Personalities and theories: Preference for particular

Preference for particular folklore genres

Summarising this overview of the interwar period: across the key scholars in mythology related fields and different disciplines, the main factor determining particular conclusions on the subject matter appears to be preference for one or other folklore genre as a primary source from which to reconstruct Latvian mythology. Two main groups of folklore materials in this context are folk poetry and narrative folklore, mainly consisting of folktales. The bibliography of this period shows only one study dedicated to narrative folklore, that is, fairytales; at the same time several titles indicate an interest in mythological motifs in folk poetry. However, the majority of texts have generic titles that indicate no preferences for this or another genre, therefore a closer look must be taken. Švābe was the only one who, referring to Wundt⁹¹, declared that narrating and lyric poetry is of the same age, and that of all forms of expressive poetry not the epic, but rather the legend and the folktale are the primeval modes of narrative (Švābe 1923). If, according to this idea, folktales could serve well for research into Latvian mythology, the question of their national origin is more problematic – are folktales truly local or just transmitted and translated from neighbouring people. Švābe prefers the former option, stating that that the motifs are similar, but plots could be specific to any nation, thus legitimising the use of narrative folklore in the reconstruction of local belief systems.

Otherwise, Švābes contribution to the discussion on folklore genres was original by proposing the splitting of form-defined larger categories into more specific sub-categories defined by origin and transmission: according to gender, social class, profession, etc. (Švābe 1923: 103), which also highlight the importance of individual tradition bearers (Vilks 1944).

The contrary hypothesis of international transmission and adaptation was supported by Šmits. Already in 1908 he had warned potential readers that “we must be especially aware to seek and find the production of our ancestors from ancient pagan times in any folktale” (Šmits 1908, cf. Švābe 1923: 96). Although Šmits agreed that stylistic elements and local realities accompany international motifs (Šmits 1912, cf. Švābe 1923: 98), according to him, national mythology cannot be found there. First, because Latvian folktales originated more recently than folksongs (Šmits 1925–1937) and are thus more likely to reflect historical rather than pre-historical reality. Comparative mythology also serves to prove this statement because only a few genuine mythological beings are present in

91 References to Wundt, made by Švābe and Adamovičs, might suggest a tendency towards the holistic model in national scholarship: Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie extended Grimm-style linguistics, already inclined towards solving questions of culture and identity, into the realm of national characterology (Leerssen 2006: 210). Although none of these authors had written a work of the same scope as Wundt’s, claims of strong links between language, people, myths, traditions might be backgrounded against respective texts on Latvian mythology.

folktales. Although Šmits mentioned the hypothesis of Latvian folktales as a common Indo-European heritage, his conclusion on this subject matter is quite sceptical. It seems that few words are preserved from the ancient proto-language and so the continuity of more complex, larger phenomena should be doubted. The multitude of similarities between Latvian and Estonian folktales, which both represent very different language groups, for Šmits supported the hypothesis of horizontal (synchronic) rather that vertical dissemination of this genre. At the end of the day, he discussed the origins of folktales and concluded with the thesis that they are a kind of corrupted historical account with multiple similarities to dreams. Although familiar with Freud’s work, Šmits did not continue this parallel of dreams, folktales and myths. In his Latvian mythology the most important sources of reconstruction are chronicles and other historical documents that are verified by means of comparison with other Indo-European mythologies and against the background of folklore. Dominating among folklore materials are folksongs, second place is occupied by beliefs and customs, sometimes charms are mentioned, and only then follow a few references to folktales. Mythological space or world order is mentioned just implicitly here. In Šmits’ works it is derived from the functions of gods:

heavenly gods live in heaven, those who are related to the dead live under the ground, those who are praised in woods live in the woods, and so forth.

