User:Matt Heard/Latvian mythology/Source mining/Archaeologia BALTICA/The Latvian Mythological Space in Scholarly Time

Mined from Archaeologia Baltica: The Latvian Mythological Space in Scholarly Time.

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Abstract edit

Introduction edit

Latvian mythological space is a construction of scholarly research.
Models of mythological space were created during the development of studies of Latvian folklore and studies of religion.
Studies of mythology involve studies of folklore, religion, linguistics and history.
The ancient Latvians left no evidence of an explicit mythological world structure.

General background and sources of Latvian mythology edit

Research of Latvian mythology has been influenced by ethnic, regional, linguistic and political factors.
Ethnicity was not a historical reality as formation of Latvian nation continued to as late as 19th century.
In reconstructions of Latvian mythology ethnicity is applied to the tribal society of the Late Iron Age or even earlier.
The tribes that inhabited contemporary Latvia were far not united politically and their beliefs differed e.g. there were Scandinavian influences in the southwest or Slavic ones in the east, and Livonian in the coastal region
Livonians, despite having historically inhabited large part of Latvia, are excluded from all the major works on Latvian mythology and their influence on later Latvian mono-ethnic beliefs is usually marginalized.
Livonians are excluded because research models are often based on comparative linguistics.
Latvian language belongs to the Baltic branch of Indo-European languages, which also includes Latgalian, Lithuanian, Samogitian and several extinct languages, such as Old Prussian, Galindian, Sudovian, Old Curonian, Selonian etc.
It is tempting to assume that cultural similarities are identical to linguistic similarities.
Theories on the migration and development of languages also allow for the cultural heritage to be dated back to the times of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language, spoken by the Proto-Indo-European community.
Several mythological research strategies emerge from recognised linguistic affinities.
A language-based model contradicts regional history.
Linguistically Latvia is closer to Lithuania, but has more common history with Estonia, whose language belongs to the Finno-Ugric family
Latvia and Estonia had common inhabitants before the arrival of Indo-Europeans
And Latvia and Estonia were part of one country - Livonia - for centuries.
Estonia and most of Latvia are Protestant, while eastern Latvia and Lithuania are Catholic.
They became part of Russian Empire in 1710, while Lithuania became part of it at the end of the 18th century.
We should note that: ‘The emergence of something Latvian next to Lithuanian, or Estonian alongside these two, was not the straightforward instrumentalisation of a well-demarcated, recognised individual ethnicity, but the result of deliberate (and often contested) acts of demarcation and identification’
Mythological research and folklore in general played their role in this process.
Radically different regimes created different versions of Latvian mythology during the Cold war - Soviet Latvian researchers on one side and exiled Latvian researchers on the other.
After Latvia regained independence they were hard to fuse
The aforementioned factors also influenced preferences for sources used in constructions of particular models of Latvian mythology and mythological space.
There are two main groups of sources - historical records and folklore
The folklore material was mostly collected starting from second half of 19th century
Collection and publication of folklore still continues, however most texts were published before WWII and thus equally available to all researchers
Availability of historical records varied
In 1930s the majority of records were available to a wider public
Notable sources available from the period include: Wilhelm Mannhardt’s Letto-Preußische Götterlehre (1936), Arnolds Spekke’s Latvieši un Livonija 16. g. s. (1935) and Die Jahresberichte der Gesellschaft Jesu über ihre Wirksamkeit in Riga und Dorpat 1583-1614 (1925) by Edith Kurtz and Baznīcas visitācijas protokoli (1931) by K. Bregžis (Adamovičs 1940d).
Authors of interwar period have discussed historical sources available for their research, but not all of them provide correct references to the sources used.
E.g. Pēteris Šmits (1926) lists the historical records of the 18th century in detail.
Following the literary tradition, early authors rewrote each other’s texts
Early authors used all data from the mythologies of neighboring regions to create lists of gods used later on by 19th-century romanticists to compose Latvian mythical pseudo-pantheons
