Daina (Latvia)

Daina ( sing. daina ) are traditional Latvian folk songs or poems. The term was borrowed in 1893 at the suggestion of Henrijs Visendorfs from Lithuanian.

Daina are very short, rarely longer than four lines. However, they are important for the Latvian culture and the ethnic consciousness of Latvians and indispensable also for the study of Baltic mythology and history of language. The Lithuanian dainos ( sing. also daina ) are generally much longer and more detailed, but here with a difficult to develop mythical content.

Origins and history

In centuries of foreign rule Daina presented an important opportunity of the Latvian people to the tradition of our own myths and the realization of a national culture dar. While other nations of Europe their identity in science, philosophy or literature could find was the Latvians who were a people of the land - the cities were German or Russian speaking - only the archaic means of oral tradition.

However, while in other European cultures have been lost to a large extent the folkloric elements with the development of the written word, especially of the printing press, the Daina remained a living and evolving means of expression until the beginning of the 20th century for the Latvians. Even today, quoting and singing these poems in Latvia is common and widespread.

With the advent of the National awakening of Latvians (see Young Latvians ) began the collection and processing of up to then only orally transmitted Daina. They also formed the basis of the impressive tradition of song festivals in the Baltics, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Johann Gottfried Herder collected during his stay Riga 1764-1769 some Daina and published it 1778/79 in his two-volume Folk Songs (1807 appeared under the title voices of the peoples of songs ). Its merit is to raise the folk song to heritage. Onset of the basis for the end of the 19th century, of the Moscow Society of Friends of Natural Science, Anthropology and Folklore initiated systematic exploration and collection of Latvian folk songs were the collections of German pastors in Livonia ( Bergmann, Ulmann, True, Büttner ).

Between 1894 and 1915 published the astronomer Krišjānis Barons, the "Father of Daina ", the largest and most important collection to this day by the Latvian Daina - 217 996 songs in six volumes. He designed, Daina Cabinet ( Dainu skapis ) is now a " national treasure " of Latvians.

Today is estimated that approximately 1.2 million Daina are writing.

Importance

Daina be like by ethnologists, linguists, Matriarchatsforschern, archaeologists Scientists increasingly discovered as a valuable window into the early Indo-European language and cultural history, as the dainas were only slightly and very late influenced by the Christianization.

For the connoisseurs of Latvian Daina include the ethnologist and former Latvian President Vaira Vike -Freiberga. She worked in this area together with her husband Imants Freiberg:

"It must be noted that mean for the Latvians Daina more than just a literary tradition. You are the embodiment of the traditional cultural heritage of forefathers whom history more tangible forms of expression denied to him. These songs form the basis of the Latvian identity and singing becomes an identifiable property of Latvians. " ( Vaira Vike -Freiberga, Journal of Baltic Studies, 1975)

Two Daina in the original and translated

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