Our
narrators do not give away their names. Separated almost by a century in time, each
of them drafts their story encompassing historical and political, as well as
national awakening. Personal philosophical musings and broodings form part of
their identity, and these reflections are the morals of the time they have
lived.
Our
first narrator along with other family members spends holidays in a country
house, which they have to tidy up during each visit. While getting rid of useless items
they happen upon a digital camera in their grandfather's coat. After they
return to the city they go through the memory card of the camera, only to find
out photographs of places taken at unusual angles with blurry humanoid figures
appearing, and also a video from which nothing particular could be deciphered.
But what is also mysterious is that grandfather couldn't have taken them. This
sets the novel into an enigma.
The
other part is the journal written between 1917-18 by a Latvian soldier. After
the German invasion of capital Riga the narrator soldier1 (unnamed)
and his friends are seemingly hopeless. The army has been called upon to
retreat. The soldier decides to desert his command. While the civilians,
Bolsheviks and the Latvian army are moving away from the capital he endeavors
to trace his own path and destiny. What follows is his adventurous journey on
foot to Valka. The soldier has closely observed and understood the power and
politics looming in the region, where the dream of being an independent state
has been hindered by Bolsheviks and German interests, falling prey to one after
another occupation. In his lengthy travel he encounters with Miss K, Soloist M2
and with other locals that incite varied self-contemplations. Hiding through
detours and forests from the revolutionary units, the soldier manages to reach
Kokkenhof but soon is captured by army horsemen, suspected of being a deserter
or a German spy. He's rescued by his friend Tidrikis.
1.
I
could be simply Someone or, even better, Something, for there were way too many
like me in these chaotic times and – I am sure of it – there will be in
generations to come.
2.
"I
am citizen of the world… I have no interest in politics. I have to sing where
they pay me. It doesn't matter whether it's the Russians or the Germans, for we
Latvians do not own anything, not even the ground on we presently stand. All we
can do is allow ourselves to be tossed about by others. Our history is not our
own, but dictated by others. What can we desire, what can we hope for?..."
His
next station (at Valmiere) is at his mother's aunt Madame B who is inclined to
spirituality and theosophy, and has esoteric, exotic and extravagant features. But
his relief for a shelter and food comes at a price—having to listen to her
theories on War and its outcome. When Madame B offers him a smoke he soon falls
to a trance. Following Madame B's letter his next visit is to a sanatorium
where he engages with Dr. Mezulis3 in a thoughtful conversation on free
will and freedom of trees and inanimate objects. After his stay and escape from
Valka in the backdrop of Bolsheviks taking reign over territory and official
positions determining fate of the Latvian sentiments and killing those not in
their favor undermining the surge for Latvian Independence, he flees to Dorpat
(Now known as Tartu, Estonia).
3. "Don't get me wrong… I have no
intention of denying the existence of free will. In my opinion, it has simply
been accorded too much significance – either by getting too attached to it or,
as it often happens, denying that it exists at all…"
After
meeting Alberts and other friends in Moscow, his moral is boosted, and hope for
Independence is kindled again. Taking advantage of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
together they are able to manoeuver the Latvian Riflemen loyal to Bolsheviks, channeling
them out of Latvia. But soon they are found out by Cheka, and thus go into
hiding to an estate of Prince G. This provides the soldier4 to
continue his philosophical inquiries with a likeminded friend Fyodor. And,
after he embarks on a secret mission to his roots again many clouds are lifted
before he witnesses a long awaited dream come true. Meanwhile his reflections
on hatred, death, dreams, memory, war and time5 fill the story with
novelty and greater latitude to understanding.
4.
…
I have always believed that our inner world, like the one surrounding us, is
full of things that are currently inexplicable and incomprehensible to the
human mind. And who knows – perhaps there really exists an all-embracing
element, soul or spirit, which man can, for the time being, sense as a barely
perceptible draft or glance.
5.
What
if time turned out to be not a linear segment or a vector but a vertical
pierced through space, which is stacked layer upon layer – like pancakes or
more precisely, rings of an onion or a tree?
Something
as a footnote put in-between the journal leaps and glides through time and memorizes
things of contrasting outcome—often death and destruction of those whom and
what the soldier knows. Several references are made to the connection between trees,
existence and inheritance in the further adventures, encounters and escape of
the soldier, and the search of another narrator wanting to solve the mystery of
the photographs. This makes us understand the need for change, that beliefs are
prone to change all forming the background in the creation of an Independent
Nation, what it means to have a state & sovereignty and reflections on
people and characters of a nation on the cusp of change—there is no question
one cannot raise, no answers one cannot question.
The
Story embodied with political consciousness and national history depicts what
it takes to form a state, forces required to hold people together, nostalgia of
places that form memories, rediscovered truths and revisited hope, pathos
emanating from war and exile, strange feeling of having one's own nation, excitement
or even embarrassment in seeing the impossible happen and renewed concept of
identity6 today.
6. The ethnic identity and a sense of
belonging to a state, which in our case seems to simultaneously be and not
be at the basis of our national identity,
I have always considered similarly unavoidable. You are like a tree. Wherever
you are planted or wherever you ended up as a seed, you have to grow.
The
Journal captures the traces of occupied Latvia. Hopelessness and nationalist
feeling for independence waning and growing throughout the period, some favored
Bolsheviks in their resistance against German forces, while wanting to get rid
of both. We sense the tragedy of having to fall victim to outsider's dominance
and ensuing cultural and moral dissolution during the war. The novel is full of
ideas meandering philosophical scope. History as well as personal gushes
shaping an identity; War entering a slit of common experience producing fringes
of crisis; Man bereft of identity, unable to hold onto a peaceful way of
believing people and nationhood; Feeling that we're losing depths and meaning
to existence as a whole; Human progress with sufficient questionable answers—these
are some of the ideas we come across.
Written
as a part of the historical novel series We. Latvia. The 20th Century, 18
explores the theme of war, independence and experiment with ideas. The
afterword by the author provides rich significance to the story and the form,
on how we see the contemporary world built on so many crisis and resistance.
Author: Pauls
Bankovskis
Translator: Ieva Lešinska
Publisher: Vagabond Voices
Page Count: 179
Price: $ 22.28
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