P. Šmits critisized this therefore, he described and analysed their sources in "Latvian mythology" (Šmits 1926).
18th century assimilate many early sources
Of those various authors mention these: August Wilhelm Hupel’s Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland (1774–1782), and Vollständiges deutchlettisches und lettischdeutsches Lexicon (1777) by Jacob Lange.
The latter includes and elaborates information from the newspaper Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Rigischen Anzeigen, in which the first Latvian pseudo-pantheon was published by an unknown author in 1761, and by Johann Jacob Harder in 1764.
This source is in turn the source for mythological appendix of Lettische Grammatik by Gotthard Friedrich Stender (2nd ed, 1783)
Among the most comprehensive reports of historical records mentioning mythological beings and practices are several articles by Kārlis Straubergs (Straubergs 1934; 1949; 1943).
Straubergs also provides an overview of sources of Lithuanian and Prussian mythologies, further listing the documents he has used in his reconstruction of genuine Latvian mythology.
The first record of religious practices in the region was found in De Germannia (98 Ad) by the Roman historian Tacitus.^{[nb 1]}
Early but rather poor dources: Adam of Bremen in his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum (1075), a bull issued by Pope Innocent III (1199), the writings of Oliverus von Paderborn (1212) and Ghillebert de Lannoy (1413), and the statutes of the city of Riga Statuta provincialia concilli Rigensis (1428).
More evidence comes from the 16th and 17th centuries, like: Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster (1550), the travel notes of Johann David Wunderer (1589) and Reinhold Lubenau (1585), a report by Salomon Henning (1589), Chronica der Prouintz Lyfflandt by Balthasar Russow (1584), the annual reports of Jesuit collegiums, Encomion Urbis Rigae by Heinrich Ulenbrock (1615), Livonicae Historiae Compendiosa Series by dionysius Fabricius (1611–1620), protocols of legal proceedings (especially witch and werewolf trials), and the works by Paul Einhorn Wiederlunge der Abgötterey (1627), Reformatio gentis Lettice (1636) and Historia Lettica, das ist Beschreibung der Lettischen nation (1649) and Liefländische Historia by Christian Kelch (1695).
Early records were fragmentary and reflected agendas of their authors - mostly members of the clergy, few of whom understood the local languages
Therefore these can only be used as secondary sources for supporting hypotheses based on research of folklore.
The most important source in reconstructions of Latvian mythology was the folk songs.
The first large collection, Latvju dainas, by Krišjānis Barons and Henry Wissendorff was published in six volumes from 1884 to 1915 (with two more editions in 1922–1923 and 1989–1994).
Thirteen years later, Latvju tautas dainas by Roberts Klaustiņš in 12 volumes followed. * In 1936, the Archives of Latvian Folklore published Tautas dziesmas, consisting of newly collected texts.
After WWII exile Latvians in Copenhagen published Latviešu tautas dziesmas in 12 volumes (1952–1956), combining the Barons and the Archives of Latvian Folklore editions.
In 1955 a selection of folk songs in three volumes was published in Soviet Latvia by the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore.
This collection had new classification system based around social relationships.
Starting from 1979 an academic folk song collection, Latviešu tautasdziesmas is being published. 9 out 15 volumes have been published.
Latvian folk tales were first published in six volumes by Ansis Lehris-Puškaitis in 1890–1891.
This material was supplemented and arranged according to the classification by Arveds Švābe (1923) in two volumes, and by Pēteris Šmits (1925–1937) in 15 volumes.
The Latvian Folk Tale Type Index, based on the same classification system, was published in 1977.
The Latvian exile community republished the Šmits’ folk tales and legends (1963–1970) in the USA.
In first half of 20th century Charms, beliefs and customs were available mainly from publications in nationally oriented periodicals of the last 50 years, the collection by Fricis Brīvzemnieks-Treuland (1881), the appendices of Barons and Wissendorff’s folk song edition, and material gathered in the Archives of Latvian Folklore.
Latvian charms in two volumes was published only in 1939–1941 by Kārlis Straubergs, and Latvian folk beliefs in four volumes was published in 1940–1941 by Pēteris Šmits. The basic edition of Latvian folk customs was published in 1944 by Kārlis Straubergs
The three following case studies examine the different versions of the reconstructed Latvian space, demonstrating the choice of particular sources and the relation of this choice to disciplinary and theoretical agendas, the intellectual environment, and particular theories.

