Comenius Multilateral Partnership

Krišjānis Barons

Prepared by A.Zikmane, A.Pinkule, L.Veidemane, K.Zatovica,M.Kaleja

Supervised by Inese Reņķe

K.Barons was born in 1835, 31 October in Strutele estate (current Tukums country) to Juris Barons and Enģele Brikšķa family.

• Latvian folklorist, writer and publicist.

• Also known as father of Latvian folk songs.

• In 1878 he turned to a project which was begun by Fricis Brīvzemnieks – collecting Latvian folk songs and organizing them.

Work

• 1862 - 1865 Barons worked for the news agency “Pēterburgas Avīzes“ (Petersburg’s Newspaper), he was also one of the founders of the newspaper; Barons was an editor of the newspaper.

• When the newspaper closed, Barons started to work as interpreter; he translated different poems and aphorims as well as parts of various literary works.

• In 1867 moved to Moscow, where he worked as a tutor.

• Kr. Barons’ life work in folklore is the academic folk songs’ collection “Latvju Dainas” (Latvian Folk Songs) (1915) .

• He also introduced foreign words, for example names or different sciences (mathematics, geography, physics, biology).

• Kr. Baron died in 1923, 8 March in Riga.

• There is a monument in Riga set up for Baron (in Vin Vermene’s garden).

Monument of Krišjānis Barons Riga, Verman garden.

Here depicted Kr. Barons on 100 lats banknotes.

DAINU SKAPIS

• The orginals of the folks songs all numbered and in Baron’s handwriting can be found in the Archive of Latvian folk songs texts,

• Original Folk Song closet since 1940 keep the Latvian Folklor

• The Cabinet of Folksongs is 268,815 leaflets, each of them recorded in four to eight rows of folk songs, as well as some other texts (puzzles, proverbs, etc.).

Dainu Skapis (The Cabinet of Folk Songs)

There was 73 small drawers called “dainu skapis”, which Barons ordered for his ancient Latvian folk songs texts.

There is Song and Dance Festival in Latvia where Latvian nation sings folk songs

Barons compiled 1 200 000 folk song texts and in average there is one folk song for every Latvian.

Krišjānis Barons is considered to be an icon and legend of Latvian culture.

Latvians have many folk songs with melodies.

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