January 11

UL Livonian institute senior researcher Renāte Blumberga visited the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary in Rīga on the invitation of Ferenc Bányai, Hungarian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Latvia. The subject of this meeting was the Livonian Community House in Irē (Mazirbe) and the contribution of the Hungarian government to its construction. The ambassador and the Hungarian cultural attaché Annamária Bányai-Balázs wished to acquaint Renāte Blumberga – author of the book “Lībiešu tautas nama vēsture” (The History of the Livonian Community House) – with document copies from the National Archives of Hungary, describing the support given by Hungary to Livonian culture in the 1920s and 1930s. These documents were found by Cultural Attaché Annamária Bányai-Balázs in the archives last summer. As these documents were not available to the author while she was writing her book, she plans to write an article in the future based on them describing the history of Hungary’s support for the Livonians. Renāte Blumberga expressed her gratitude for the documents and the invitation to visit the embassy by giving the embassy a copy of her 2021 monograph on the Livonian Community House.

January 4

In the broadcast “Kultūras Rondo” of LR1 the Head of the Livonian Institute of the University of Latvia talks about the intention to create a multifunctional Livonian language dictionary

Valts Ernštreits, Head of the University of Latvia Livonian Institute talks about the intention to create a multifunctional Livonian language dictionary on the Latvijas Radio1 programme “Kultūras Rondo”. The dictionary will be supplemented with an audio pronunciation, English equivalents terms as a part of the State Research Programme “Letonica for the development of Latvian and European Society”. The data generated by this dictionary will also be used to create automated spelling tools, automatic translation and voice synthesis tools for the Livonian language. Also a post on the UL Livonian Institute Facebook page.

January 1

University of Latvia Livonian Institute a truly joyful New Year!