Ludvigs Adamovičs edit

Ludvigs (Ludis) Adamovičs (1884–1943) was a Protestant priest, theologian and Church historian.
He was the minister of education of the of Latvia from 19 May 1934 to 10 July 1935, under Ulmanis nationalistic regime.
He had a degree in theology from the University of Tartu
After graduation he served in church, but soon, in 1920 became an associate professor of theology at University of Latvia.
He was deported in 1941 and died two years later.
His main research intrerest was the history of the Protestant Church in Latvia.
In late 1930s he also started to publish articles on Latvian mythology
He especialy focused on Jumis, pūķis, acient cosmology (stairway to Heaven and the heavenly yard in folk songs) and the phenomenological reconstruction of the ancient Latvian religion.
His work is the most sophisticated system of Latvian mythology reconstructed durin interwar period.
Due to his background in theologyhe was able to apply approach different from other scholars - historians and philologists.
His approach to Latvian mythology was based on phenomenology of religion
It was influenced by dutch scholar Gerardus van der Leeuw and the hypotheses that differentiation and integration are the main charecterestics of religion as a dynamic system.
[His] 40-page article Ancient Latvian world view (1938) is one of the most complete description of spatial dispositions in Latvian mythology.
It also summarises and questions all previous research on the issues analysed.
Later he summarised his concept of mythological space in three themes
This is typical for reconstructions from the interwar period
Theme one: The Heavenly Mountain.
Ancient Latvians imagined the sky in the form of a high mountain
It is vaiously called the Mountain of Pebbles, Silver Mountain or Ice Mountain. First two presumably reffering to stars, while the last could be derived from myth explaining formation of snow.
The Heavenly Mountain descends into the World Sea.
In several folk songs, the mountain has been transformed into a table with four corners.
The Sun's daily movement appears to be related to the mountain.
It ends at the foot of the Mountain, where the Sun embarks gold or silver boat to start her night journey through the World Sea and the underworld.
Changing the mode of movement at the sea, the Sun bathes her horses.
In areas away where such a clear notion of the sea being in the West is absent from the sea the Sun sets in a lake, river Daugava, or in a mythical place whith nine lakes, or where nine rivers meet.
In folk songs the Sun is depicted either as ever moving or as resting in the middle of the day or sleeping at night.
These songs show anthropomorphisation of the Sun, which makes her mythological charecter distinct from celestical body.
The ctions of the ancient Latvian God (the Heavenly Father) on the Heavenly Mountain are depicted mainly as driving across a hill or reed, gravel or copper bridge (a rainbow). They mostly concern his journey down the hill.
Theme two: The Sun Tree.
Ancient Latvians had a Sun Tree alike to the mythical World Tree in other mythologies.
The tree is depiction of the Milky Way.
It is described as made from bright and precious metals, such as silver and gold.
It is frequently a birch tree with three leaves or forked branches where the Sun, the Moon, God, Laima, Auseklis or the daughter of the Sun rest or act.
The Sunset and Sunrise seem to be connected with the same tree.
The Sun Tree grows in a mythical place "at the side of the Sun’s path" or "at the side of the sea path" in the far west, where the Sun’s daily journey ends - by the sea, beyond the lake, in the Daugava
This place can be considered to be on the mythical border of this world
It is the natural horizon
There the slope of the Heavenly Mountain approaches the Earth.
Laying its roots on horizon, the Sun Tree extends all over the sky, appearing as the true tree of Heaven.
The Ancient Latvians imagined thus thought that at the very edge of the earth or seaside, the borders of this world, the Heaven (the Heavenly Mountain) and the underworld meet.
On this border the mythical Heavenly Tree grows and in its branches the Sun, the Moon and other heavenly bodies each settle at a particular time.
There every morning the sun and her daughters dress up to shine all over the world.
