Collections

Mazsalaca farmer Ādams Purmalis (1846–1917) autobiography.

Author: Ādams Purmalis

Diaries of Emīls Pudelis (1893–1969) — Mazsalaca farmer, Latvian rifleman, and participant in the Latvian War for Independence; kept from 1 July 1912 to 31 May 1938. The diary records each day’s work and what it entailed, as well as other daily activities and important events at home and in the surrounding area, near and far.

Author: Emīls Pudelis

The autobiographical writing of an unknown man that covers events of author's life from the end of August 1944 to August 1947. The story describes this man’s imprisonment in the Central Prison, and his time spent in the concentration camps at Salaspils and in Zaksenhausen, Germany. Post-war time Latvia, especially Riga, is described vividly and in detail.

Submitted by: Jānis Streičs

Jānis Pavasars (Zābaks) wrote his life story from 1965 to 1989. It covers the period from Jānis’ birth in 1912 in “Vecmārtiņi” in Kolbergi until 1985, allowing the reader to follow significant developments in Jānis’ family in the context of national and international political developments.

Author: Jānis Pavasars

Diaries of Kārlis Valgums (1921–2006) teacher at Beja, written from 1987 to 1999.

The school diaries of writer and scholar Ilze Sperga, begun in 1993. Everyday childhood experiences and school events in the 1990s are accompanied by colourful drawings, pasted images and collages created by the author.

Diary of Edgars Reinsons from Bilskēni, born in 1927, written from 6 November 1944, when he began his training in Eger (now Heves) in Sudeti, until his arrival in Canada on 11 November 1947.

Author: Edgars Reinsons

Daily events set down by Alïda Āriņa (1922-2003), postmistress from Madliena, recorded between 1979 and 1990.

Author: Alīda Āriņa

The diary of the musician Kaspara Tobis was written from February 1986, when the author was 15 years old, until 23 March 1991. This is the work of a talented author, a vivid testimony of the thoughts and life of a young man living in Latvia in the 1980.

Submitted by: Kaspars Tobis

The diary of Irma Vīksniņa, an author and cultural worker in exile (1922–1976), was penned during 1941 and 1942, a period when she was still a secondary school student. This poignant and emotionally charged narrative captures the experiences of a young girl during the 'Horrible Year,' spanning from the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1941, encompassing both the Soviet occupation of Latvia and the onset of German rule.

Author: Irma Vīksniņa

Responding to a public call heard on a radio programme, Daina has written down her memories of her childhood and youth in the 1930s-1940s, with some glimpses into the 1950s. They are dedicated to her granddaughter Lauma. Daina's memoir begins with a contemplation of her childhood spent in the Selkuļi home in Limbaži, which the author names after her favourite book at the time, Saulainais pagalms, then continues with the confusing changes of power in Latvia, the time spent in exile in Berezovka and other remote Russian villages, and ends abruptly with her return to Latvia, meeting Lauma's grandfather and reflecting on her life by interpreting a significant dream.

Author: Daina Rozenblate

The memoirs of Ruta Lūse (1932–2012), former chair of the Mazsalaca Executive Committee.

Author: Ruta Lūse

Māra Graustiņa’s (b. 1937) memoirs are dedicated to her children and grandchildren. They are written in 2009 and are a rich and colourful description of the day-to-day lives of Māra’s parents in the 1930s in Latvia, and the author’s own experiences during the Soviet era.

Author: Māra Graustiņa

Written in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Augusts Heinrihsons’s (1917–1996) autobiography, ‘My Unusual Life Story’, vividly portrays his childhood and youth in Latvia in the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on everyday life, experiences and joys in independent Latvia. The seemingly cheerful account in the first part of the memoir is disrupted by 1940, when the author becomes a witness to and participant in some of Latvia’s most tragic twentieth-century events. The memoir recounts the deportations of 1941 and the execution of officers, the Nazi German occupation, participation in the Second World War, the brutal Soviet filtration camps, the author’s activities as a Forest Brother, and life in the Latvian SSR in the 1940s and 1950s.

Author: Augusts Heinrihsons

Two pages from the diary of twelve-year-old Ērika Jurča (1932–1944). They describe Soviet air raids on Riga in September and October 1944.

Submitted by: Raitis Bukovskis

Pēteris Treimanis’s (1912–1997) memoir notebook describes his conscription into the Latvian Legion in 1944, combat and life in prisoner-of-war camps.

Author: Pēteris Treimanis

The autobiography of Dzintars Lāzers, born in 1932, written between 1999 and 2010 and recounting his life experiences.

