FROM THE MUSIC HISTORY OF JELGAVA: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IV NATIONWIDE LATVIAN SONG AND MUSIC FESTIVAL

Abstract

In music history, Jelgava (former Mītava, German Mitau, Russian Mitava), has ancient and rich cultural traditions. In the end of the 19th century, the city became an important centre of Latvian culture and education because of the efforts of the former students of the Jelgava Men’s Gymnasium (former Jelgava Academic Gymnasium or Academia Petrina) to reinforce “Latvianness”, which led to the founding of the Jelgava Latvian Society, one of the oldest Latvian non-governmental organizations in 1880. In 1887, Jānis Čakste (1859–1927), a lawyer and the future first president of the Republic of Latvia, was elected to the position of chairman of the organization. He undertook the organization of the IV Nationwide Latvian Song and Music Festival that took place in Jelgava from June 15th to 18th, 1895 (according to the Julian calendar) and was the largest festival of Latvian amateur culture until WW1.
However, the birth of the idea of the Jelgava festival roots not only in the activities of the Jelgava Latvian Society, but also in the tradition of the so-called Festival of the Abolition of Serfdom [dedicated to the abolition of serfdom in Kurland] that took place until 1895 and was often overlooked in academic research. Since 1868, after the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the serfdom in Kurland in 1817, the people of Jelgava organized the cultural festival on August 30th every year. This festival reflected the increasing “creative and material capacity” (Ķaune 1939: 85) of Jelgava and the Semgallian region. It had been raising its national awareness already by the 1870s, but in 1881, the Jelgava Latvian Society took over the organization of the festival. The path to the Nationwide Latvian Song festival was paved. The article focuses on the significance of this celebration in Jelgava.