Living in exile and moving to Latvia is one. Becoming your own is a challenge in the program “Global Latvian. 21st Century ”revealed three women of the same family, sharing their feelings about living between two or even three cultures, while maintaining their strong backbone of Latvianness.
IN SHORT:
Family – the custodian of Latvianness
Doctor of Philosophy and literary scholar Aija Priedīte was born in Latvia, but at the end of the war she emigrated to Germany with her grandparents, meanwhile Aija’s parents had come to Sweden.
“And only when I was about five years old [vecāki] found us and could be summoned to Sweden as first-degree relatives, ”said Aija.
Asked about the preservation of Latvianness, Aija emphasized that the beginning of everything is a family. “Of course we spoke Latvian at home. Grandparents never really learned Swedish, and parents also had a hard time with Swedish. When I started going to school, I didn’t understand a word of Swedish either. We have never spoken or thought at home that we could speak a language other than Latvian, ”she emphasized.
When Aija went to study in Germany and married a Latvian, she in her own family never thought that she could talk to her children in another language. Aija pointed out that although she has lived in Sweden and also in German society, she is and will remain a Latvian at heart. And language belongs to the sense of the heart.
Aija can’t imagine that she could talk to her children in another language because the language has emotions.
This is also confirmed by the thread of Aija’s daughter Aira’s memories, revealing that she once decided to check the borders and tried to ask her mother something in German, but her mother’s answer was just a shrug and the sentence: “I don’t understand you.”
Aira understood very well at that time that her mother understood both, but it was a very strong signal that clearly indicated the important role of the Latvian language in the family. As Aira remembers, a couple of years later, as a teenager, she greatly appreciated this difference from her German peers: “We spoke Latvian at home, I had my Latvian environment, my Latvian friends, and I could tell my friends so much different at school that they never had not experienced, because Latvianness was not available to them. It was my opportunity to experience Latvia as an exotic. ”
Live two lives
“In fact, we lived two lives at the time – one we lived in either a Swedish environment or among Germans, and since I speak both Swedish and German, I will not be different from the others in my language. But at home, the Latvian environment was completely different – with a different culture and different values, “said Aija Priedite.
In Germany, the Aija family lived in a city where there were no Latvians, and to meet their compatriots, they had to travel either to Cologne, 40 kilometers away, or to Münster, which was about 140 kilometers away. “And that’s what we did. We spent a lot of time at events in Cologne and Münster. Of course, the kids didn’t always come along voluntarily, because the events were sometimes boring for them, but then they gradually became friends, and that was a whole different thing.” she remembered.
Aija emphasized that her and her husband’s activities in the Latvian environment of exile gave children the opportunity to witness and participate in the most important Latvian events in exile.
Aira, who has spoken to her children exclusively in Latvian, has also taken over her mother’s experience in raising children in Latvia. It was not artificially created or imposed, but a matter of course.
Aira has lived in Germany, Bavaria, where there were few Latvians around. It was a time when exile was running out, but the new diaspora had not yet begun. The fact that children have been brought up in Latvian was one of the arguments why Aira’s family decided to move to Latvia in 2007.
Louise, as Aira’s last family when she moved to Latvia, was only seven years old, so for the most part she doesn’t remember German life, just that there was a strict rule: language. It is very deeply remembered. And neither I nor the brothers tried to speak another language at home. ”
The fact that such an consistency must be realized, Aira realized, when her eldest son started to go to first grade when he received a sad face in his stamp, because he had written everything he knew in German, but what he did not know in German, he had not written in English knew. It was a moment when Aira and her husband Andrejs realized that there should be very strict rules regarding language.
They have decided that the conversational language at home is Latvian, outside the family – German, but the entertainment language is English.
“The only thing we didn’t allow our children to read about comics was to read comics, but when my mother sent comics from Latvia in Latvian, they were allowed to read them,” said Aira.
“We can’t be ours”
Aija had moved to Latvia first – already in the early nineties, long before Aira’s family. Aija moved to Latvia for work. The task of the work was to promote the acquisition of the Latvian language for those who had not yet learned it here. The fact that there was a specific task of work has allowed to quickly settle in both the environment and people.
Aija discovered that it wasn’t long before her colleagues fully accepted her as their own. “It simply came to our notice then. I had two local friends with whom I could break out and tell my problems, and it made my life a lot easier. I know that it was very, very difficult for others who did not have such friends among the locals, ”she said.
Aira remembers her first visit to Latvia only at the age of 19, when it became clear to her that the language in which she spoke at home suddenly turned out to be alive.
Walking through Riga, he saw the inscriptions “milk”, “bread”, “cheese” and understood that the Latvian language is alive. It was a culture shock.
But when talking about her family moving to Latvia, Aira pointed out the coincidences – they were both forty years old with her husband, and both of them understood that if they wanted to do something crazy, then this was the right time. In addition, Aira’s grandmother and father had recently passed away, but mother Aija had remained alone in a large house in Latvia, while all three of Aija’s children lived elsewhere in the world. As a third reason, Aira mentions the fact that her husband also wanted to change his place of residence due to work.
All the preconditions for the family to make a decision to move to Latvia coincided. Although Aira’s family has been living in Latvia for more than ten years, she admitted that she still does not feel like herself. “Why did we integrate so successfully in Latvia? We never said that we would return to Latvia, because we have never lived here. Our friends are locals and they are the most wonderful friends in the world. But there are many things I still don’t understand. [..] From the outside, we can perhaps see a little better what is called the Soviet heritage, which is much less visible to the locals, “said Aira.
Louise, recalling the time when she moved to Latvia as a child, remembered that she was not too enthusiastic about moving and at that time she was accompanied by a feeling of fear. She also found it very strange that she had to write her own name very differently than before. Louise was helped to feel in Latvia by a teacher who was supportive and helped to join the class.
Aira’s sons were teenagers at that time, and they had a hard time, especially in the learning process, because there were many mistakes in Latvian language writing, and the parents were not any helpers, because they had not studied grammar in depth.
Aira revealed that they had an agreement – about half a year after arriving in Latvia, there will be a family council, where they will decide whether to return to Germany. As all three children decided in favor of Latvia, Aira says that during this time they have experienced something that was much more valuable than mistakes in Latvian language transcripts. According to Luize, currently studying outside Latvia, she has the safe and good feeling that Latvia is the place where you can always return.
–