Author: Dzintars Lāzers

The ‘Work Journals’ of Paulis Alksnis, born in 1904 in Bauņi, Matīši parish. Written from 6 May 1926 to 1931, they document his life and farming at ‘Jaundruķi’ in Augstroze.

Author: Paulis Alksnis

An unknown man’s diary entitled ‘Nature’, written in Russia between 1915 and 1919. It contains brief notes on observations of nature and outdoor activities.

Submitted by: Raimonds Briedis

Astrīda Tobe’s diary, written from 1999 to 2009, recounts her family’s experiences while travelling around Latvia.

Author: Astrīda Tobe

Since July 2018, Uldis Ķirsis has used his Twitter microblog to write about life after moving to the countryside. His concise, witty and perceptive observations describe a city dweller’s rural life in the twenty-first century.

Author: Uldis Ķirsis

In memoirs recorded in 1986, Otto Vīksna describes scenes from his childhood near Beja in detail. Structured as several stories, the account offers a broad portrayal of places, villages and their inhabitants, including Beja, Čistigi, Slišiņi and Igauņi. The stories extend well beyond Otto’s own lifetime and surroundings: alongside descriptions of his childhood home, portraits of relatives and vivid accounts of farm life, they outline the wider cultural, historical and economic circumstances of everyday farming life in northern Vidzeme in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Author: Otto Vīksna

Elīza, a Riga resident born in 1995, began keeping diaries in 2001, before starting school, and continues to write them. The first diary begins with colourful drawings and gradually develops, as she learns to write, into a record of everyday emotions and events.

Viktors was born in the 1940s, lived in Riga and described daily life in his diary from the second half of the 1960s to the early 1970s. The material was accidentally found in 2006 in "Ošiņi" in Inčukalns parish, when the new owners of the house started to look through the documents, photo albums and letters left by the previous inhabitants. Nothing more is known about the author of the diary – only that Viktor was related to the previous owners of the house.

Astra Sleže, then Brīvmane, began her diary in 1971 as a fifteen-year-old girl in Liepāja and continued it during her studies in Jelgava. It records a young woman’s everyday concerns, relationships with peers and philosophical reflections, as well as questions about the purpose of keeping a diary.

Author: Astra Sleže

Alvils Kalnietis (Klēbahs, 1876–1958) was a teacher, an advocate for the Latvian language, a journalist and an intellectual in independent Latvia. His diaries from 1926 to 1956 record events and reflections day by day.

Author: Alvils Klēbahs

Rūta documented one week of summer 2018 on her Facebook profile. The diary entries reveal the young woman's reflections on her husband's military career, social and political changes in Latvian society, her dynamic daily life in Pārdaugava with her son Miķelis, her efforts to balance her life between caring for a young child, her personal and professional interests.

Author: Rūta Šmite

Lizete Strautniece’s diary, written between 1927 and 1933.

Author: Lizete Strautniece

Baiba Zīle’s diaries, written from 1983 to 1992, begin as written records of childhood surrounded by colourful drawings and develop into accounts of events and feelings during adolescence. Everyday life often takes literary form, with the narrative alternating between Baiba’s own creative writing and philosophical reflections.

Author: Baiba Zīle

Alfrēds Baltbārdis’s (1918–2003) diaries, written between 1948 and 1988.

Aina Rizga (1936–2015) of Sunākste wrote her life story in 2013. Initially intended as memories of her youth at open-air dances, it developed into a life story organised in chronological chapters.

Author: Aina Rizga

The memoirs of gardener Pēteris Lucāns (1900–1992), written from 1979 to 1990. They recount the history of the Lucāns family and the author’s eventful life, his years in exile and everyday life in a labour camp, his return to the Latvian SSR, his working life and his family.

Author: Pēteris Lucāns

Jānis Golvers’s autobiographical account, ‘Information about Our Family’, was written in 1956. The memoir relates the legend behind the Golvers family surname and describes an extensive network of relatives. It follows the author through the First World War and the Latvian War of Independence, and records a Vainiži farmer’s everyday observations, the changing seasons, the consequences of collectivisation and the family’s most tragic experiences, when some members were deported to Siberia.

Author: Jānis Golvers

Gaida began her diaries in 1966, when she was in the seventh grade. Until 1969, she recorded her everyday life, including household and farm chores, school and events in Mazsalaca, alongside poetry she wrote herself.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

The diaries of Paulīne Ārgale, a home economics teacher at Jeri Primary School from 1948 to 1958, describing the everyday routines and challenges of school life.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

Born in 1965 in Riga, Eriks describes his daily life and reflections in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The diary traces the gradual transformation of Erik's personality from a fourth-grade student into a young man with a thirst for adventure. This change can be read in the vocabulary used by the young people of the time, in their current interests and in the dynamics of the relationships between the teenagers, their teachers and other adults. Erik kept his diary regularly, documenting events and experiences, not so much his inner world of feelings.

