter fighting of the Latvian War of Liberation (1918 1920); however, it was forcibly cut short in 1940, when the Baltic States were for the next fifty years annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Baltic States renewed their statehood, and have developed dynamically during the past fifteen years. If we regard Europe as a single, united, whole from Gibraltar to the Urals, from Ireland to the Caucasus the Baltic States are not just somewhere out on the periphery, but right at the geographical centre of Europe. They are located on the dividing line separating Western (Catholic/Protestant) and Eastern (Byzantine Orthodox) Europe. In Latvia s eastern part, at one time the Polish-influenced Latgale region, is the most eastern point in the entire European Union (Pasiene). Since its Christianisation in the 13th century, Latvia has entered Western Europe s traditional Christianity-based orbit, and later, the Age of Enlightenment. Livonia, Riga, Kurzeme, that is to say, Latvia, have been a part of Europe since the invasion of the Crusaders, not only geographically, but culturally. Historically, this territory has been part of the spheres of influence and area of geopolitical interest of Germany, Poland, Sweden or Russia (between the 18th century and 1918 all of Latvia was part of Imperial Russia). Nevertheless, it has, little by little, formed its own, Baltic, culturebased, aureole. Latvia s indigenous inhabitants from long ago were Latvians. Their language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, together with the Lithuanian and Old Prussian (extinct since the 17th century) languages forming the Baltic group of languages, a branch of the Indo-European languages rich with archaic forms. Rich too, are Latvian folklore and ethnographic traditions Krišjānis Barons Cabinet of Dainas, together with the traditions of all three Baltic National Song Festivals, are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Unlike Latvians and Lithuanians, Estonians speak a language belonging to the Finno-Ugric group of languages; however, the Finno-Ugric Livs were also among the original inhabitants of Latvia, and Latvians and Estonians have been tied by a common history since the 13th century. For this reason, together with Latvia s central location, the idea of Baltic unity is more apparent in Latvia than in Estonia or Lithuania. The German Element, and Baltic Germans, have been predominant in Latvia for many centuries, particularly in its culture. Both historically and today, Latvia is, in its way, a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural country, where living alongside each other have been Latvians, Germans, Russians, Poles, Jews and others. The proportionality among the nationalities has changed; currently (2005), Latvia s population includes 58.2% Latvians, 29.2% Russians, 4.0% Belarusians, 2.6% Ukrainians, 2.5% Poles, 1.4% Lithuanians and 0.5% Jews. However, since the early 19th century, immediately after the abolition of serfdom (1817 1861), a new nation gradually came to the fore, the Latvians, who, in the 20th century welded together their territory and created a unique country, based both on traditions and on European values, with its own distinctive culture. A decisive turning point in the history of the Latvian Nation was the so-called National Awakening, the Young Latvian movement. That started in 1855, in the atmosphere of liberal reforms of Emperor Alexander II, as part of the framework of modernising the Imperial Russia of the time. Latvia s own cultural and economic elite started to form, together with an upward trend in the Latvian economy; an intelligentsia of Latvian origin (who came mainly from the rural sector) declared their being Latvian (Krišjānis Valdemārs and others), the Riga Latvian Society was founded (1868), a good level of Latvian literature and theatre began to appear and the tradition of National Song Festivals was established. Fundamentally, this 150-year time period since 1855 is the beginning of the Latvian people s unification as a nation, and of the history of the Latvian State. After the Young Latvians (persons belonging to a cultural and social movement in Latvia in the 1850s 1870s) came the leftist adherents to the New Current (a social movement in Latvia in the 1890s) and Latvian poet Rainis (with whose translation of Goethe s Faust (1898) Latvia passed its entrance test to the culture of Greater Europe), and the Revolution of 1905. And then suddenly, the Russian Empire was no more, World War I, the Latvian Riflemen, the Proclamation of war-ravaged Latvia as a Republic on 18 November 1918, the Latvian War of Liberation leading to its crowning achievement the independent Republic of Latvia (1918 1940). Then came World War II, the slide back into a different, totalitarian empire, occupation, deportations, alien authority, loss of national independence for an