Livonian Coast
The beach: tens and tens of kilometers of no people. Stripes over the sky: weatherfronts, dark and creamy, like sets of computer animations. There’s barely any rain above the Baltic Sea, you see how the clouds are swiped around Kolka.
And those funny cargo ships, right in front of your eyes towards Riga. At the coasts no people, only sand, sand sand sand miles long, silverly powdering the air and playing with the light, and all kinds of cubistic figures, like fragments of Manhattan on the sea – appearing and disappearing.
The forest: moss, greenly moist moss. Some paths, used by the animals more than by the people. Blackberries. The murmur of the pines, the eternity. At the evenings the wind turns: your soup on the fire takes a different taste, before the dawn comes heavy thunder, you hold your head with your hands, imaging you can defend the sky of striking you straight to the head. Your dog, however, falls even into deeper sleep and snores happily, mouth open, like a teethrecord.
The mystery: you do not see a living soul for a week, and when you’re stuck with your car in the sand, just like in an old Livonian saga, there come three giants from the forests and carry your car out from the sand. Then, without a word, they’re gone.
Another time: arriving late, little time to set the tents up before the darkness, and get evicted by two wolves. For a second I’m watching straight into her yellow, deep yellow, eyes. We measure ones powers for the second, but she withdraws. Year after, an ostrich jumps from the same place out, like a playgirl shakes her butt, you just can’t believe your eyes.
The remains of the huts, hissing of the forests: once here lived people, tough people, they challenged the sea, the sand, the wind and the tides. Now here’s just paradise lost, maybe last in whole Europe.
On the horizon every twentieth second flashes the Sõrve lighthouse from Saaremaa, as a diamond in the darkness. There I was born.
Written in the Sand
I’ve written many works at the Livonian Coast or just right after visiting this shore. There is no place – after Berlin maybe – which has influenced my work and the way I approach my work. I think about the incontinuity of culture, I think of destinies of centuries, I reassure when I have to struggle with nature. It opens unknown channels in you, one starts to think differently, another one begins to sing all days long, another suddenly cries and cannot stop it. And all what’s happening, the sinusoids of the sea accompany it, and let you not go. They select out like the amber out of sand, and when you return to the city, you simply cannot understand what has happened with you.
Livonian Lament
Livonian Language
The Livonian language belongs to the Southern group of Baltic-Finnic languages. It is assumed that the Livonians were the first to break off from the common Baltic-Finnic community. The crucial problem of the academic study of the Livonians has been their place of origin and migration. Although the data has been controversial, the prevalent opinion is that the original Livonian habitat is local. By the 19th century the majority of Livonians had assimilated with the Latvians. In North-Latvia the Livonian language had become obsolete by the beginning of this century at the latest. The Livonian language of Courland has branched into dialects: West Luzh or Luzhna and Piza or Mikeltorni, Transition Ira or Lielirbe and East from Ukila or Jaunciems to Mustanumme or Melnsils. The differences between the dialects are not great. The Livonian written language is based on the East dialect but it has also been heavily influenced by Latvian in vocabulary pronunciation and grammar.
Population
The earliest reliable data about the Livonians is from Koeppen in 1835, when he numbers the Livonians as 2,074 persons. About 3,000 Livonians lived in 12 villages on the coast of Courland in 1860 . At the beginning of the 20th century the number was 2,000. The Livonians were not counted during the census of 1970. About 35 persons could speak Livonian in 1990, 15 of them fluently. In addition there are a couple of hundred people in Latvia who would like to identify themselves as Livonians.
Livonian History
The first written mention of the Livonians in Livonia dates from the 11th century, and of the Courland Livonians from the middle of the 14th century. In earlier sources the people of Courland were called kurelased and the term embraced the Baltic Kurs and the Baltic-Finnic Livonians. The ancient Livonians were farmers, livestock-breeders and fishermen. As the Livonians were settled beside a very important trade route – the Vaina River –, they had a remarkably well-developed material culture. The Livonians traded busily with Gotland, Kievan Rus and Finland. In the middle of the 12th century German merchants started to come to the Väina estuary. In 1201 Bishop Albert founded the city of Riga on Livonian land. The crusaders defeated the Livonians in 1206. Consequently, the Livonians had to take part in following military campaigns, including against the Estonians. Latvian tribes (Latgals) started to settle in the sparsely populated Livonian areas in the 13th century. Gradually, the Livonians of Livonia became completely latvianized. A few Livonian families remained living at Salatsi until the middle of the 19th century, maybe even longer. There are many traces of the Livonian language in Latvian place-names and in the Livonian dialects of Latvian. Livonian has not completely disappeared from Courland, even today. The Livonians were able to retain their identity as their life, based on fishing, was different from that of the inland villages. In addition, the coastal Livonian settlements were cut off by forests and marshlands. They had closer relations with the island of Saaremaa. The Livonians established family ties with the people of Saaremaa. The assimilation of Livonians and Courland only took hold in the 1960s. During World War I the Livonians of Courland were in the way of the war. The German troops occupied Courland in 1915 and the Livonians were forced to evacuate and leave their villages. After the war many Livonians did not return.
Through the plebiscite of 1923, the Livonians tried to gain permission to establish an ethnic parish but the Latvian government forbade it. However, their culture made noticeable progress in the Latvian Republic. A choir was founded, the Livonian Society created, and Livonian song festivals took place on the Livonian coast of Courland. Livonian language became an optional subject in schools in 1923. Teacher, Mart Lepste, used to ride on horseback from village to village and teach Livonian to those who so wished. A national awakening and desire to develop the Livonian ethnic culture was spurred by the movement to promote closer ties among kindred people in Estonia and Finland in 1920–1930. In 1939 a Livonian Community Centre opened its door at Irel on the Livonian coast, sponsored by the larger kindred nations. All these achivements were annulled with the beginning of World War II and during the following Soviet occupation. Economic and cultural life practically ceased to exist. During the war, just as it had been in World War I, the Livonians were evacuated from their homes and some families fled to Sweden. The life of the Livonians who had returned to their damaged homes changed radically. For instance, they could not go fishing any more because a restricted zone had been established by the Soviet border guard. The Livonians alike the other Baltic peoples suffered from the deportations to Siberia in 1949. All ethnic culture was suppressed. The Livonian Society was banned, the Livonian Community Centre given to others. Even in Latvia Livonian national identity was not recognized. As a curiosity only one registered Livonian lived in the coastal villages of Courland in 1989 (Kolka Area). Livonian singers were only able to establish their group (Livlist) in Riga and Ventspils at the beginning of the 1970s. When the liberalization of Soviet society began in the second half of the 1980s, the Livonian Cultural Society was founded in Latvia and since a number of people have taken up Livonian in an attempt to revive the language.