Latvia Quotes

“Latvija ir kā šampanieša pudele, kura ilgi – ko domājat? – septiņi simti gadu – gulējusi tumšā pagrabā un kuru piepeši attaisījis neuzmanīgais Laiks. Daudz ir izgājis griestos un daudz uz grīdas, bet traukā vēl pietiek, lai mēs noreibtu, jo vīns ir vecs un labs.Kārlis Skalbe”
― Kārlis Skalbe

“When you’re talking about the culture, maybe there is something that just permeates sort of thing, you know you pass it on or take it in, without ever being aware of it. - Ivan Pavelić, Croatia”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“They worked hard all their lives, what they basically did was, they built a little Ukraine, a little society for themselves here in Brisbane. They did this in all the cities … not a ghetto, it wasn’t inward looking to that extent, but it was inward looking in the sense that it was a place to go—somewhere where you could identify; where you could be understood; go about remembering and preserving your roots. - Walter Sucharsky, 2nd Generation Australian”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“Political calculation and local suffering do not entirely explain the participation in these pogroms. Violence against Jews served to bring the Germans and elements of the local non-Jewish populations closer together. Anger was directed, as the Germans wished, toward the Jews, rather than against collaborators with the Soviet regime as such. People who reacted to the Germans' urging knew that they were pleasing their new masters, whether or not they believed that the Jews were responsible for their own woes. By their actions they were confirming the Nazi worldview. The act of killing Jews as revenge for NKVD executions confirmed the Nazi understanding of the Soviet Union as a Jewish state. Violence against Jews also allowed local Estonians, Latvian, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles who had themselves cooperated with the Soviet regime to escape any such taint. The idea that only Jews served communists was convenient not just for the occupiers but for some of the occupied as well.
Yet this psychic nazification would have been much more difficult without the palpable evidence of Soviet atrocities. The pogroms took place where the Soviets had recently arrived and where Soviet power was recently installed, where for the previous months Soviet organs of coercion had organized arrests, executions, and deportations. They were a joint production, a Nazi edition of a Soviet text.

P. 196”
― Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

“Trīs māsas: Igaunija, Latvija un Lietuva ir darinājušas katra par sevi savas kultūras gredzenu. Ikkatrs no tiem laistās savā īpatā daiļumā.
Kārlis Skalbe”
― Kārlis Skalbe

“Okupācija ir nenormāla situācija. Tās sekas vēl gadu desmitiem plosa atbrīvotās valsts cilvēkus, un "pareizie" vaino "nepareizos" piedzīvotajās nelaimēs un pastrādātajos noziegumos. [...] Latvija vienu pec otras pārdzīvoja trīs okupācijas, kuru kopējais ilgums - piecdesmit gadi - pārsniedz jebko, kas Eiropā 20. gadsimtā ir pieredzēts, tāpēc jautājums par katra individuālo atbildību un sadarbību ar dažādajiem okupācijas režīmiem ir īpaši sāpīgs. Tikai pēc neatkarības atjaunošanas mēs pilnībā esam ieguvuši brīvību spriest par savu vēsturi un to attīrīt no svešu režīmu iestrādātajiem meliem un propagandas. Noziegumus Latvijā pastrādāja abi režīmi, un vainīgajiem, neatkarīgi no tā, vai viņi darbojās nacistu vai komunistu doktrīnas vārdā, tāpat kā viņu kolaborantiem, kas ir noziegušies pret civiliedzīvotājiem, par savu rīcību ir jāatbild. Noziegumiem pret cilvēci nav noilguma.”
― Sandra Kalniete, With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows

“Although populated, cultivated, ruined and transformed, the basic scenery of Latvia is considerably more ancient than we are, whichever generation we belong to, and in all likelihood, it must have influenced us much more deeply than the other way round. In a sense, our landscape is akin to our language, for we were not the ones who created it, whatever assumptions we may have. Nor is it our possession. Resulting from chains of random coincidence, it has been allotted for our use for a brief stretch of time. And the only thing we can do and should do is to try not to mess it up too badly or lose it altogether.”
― Pauls Bankovskis, 18

“The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.”
― James E.B. Breslin, Mark Rothko: A Biography

“The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.”
― E.B. Breslin