Scholarly record

REPRESENTATION OF REGIONAL WRITERS IN NATIONAL LITERATURE CANON: LATVIA(N) CASE

M. Burima, I.Kupsane, V. Lukasevics, S. Meskova, R. Rinkevica

Abstract

The issue of relations among national and regional literatures is closely bound with the concept of national literary canon. National literary canon is a system for studying and segmenting authors who belong to a national literature. National literary canon is formed by writers and their literary works. A canon has a marked nucleus. In Latvia “Latvian Cultural Canon” was compiled in 2007 as a treasure trove that contains the most important cultural achievements of all times including also the branch of literature. The nucleus of Latvian literary canon entails writers and texts considered as the most significant ones in all history of Latvian literature. There are a number of principles according to which literary works are classified; however, literary canon sets as the criterion of selection the criterion of the worth and recognisability of a text. The idea of literary canon indirectly points to the official status of a text and its author. Changes of canon are subjected to cultural and political changes in the nation. When a literary work is included in the canon, it assumes special status or privilege – it is widely investigated and respected. The present study addresses factors that influence the inclusion/non-inclusion of the so-called regional writers and their texts in the literary canon. The object of research is authors from the region of Latgale. Latgale is one of the four geo-territorial and cultural regions of Latvia that lies on the eastern border of the European Union, is marked by multinational population who are speakers of a strongly distinct dialect or literary language. The paper regards twentieth and twenty-first century writers who are of Latgalian origin or live in Latgale. The aim of the present study is to make out why some writers are granted a status of a canonized author being inscribed in national literary canon, whereas others are labelled as writers of regional significance, even if their works proclaim contemporary ideas and vision of topical social transformations in aesthetically high quality and programmatic way.

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