Dizaina Studija. Telpa Forma Laiks

In response to an invitation by the Ministry of Culture, a group of experts has begun work on establishing a Latvian cultural canon. The idea of the canon is to be understood as a collection of the most distinguished and prominent art works which reflect the most significant cultural achievements of the nation; a type of institutionalised cultural memory. Seven committees of experts in various fields of culture – also in architecture and design – are compiling lists of works for the cultural canon, and are currently trying to define Latvian cultural identity through internal discussion. The idea of a cultural canon has already been implemented in the Netherlands and Denmark. While the discussion has not yet involved the wider community, “Dizaina Studija” poses the question to specialists from both the Ministry of Culture and experts invited by the magazine.

Andris Kronbergs, architect:
I think that it would not be bad if we had some reference points – I see the intention of a canon be a collection of reference points related to various fields of culture. Confusion reigns in society today, not just in terms of culture, but in the whole scale of life values. This is a little dangerous because of the mass of information that is aimed at us; people find it hard to orient themselves, particularly those who are not associated with analytical things or the phenomenon of art and culture in their daily lives. They have to have access to some expert opinion which orients itself a little better than others. I think that the purpose of the canon is to be a search for a “guiding light” in the entire field of culture, and in this aspect I am not sure if this guiding light should be strongly oriented towards the past. I cannot really understand this myself – what would be the challenge for the future held by historical objects, historical values, a bearer of ideas for the future? Of course, excepting the fact that respect for and maintenance of history and culture is an obvious necessity, like an abc reader. It is an enduring necessity, but is it a new idea? Possibly, because a different ideology ruled during the Soviet era, when the old was destroyed as far as was possible and a new world was built. A time in which new temples were built from old have always existed – both in Rome and Greece. Currently we have reached a stage in the concept of preserving history, where there is no doubt any longer about whether it should be done, and it cannot be considered to be a new idea. The Āraiši Lake Fortress is undoubtedly as valuable as the Jelgava or Rundāle castles, but which of these could be a guiding light for the future?  

Perhaps it is some kind of ideology, some kind of agreement, a turning point in thought processes, which can be claimed to be of some particular value, a canon? Perhaps we could look in the non-material sphere, to find an idea which is important for the future. Speaking of architecture, it is a large problem. We have many good houses and designs, but have any of these turned the world, or at least Latvia, in another direction? Each architect tries to create this kind of turning point, but this is difficult to achieve in a provincial environment. Nevertheless we can also interpret the canon in such a way, to assume that society and the experts have agreed that the past is an important element in our “bag” of values. It contains all of our cultural heritage, including a list of architecture that we will look after, maintain, give to the next generation, and to which we will add new values that have been created today. I understand it from this perspective, although I do not understand the singling out of individual objects from the whole, for example, to make the Lake Fortress a part of the canon – I do not see it as a guiding light. But a guiding light can be like a shared ball of wool for us, which we will carry with us all our lives, all the rest of our remaining time.

Oskars Redbergs, architect:
To my mind, the most important thing is to define the aims that the canon will serve and what it will be used for. The example of the Danish and Dutch cultural canons reveals two different strategies. The Danish example reminds me of a list of cultural products. Knowing how aggressively the Danes offer their knowledge and cultural products to the outside market, and how organised and oriented towards export their manufacturing is – furniture, lamps and also architecture – the publishing of this kind of list has two aspects: to familiarise the world with their culture and to simply raise the volume of manufacturing and trade. Four percent of the population of Denmark is made up of foreigners, and their compilation of a canon is a fairly obvious task, popularising their national achievements and orienting themselves to the foreign market. The Netherlands is a liberal, multicultural country with ancient traditions of democracy. An important aspect of their identity is the integration of citizens and the inhabitants of previous colonies; the Dutch have cultivated traditions of integration. The Dutch canon demonstrates a wish to educate, because education is a basis for and the main tool of integration. With the help of the canon the Dutch offer knowledge about their own country and culture and for one to form one’s own opinion based on individual experience. The canon is presented in a way appropriate to the experience and educational levels of the individuals visiting the canon’s sites. The Dutch did not choose the products for their list, but products were subordinated to historical (political, economic, technological etc) events, which have been significant in the creation of the country, nation and society, which in turn stimulated the creation of new cultural products. For example, the great flood, the first printing presses, the Hanseatic League, the Second World War and others. The Srebrenica massacre, which occurred in 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina is also included in the list, during which time the Dutch army was acting as the UN peace keeping force in this area, but was not given authority to intervene and was not able to stop the massacre. Experts on the Dutch canon admit that they themselves have not yet completely defined their attitude to this. Here the advantage of a mature democracy presents itself, which gives the experts in the committee the opportunity to not only include their own convictions in the canon, but also their doubts, in this way making it a theme for discussion by the wider community and leaving the opportunity to add to the canon in the future.

The Latvian situation is different from both Denmark and the Netherlands. Latvia currently has one of the most liberal economic policies in Europe, an immature democracy, a multinational ethnic composition, a national cultural policy, high criminality, a heterogeneous society, unclear national identity, a lack of development strategies and new ideas. 

In a free society it is important to allow each generation to have the chance to accept decisions which are relevant and authentic, in this way creating prerequisites for the development of the kind of future which would not be frightening or foreign to them. I think that a canon can serve as an education in value systems. It is possible, that the task of defining this canon should not be an argument of the experts about which of the stylistically second-rate medieval manor houses should be included in the Latvian cultural canon, but instead be a more significant historical event, the compiling of visionary decisions from various eras; a precedent of our rational collective action; a definition of our unifying citizens’ consciousness; and examples of individual actions (as a result of which we have been able to define the ideals of the state, nation and society, as well as have been able to influence our local or global culture).

