RIDING IN CARS WITH LATVIANS by Karlene Grinberg
My father loves to sing.
My father, Jānis, in 2011 preparing for the Līgo summer festival outside my family’s shop Senā Klēts, a National Costume Center.
When I was a little girl, we’d go on long drives. Old cassettes filled our 1984 Audi, the old dashboard covered with grocery store bags filled with cherries, and he’d sing. He’d flip the cassette. He’d spit cherry pits out the window. Smiling. Sharing his favorite Latvian schlagers and folk songs. Cheerful tunes and sentimental melodies. He’d sing all the way from Blair to Omaha (30 minutes or so on a two-way highway in Nebraska).
Dzīve mana dzīvīte
Ko lai es tev saku
Paiet dzīve dzīvīte
Brienot meža taku
Life, my dear (sweet, little) life.
What can I say to you?
Life goes by, dear life:
I plod a path in the forest.
He explains, “. . .brienot is like stomping through the underbrush to make a path, which in this song the poet had often done. The line suggests that about all we have to show for our lives is the little path that we trod in the deep forest of longing, and of course our path will be overgrown and the forest shall bid us a silent farewell with the song of the forest wind.”
At that time, I was in the Nebraska Children’s Choir. I think I was eleven or so. What a beautiful feeling it was—I joined my first choir. I didn’t even know what “head voice” was (I learned). I was just happy. Over time, I advanced into the next choir. We practiced so much back then. Twice a week. Four hours on Saturdays at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I’d bring fresh glazed donuts from Jim and Connie’s Blair Bakery to share at break. My dad would smile when I’d hop back in the car. Back onto the country road. We’d sing all the way home.
The Nebraska Children’s Choir, Bel Canto, performing at the Cathédrale Notre-Dome de Paris.
He loved symphonic sound. He bought these two giant Klipsch Cornwall speakers back in the 80’s and put them on both sides of our basement. That’s where I learned about Les Mis, and Evita, and Joseph, and Miss Saigon. I’d spend hours jumping from couch cushions stacked on our orange shag carpet, singing “Master of the House!” I remember listening to him play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. He’d turn off all the lights, lay his head on the Moroccan linen of the loveseat, and feel the vibrations on high volume. Other times, he’d sit quietly at the Schmoller & Mueller spinet piano his mother bought for him in the late 50’s, pressing keys down, remembering.
My father was born in 1943 in Rīga, Latvia. When the Russians invaded the country, a year after he was born, the family was forced to flee. In the fall of 1944, his mother, Alma, took her five children--Ivars, Gunta, Mara, Vija and Janis (my father)--to Germany. After five years in a Displaced Persons Camp, they received word of sponsorship from a family in the United States and an opportunity to emigrate to America in the summer of 1950.
Top left: Gunta, Alma, Odmite “grandma” (died in the German camps,) and the oldest of the children Ivars;
Bottom Left: Vija, Jānis (my father), and Mara.
As Latvians settled across the U.S. and Canada, they kept their folk songs and cultural traditions, later instrumental in the unity of the nation during the Soviet Occupation after World War II. From 1987 to 1991, the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—joined in peaceful protest, with citizens singing in masses as a demonstration for independence. It was a singing revolution. Their symbol of nationalism: music. In the fall of 1989, roughly two million people joined hands, forming a human chain spanning 419.7 miles across the three countries. The Baltic Way. Singing as they linked their hands together.
The Baltic Way on August 23, 1989.
The choral tradition was intrinsic to Latvian identity. Inherent in their customs. Patriotism through song. The Latvian Song and Dance Festival, created in 1873, preserved Latvian culture and identity through choral music and folk dance. Once every five years, 40,000 Latvians from 118 municipalities dress in folk costumes, dance, sing, and celebrate for a week-long festival. This freedom of expression is part of the National Awakening that began during the late nineteenth century. The week ends with a finale combining choirs from across the nation: 20,000 singers perform on one stage, flowers in their hair, as costumed dancers and musicians join together in honoring the most symbolic songs of the country.
The Latvian Song and Dance Festival.
Overhead view of the festival.
Dancers in traditional costumes during the week-long celebration.
In the summer of 1989, before the Iron Curtain fell, my father traveled back to Latvia to meet his own father for the first time since his birth. He brought along a recorder. The tape plays back interviews of walks through trees where plums fell. You can hear my grandfather on the tape sit down and begin to sing, sharing folk songs sung hundreds of times before:
Pūt, vējiņi, dzen laiviņu,
Aizdzen mani Kurzemē.
Blow little wind; push my little boat,
Send me home to Kurzeme.
This folksong, Pūt, Vējiņi, was often used in place of the national anthem during the Soviet era. My father told me, “It symbolizes freedom, words you could never say directly to the Soviets. . .it’s very simple. The young man on the boat going to get his bride. When he gets there, the mother rejects him. She accuses him of being a drunkard and a horse racer. He says no, I drank with my own money and rode my own horse. I am not what you say I am. He elopes with her daughter. It’s like, “That’s Latvian identity?” But, what do you hear? When you sing that? You hear your grandfather. You shared something together. The sharing makes for the identity.”
So, driving back to Omaha heading to choir practice, donuts in the backseat, I remember those Latvian songs playing on cassette. My identity through the Audi’s stereo system. Our shared identity.
A dozen glazed donuts from Jim and Connie’s Blair Bakery in Blair, NE.
Glossary // External Links
Latvian Song Festival 2018 - "Pūt, vējiņi" (Blow Ye Wind) ENGLISH subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivAvaONsUWc
Latvian Nationwide Song and Dance Celebration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIgwyML7WQ
Saule, Pērkons, Daugava - Finale Latvian Song and Dance Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baaX4-1_df0&fbclid=IwAR26U4-G4iKmcN-lnJY-a3tQZLnVCiG6qsFWELHvgGPUnCqNozIq1C3FwHo
Latvian Song Festival - "Līgo!" (Sway!) ENGLISH translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXXwX3IPIhI&fbclid=IwAR2vZ16IwIj0Rkviz0ATUcVy0eJXyCLV5Rjh29P4pz04A1BDQdKed3qGvv4
"Gaismas pils" 1985 Anti-Occupation Hymn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiPfinuyn-Q&fbclid=IwAR2uhrS0ePR1lt7H6OR701cAd6sNYrWaXW4bOXYobX_5yxEN-QH-fjX8ZHg
The Latvian Identity: Vaira Vike Freiberga at TEDxRiga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT26gr3I1Vc
History of Latvia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKIeD3RxRQ
My parents’ wedding outside of Omaha, Nebraska, 1973; they are wearing traditional Latvian costumes from the Kurzeme region.
KARLENE GRINBERG is a New York City based actor, singer, and voice over artist. A Nebraska native, Grinberg received a degree in both music and theater from Nebraska Wesleyan University. She is currently working with Don Buchwald & Associates in their VO and Commercial Print Departments, and can be found teaching at schools across the city encouraging young students to explore, create, and imagine through the arts. karlenegrinberg.com @karlenegrinberg