Inguna Daukste-Silasproģe

Latvian Literature Outside Latvia

Creative Individuals and Texts in the Context of Historical Events – From Exile to Post-Exile: From the Collective to the Individual Narrative.

My research interests lie at the intersection of historical shifts in Latvian history and literary texts. In approaching and seeking to understand a specific creative personality, I consider the broader historical context, the era in which the individual lived, and the events that shaped or influenced their development. My research focuses on Latvian literary life and the fates of creative individuals shaped by exile—beginning with the experience of refugee camps in post–World War II Germany and the refugee period in Sweden, and continuing across the Latvian diaspora in exile (Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and beyond). This field encompasses a wide geographical scope and generational perspective.

The Third Awakening and the restoration of Latvian independence transformed the core of exile literature and the exile identity itself, bringing about rapid changes and giving rise to a new research concept—post-exile, which forms the second focal area of my academic work.

I am particularly drawn to stories, biographical references in literary texts, the geography of place, memory as a literary dimension, autobiographical perspectives, and ego-documents. Archival research allows me to move from collective memory to deeply individual experiences—creating context, evoking empathy, and animating times that have become part of the past. Through this approach, I explore how historical processes resonate within the lives of creative individuals.

I also engage in the field of digital humanities, including literary mapping, and aim to situate Latvian exile literature within a broader Baltic and European context. I am interested in how literatures of other nations contribute to and influence the Latvian cultural space. Since 2018, I have served as one of the editors of the literature portal www.literatura.lv.