Regarding preferences for folklore materials, almost all Latvian scholars agree with Šmits, although not explicitly repeating his arguments. The most common is the argument about form and content; for example, Straubergs wrote, “Ancient Latvian thoughts about the world one must search for in folksongs, where they are preserved not due to their picturesque nature but because folk poetry, contained by rhythm, passes more easily from generation to generation in unchanged form” (Straubergs 1937: 169). Nevertheless, in other texts Straubergs analysed Latvian mythology almost exclusively on the basis of historical sources (e.g. Straubergs 1934), with the exception of his first publication on mythological space (Straubergs 1922), where the research was overwhelmingly based on folktales; several folksongs and comparative materials from other mythologies served only to support this material. Here the choice of folktales allowed him to describe the journey of a mythical hero downwards to the underworld, returning horizontally over the sea, arriving in a different time. This space-time anomaly is a unique feature of fairytales, not present in any other folklore material. Straubergs’ more recent treatise of similar subject matter (Straubergs 1937) was based almost exclusively on folksongs; folktales were mentioned just as an additional source. The first part of his collection of Latvian charms, also containing a chapter on charms with mythological motifs, was published only in 1939. Here Straubergs claimed that charms are in any case not usable as primary sources for the research of mythological issues because they contain too much international material (Straubergs 1939: 383).

Both narrative and poetic folklore were analysed equally in the article on the Latvian god Pērkons by Eduards Zicāns (1935), but the study of eternity in Latvian folk belief (1940) by the same author was exclusively dedicated to analysis of folktales, moreover to one type of folktale. Zicāns explains the differences of space models in different folklore materials by historical developments: the local tripartite space is older and pagan, while the location of the other world far away is a result of Christian influence. A historian of religion, Adamovičs repeated the same hierarchy of sources from historical documents to folktales (Adamovičs 1940a) as Šmits almost twenty years after the publication of Šmits’ Latvian mythology. Here Adamovičs referred to Wundt, stating that mythological folktales are only childish transformations of higher myths (cf. Adamovičs 1940b: 439); perhaps because of the Wundt’s influence he still used quite a lot of narrative folklore materials in his research into particular issues like the ancient world order and the dragon in Latvian mythology (Adamovičs 1940c). In his study of ancient Latvian cosmology (Adamovičs 1938), he merged folksong and folktale materials cross-referring from one to another. At the same time he also wrote about the incomplete space model as belonging to a historical transitional period in which the other world is located just beyond the horizon. Unlike Zicāns, Adamovičs stated that the tripartite model was already present before the Christian conquests. Mārtiņš Bruņenieks, in his turn, was rather reserved towards the folksongs and used customs and beliefs to prove the theory of animism (e.g. Bruņenieks 1930, 1926, 1938).

Theories of folklore genres, their ages, historical dynamics, and origins are also related to the problem of the historical location of Latvian mythology:

scholars have discussed it as the Bronze or Iron Age, have related it to arrival of the Germans, postponed it to thirteenth to sixteenth century, or to this and later periods together, sometimes just avoiding this issue by talking about generic, national mythology. No substantial historical record reaches before the thirteenth century; therefore, any ‘earlier mythology’ relies on evaluations of the age of sources that were often carried out on the basis of intuition (cf.

Biezais 2006). Presumably, the preference of poetic over narrative folklore in reconstructions of mythology had its roots in the formation of the discourse in the times of Herder. As Regina Bendix suggests, “The focus on the poetic and its authenticated locus in folksong contributed to the privileged position that such song took among the genres of expressive culture which would eventually shape the canon of folklore studies” (Bendix 1997: 44).

Concluding, narrative folklore in this period got less attention than folksong for several reasons. One could be the general intellectual background, which manifested concerns about national authenticity and originality. Another is the availability of sources: unlike materials relating to other genres, there were already enough systematically published folksongs in the early 1920s to verify almost any hypothesis. The most interesting is the fact that the situation surrounding descriptions of mythological space was slightly different. Here

fairytales seem almost to dominate, perhaps due to clearly defined borders and meanings of different parts of the world and their structural relations.