It is possible that the Sun Tree was originaly thought to be an oak with golden branches and silver leaves.
But later on the mythical meaning of the Sun Tree was lost and it was replaced with other trees depicted ashaving similar proporties ("at the side of the Sun’s orbit")
The mythical notion of [the sun's] path also ceased tocexist.
Only abstract notion of a Sun Tree remained and it could be applied to an oak or a lime, birch, willow, hazel or sallow, or even to a rush.
As a result the oak placed in the Daugava is the same Sun Tree or the Milky Way
While rush remained on a stone or on an island in the middle of the sea, or beyond the sea, which is the marks the border of this and the other world, on the very horizon.
Some songs suggest that people also decorated their sacred oaks (sacrificial oaks) with elements from the Sun Tree myth.
Other songs imagine the Sun as an apple, a pea, a nut or a ball that rolls along the branches of the Sun Tree.
Theme three: Three levels of the world.
The Ancient Latvian God means the sky as it seems to be where he lives.
Folk songs that tell of God sleeping on the Earth (under a stone, in a bush of vervains) do not seem to be taken seriously in the reconstruction of myths.
Professor Kārlis Straubergs idea, outlined in his article World Sea (1937), that God, the Sun and the Moon live in the underworld does not seem well founded.
The ancient Latvians do not think of this world and the opposite world, rather they separate three levels of the world: Heaven, Earth and the underworld that meet in the World Sea on the horizon.
The path from one level to another leads through the horizon and across the World Sea.
Direct vertical movement between them also is possible
From the Earth one can go to Heaven by a heavenly stairway - the branches and leaves of a tree, a beanstalk or a rose.
Similaryone can go to the underworld (as depicted in fairy tales) through a well, a spring, a deep cave, or a hole.
The fairy tales also mention the other way - from the underworld one can get on to the Earth across the World Sea and through the horizon.
They also mention travelling to the sky and back.
It is done by directly going to sky by using special stairs, smoke or broom, and coming down by a rope that is fastened to a cloud.
However fairy tales also describe going to Heaven by crossing the sea i.e. through the horizon.
There is a crossroads where roads to Heaven, to Earth and to the underworld meet.
The basic elements of the Ancient Latvians views match notions of the world-view and the World Tree depicted by W. Wundt (1909), but "the Latvians have their features; nice poetic depictions stand out especially"
According to Adamovičs, mythological space consists of variations between mutually displaceable semanthemes and a basic structure of three levels - the underworld, this world, and Heaven.
Variations across the genres, within one genre and across geographical locations where particular folklore materials are collected, are problematic, when trying to reconstruct one Ancient Latvian world-view and cosmology.
After describing a variety of Sun Trees, Adamovičs states that: ‘Such examples are more likely evidence of free combinations of mythical folk songs than the basis of joining them all together in one view’ (Adamovičs 1938, p.22).
Adamovičs variously tries to interpret sources to establish one primary system, seeing other variations as deviations and degradation as can be ilustrated by his interpretation of the World Sea semantheme.
Adamovičs refers several times to the article World Sea (1937) by Straubergs, who is a classical philologist.
In the article the Ancient Greek myth of the Ocean that flows all around the world is reffered to. Adamovičs accepts this notion of the sea all around the world.
However a closer analysis of folklore material shows that this idea is problematic, especialy when taking into account folklore of eastern Latviai.e. regions not near the sea, which lacks notion of the sea or any other large body of water
Adamovičs just notes that ‘folklore regarding this matter was somewhat reserved’ (Adamovičs 1938,p.4) and claims that: ‘Regarding the position of the sunset, as we can see, empirical experience in the eastern part of Latvia has overshadowed the notion of the World Sea. It is substituted by the lake and the broad daugava, besides the mythical places “beyond the nine lakes” or “where the nine rivers flow”’ (Adamovičs 1938, p.7).