Jānis Valters Čoka’s (1927–1989) recollections of the summer of 1940 were written in the 1950s. He describes a summer spent at ‘Kangari’ near Mazsalaca, tending a garden for the Mazpulki youth organisation. The memoir offers a romantic account of his youth, carefree days and first love.

Author: Jānis Valters Čoka

In 2016 and 2017, Madara compiled the written memories of her grandmother Rasma, born in 1929, in the blog ‘Grandma’s Stories’.

Submitted by: Madara Strauta

The collection consists of two parts: Vilma Valentīne Heinrihsone’s (1918–2011) diary entries from 1940, and memoirs written in the 1980s and 1990s about the Second World War and its aftermath.

Author: Vilma Valentīne Heinrihsone

The diary covers a broad span of time and a wide range of experiences. It is primarily rooted in the author’s personal journey during the Second World War and the post-war years as a refugee in Germany, yet a significant portion of the text consists of retrospective childhood and youth memories of life in Latvia before the war. The early part of the diary focuses on the refugee experience, life in various camps, adapting to unfamiliar environments, and longing for home. Later entries shift toward deeply personal recollections of childhood in the Nīca region and everyday life between the two world wars.

Author: Miķelis Tupesis

The memoir begins in 1940, when little Antoņina lives in a small village of Latgale region, and witnesses the changes brought about by the USSR in Latvia and the repression of the local population. The writing also goes back to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, when Antoņina experiences the confusing changes of repressive political regimes in Latvia, followed by exile, life in Omsk, her return to Latvia and attempts to restart her life.

Cēzars Aleksis’s (1895–1976) memoirs recount his childhood and schooling, studies at the Pskov surveying school and work as a military topographer. They also describe his involvement in the Troitsk Battalion and life as a forester in newly independent Latvia up to 1925. A separate chapter is devoted to his family and the fates of his relatives.

Submitted by: Māra Zirnīte

Written in 1948, Jānis Auzenbahs’s (1896–1948) memoirs bring together a family chronicle and his own life story: childhood, fighting in the First World War, an injury, life as a teacher and a new smallholder in independent Latvia, and the events of the Second World War.

Submitted by: Filips Bobinskis

The diaries of poet and journalist Lija Blūma (born 1953).

Submitted by: Lija Blūma

Arvīds Fēlikss Latsons’s (1897–1945) diaries, written in 1944 and 1945, record his experiences as a refugee and trace his journey from Omuļi parish to the Fischbach refugee camp.

Submitted by: Maija Razumovska

Aleksandra Eihe’s (1905–2002) life story was written in the 1990s. She looks back on her childhood in Siberia, her youth in Latvia and her adult life, which she spent in exile in Sweden.

Submitted by: Māra Zirnīte

Elīna Vilmane-Meženiece’s blog about volunteering in Samara, Russia, in 2011–2012.

Submitted by: Elīna Vilmane-Meženiece

Mirga Iveta Kuļikovska’s (1927–1997) diary was written from 1941 to 1944. A schoolgirl at the time, she describes life under Nazi occupation, including the war, classmates, studies and growing up.

Submitted by: Ēriks Kuļikovskis

Velta Vītola’s (1903–2002) memoirs, written between the 1970s and 1990s, recount her childhood in Moscow, her youth in Latvia, her studies at the Moscow Academy of Arts and her work as a teacher in various Latvian schools. The account symbolically concludes in 1937, when she marries.

Submitted by: Irēna Zaščerinska

Jēkabs was born in 1878 and wrote down his memoirs "Avotu" home chronicle" in 1951 in Braslava parish. It begins with the death of the first owner of the house, Kārlis Millers, the time when the will was drawn up in 1906 and the conditions for the redistribution of the inheritance to family members, as well as the value of the house at that time. Jēkabs then records in detail the changes that affected the family home from year to year after his father's death: The chronicle ends with the 1930s and a brief mention of the 1940s.

Uldis Pudelis’s (1929–2016) recollections of childhood in Mazsalaca parish in the 1930s and of everyday life and work as an agronomist in the Soviet Union.

Submitted by: Juris Pudelis

Kārlis Kreicmanis’s (1903–1984) recollections of the ‘Bēkas’ homestead, Ķoņi and the Rūjiena area during the First and Second World Wars.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

Aleksandrs Kudiņš’s (1919–2004) memoirs cover his entire life. They recount his childhood in a Latgalian village in Siberia, his education, everyday life in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s, the Second World War and his work as a teacher in the Latvian SSR after the war.