entire halfcentury, during which, as part of the USSR, life pulsed beneath the ice all the same; Latvia s culture and economy developed anew. Came the Third National Awakening and the unforgettable time of Latvia regaining its independence: 1987 1991, peaceful resistance and Via Baltica. And finally, a renewed Republic of Latvia with all its achievements and unresolved problems, right up to the new State acceding to the European Union. These concise, encyclopaedic notes may assist the English language reader to better orient himself or herself in the contents of this book, which presents a view of Latvia and its past 150 years, through descriptions of its historically significant personalities. History, and the epoch, operates through people and personalities, but these often remain in the shadows; on this occasion, we would like it to be otherwise. The range of personalities biographed in this work is to a large extent based on a sociological research study, people s poll, undertaken in 2004 (approximately 7000 respondents and wide discussion in the local press). This survey was conducted by the newspaper Latvijas Avīze [Latvia s Newspaper] and Internet 10
portal Apollo on a Latvian society still passionately warm after Latvia s accession to the European Union. The new European togetherness required to respond to the question: Who exactly are We; what are Latvia s very own values in various spheres, what has Latvia itself given, and is able to give, to Europe, and in what fields? Here we attempt to describe the achievements of the Latvian nation and Latvia, not by means of the traditional recital of historical facts, but by means of the vivid personalities, which modern Latvian society has acknowledged as its authority figures in various societal, cultural, scientific and sporting spheres, elected by 7000 respondents from various generations, both by letter and by the Internet. However, the English-language edition differs substantially from the Latvian edition in terms of the range of persons portrayed. If the Latvian edition literally observed the collective opinion reflected in the sociological survey, then several personalities popular in Latvia (particularly from the local theatrical and literary world) have been omitted. Instead, approximately forty new personalities (who had not received the necessary popularity points in the survey, but who are more widely known outside Latvia) were included. The select 100 featured in this Edition were therefore determined, not only by the results of the people s poll, but by the creators of the Edition themselves, exchanging ideas with a specially-formed consultative Council of experts from the Latvian Academy of Sciences. The Council was of the view that at least 500, if not 1000, persons of Latvian origin warranted inclusion in the Edition, and recognition in the wider world outside Latvia. However, the imposed limit of 100 necessitated a process of vigorous discussion to reach a compromise and select the final 100. Of course, the subjective element is not entirely absent, but essentially the adopted approach seemed the correct one: through the lives of individual persons showing the trends in Latvian culture, its problems, its fundamental interconnectedness and the development of whole fields of activity. Considerably expanded in the English edition is the number of scientists and architects (particularly in connection with Riga s Art Nouveau); included is rescuer of Holocaust victims Žanis Lipke, additionally highlighted are also persons from various spheres, who have lived for the greater part of their lives outside Latvia, and are therefore better known in the world than in their Latvian homeland. It must also be borne in mind that after World War I many Latvians remained in Soviet Russia and took part in the formation of its political and intellectual elite; most of them being killed during the Great Terror of 1937 1938 (included in this category are photographer, poster artist, designer and painter Gustavs Klucis and military specialist Jukums Vācietis, the first Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Russia s Armed Forces). However, in 1944, many Latvians departed for exile in the West, developing noteworthy activities in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and Sweden, particularly in academic life. As former USA President J. F. Kennedy once said, Latvians are like winter plants, Latvians will always reach upwards. Also many outstanding members of Latvia s minority groups have achieved fame outside their homeland, many retaining at least a spiritual connection with it. Included in this Edition are the inventor of the VEF-Minox miniature camera, Walter Zapp, one of the pioneers of holography, Juris Upatnieks; from earlier times there are Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Wilhelm Ostwald, veterinarian and researcher into the