However only location of the World Sea in west is important as it is where all three levels of the world meet, according to Adomovičs.
While folklore materials provide different locations of passages between the worlds, Adamovičs refers to the comparative study by Wundt. Therefore sunset related to the sea or Daugava is also treated as a reference to the "far west, mythical border zone of the world where a natural horizon is visible" (Adamovičs 1938, p.23ff) and other references to the sea are reduced to the World Sea in the west.
Similarly when analysing the World Tree he refers to Wundt’s idea that "The World Tree spreads its roots among the depths of the Earth and reaches the sky with its branches, holding together the whole world, being in the middle of the Earth itself, which overshadows whole world with its leaves and hosts heavenly bodies in its branches. The prototype of the World Tree is the Tree of Life" (Adamovičs 1938, p.15; Wundt 1909, pp.193, 210, 214, 219).
Adamovičs considers the Sun Tree to be the main Latvian variation of this semantheme, and also locates it at the far west, where the Sun sleeps at night.
However, he admits that the same World Tree also grows in the underworld (as depicted in fairy tales), but considers other locations of the Sun Tree to be a deformation of the original myth by either a poetic play of words or by mythical syncretism, where other trees acquire the characteristics of the Sun Tree.
He also refers profanation or degradation of original mythical notions elsewhere, e.g. in folklore materials where the Sun Tree is found by a shepherd’s girl or God hides in a bush of wormwood or mugwort (plants with halucogenic properties) or sleeps under the grey stone.
Such views are somewhat contradictory to his notion of the nature as the primary source of the myth.
Mythical semanthemes are not only based on nature, but also designate the more ancient, older level of the world-view.
Adamovičs states that various notions had evolved into something more than original, natural counterpart. God (the sky) and the Sun are primary examples. The greater their anthropomorphic features, the later the stage of mythological development.
Thus it also implies several world structures, from ‘less developed’ or ‘nature like’ to ‘more developed’
One of these, the Heavenly Yard and its inhabitants show elaborate social structure.
Another interesting concern in Adamovičs' mythical world order is Vāczeme (literary Germany), which has characteristics of the netherworld in several folk songs.
Pēteris Šmits notes that theorists leaning towards animism consider Vāczeme the land of the dead.
Šmits himslef explains these characteristics as a simple misunderstanding, because Germany is located to the west of Latvia (Šmits 1926,p.65).
Adamovičs touches the matter only briefly and states that to ancient Latvians meant an alien place, due to German culture being different from their own.
He however admits that many mythical elements in descriptions of Vāczeme require special attention, as "Vāczeme is not only a place of otherness, but also of wrong-way-roundness" (Adamovičs 1938,pp.20-21).
This also applies to the Opposite World, where Straubergs (1937, p.171) locates the ‘home of the Sun, Moon, God, and all higher powers and souls’ (Adamovičs 1938, p.19).
While Straubergs argues that the idea of God and God’s location in Heaven is new, Adamovičs states that both the Sun and God live in Heaven, and that: ‘… a special home of the gods and dead souls far away on the horizon is not the primary independent concept, but only a transitional combination’
Instead, Adamovičs proposes that the Sun, God, God’s sons and other deities spend their nights in the Great Heavenly Yard.
That is all he writes concerning the Heaven, the third level of the world.
Regarding the underworld Adamovičs analyses fairy tales describing various paths to the underworld (caves, wells, springs) and out of it (directly, across the sea, by flying) and their locations in this world and the far west, inhabitants of the underworld, and the quests of heroes.
A problem with Adamovičs world structure is that he does not consider where the souls of the dead go.
Other issues he discusses in the "Ancient Latvian World View" are also characteristic to the interwar period, interpeted according his own prefered views.

