About the Canon

Latvia’s Cultural Canon is a gateway to Latvia’s cultural world through a diverse array of treasures that encompass different cultural spheres and span countless eras, and, while convening and interacting, can often stand out as polar opposites.

The Canon is like a pair of spectacles through which to catch sight of Latvia and Latvia’s treasures. Like a door through which to enter the repository of Latvia’s cultural treasures. Like a survival kit and a compass to overcome moments of confusion. Like new computer software that opens up and connects us to a new world and opportunities.

This selection of these highlights is a testimony to their time, which we, continuing the Canon’s development, replenish with content from our own time, reflections, the contribution and context of new elements. Through our eyes, this unique selection becomes an inheritance, which we – after highlighting, describing, inquiring about, discovering, supplementing – will pass on to future generations. By discerning and analysing these treasures, we will know how to recognise new ones and, if necessary, supplement the Cultural Canon one day.

The Cultural Canon website was renewed in 2017 and provides as much information about these treasures as is possible. It also leads users to other diverse treasures – held in the repositories and archives of various Latvian cultural institutions – which are related to the Cultural Canon and encourages us to speak, write and inform others about these treasures, thus ensuring their promotion, discovery and understanding.

The National Library of Latvia is grateful to all the authors who participated in describing and relating the treasures of Latvia’s Cultural Canon, to all the Latvian memory institutions that were and continue to be responsive in displaying the treasures in their collections, as well as to all of the National Library of Latvia staff members who contributed to the construction of the website.

Latvia’s Cultural Canon and the projects related to it are supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia.