Collecting folklore material in Sventājā

Part of Rucava district in Latvia’s far southwest has been a Lithuanian territory for nearly a century already. Būtiņģe and Sventājā, now in Lithuania, still boast a rich and well-preserved heritage of Latvian traditional culture. Outstanding Latvian composer Emilis Melngailis was the first to start recording folklore in “Foreign Rucava” at the beginning of the 20th century, and his followers from the Latvian Folklore Archive continued the work. Materials recorded from Lithuania’s ethnic Latvians during an expedition in 1961 by Latvian researchers Rita Drizule and Arnolds Klotiņš are of special importance. In the late 1970s, Renāte Mielava (Vītola), a student of the Liepāja Institute of Education, discovered a great folklore source in her relative Ķersta Balcere who had been deaf for a long time already. The student based her diploma paper on Balcere’s repertoire, and a book about the material came out in the 21th century. By filming Balcere’s performance folklorists started field studies in Sventājā in 1987/88. These studies should be continued urgently, as the descendants of Melngailis’ sources still live in Sventājā and keep the old singing traditions alive