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Name days (also known as feast days) are celebrated in several European countries, but nowhere else has it acquired such a wide recognition as in Latvia. The origin of the feast goes back to the eighteenth century after the first Catholic Calendars were published in Latvia, nevertheless, nowadays there is no longer explicit connection to Christianity. Although in the Church (Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox) calendars, the name days are arranged on the basis of the saints’ heavenly birthday or the date of death, it is...

Nowadays the debate on national character has become one of the central issues in the context of ever-growing globalization tendencies and the most recent expressions of nationalism. Contrary to the big nations that most often take for granted who they are, the Latvians have always dwelled upon the aspects of their identity and a range of issues associated with it. Being the “culture of a closed type”, i.e. an issue of an individual choice, Latvianness acquires also the features of the “culture of the open type” b...