Young Latvians

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New Latvians (

Baltic German opponents, the term "Young Latvia" (German: "ein junges Lettland") was first used by Gustav Wilhelm Sigmund Brasche, the pastor of Nīca, in a review of Juris Alunāns' Dziesmiņas latviešu valodai pārtulkotas ("Little Songs Translated for the Latvian Language") in the newspaper Das Inland in 1856. Asking who could appreciate such literature in Latvian (Alunāns' book was the first major translation of classic foreign poetry into Latvian), Brasche warned that those daring to dream of "a Young Latvia" would meet the tragic fate of the boatman in Heine's poem "Die Lorelei,"
a translation of which appeared in Alunāns' anthology. The New Latvians were also sometimes known as "Lettophiles" or "tautībnieki" ("ethnicists").

Beginnings

Though the New Latvians can be seen as part of a primarily cultural and literary movement, their cause had significant political ramifications due to the socio-economic conditions then prevailing in Latvia (part of the

Slavophiles in connection to the reforms of Alexander II of Russia
.

Leaders

Krišjānis Valdemārs, leader of the movement

Valdemārs is seen as the spiritual father of the Awakening. With Alunāns, he led student gatherings while at Tartu and advocated the study of

St. Petersburg to publish Pēterburgas Avīzes. The most radical newspaper hitherto published in Latvian, it was closed by the authorities in 1865. From 1867 to 1873, Atis Kronvalds (often known as Kronvaldu Atis) renewed the "Latvian evenings" begun by Valdemārs at Tartu. His Nationale Bestrebungen (1872) can be seen as the manifesto of the New Latvians. Two of their older colleagues included Kaspars Biezbārdis, the first ethnic Latvian philologist, who helped draft petitions to the tsar on the harsh conditions among the Latvian peasantry (for which he was exiled to Kaluga in 1863), and Andrejs Spāģis, the first writer to draw western European attention to the Baltic problem. Fricis Brīvzemnieks (Treuland) is considered the father of Latvian folkloristics; Barons later made the collection of dainas his life's work. The poet Auseklis (the pen name of Miķelis Krogzemis), in the diplomat and scholar Arnolds Spekke's words, represented "the romantic and mystic search for the nation's soul." The Young Latvian Andrejs Pumpurs later penned the national epic Lāčplēsis
, "The Bear Slayer."

Directions and divisions

Defining the movement in retrospect in 1889, Pumpurs wrote: "Those in the grouping that for twenty-five years fought for freedom were called the New Latvians. Their fate was almost always the same. Without a homeland, their people devoid of rights, without goods or sustenance, often without lodging and without bread, they were doomed to wandering. All doors were locked before them, and they were prevented from finding residences or jobs. With a heavy heart they left their beloved homeland and went abroad, into the interior of Russia, searching for sustenance and at the same time gathering knowledge."

In fact, close to half of the ethnic Latvians who received a higher education were forced to seek work in Russia. As Švābe saw it: "With their selfish and shortsighted politics, the [Baltic] German aristocracy and bourgeoisie pressure Latvians into

anti-clerical
character.

Though one stream of the National Awakening was at first centered in Tartu, moved to St. Petersburg, and later shifted to Moscow, in the late 1860s Lettophiles finally succeeded in establishing themselves in Latvia, by founding a relief fund for victims of the famine in Estonia and Finland in 1867 and receiving permission to establish the Riga Latvian Association a year later. Similar associations followed in other towns, the Rīga original receiving the hypocorisma "mommy" ("māmuļa"). The Rīga Latvian Association staged the first Latvian play, held the first conference of Latvian teachers, and organized the first Latvian song festival in 1873.

Valdemārs engaged in polemics with Keuchel (the author of "sei ein Unding"), penning Nationale Bestrebungen in German as a response to his critics. A pragmatist and materialist, Valdemārs -- in exile and under police supervision in Moscow -- came further under the influence of the Slavophiles, working for the publisher

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov. To Valdemārs, "the kulak
could never be as dangerous as the German's nails of flint."

Legacy

The efforts by Barons and other Young Latvians to collect folklore and dainas became vital for the forming of the Baltic neopagan movement Dievturība, which was created in the 1920s by Ernests Brastiņš and Kārlis Marovskis-Bregžis.[1]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-8446-5663-9
    .

Sources

External links

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