Latvian President Awarded Prize Winners in Riga
On 23 of May 2015 the President of Latvia, Andris Bērziņš, awarded the winners and their tutors of the Latvian History Competition “History around us” in the grand House of the Riga Latvian Society. More than 200 pupils as well as their relatives and teachers from all over Latvia came to Riga to take part in this magnificent event. The topic of this year’s competition round was “Artifacts as a Source of History”.
Despite his tight time schedule and just one day after the fourth Eastern Partnership summit that took place in Riga, the Latvian President spent some hours at the ceremony and showed a lot of interest in the competition and the participants’ works. In his speech he honoured the thoughtful works and reasonable conclusions of the pupils and exhorted them not to lose their clarity of thought nor their critical approach.
Remarkable for the last Latvian competition rounds is that almost half of the participants are pupils from lower secondary schools, aged 12 to 13 years only, and a significant number of them originates from remote places such as Latgale or Selija. One of the competition organisers stated: “These facts let us hope that the competition helps to grow and educate a new generation of citizens and historians. When we start to interact with younger students we can watch them throughout the years. We can see how they develop their skills and become more precise in their observations and analysis each year.”
The Latvian History Competition started in 2001. Many people and institutions have been involved in it in the past fourteen years. Danute Dūra, one of the competition organisers and a member of the EUSTORY Steering Committee explained the importance of the competition in her address: “This competition teaches the new generation to be free. That means to think as a free person, to ask questions, to find their own answers and to dare discuss them. It is about being yourself and developing your independence. And that is crucial for teenagers, for their self-esteem and formation of their personality. The participants present their artifacts as well as their view on history and their values. And, most important, this competition is about personal responsibility, which is related to the idea of not being too much engaged in the sphere of political judgment, but instead developing your own research and dealing with the outcome of it, while staying away from your topic as distant as you can. The participants learn to understand how their work influences their lives, what they are able to do further and in which way they can continue their investigations.”
Additional speeches were held by Valdis Klišāns, Chairman of the Board of History Teachers’ Association of Latvia, and Mirdza Stirna, Chairman of the Support Fund of the Riga Latvian Society. The Riga Latvian Society is the oldest officially founded Latvian organisation. It played an important role in the formation of the Latvian nation and its way to independence, and it founded several notable Latvian educational, cultural and scientific institutions. It also supports the Latvian history competition each year with a substantial sum. Representatives from the Latvian National Archives, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia as well as the local newspaper “Latvijas Azvīze" attended the ceremony as well.