horse disease glanders and confrere of Louis Pasteur, Kristaps Helmanis, and leading authority on stereochemistry, Professor Paul Walden. Also included in the English edition are several religious leaders and persons who have achieved prominence in culture in recent years, such as the triple Gold Medal winner at the World Choir Games (Peking, 2006), Choir Conductor Māris Sirmais. The Edition features few leading members of Latvia s modern political, economic and financial elite, so as to avoid unnecessary disquiet in the already-heated Saeima [Latvian Parliament] preelection atmosphere and assist people to contemplate over time the achievements of each personality and his or her place in Latvia s history a little more objectively. People who have evaluated the main peculiarities of the Latvian character, note characteristics including a love of work, toughness, pride in one s people, spitefulness, ego, eventemperedness, respect of nature and rural life, but also mention envy, quarrelsomeness, miserliness, low self-esteem, avoidance of conflict situations. A foreign journalist writes that Latvians are more emotional than Estonians, but more cautious than Lithuanians. Latvians also possess the rare ability to believe two completely opposite things at the same time. Many acknowledge that Latvians possess a particular love for singing and the theatre. Whether all this is reflected in the nature of the persons mentioned in the book must be decided by the observant reader for himself. In my opinion, the 100 offered in this book provides a fairly accurate representation of Latvian achievement during the past 150 years, and of modern Latvian society s self-evaluation. Latvian society at present is inclined to be relatively conservative, voting for approved, stable values; the heightened revolutionary romanticism of the early 20th century, when a long-repressed people stormed the skies, has disappeared, held in lesser esteem are oppositionary and innovatory approaches. This can be said both of the older generation and of respondents from the younger generation in the previously-mentioned survey. In both cases, first place in the people s poll was convincingly won by the National Awakening worker and Father of Folk Songs Krišjānis Barons, far ahead of even very popular political leaders. Thanks to the initiative and solicitude of the newspaper Latvijas Avīze and the book publisher Nacionālais apgāds [National Book Publishers], the book (its author is physician and journalistpublisher Pēteris Apinis; the book might be regarded as a sort of vade mecum in becoming acquainted with Latvia s important personalities), started on its path to the reader. It is hoped that the book will promote a growing interest in Latvia, and its particularly unique culture, among English language readers. Professor Jānis Stradiņš Former President, Latvian Academy of Sciences 11
The Latvian National Anthem God, Bless Latvia! The Latvian National Anthem was crea ted during the First Latvian National Awakening period in the 19th century. Kārlis Baumanis, who was working at the time in St Petersburg, sent the songs composed by him for his forthcoming collection Līgo to the Riga Latvian Society on 26 March 1873. Among these songs was a 16-bar vocal miniature called Dievs, svētī Latviju! [God, Bless Latvia!] with the composer s own text. On 26 June 1873, Chairman of the Riga Latvian Society, Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis, opened the 1st All-Latvian Song Festival. At the opening ceremony, the male choir of the Baltic Teachers Seminary sang Dievs, svētī Latviju!, conducted by a 19-year old student, later a choir conductor, Jānis Dreibergs. Kārlis Baumanis collection of songs for male choirs Līgo was published in 1874. The collection was banned and burnt under the supervision of the Tsarist gendarmerie on the bank of the Daugava River. Only three copies of the book have survived to this day. The ceremony of the proclamation of the Republic of Latvia on 18 November 1918 was begun and concluded with Dievs, svētī Latviju!. It was sung by the Latvian Opera Choir conducted by Pēteris Pauls Jozuus. The status of an official national anthem was granted to the song on 7 June 1920. In Latvia, when the Anthem is played, it is expected that everyone stands, men remove their hats and the military salute. The Anthem was banned during the years the Soviet occupation. Many Latvians were persecuted and repressed for singing the Anthem. It regained its status on 15 February 1990. God, bless Latvia, Our sweet fatherland, Bless Latvia, Oh, bless it! Where girls of Letts flow, Where boys of Letts sing, Let us go to land where happiness is, Our Latvia! Dievs, svētī Latviju, Mūs dārgo tēviju, Svētī jel Latviju, Ak, svētī jel to! Kur latvju meitas zied, Kur latvju dēli dzied, Laid mums tur laimē diet, Mūs Latvijā! Words and music by Kārlis Baumanis (1834 1904). 12
13