Oral history research centres in Latvia

Oral history as a research method and collection of sources began with the «People’s Archives» programme at the Latvian Culture Foundation in 1988. The prominent Latvian poet Imants Ziedonis encouraged the public movement to collect and compile memories. This movement was also supported by Latvians living abroad. The international development of biographical research allowed the «People’s Archives» to take a scientific direction and continue as a research project from 1992 onward. It modelled itself on the Oral History Archive at the British Library in London.

The collection of written memoirs started by the Latvian Culture Foundation’s «People’s Archive» is now held in the Department of Manuscripts and Rarities of the University of Latvia Academic Library, while the first life-story audio recordings form the basis of the National Oral History (NOH) research and collection.

This was not the only collection that amassed a large number of memories in the late 1980s and 1990s. The fresh, open atmosphere and glimmer of freedom on the horizon as well as the rapid liberation from Soviet censorship led to an accumulation of memories in newly established public organisations such as the Latvian Writers’ Union and the Popular Front. Gradually, these collections of memories became the responsibility of professional institutions.

In addition to NOH research, other research centres, archives and collections grew and developed, the task of which was not only to collect, compile and interview, but also to research, share knowledge and train others in oral history methodology.

New possibilities were opened up by technologies (audio and video recording, computers) – a researcher armed with a portable voice recorder acquires life testimonies and uses a biographical approach that «analyses the relationships between individual lives, social structures and historical processes, as well as explores life stories and storytelling» ( Baiba Bela).

The NOH project has created this website to help all interested parties to access the accumulated knowledge of oral history in Latvia.

More about NOH

The Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (ILFA) is a research institution whose main tasks are the study of Latvian cultural heritage in both the historical and theoretical perspective. Research activities include comparative literature and the examination of Latvian literature in the contexts of the historical Baltic space as well as the study of Latvian folklore and the analysis of historical and current trends in the development of Latvian theatre, cinema and music.

A significant part of the institute’s academic activities is the maintenance of the Archives of Latvian Folklore, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. In addition to folklore texts, the Archives of Latvian Folklore stores written testimonies of oral history, which are available in the digital database garamantas.lv. This database also includes the catalogue of the NOH collection.

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Fieldwork and expeditions to explore and record traditional culture are an integral part of folklore studies at all levels, from students in the folklore module of the bachelor’s and master’s study programmes in Baltic philology to students in the doctoral programme in literature, folklore and art at the University of Latvia. The results of expeditions are presented at closing events in the regions and at scientific conferences at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia. For more than 20 years, the Faculty of Humanities has regularly collaborated with the NOH research centre at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia. The interviews recorded in each of the expeditions are added to the NOH collection.

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Cinema, audio and video recordings have been documented in the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia since 1996. The number of video interviews in the repository now exceeds 2300 (over 4000 hours). Film director Andrejs Edvīns Feldmanis, the creator of the repository, was awarded with the Daugavas Vanagi golden insignia for his contribution to the research of the life paths of repressed freedom fighters and legionnaires. Documentary films have also been made on the basis of video interviews, which are available to museum visitors. The collection serves scientific, research, journalistic and educational purposes.

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The Collective Memory Research Laboratory (CoL) of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Latvia (the former name - Social Memory Research Center) examines social memory and identity issues as well as different representations of the past in the current context and the politics of memory and history.

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«Latvians Abroad» acts as an information, research and interpretation centre to preserve, study and explain for a wide audience and future generations the history of emigration and culture of diaspora Latvians over the past 200 years, adding this information to broader Latvian history and emphasising that all Latvians in the world are part of the Latvian people. The aim of the museum and research centre is also to build bridges between Latvian inhabitants, diaspora Latvians and the countries in which Latvians reside, and to join Latvia to the international discussion on migration. «Latvians Abroad» collects items that reflect the various reasons for and experiences of leaving Latvia and testify to the permanent life, communities and maintenance of identity of Latvians abroad from different points of view. The collection consists of material, written, artistic, audio-visual and digital objects, such as emigrants’ personal and organisational belongings, photographs, books, letters, handicrafts, tools and oral testimonies.

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The Centre of Oral History was founded in 2003 with the aim of facilitating theoretical research and the practical application of oral history, creating a research institution and an archive of oral testimonies. Its main activities are recording and documenting life histories of Eastern Latvian inhabitants and creating an archive of oral testimonies; the use of oral sources in the study of important themes in Latvian 20th-century history, including everyday life and the course of ‘sovietisation’ in Eastern Latvia; the development of the research skills of prospective historians and the methodological preparation of students, teachers and other persons in the field of oral history.

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This oral history collection, created by leading researcher Arturs Medveckis, includes life stories of current and former employees and teachers of Liepaja University. The interviews are stored in digital audio and video format. Life stories and excerpts from interviews have been published in several monographs and source collections.

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Since 2011, the museum «Jews in Latvia» has been organising ethnographic and folklore expeditions as well as fieldwork in Latgale, Riga and Israel, recording Jewish memories of traditional life in small towns in Latgale before the Second World War as well as non-Jewish memories and notions of Jews. The narrators are mainly people born in the 1920s and 1930s and who have lived in Latgale. Several hundred interviews have been recorded with non-Jews in Latvian, Latgalian and Russian, and with Jews in Russian, Latvian and Yiddish.

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The aim of the Oral History Archive at the Rezekne Academy of Technologies is to promote the use of oral history in research. In 2006, students of the «Social Memory» (Bachelor of History) programme under the guidance of lecturer Valda Čakša began interviewing representatives of various social groups in Latgale and elsewhere in Latvia. During oral history fieldwork in 2013, alumni and former lecturers of history studies as well as members of the Rezekne Club of the Politically Repressed were interviewed. As part of their scientific research, students also interview participants of various other historical events. Systematised transcriptions of OH sources, which include personal memories, create a broader and more vivid vision of both the history of the Rezekne Academy of Technologies and other historical situations in Latvia.

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