The restoration of independence in the Baltic States created new opportunities and challenges. For Latvians living outside Latvia, it marked a transition from exile to what can be described as a post-exilic condition. This concept denotes not only a chronological phase following the period of exile, but also an existential condition in which experiences of displacement, belonging, and rupture continue to shape individual and collective identities, regardless of whether a person physically returns to the homeland. Even under these new circumstances, stories and experiences of exile continue to play an important role in people’s lives and their understanding of belonging.
The conference will be opened by Maija Krūmiņa, head of the project “Navigating Post-Exile: Transformations and Transitions in the Latvian Exile Community after 1991”, and Toms Ķencis, Vice-Dean for Research at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia.
The conference keynote speaker is Katja Sarkowsky, Professor at the University of Augsburg and one of the editors of Nachexil / Post-Exile (De Gruyter, 2020). In her keynote lecture, she will address whether exile ends when political circumstances change and return to the homeland becomes possible, as well as how a sense of belonging is renegotiated and reconfigured after exile.
Researchers from France, Estonia, and Latvia will present studies on experiences of exile and post-exile in a range of historical and contemporary contexts. The presentations will explore questions of belonging and return to Latvia; the relationships between different generations of exiles and the homeland; the involvement of members of the exile community in Latvia’s social and political processes following the restoration of independence; and representations of exile and post-exile in literature and culture. Attention will also be paid to contemporary experiences of forced migration, including the educational choices and integration of young Ukrainian refugees, prospects for return, and the ways in which a sense of belonging to more than one place can develop simultaneously.
Conference language: English.
As part of the conference, on 28 August at 15:00, we also invite you to the discussion “Whose Memory Is It? Exile Archives and Collective History”, which will focus on questions of belonging and memory: has the experience of exile today become part of our shared history of Latvia, or does it remain a distinct collective memory of the former exile community?
The discussion will address the private archive of Austris Grasis at Ozolmuiža Palace, the archive held at “Straumēni”, a Latvian property in the United Kingdom, as well as Latvian exile archives in Australia and New Zealand. Participants will discuss the materials held in these archives, their accessibility to researchers, and the future of these collections. The discussion will feature folklore researcher Ilga Vālodze Ābelkina, literary scholar Inguna Daukste-Silasproģe, and Valda Liepiņa, Chair of the Board of the Occupation Museum Association of Latvia.
The discussion will be held in Latvian.
The conference is organised within the framework of the project “Navigating Post-Exile: Transformations and Transitions in the Latvian Exile Community after 1991” (No. lzp-2024/1-0114).
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