Saule, Pērkons, Daugava
Saule, Pērkons, Daugava ( Latvian , German: Sonne, Donner, Düna ) is a Latvian patriotic song for mixed choir with accompaniment.
text
The eight-verse text is a section from the dramatic ballad Daugava by the Latvian poet Rainis (1865–1929) from 1916. It contained the express demand for Latvian sovereignty . After the defeat of the German-Russian Bermondt Army in November 1919, this ballad was performed in the National Theater to honor the first anniversary of the Latvian declaration of independence .
In the highly symbolic text come Saule (the Sun), Pērkons (thunder), Daugava (the Western Dvina ), Dievs (God), velns (devil) and Latve (the Latvian nation) before. Sun and thunder are also Baltic gods of nature . It's about the desirability of the country for foreign powers between the white sea ( Baltic Sea ) and green earth. The river of fate in Latvia, the Daugava, is the place where the water of life and the water of death mix, as well as in the soul of those who sing. He combines the situation of the country struggling for independence between rival great powers with archaic myths: the fight between thunder and the devil, the legend of the origin of the Daugava and the legend of the living and dead water.
It ends with the stanza:
“Saule mūsu māte -
Daugav - sāpju aukle.
Pērkons velna spērējs
Tas mūsu tēvs. "
"Sun, our mother
- Daugavpils - wet nurse
Donner, the devil-killer
That is our father."
music
The poem was not very popular until 1988, when the composer Mārtiņš Brauns set the text to music for a performance in the Valmiera Theater, directed by Valentin Maculēvičs. The background to this is that it was the protests by nature conservationists against a Soviet dam planned in the 1980s in the Daugava near Daugavpils that set the national movement in motion in the second half of the 1980s.
The song quickly became very popular during the Singing Revolution and the regaining of Latvia's national independence and has since become a regular part of the Latvian song and dance festivals . As a “highly poetic version of the Latvian national myth”, it has now acquired the character of an unofficial national anthem .
Wall painting
Since 2014, 800 m adorns two large street art - mural entitled Saule, Pērkons, Daugava a wall at the house Talliner Str (Tallinas iela) 46 in. Riga . She connects the characters of the song with motifs from Lielvārdes josta .
Catalan version
In 2014, with Braun's permission, his music was adopted for the Catalan song Ara és l'hora ( Now is the time ), which was widely spread by the Catalan independence movement . The text of this version is not a translation of the Latvian text, but is based on the poem Meditació última by Miquel Martí i Pol (1929–2003).
literature
- Agita Misane, Aija Priedite: National Mythology in the History of Ideas in Latvia: A View from Religious Studies. In: George Schöpflin, Geoffrey Hosking: Myths and Nationhood. Routledge, New York 1997, ISBN 1-136-67724-0 , pp. 158-169.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Misane, Priedite (lit.), p. 165
- ↑ www.dziesmas.lv
- ↑ Misane, Priedite (lit.), p. 164
- ↑ an intensely poetic version of the Latvian national myth , Misane, Priedite (Lit.), p. 164
- ↑ Street Art in Riga , accessed July 12, 2018
- ↑ Latvian song finds new life in Catalonia , lsm.lv September 9, 2014, accessed July 12, 2018