Untitled - Jura Žagariņa mājas lapas

LETTERS AND THE VISUAL ARTS. Ourfeatured younger generation poet, JānisVādons, at home in Rīga, says of himself: Iam connected to life, to dreams and to visions.This connectedness and the (in)coherenceof it is what I express in my poetry.••• Leons Briedis poetically bemoans thefailure of the people to elect leaders suchas Demosthenes, ancient Greek paragon ofstatesmanship, regularly opting instead forsome populist demagogue from their ownmidst, who turns monstrous in a positionof power. ••• Koknese (Kokenhusen) isa town on the Daugava, about 100 kilometersupstream from Rīga. It contains a parkaround the ruins of a 13 th century castle,which, until the end of the 17 th century,when it was destroyed in the Great NorthernWar, was a residence of the archbishopof Rīga. In the late 19 th century, Baltic GermanBaron von Löwenstern built a magnificentmanor house nearby, soon destroyedin the Revolution of 1905. Koknese is alsothe home town of writer Laima Kalniņa,who shares her meditations on these historicupheavals in the context of her ownchildhood memories in a story titled “A Beginning”.••• Our spring issue is gracedwith reproductions of exuberantly colorfulabstract paintings by Leons Samulis andIla Kellermane as well as black and whitephotographs by Aina Balgalve, Raimo Lielbriedisand Ramona Kalniņa. To commemoratethe reunification of Germany twentyyears ago, Rolfs Ekmanis shares a color photograph,taken in 1987, of a bit of inspiredgraffiti on the west side of the Berlin Wall.••• Commenting on an exhibit of the artof Stass Paraskos in Leeds, England, LaimonisMieriņš recounts how, some thirty yearsago, the Cypriot artist precipitated a scandalby exhibiting there. ••• Vilnis Auziņšreports on Design Awards for photography.The Latvian Designers Society instituted thisaward for the first time in 2009.LITERARY COMMENT. Vita Gaiķe presentsLolita Gulbe, the winner of the Ēriks RaistersMemorial award for 2009. Gulbe is apoet who has contributed much to JaunāGaita and has published seven collectionsof her work. ••• Literary scholar EvaEglāja-Kristsone continues her serialized accountof the dynamics of cultural contactsbetween Latvians in the home country andLatvians in political exile during the ColdWar, covering the years 1980-1987 wheninitiatives on the Soviet side were waning inawareness of looming geopolitical change.••• Herta Müller, the winner of the NobelPrize in literature in 2009, rejects the notionthat choice of language is important, prefersto live in exile and considers writing anact of exorcism. Irēne Avena characterizesher as an unsentimental truth teller whoseart is a musical counterpoint of repeatedstaccato sentences using varying instrumentation.••• Marta Landmane’s poetryis simple and straight-forward, her wordsare powerful, never exaggerated. SarmīteJanovska-Ērenpreisa recounts Landmane’scareer to date.ACTUALITIES, HISTORY, MEMORIES. In thefirst of three installments on higher education,Prof. Gundars Ķeniņš Kings focuseson the US. ••• Dzintars Edvīns Bušs, anenvironmental ecology expert living in Rīga,contributes a broad-brush analysis of thecauses for the ongoing global economiccrisis. ••• Tireless foe of all sources ofdisinformation, Franks Gordons, tackles theRussian Institute for Democracy and Cooperationin Paris. ••• Uldis Siliņš continueshis laughing-through-the-tears memoirof post-war refugee-camp life in Alt-Garge,Germany. Someone catches scarlet feverand all 18 barrack-mates have to be quarantinedin eight rooms in a residence awayfrom camp. Paradise! exclaims Siliņš. •••The Marginalia section, as usual, does notfail to surprise and delight with news shortsfrom all over the world.REVIEWS. Agate Nesaule’s novel In Lovewith Jerzy Kosinski (reviewed by BirutaSūrmane) • Volumes 2 & 3 of Aina Zemdega’scollected works Raksti (Juris Silenieks)• Jānis Lejiņš’ historical trilogy Zīmogssarkanā vaskā (Dzidra Purmale) • GundegaGrīnuma’s Piemiņas paradoksi – on commemoratingRainis’ and Aspazija’s Swissexile (1906-1920) in Castagnola (Aina Siksna)• Eva Eglāja-Kristsone’s and BenediktsKalnačs’ (eds) Back to Baltic Memory: Lostand Found in Literature, 1940-1968 (RolfsEkmanis) • Rasma Grīsle’s linguistic studyHeterotonu vārdnīca un heterotonijas pētījumi(Lalita Muižniece) • Daiga Joma’s shortstories Dvēseles bezvējš (Amanda Jātniece)• Kristiina Ross’ un Pēteris Vanags’ (eds)Common Roots of the Latvian and EstonianLiterary Languages (Jānis Krēsliņš, Sr.) • IlgvarsVeigners’ Latvieši rietumzemēs – an encyclopaedicwork on Latvian communitiesoutside their home country (Valters Nollendorfs)• Pauls Toutonghi’s Red Weather(the German version) (Biruta Sūrmane) •September 2009 Journal of Baltic Studies(Gundars Ķeniņš Kings).jž