Midsummer celebrations are standard all over Scandinavia and the Baltics. Because this part of the world is so far north, 20 to 21 hours of sunlight at the summer solstice is pretty normal, if a little weird if you come from parts further south like I do; the endless light has wreaked havoc on my sleep patterns. But Līgo is a reason to stay up and ignore sleep because there is an all-night party to attend, and when dusk is 23:30, or 11:30 pm, and sunrise is 3:30 am, you might as well stay up and join the fun.
Different countries do midsummer differently, but the standard practice is to get out into the countryside. Midsummer is definitely pagan in origin; St. John came later. And because there are fertility rituals connected to the celebration -- no surprise there -- getting close to nature matters. When I returned to Daugavpils on the train on 23 June, the city was deserted because everybody had already headed out to the country. As it happens, Daugavpils has its own local celebration of Līgo for all the unfortunate souls who have no friends with summer homes with a pirts, or Latvian sauna. So my local peeps Allen and Natalija, who's a native Daugavpilian, were joined by Margarita, and we headed out to a wooded area of town called Strōpa named for the nearby lake. You get there by walking through an old cemetery in the woods, and then the pine trees begin to clear, you come up on the crest of a hill, and there you are in the big clearing.
There's a stage here, and this is where Daugavpils hosts its local song festivals as part of the national network of song festivals. (Latvian song festivals are major events unto themselves. The national one is held every few years, and I regret that it's not until next year.) The stage had a whole line-up of performers: first a Latvian folk group, naturally, and then a country-western band. Country music sung in Latvian does not sound like a mash-up that is really going to work, but for some odd reason it did. But you don't really listen to the music. You dance to it, and the stage is big enough to accommodate a lot of dancers. Which of course is what we became after a beer. My student Jolanta found me in the crowd and insisted on some dancing so that my Līgo experience would be truly authentic. And then Allen, Natalija, Rita, and I took to the stage because, well, it's Līgo. Rita is a very good dancer; I feel bad that she got partnered with not quite so talented me, but there you have it. Here's the stage from the audience seating.
This photo really doesn't give a sense of how big this space is. There is seating for maybe 1000 people, and there were certainly 2000 people there.
Līgo celebrations require specific kinds of foods for eating, and I assume they are symbolic. First, bread with caraway, a special kind of Latvian cheese, and the inevitable beer. I don't know what the symbolism is, and who cares? These three foods are among those that Latvians do better than anybody, so just fill up! And there are many vendors at the festival to help you do just that, though plenty of folks brought their own picnic dinners too. By the way, rye bread fried in garlic butter is the best accompaniment for beer that can be imagined. This is what we ate instead of the special caraway bread. If anybody is going to come up with really good bar food, it would be Latvians. If anybody tells us that we did not follow tradition exactly, we can point out that we certainly drank beer, which I think counts for something.
About 23:00 (11:00 pm), the bonfire is lit. In a small gathering, it's traditional to jump over the bonfire; this is some kind of fertility ritual. Here, the bonfire flames were about 30 feet tall, so I felt it was prudent to not attempt any jumping. Here's the bonfire at our Līgo celebration. I think that with all these trees around, a fire of this size was slightly dangerous, but the fire department was close by because we hadn't actually left the city. You can see that it's just dusk at this point, but it is indeed 23:00.
Finally, it is worth noting the importance of women wearing flower garland crowns on their heads. You can buy them at any flower shop the week before the celebrations, and Latvia abounds in flowers shops. Men might wear crowns of oak leaves on their heads, but these are less common. I found out that this is because in theory only a man whose name is Jānis is supposed to wear an oak-leaf crown, though I suppose that this rule is ignored by lots of men (and some women). I mean, how often do you get to wear oak leaves on your head? Regrettably, I did not have a crown and I sort of wanted one, if only for the photo op possibilities. However, Allen assured me that it was not in fact required, and I would guess that what seems to be a charming tradition at first would become an annoyance once you started dancing.
Līgo is easily the biggest Latvian bash of the year, and this in a country that celebrates at the drop of a hat. I'm really grateful that I got to be here for it, and I am already planning how I am going to bring a little Latvia home with me and celebrate it next year in Maine.
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