Haralds Biezais edit

Haralds Biezais (1909–1995) was theologian, priest, historian of religion and the most influential Latvian mythology researcher after WWII
He studied in Zurich and Strasbourg, and received theology doctorate from the University of Latvia.
While he was living in Latvia he was mostly interested in theology and pastoral practice.
In 1944 he emigrated to Sweden.
In Sweden he not only continued his clerical duties, but became an ssistant to the Chair of Systematic Theology at the University of Uppsala, while also studying philosophy and history.
First of his main works on Latvian mythology was his doctoral thesis Die Hauptgöttinnen der alten Letten (1955).
Other notable works include Die Gottesgestalt der lettischen Volksreligion (1961), Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten (1972) and Lichtgott der alten Letten (1976)
He also has authored numerous articles, entries in encyclopaedias and presentations at conferences.
In 1971 he became professor of religious history in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Åbo/Turku.
Just like previous research tradition he is interested in reconstructing genuinely Latvian tradition excluding all possible influences - an approach bordering on purism.
He mostly employs folk songs for the purpose, as folk songs are considered most Latvian.
All his main works are on Latvian pantheon, while his works are often referenced and presented as Baltic mythology e.g. his article (2010) on Baltic religion in the Encyclopaedia Britannica is mostly on Latvian mythology.
He was mainly intersted in how Latvian polytheism and its relation to concepts of kingship in Indo-European mythology, but lacked interest in lower mythological beings and chthonic deities - this is characteristic to foreign Latvians.
Biezais questioned many conclusions of interwar period researchers
He describes his own ideas about mythological space in the chapter World-View and Mythical World Outlook in Heavenly Gods’ Family of Ancient Latvians (1998 [1972], pp.136-188)
He also analysed particular motifs in detail in The Image of God in Latvian Folk Religion (2008 [1961], pp.81-87).
In World-View and Mythical World Outlook, Biezais says he wants to explore themes related to sun, not to describe entire ancient Latvian world view.
He does, however, provide rather comprehensive description of structure of the world.
He does not attempt to explain how mythological and natural phenomena are related.
Rather he focuses on social aspect of myths - reconstructing the heavenly family, and examining how it relates to peasant psychology.
His evaluation of the folklore sources is diffrent from that of interwar researchers like Adamovičs, Straubergs and Eduards Zicāns, as a result he mostly limits his research to folksongs.
Biezais is aware of Christian syncretism in folk songs.
Folk songs mostly were written down in the 19th century or later.
However Biezais is certain that Latvians still retained the notions of pagan religion.
Despite this he thinks Latvian fairy tales and the views included in them reflect European culture and Christian views.
Therefore he contests three level world structure promoted by Straubergs (1922) and Adamovičs (1938) as these researchers mostly used only fairy tales.
He proposes instead divison in world of the living and an invisible world of the dead, with similar enviroment.
He considers the world of the dead to be a virtual notion with no particular location (like far west) in mythical geography.
He does however conclude, just like Adamovičs, that the Heavenly Mountain represents the sky.
The sun travels across or around the mountain in a circular movement.
He thinks of variations in this movement as varying perception of authors of songs. This makes him first to consider the role of tradition-bearers in narratives.
Regarding the concept of the World Sea, he argues that notion of such sea encircling the Earth or there being a sea underground is never clearly expressed in folklore and should be ignored.
He also points out that, contrary to Adamovičs’ assumption that the sea is replaced by other water bodies in regions away from the sea, folk songs from eastern Latvia refer to the sunset at sea.
He disagrees with Straubergs (1937) too, and suggests that the sea is a metaphor for Heaven, which he speculates could be older notion than the Heavenly Mountain, though neither view is contradicts the other.
Other researchers have described the underworld using fairy tale material.
Biezais instead focuses on the Heaven and to the Heavenly Yard.
The hosts of this realm are the Sun and God.
The Heavenly Yard has also been described by Adamovičs.
Biezais work differs with more cautions approach in reconstruction of the Heavenly Yard from separate semanthemes scattered across the body of folklore material.
The buildings of God’s household are located around the centre of the yard.
There are three springs
The yard is surrounded by forests of oak, lime, pine, birch and spruce.
Silk meadows and golden mountains, gardens, rivers, springs and the sea are also found in Latvian heaven.
He does, though, admit that there is no direct evidence about God's house or the Heavenly Yard in folk songs.
This idea is deduced from the descriptions of actions of God, his sons and other inhabitants of the realm, and also from particular semanthemes like "God's front door".
His final conclusion is that "due to poor sources, only the fact that God also has his house in Heaven must be accepted".
However he is particularly attracted theme Heavenly Bathhouse supposedly located in the Heavenly yard.
The bath is related to gold, silver and diamonds, materials commonly mentioned in relation with celestial mythical things.
However, at least in sources Biezais uses, it is never mentioned in connection with God
Instead this theme features sons of God and daughters of the Sun, and sometimes also the Moon and other celestial deities.
Analysing this semantheme, Biezais reaches several conclusions that are relevant to his own agenda.
First of all bathhouse theme supports his idea of reality being directly related to mythological concepts as in the Latvian peasant's household it was used for birthing and various rituals, and is also the dwelling place of several lower mythological beings.
This also implies a shift in religious studies from texts to contexts. As Biezais writes: "In a broader interconnection, this uncommon feature of Latvian mythology supports the direction of research that demands that religious studies pay more attention to the ecological facet".
The Heavenly Bath-house seems to be unique to Latvian mythology.
This shows the interrelation of comparative studies with research of national folklore
It also shows usefulness of studying as such unique would be left unnoticed, when researching older or broader levels of mythology like Baltic or Indo-European mythology.
Since he mainly analyses folk songs he excludes several structures from his model

