Latvia

“Hopefully I’m speaking here in front of many future history teachers,” Latvian President Andris Bērziņš concluded his speech during the award ceremony of the Latvian EUSTORY Competition in Riga on May, 24th. It was the second opportunity that President Bērziņš used to underline the importance of history and a European perspective on the past for his home country after his speech in connection with the reception for the EUSTORY Network during the Annual Network Meeting in Riga in 2013.

25 years after Latvia and the other countries of the Eastern Bloc re-gained independence, 10 years after the Eastern Enlargement of the EU and only a couple of months after the crisis in Ukraine emerged, history, historical legacies and identity (again) play an important role in Latvia and the other former communist countries of Europe. The reflections of President Bērziņš connected well to this year’s topic of the Latvian EUSTORY Competition: "Man and War. Changes in lives of Latvian people caused by wars". During the ceremony which took place at the White Hall of the Riga Latvian Society the first three prizes were given by the president himself. Three works were awarded the first prize, one from primary, one from grammar and one from secondary school, all of them researching family history during both World Wars of the 20th century.

During the reception following the ceremony President Bērziņš underlined the importance of knowing and discussing about history and stressed the impact of the international EUSTORY History Camps that bring together prize winners from all EUSTORY Competitions to explore history and understand the present. In particular the First Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue, a joint initiative of the Council of the Baltic Sea States and EUSTORY, taking place in September 2014 in Estonia, caught the attention of the President. A dialogue among young Europeans from the Baltic Sea region taking place in the twin cities of Narva (Estonia) and Ivangorod (Russia) is of special importance due to the challenging current situation in the region. Concerning the EUSTORY History Camp in Norway in late August that deals with democratic values and the relations between citizens and state, he said: “Exchanging about different democratic systems and civil society is important to understand what is happening in Europe nowadays.”

This year, 123 pupils handed in their works to the EUSTORY Competition in Latvia, among them some with a clear creative approach to the topic. Many prizes were awarded by donors, among them the Riga Latvian Society, the Foundation of Latvian Education, the newspaper ”Latvijas avīze”, the Latvian National History Museum, the Museum of Occupation, the Latvian Popular Front Museum and the publishing house ”Madris’’.

The Latvian History Teachers Association also used the opportunity to announce the topic of the next competition round 2014/2015. It will deal with: ”Artifacts as a Source of History”.