Two things you can be sure of when Latvians get together:
First, lots of hugs.
And second, “Vidzemes Polka” will blow the roof off the joint.
That was proven again last week in Chicago during the 11th Latvian Song Festival, a four-day extravaganza of music, dance and culture that brought together between 6,000 and 10,000 Latvians from all over the world.
Starting last Thursday at the downtown Marriott — headquarters for the fest — everywhere one looked people were embracing and exchanging greetings in Latvian. It had the feel of a giant class reunion.
And Saturday afternoon at the UIC Pavilion, a crowd of 6,000 attending a folk dance performance cut loose for that traditional favorite, “Vidzemes Polka.”
“It’s a pretty cool dance. You can tell the dancers are working their butts off,” said David Blumberg, a spokesman for the festival. “It’s so intense.”
The dancers — there were some 500 of them — got a wild standing ovation from the crowd. They even performed it as an encore later.
“They had to dance it twice because everyone was so psyched,” Blumberg said. “It always gets people riled up. Every year.”
And 6,000 riled-up Latvians is something to behold.
Although called a song festival, the event is as much about culture as it is music. Older Latvians have long impressed upon their children the importance of their past, a message the younger generations are embracing.
“It’s heritage,” said Brett Apelgren, who was attending the festival with his wife, Aelita, and their two daughters. “A lot of Latvian people were displaced after World War II and later came to the United States. They have kept their heritage alive, through things like these festivals and camps for the kids and even Latvian schools, where they teach language, history, what’s going on in Latvia now.”
Apelgren (“Me, Latvian? No. I’m a mongrel — Swedish, English, Scottish, Welsh”) explained that this emphasis on culture from the old country extends to the family’s home in Kalamazoo, Mich. Both girls attended Latvian school, grace before meals is said in Latvian, and mother and daughters often discuss things in Latvian.
“This is quite an ethnic thing,” he said.
As was the festival. In addition to the folk dance performance, this year’s schedule included such diverse events as a sold-out Metro concert by BrainStorm, Latvia’s most popular rock group; performances of the musical “Lolitas Brinumputns” (there is no exact translation, but “miracle bird” comes close) at the Merle Reskin Theatre; a sacred music concert at the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue; a men’s choir concert at Symphony Center; a choir concert with more than 600 singers at the Pavilion; and appearances by the talented youth choir Kamer on WGN television, at a Daley Center performance and in concert at the Pavilion.
Then there was the craft fair (everything from very cool and very expensive amber jewelry to “Parking for Latvians Only” street signs), an art show, several balls and parties, prose and poetry readings — all at the Marriott — and a picnic at Navy Pier. In other words, for the thousands of visitors, it was the next best thing to a Saturday night back in Riga.
Social gatherings
The festivals — they’ve been held in Latvia for more than 125 years, but the first one in the U.S. was in Chicago in 1953 — usually come along every five years (though the last two were in 1998 and 2000). Earlier festivals, held during the days of Soviet occupation of Latvia, had more emphasis on politics. But these days they’re mostly social gatherings.
“Latvians always laugh about this,” Blumberg said. “At these events, you always have, like, a little Latvian world here. We all get together, we all know each other, we all have a good time. Then when it’s over, we all have to go back to our jobs and the real world.”
“This is different from everyday life,” agreed Nick Ozolins of Hamilton, Ontario. “In Canada, you’re immersed in Canadian life. Your friends and everything else are Canadian. You come here, you see all your old Latvian friends.”
“Having grown up in this very tight-knit Latvian community, it’s like a homecoming,” said Arnis Robeznieks, 34, a New York pastry chef who left Chicago 12 years ago. “You get to see old friends. And I get to renew some of the old traditions that may have faded a bit since I left.”
Robeznieks, like many of the younger festivalgoers, attended a Latvian church school (located on Montrose Avenue), as well as a Latvian summer high school that is run annually in Three Rivers, Mich. There, students take classes in Latvian grammar, history, geography and culture, learn crafts and form bonds with kids of similar backgrounds. Find two Latvians of similar ages, and chances are they’ve known each other for years.
“A lot of our friends, our Latvian friends, we’ve known since we were born,” said Chicagoan Andris Velkme, 27. “You can’t say that about most of your friends.”
If you didn’t know . . .
That closeness has been born out of what the people have gone through over the last 85 years. A little geography and history lesson is in order.
Latvia, one of the Baltic states (10 points if you knew that Lithuania and Estonia are the others), is located in northeast Europe, just across the Baltic Sea from Sweden. At 25,000 square miles, about the size of West Virginia, it’s home to some 2.3 million people. The principal religion is Lutheran; the principal language is Latvian. And if someone ever offers you a piragi, grab it (“It’s a ham and onion mix, and it’s put in, like, a croissant. Very tasty. Really good,” Apelgren said.)
Latvia became a republic after World War I, but was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, was taken over by the Nazis from 1941 to ’45, and then was back under the thumb of the Soviets from ’45 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Thousands of Latvians died at the hands of the Soviets and Nazis, and thousands more fled, many ending up in displaced persons camps in Germany before eventually making their way to the United States in the late ’40s and early ’50s. (Here’s a tidbit to toss out at your next cocktail party: Many Latvians who came to the U.S. first settled in Mississippi, where they worked picking cotton. They wised up quickly, though, and migrated to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and other northern cities, most of which still have active Latvian communities.)
“The U.S. government wants us fully assimilated, fully integrated. But we need to keep our culture,” says Ilmars Bergmanis, chairman of the United Latvian Associations of Chicago. “Music, folk dancing, art . . . we’re trying to teach our young people their culture. We want them to be good Americans and good Latvians.”
The message seems to be getting through to the younger generation.
A need for the culture
“When we were growing up, we were told we had to speak the language, we had to remember our culture,” said Indra Rupners, 29, who was attending a flag-raising ceremony at Daley Center with Velkme.
“We really appreciate what our parents did for us,” Velkme said. “I can’t imagine my life without Latvian culture.”
Aija Vinters Brugman of Indianapolis is one of the festival choir directors.
Born in Latvia, she and her family fled their homeland during World War II, when she was just 6 months old. She has made certain that her children learned their heritage.
“During the occupation of Latvia, it was almost a mission [to keep the culture alive] as Russia tried to Russify our language, our culture,” Brugman said. “We had to keep it alive in exile.
“The culture was very important to me, and I think it’s very important to pass it on to my children. What they do with it, that’ll be up to them. But we have to pass it on.”
Her younger daughter, 25-year-old Ingrida Jennings of Orlando, started dancing at the festivals when she was 6 and began singing in choirs at 10. She was part of this year’s choir performances.
“This is something we’ve grown up with our entire lives,” Jennings said. “Church, school, camps. It’s something you don’t choose to walk away from.
“We’ve all grown up in a life we love. When I have kids, I want to expose them to it because it’s been a very important part of my life.”
Or, as Velkme explained: “There aren’t a lot of us, so that’s why we stick together. There are only 2 million Latvians in the world. We don’t want to be extinct.”