Janīna Kursīte edit

Janīna Kursīte is a modern day Latvian scientist, who could be considered most influental modern folkorist
Some of her accomplishments - member of Saeima, dean of the former Faculty of Philology of the University of Latvia, vice-rector of the Academy of Culture (1995–1997), and full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences since 1997
She studied at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Tartu in begining of 1970s
She continued her career at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art in Riga, acquiring a Phd in philology in 1982 and a habilitated doctor's degree in philology in 1993.
Her work includes publications, fieldwork and she also teaches at University of Latvia, course topics ranging from Baltic mythology and Latvian folklore to the poetics of poetry and the national identity.
She briefly describes Latvian mythological space in the book The Mythical in Folklore, Literature, Art (1999)
However she gives little references to folklore material or previous research on the topic.
Her concept of mythical space is characterized by distinction of sacral space and chaos.
It also includes binary oposition, mostly between the middle and the side
This is ilustrated by examples of various spatial semanthemes
Many of these examples are reduced to prototypical situations in the initiation or creation of the world.
Despite the discussion in the early 1930s and the critique by Biezais (Adamovičs 1938; 1940c; Biezais et al. 1998) and with no reference to folklore or anything else Kursīte claims that mythological space is traditionally divided in either two or three parts, but as whole consists of nine separate parts.
There is no exact description of these parts, thus it probably is derived from the fact that number 9 is significant in Latvian folklore and often mentioned together with spatial signifiers e.g. nine lakes, nine seas, nine doors, nine leaves of a (world) tree etc.
This division is also supported by comparison to Scandinavian and Hindu myths.
Kursīte considers the "other world" to be opposite to "this world"
The "other world" is located in Heaven, under the Earth, or in mythical places on Earth, such as Vāczeme or the far west.
She thus considers all variations as equally valid
She focuses on the many ways to the other world.
The ways include various plants growing up to Heaven, caves and holes leading to the underworld, going across the water, and even getting lost in real world environment.
Most of these are mentioned only in fairy tales.
She only briefly discusses Vāczeme, which she identifies as the land of dead souls. It is in the way of sun and described as "zone of numbness", but is in other ways similar to this world.
She describes opposition of the middle and the sides, emphasizing their connection to ritual practices - the symbolic re-creation of the world, or sacrifice to chthonic deities.
The middle is an ambivalent place, according to different folklore materials - it can be both the safest and the most dangerous place in the mythical space.
Kursīte connects the middle and the sides to rites of passage.
The status of places shifts, but they are always in opposition - if sides are safe, middle is dangerous and vice versa.
She also notes that south is usualy considered slightly better than the north.
She also has concept of sacred "mini-spaces", where rituals take place, like holy springs, hills etc.
She dedicates another chapter of her book to Daugava.
Using division in sacred and profane worlds, she identifies the river and water in general, as well as trees, grooves, stones and caves as ancient sacred objects
Thus the actual Daugava is present in both worlds, rather than being projection as Adamovičs suggested.
She describes it as "the main mythical river" of Latvia.
She also mentions that the Sun Tree grows in the Daugava, however does not relate it to movement of the sun in the sky.
Rather she emphesizes the river being division between the order and chaos, this and other world, safe and dangerous, familiar and alien, and also humans and deities.
The realm of the dead is located in a copper garden across the Daugava.
Kursīte mentions that initiation rites were performed at the side of a river.
Also as body of water Daugava is were life emerges, but also the path for souls to realm of the dead.
Rather than trying to reconstruct mythical space as whole, she interprets different spatial semanthemes within a framework of binary oppositions.
In her view sacrality is an agency of meaning and folklore is narrative of cosmogonic myths, and the rites of passage are the most important part of the life.
This approach is very flexible, gives endless possibilities to accommodate variations in folklore, even contradictions can coexist
Kursīte offers an omnipresent harmony of microcosm and macrocosm, represented in multiple mythical situations.
Her theory on the mnemonic function of folklore genres allows the use of broader range of material than ever before.
She states that it is characteristic of Latvian folklore for an object not to be described by various genres.
Fairy tales and legends compliment and expand on notions detailed, for example, in folk songs.
Presumably ancient people who transfered information orally, thus saved space in their memory.
What is preserved in the rhyming language of folk songs cannot be duplicated in the plain language of fairy tales and legends.
For a long time, research into Latvian mythical views has been based mainly on folk songs, ignoring fairy tales, legends, charms, beliefs and other genres.
Structural analysis and an interest in proto-myths is characteristic to scholars of the Moscow-Tartu School of Semiotics. Kursīte also cites work of Vladimir Toporov and Eleazer Meletinskii as her inspiration.
However the way she interprets folklore material leaves out question of the historicity of mythology creating a reconstruction of a somewhat virtual, timeless world-view.

