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IN THIS ISSUE
LETTERS AND THE VISUAL ARTS. Our
featured younger generation poet, Jānis
Vādons, at home in Rīga, says of himself: I
am connected to life, to dreams and to visions.
This connectedness and the (in)coherence
of it is what I express in my poetry.
••• Leons Briedis poetically bemoans the
failure of the people to elect leaders such
as Demosthenes, ancient Greek paragon of
statesmanship, regularly opting instead for
some populist demagogue from their own
midst, who turns monstrous in a position
of power. ••• Koknese (Kokenhusen) is
a town on the Daugava, about 100 kilometers
upstream from Rīga. It contains a park
around the ruins of a 13 th century castle,
which, until the end of the 17 th century,
when it was destroyed in the Great Northern
War, was a residence of the archbishop
of Rīga. In the late 19 th century, Baltic German
Baron von Löwenstern built a magnificent
manor house nearby, soon destroyed
in the Revolution of 1905. Koknese is also
the home town of writer Laima Kalniņa,
who shares her meditations on these historic
upheavals in the context of her own
childhood memories in a story titled “A Beginning”.
••• Our spring issue is graced
with reproductions of exuberantly colorful
abstract paintings by Leons Samulis and
Ila Kellermane as well as black and white
photographs by Aina Balgalve, Raimo Lielbriedis
and Ramona Kalniņa. To commemorate
the reunification of Germany twenty
years ago, Rolfs Ekmanis shares a color photograph,
taken in 1987, of a bit of inspired
graffiti on the west side of the Berlin Wall.
••• Commenting on an exhibit of the art
of Stass Paraskos in Leeds, England, Laimonis
Mieriņš recounts how, some thirty years
ago, the Cypriot artist precipitated a scandal
by exhibiting there. ••• Vilnis Auziņš
reports on Design Awards for photography.
The Latvian Designers Society instituted this
award for the first time in 2009.
LITERARY COMMENT. Vita Gaiķe presents
Lolita Gulbe, the winner of the Ēriks Raisters
Memorial award for 2009. Gulbe is a
poet who has contributed much to Jaunā
Gaita and has published seven collections
of her work. ••• Literary scholar Eva
Eglāja-Kristsone continues her serialized account
of the dynamics of cultural contacts
between Latvians in the home country and
Latvians in political exile during the Cold
War, covering the years 1980-1987 when
initiatives on the Soviet side were waning in
awareness of looming geopolitical change.
••• Herta Müller, the winner of the Nobel
Prize in literature in 2009, rejects the notion
that choice of language is important, prefers
to live in exile and considers writing an
act of exorcism. Irēne Avena characterizes
her as an unsentimental truth teller whose
art is a musical counterpoint of repeated
staccato sentences using varying instrumentation.
••• Marta Landmane’s poetry
is simple and straight-forward, her words
are powerful, never exaggerated. Sarmīte
Janovska-Ērenpreisa recounts Landmane’s
career to date.
ACTUALITIES, HISTORY, MEMORIES. In the
first of three installments on higher education,
Prof. Gundars Ķeniņš Kings focuses
on the US. ••• Dzintars Edvīns Bušs, an
environmental ecology expert living in Rīga,
contributes a broad-brush analysis of the
causes for the ongoing global economic
crisis. ••• Tireless foe of all sources of
disinformation, Franks Gordons, tackles the
Russian Institute for Democracy and Cooperation
in Paris. ••• Uldis Siliņš continues
his laughing-through-the-tears memoir
of post-war refugee-camp life in Alt-Garge,
Germany. Someone catches scarlet fever
and all 18 barrack-mates have to be quarantined
in eight rooms in a residence away
from camp. Paradise! exclaims Siliņš. •••
The Marginalia section, as usual, does not
fail to surprise and delight with news shorts
from all over the world.
REVIEWS. Agate Nesaule’s novel In Love
with Jerzy Kosinski (reviewed by Biruta
Sūrmane) • Volumes 2 & 3 of Aina Zemdega’s
collected works Raksti (Juris Silenieks)
• Jānis Lejiņš’ historical trilogy Zīmogs
sarkanā vaskā (Dzidra Purmale) • Gundega
Grīnuma’s Piemiņas paradoksi – on commemorating
Rainis’ and Aspazija’s Swiss
exile (1906-1920) in Castagnola (Aina Siksna)
• Eva Eglāja-Kristsone’s and Benedikts
Kalnačs’ (eds) Back to Baltic Memory: Lost
and Found in Literature, 1940-1968 (Rolfs
Ekmanis) • Rasma Grīsle’s linguistic study
Heterotonu vārdnīca un heterotonijas pētījumi
(Lalita Muižniece) • Daiga Joma’s short
stories Dvēseles bezvējš (Amanda Jātniece)
• Kristiina Ross’ un Pēteris Vanags’ (eds)
Common Roots of the Latvian and Estonian
Literary Languages (Jānis Krēsliņš, Sr.) • Ilgvars
Veigners’ Latvieši rietumzemēs – an encyclopaedic
work on Latvian communities
outside their home country (Valters Nollendorfs)
• Pauls Toutonghi’s Red Weather
(the German version) (Biruta Sūrmane) •
September 2009 Journal of Baltic Studies
(Gundars Ķeniņš Kings).
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