Categories: Liga Seikste-Deksne

  I have experienced Līgo celebration throughout my childhood – actually, the whole life. For me, Jāņi [Midsummer night festivities] is a significant and important holiday because my father was Jānis, my name is Līga and at our home, this holiday could not pass unnoticed. My childhood – those were the 80ies, the times of kolkhozes, Soviet collective farms. But Līgo celebration was not an official holiday, though 23 June was a very much conditioned working day because in those homes, where there lived some Jānis or Līga, the celebration preparations were going on. In the early evening, the kolkhoz transport with amateur artists visited all the people named Jānis and Līga of the civil parish, they congratulated and teased them in Līgo songs. There usually was a dancing party organized in the centre of the village, at the stage, where all the Jānises and Līgas were solemnly feted. Typically, also the treat was prepared at the expense of the kolkhoz – there was beer, cheese and some snacks.

That, probably, should not be considered a traditional way of celebrating Līgo in the sense of folklore. Little was said about traditional people’s beliefs, their meaning and observance. Although, in every house, where people kept livestock and, in the countryside, domestic animals were kept in almost in every house, they pinned a rowan tree bough at the barn door; when fetching the cattle from pasture, children made wreaths and put them on cows’ necks on their entering the barn. That was done also in the great farms of the kolkhoz. And if they couldn’t make wreaths for all those over a hundred cows, then at least the first and the last ones got them. And, of course, the house was decorated...

Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte