International survey on birthday celebrations

Perhaps your attitude has changed? What do you really think about celebrating birthdays? Help cultural researchers understand the history of birthday celebrations by taking part in the online survey “Happy Birthday!”:
https://jauta.garamantas.lv/lv/survey/view?survey-id=1886664

Information on birthday customs is being collected simultaneously in Norway, Sweden, Latvia, and Finland. Four Baltic and Nordic tradition archives have joined forces to build this collection: the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo, the Institute for Language and Folklore in Gothenburg, the Latvian Folklore Archives at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, and the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki.

The international research team plans to conduct several thematic surveys, inviting the public to share information about how people celebrate different life-cycle events—from cradle to grave. Tradition archives already contain valuable older documents on baptisms, weddings, funerals, and more; however, customs change, and these changes tell us a great deal about how our culture and society develop.

Completing the survey will take approximately 20 minutes. Thank you for your responses—and happy birthday on your next one!

Photo: From the Žvarts family album. A home party in Cēsis on 12 January 1999—Dāvis Krastiņš together with Raimonds and Elvīra Žvarti, celebrating his fourth birthday.