Survey: Have you learned to make Latvian jewelry outside Latvia?

Latvians Online | 

This survey is for all who have made Latvian jewelry at any point during their Latvian education outside Latvia.

The purpose of this survey is to collect and compile data about the influence of Latvian jewelry-making on exiled/diaspora Latvians. Your responses will become the basis for a paper we will present at the World Federation of Free Latvians Culture Fund conference “Latvia Outside Latvia: Culture, History, Emigration and National Identity” this Fall in Rīga.

We also ask you to help further by distributing this survey by sharing it in your social media and e-mail networks and to submit supplementary materials (photos, memories, etc.) by sending them to ozols3x9-andris@yahoo.com. Thank you!

Click here for the survey in English or here for the survey in Latvian.
Lilita Spuris and Andris Rūtiņš

Canadian-Latvian author Bērziņš re-releases “Happy Girl”

Daina Grosa | 

Ilze Bērziņš has just re-released her debut book Happy Girl, a memoir of her time spent in Latvia in the 1990s.

A Canadian-Latvian, Bērziņš is the author of 15 books written over the past 17 years, that have been enjoyed by both North American and Latvian readers worldwide. Bērziņš, also an artist who studied at the Sorbonne, published Happy Girl  in 1997. This was followed by a number of other books, mainly murder-mysteries, some Latvian-themed, others set in Canada.

Bērziņš herself comments on her genre: “I often think of my books as part travel story, part humour and part plot with mystery with a dash of romance.”

Bērziņš’ own summary of this new release reads:

‘“God help you,” her father says, when Ilze Berzins leaves Canada for a new life in Latvia. But the Latvia she discovers in Happy Girl, a book first published in 1997, is rife with corruption, poverty, and decay. She encounters many shocks and disappointments, as well as spectacular beauty, fulfilling work, and lasting friendships.

“The result of the author’s disillusion is a funny, lively, painful book,” wrote reviewer Diana Kiesners. “Berzins, along with a whole expatriate generation, was promised a fairytale Latvia that only needed independence to exist again. The promise is still unfulfilled.”

In 2012, Ilze Berzins travelled back to Latvia, visited her old haunts and attempted to recapture the giddy excitement she felt when she tried to settle there almost twenty years ago. This new edition of Happy Girl includes an account of this bittersweet homecoming. What she discovers will surprise, challenge and delight you. Will you agree with the reviewer of Happy Girl? Has the promise many “expats” took as a sure thing been fulfilled’

 

 

Daina Gross is editor of Latvians Online. An Australian-Latvian she is also a migration researcher at the University of Latvia, PhD from the University of Sussex, formerly a member of the board of the World Federation of Free Latvians, author and translator/ editor/ proofreader from Latvian into English of an eclectic mix of publications of different genres.

A Latvian school class dating back to the late 1960s in Australia. Photo courtesy of an anonymous Latvian Australian.

Survey: What do you think of your Latvian schooling?

Daina Grosa | 

Did you go to Latvian school, happy to meet up with friends, eat pīrāgi and smalkmaizītes and dance the polka together? Or did you go under pressure because you wanted to play sports with your local school friends? Do you think attending school was of any benefit to you later in life? Here is your chance to express your views – anonymously – about the Latvian school system as it was set up when you attended.

A survey has been created by Daina Gross as part of a study of the attitudes of previous generations to their Latvian schooling that will be presented at a conference titled “Latvia Outside Latvia: Culture, History, Emigration and National Identity” organized by the World Federation of Free Latvians (PBLA) which will take place in Riga this October.

The purpose of the survey is to get feedback from Latvians worldwide on their time spent at Latvian school on Saturdays or Sundays back in the 1950s through to the 1990s. Insights into the views of the previous generations will provide valuable information on how to move forward and provide a better quality “Latvian” education to those hundreds of Latvian children who currently live outside Latvia and attend Latvian schools on weekends.

The survey is meant for those Latvians who lived outside Latvia during the trimda years and attended extra-curricular Latvian Saturday/Sunday school. Those who were born and raised outside Latvia, and now live in Latvia are welcome to complete the survey as well.

Survey participants are also encouraged to follow up with an interview at a later date – via email – if they feel they would like to share their views further on a particular aspect of their Latvian schooling.

Click here to complete the survey.

Thank you to all survey participants in advance – your views are valuable to the next generation of Latvians!

Daina Gross is editor of Latvians Online. An Australian-Latvian she is also a migration researcher at the University of Latvia, PhD from the University of Sussex, formerly a member of the board of the World Federation of Free Latvians, author and translator/ editor/ proofreader from Latvian into English of an eclectic mix of publications of different genres.