In media: LAND project researchers on Latvian Radio 1 “Zināmais nezināmajā”
On 1 October, researchers from the project “Environmental History of Post-war Latvia: Landscapes, Power and Society” — Ieva Garda-Rozenberga, Ilze Boldāne-Zeļenka, and Valdis Kuzmins — appeared on Latvian Radio 1’s programme Zināmais nezināmajā (“The Known in the Unknown”).
The discussion focused in particular on the project’s research aims and methodological approach. Landscape change is examined not merely in terms of the physical transformation of the environment or as an inventory of environmental damage. Instead, the researchers analyse the interplay between power, society, and the environment: how political and economic decisions reshaped land use, settlement patterns, and access to territories, as well as how people experienced, interpreted, remembered, adapted to, or contested these changes. The study also explores place identity, environmental awareness, eco-social agency, and the links between environmental activism, the Latvian National Awakening, and the restoration of Latvia’s independence.
During the programme, the researchers also presented the case of Skrunda. The area has undergone several successive and overlapping phases of landscape transformation — from the pre-war rural landscape through collectivisation and land drainage to the military and post-military landscapes, followed by present-day plans for wind and solar energy development. The study therefore approaches Skrunda not simply as the former “radar town”, but as a multilayered landscape in which decisions from different historical periods, material traces, and diverse memories have accumulated over time.