Conclusion edit

The reconstructions of Latvian mythological space have taken different forms, despite presumably being based on same materials
Adamovičs reconstructed a mythical map of the world
Biezais describes mythical space indirectly, as far as it is related to celestial deities
Kursīte, using notion of sacrality, connected mythical spaces with real landscapes.
However all three include same basic notions - divison of world in three parts, the Heavenly Mountain, the World Sea, the movemont of the Sun and passages to other worlds.
Interpretations and locations of these phenomena vary, thus also their inclusion (or exclusion) in the Latvian mythological space.
Mythological time is touched upon only in passing - as an anomaly of underworld(Adamovičs 1938) or as eternally repeated time of the creation ritual related to mythical domains of the world.(Kursīte 1999)
Mythological research itself is historicaly determined, but has not been developing in linear fashion.
The reconstructions of mythological space depend on viewpoints of researchers.
Adamovičs' reconstruction was limeted by his idea of mythology evolving directly from natural phenomena.
Kursīte connected the same semanthemes to rites of passage and cosmogonic proto-myth, which gives her more freedom of interpretation.
Regarding the World Tree, World Sea and three levels of the world Adamovičs used comperative approach, Biezais had reserved attitude towards one of these notions, while Kursīte accepted them unconditionally.
Probably most influential in the reconstruction of mythological space are each researchers theories about folklore genres.
Biezais bases his model exclusively on folk songs
Kursīte assumes that each genre refered to different aspects of myth and examines them all.
However she does not verify material with historical reports and does not separate different periods of the development of Latvian mythology and the corresponding world-view.
It cannot really be proved how each researchers situation of life influenced their views, but it is still essential to consider their background when trying to understand their views.
Such factors as quest for national uniqueness in mythological themes or a discussion (or lack thereof) of previous research, the depiction of the all-embracing harmony of the micro- and macro-cosmos or interest in celestial deities, even if they cannot be explained by time, place and environment in which they are published, still are important and should not be ignored.

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Editor Notes edit

^ This has been added to the "Historical Sources" section of Latvian mythology.

[1] This has been added to the "Historical Sources" section of Latvian mythology.

[nb 1]