The Latvian cultural canon will be as useful as far as it will be able to create a new meaning or supplement our already existing preconceptions about that what we ourselves – the creators and users – could be.

Raimonds Briedis, literature expert for the Ministry of Culture:
Perhaps a canon is not needed for people who know a lot. But the canon is very useful for the purposes of education, for the purposes of making people interested, for information and for defining possible values. Any decision is interesting, because it demonstrates how people see the world at that moment in time. The number of canonical objects in each list– twelve or more– is not really important, it has been mathematically defined in order to make the choice more complicated. Many people have compiled lists of obligatory Latvian literature, but, for example, this has not really been done in art, architecture or theatre. In this way many fields have been given the opportunity to make an inventory of their notions about art in Latvia over a longer period of time. The creation of the cultural canon is perhaps a slightly fashionable thing, a game and a part of mass culture – however, if culture will not become a component of mass culture in some small way, it will remain at the very background of thinking.

Every authority creates a field of culture of its own – both in terms of the everyday and of long-term cultural experience; we can think that today the authorities feel the need for ideology, which has been lacking up until now. In any case, culture is associated with ideology, it is important to sense this era and give some orientation to time. This is a mechanism that implements broader aims than that of the authorities. In its own way, the idea of a canon is a game – any art work that has been included can be replaced by some other work. Ultimately, the most interesting part is the list of the first sixty or even one hundred items in each field. Once we compiled a list of Latvian literary works for translation: “100+1”. The experts were sent a list of literary works, they had to choose fifty works from these which had been both accepted by everyone, and which were also personally close. The end result was familiar – only a small number of totally new works had been added – therefore the “canon” is already clear to everyone, it has come about quite naturally. In spite of the Soviet era, these canonical elements endured, which were formed in the time up until the First World War and during the first era of independent Latvia: of course a problem is exiled authors. Things or art works are canonised or become canonised according to the principles of each era, although something unifying is also retained. School, for example, is a unique mechanism of force, which people have not learned to live without. If a person is forced to read a literary work with the use of some method of force, they never regret it, even if the range of experience is from complete incomprehension to enthusiasm. I have discovered that nowadays, cultural items that are known to everyone practically do not exist any more. 

In literature, some works exist through time while a large part does not. There are works which are very popular during a short period of time, but a couple of years later no one remembers them any more. Research shows that over a period of one hundred years of cultural values, only 2% are acknowledged and cross over to the next century. Therefore we know that of one hundred works of literature that we are reading today, only two will be being read in one hundred years’ time. Which ones – we don’t know. But something from heritage can also suddenly become pertinent.

At the moment the list of the cultural canon is being created in a restricted way, according to a principle of mathematical exclusion or rejection – this is a way of promoting interest. In essence it doesn’t matter what will end up at the centre – Skalbe, Rainis or some of Rainis’ plays – the main thing is to understand that each art work is a sign behind which something else is hidden – as gates, a passage into another time, another world. Therefore I think that it is better to choose an art work rather than a name or personality, as much as this is possible. The canon firstly is needed for ourselves, for our own internal use; secondly, it can also be offered outwards, although with an explanation that these are things which are significant to ourselves, rather than outstanding from the point of view of others. If a foreigner learns the poem of some other country, for example, they will immediately gain a key to many houses.  

Mikus Čeže, music expert for the Ministry of Culture:
There are a number of practical reasons which justify the necessity for creating a canon. If as a result of the discussion you can agree on what kinds of outstanding values have been created here through the passing of time, it is also easier to tell other interested parties about this – what in Latvian culture is worth familiarising oneself with. A list of outstanding works, personalities or phenomena can be compiled in various ways, of course. By concentrating only on those things which have seemed important to Latvians themselves in the past, and suggesting popularity and recognisability to the sisters of the nation as a basic criteria, it is possible to create only a provincial canon for internal use. On the other hand: by trying to orient oneself only toward those Latvian cultural phenomena which have proved their “export ability”, using international achievements in the contemporary art environment as a criteria can quickly create a list, in which the included works – at least in the field of music – will be in the best instance unique to the main consumers of Latvian culture.

The canon is a people’s choice. The list of the canon includes that which we as representatives of society want to listen to and watch over and over again over a long period of time, wish to interpret and use anew. In music it would be difficult to come to terms with a canonical collection of works, which only included the compositions of authors which have passed away. I am sure that this type of canon would be less disturbing to musicians who are currently alive, however in this case you would find purely historical, rather than artistic value. We don’t have to wait for the death of Pēteris Vasks, who is recognised both in Latvia and outside Latvia, in order to ceremoniously include him in the Latvian cultural canon! He simply is already in it. 

Will the lists of canonical values that have been offered create a revolution in Latvian consciousness? There are enough people who know nothing and will never find out, because they are not interested. If I look at the list personally, I see that in the field of music it mainly reflects that which has been important to people in previous decades. For example, in the musical work group led by Gunda Vaivode, we included Imants Kalniņš’ Fourth Symphony, although from a professional perspective his Fifth Symphony is a lot better. However, something in the Fourth has succeeded – which could not be achieved in the Fifth, that is, to become a cultural sign of its times. It is the same for Emīls Dārziņš’ “Melancholy Waltz”. From an academic perspective there is nothing special here: it is a nice composition using Russian symphonic musical traditions. The love of the people – the same as love generally – is not always able to be explained rationally, however this does not mean that we can totally disregard this factor in terms of the canon. It is more likely that as a result, the list of music will be a compromise between the well-known and that which Latvians should perhaps familiarise themselves with.

Material prepared by Ilze Martinsone