Dizaina Studija. Telpa Forma Laiks

These days you cannot tell from our clothing which country or people we belong to. On one hand this is very convenient – in earlier times, each regional variation and difference gave a reason for ridicule – you aren’t like this, or you aren’t like that. A positive trend of globalisation is the turn towards democracy; this is also expressed through architecture. Earlier, each house in a village, in Latgale for example, needed its own marks of identification: if you belonged to the Catholic faith you needed a geometrical pattern, and yellow or brown paint; while Orthodox or Old Believers had blue paint, and botanical ornaments. In the Couronian dunes, architecture was very important as a marker of identity. Kursenieki and Prussians in the whole of the East Prussian territory which now is part of Poland, Russia and Lithuania, had horse-head roof rafter decorations at both ends of their roofs. Horses as a symbol for twins are characteristic for all Indo-Europeans. The Couronian dunes were inhabited by Lithuanians, Russians, Germans, and this caused no contradictions– this symbol appeared in Russia as well as elsewhere. Today this supposedly doesn’t have any meaning any more. Nevertheless when ‘new Russians’ arrived in the Russian part of the Couronian dunes, if any of them even slightly sensed the image of the place, they put roof horses on their houses – this no longer provided a sense of identity for themselves personally, but for the place instead.

In contemporary cities – Moscow, Riga, Western European cities – symbols of identity cannot be seen. Now that we have lost these signs – from architecture, clothing, language and graves – we suddenly feel that we are missing something. More and more often those who have lost their identity go searching for it – they travel. To Belarus, for example, where authoritarianism has limited globalisation from both the west and east. Symbols of identity often contain a lot more than can be seen from the outside. This is easy to see in monuments: if they were only heritage or artistic objects, then “what does it matter?” – let there be a monument to Hitler, Stalin or Peter the Great. But we see that there is a lot of debate about each monument: a monument contains an impression, a magic similar to that possessed by symbols of belonging. If the European culture wants to hold fast, then we must search for new identity markers: I assume that the old ones – in the form in which they have previously existed – cannot be maintained. Perhaps a contrast to the global is not the nation or the national, but is rather regional identity. There was a curious situation, when a group of researchers arrived from the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow and it turned out that they were going on excursions to precisely the same places where we travel to with the Poles and Lithuanians – to the Kaliningrad region; Poland where it borders with Belarus; Belarus itself; our Latgale Russian and Belarusian zones; and Siberia. The more footprints of civilization there are, the harder it is to dig through to the core. Identity is preserved the longest at the border zones or in the places where various ethnicities collide. Even the place that can be called ‘nowhere’ – the Kaliningrad region – experienced a toponymic disaster never before seen in Europe: 98% of place names were changed after the war. The name of a place cannot be changed without meaning; it has to be associated with belonging. You don’t get more sausage or bread if a river is named ‘Hlebnaja’ or ‘Kolbasnaja’. In the Russian zone of the Couronian dunes, identity is mostly preserved by the Old Believers, because they themselves represent marginal identity – as if they are, but at the same time they are not Russians. 

Grave markers are powerful symbols of identity – of religion, a household, a family, an individual.  In the old Kursenieki cemeteries of Nida one can find markers shaped as turtles or toads. For Kursenieki, who emigrated from Kurzeme mostly in the 15th–17th centuries, their link with Lutheranism was purely formal: pagan elements were preserved for a long time. The turtle and toad are signs of the primeval mother, associated with death and rebirth, at the same time it is also a sign of identity. Occasionally grave markers indicate if a woman or man is buried there, you can read the number of children – the grave marker works as a passport. Until the 1920s there were no surnames on Roņu Island, each person had a symbol of belonging instead of a surname, drawn onto gates and tools. The old Roņu Island cemetery has a metal sign with the symbols. This is a register of the dead; there are no surnames, and no names: the sign itself is sufficient. 

The Kursenieki had the custom of catching and eating ravens. These were caught by the older generation (those who maintained the tradition) and children (those who inherited the tradition). The ravens had the napes of their necks bitten. This contact with blood was needed: the raven as a totem and its blood as a source of power. Of the Kursenieki, the ‘raven biters’ are the ones who maintained their language for the longest. 

Earlier regional, collective identity was very important, now this has been re-oriented to the individual. Only collective identity could exist earlier, and signs of identity created a feeling of collectivism, the knowledge that you were not alone. Today what is important is to stand out, in Postmodernism – to depart from any kind of identity markers. Nevertheless a person can’t exist without symbols: a turnaround occurs, and people begin to search for them again. Currently they are unclear, like some kind of chaos in a space from which something is snatched up. Contemporary corporate identity is very powerful. Nevertheless the earlier brotherhood (ethnic, guild etc) symbols had a protective meaning; they were symbols which gave power and inspiration. The signs of today – BMW or Mercedes, also brand-name clothes – perhaps indicate pride and belonging to a certain social class, but they lack depth. Today it is also difficult to tell by a person’s name which ethnic group or which religious identity they belong to. On one hand, this is easy: a child is given the opportunity for free movement in the global context. On the other hand, the name does not contain experience, biography, inheritance and dowry: the child has to start from an empty place. It is the same with corporate signs – they are more decorative and can exist only in particular conditions. Signs have lost their functionality; they work more on the level of recognition. It is not possible to maintain ancient signs of identity without change: decorativeness and the mixing of elements, for example, in folk costumes, began in the 1920s– signs appeared as symbols to strengthen the nation. It seems to me that we are currently standing on a diving board – both in Western Europe and Eastern Europe people have the necessity to feel their identity, however contemporary culture, and globalisation does not us permit us or hinders us from doing this. You have to have personal courage to choose symbols of identity which are based in traditional aspects. More often people choose that which is offered by advertising. Symbols of identity have become a mass product, which you are made to swallow: you swallow them, but they don’t ‘warm’ you. You feel the necessity to swallow again, but do not get more energy or warmth. It is obvious, that you yourself must give power to the symbol. A person without symbols is a person without reference points – you can live, but you are eternally lost and wandering in circles. 

In comparison with Lithuania and Estonia, we are not doing enough in terms of national identity. We shouldn’t have repeated Lithuania’s mistake of combining the large regions – we don’t have any other as compact, homogenous, well-preserved region as the Suiti region, the identity of which could be successfully promoted both internally and externally. We ourselves are buried our wealth. In Latvia too little attention is paid to symbols; then when we are threatened by something we brace ourselves, but this is a short-term ‘project’. We often adopt foreign symbols, although people travel to look at the unique, that which cannot be seen elsewhere. This includes architecture. In the portal Delfi it is interesting to note how people perceive symbols associated with the National Library: the glass mountain, Antiņš, Saulcerīte – everything is played upon. A symbol is as archetypal as the language of dreams. I think that we would make Latvia and ourselves even deeper, stronger, if we took heed of the traditional language of symbols with the thought not to preserve it as unchanging, but to preserve it while looking towards the future. It is important to have vision like Janus – by looking forward, we know that there is also something in the past. I think that design is one of the things that could be a good point of attachment for tradition. 

Material prepared by Ilze Martinsone