Submitted by: Skaidrīte Kudiņa

Submitted by: Juris Zariņš

Ziedone Sērmūkša’s memoir miniatures form a literary life story about her childhood in independent Latvia, a young musician’s dreams and hopes, Latvian musical and theatrical circles after the Second World War, and the Soviet literary world and the particular challenges of translation.

Submitted by: Ziedone Sērmūkša

The authors of ‘Voyage Notes’ are three researchers, Kārlis, Sašs and Andis, graduates of the University of Latvia Faculty of Biology who were recruited from different laboratories for a research voyage in the Baltic Sea in December 1959. From the outset, they expected long passages with little research work, while winter conditions would prevent them from enjoying the sea views. They would have to spend long periods in cramped cabins, struggling with seasickness. To make daily life on board more interesting, Sašs suggested keeping a collective diary.

Submitted by: Andis Mitāns

Žanis Tālbergs’s diary, written in a labour camp in Kolyma, records events from May to November 1946. It documents harsh everyday life, working conditions, meals and daily routines. These stark accounts alternate with romantic dreams of his homeland and returning home.

Betija Grava’s (1902–1995) diaries were written at different times: the earliest dates from 1917 and the latest from the late 1960s.

Submitted by: Inese Tuka

Lilija Auzenbaha’s (1898–1973) memoir recounts her family’s flight from their home in Lestene parish to Riga in 1915, and from Riga to Vidzeme in 1917. The young woman’s notes were written in Valka in 1917 and 1921. They offer detailed accounts of refugees’ everyday lives and feelings during their journeys.

Submitted by: Filips Bobinskis

Vineta Beltiņa’s memoirs were written in the early twenty-first century, looking back on her life. She reflects on her childhood and her parents’ work on the Pārgauja collective farm, her schooling and working life, and her various relationships and experiences of love.

Part of the material recorded by Kārlis Svensons (1884–1964) throughout his life: quotations, poems, copied passages of literature and translation exercises. This extensive material was compiled by his grandson Andris after Svensons’s death. There are more than one hundred notebooks; in three of them, the author recounts his own life, from his parents’ marriage in Sweden in the late nineteenth century to his final years in Latvia in the 1950s and 1960s.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

The diary was written in 1937–1938 in Valmiera by schoolgirls of the Valmiera Commercial School, who called themselves "Savējās" ("The Ours"). The idea to start the diary emerged collectively during a German language class, as a way to record the "romantic adventures" of school life and to document both real and imagined events. Writing the diary soon became a unifying project that strengthened their sense of belonging and served as a means of self-expression.

The collection contains autobiographical writings by Silvija Priedniece, née Grēniņa, begun in the 1990s: an autobiographical account covering her entire life, alongside diary entries recording everyday events from 1995 onwards.

Emīlija Vecvagare worked as a secretary in the Provisional Government’s office and kept her diary from 21 July 1917 to 31 December 1921. It is rich in the young woman’s personal feelings and observations of events in Liepāja. Particularly noteworthy are the entries describing the coup in Liepāja on 16 April 1919, during the Latvian War of Independence.

The diary of woodworking engineer and educator Gunārs Viļums (1945–1989), entitled ‘With a Shotgun and a Fishing Rod’. Written from 1971 to 1977, it records hunting and fishing adventures.

Submitted by: Ieva Pauloviča

Diary entries written in Līgatne in 1951 describe the birth and childhood of Egita Balode-Logina’s father. Notes written there in 1975 document Egita’s own arrival in the family, portraying her parents’ feelings as they raise their first child.

From 16 July to 9 August 1964, a group of tourists from Latvia travelled through six Soviet republics: Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia. They recorded their experiences and observations in a shared diary.

Submitted by: Ojārs Lāms

The diaries and notes of poet Andrejs Pablo Mierkalns, written in 1954 and 1959.

Submitted by: Rolands Lappuķe

Submitted by: Zane Lāce

Artūrs Krūms’s recollections of eleven women in his life, written in 1954 under the title ‘Shadows of the Past’.

Submitted by: Ainārs Radovics

Jānis Dāvis was born in 1891 in Vestiena situated in the Vidzeme Central Upland of Latvia. The author has titled his life story "The life of one Latvian farmer’s son (Sort of an autobiography)". The first part of it begins with a compilation about his ancestors who had lived in the regions of Vestiena and nearby Piebalga for decades and ends with the year 1944, when Dāvis family had to become refugees. Material has been written from 1950 to 1953.

The diary of ceramic artist and long-serving Liepāja Theatre employee Velta Sproģe (1902–1997), written in the 1920s and 1930s and resumed after a break in 1955. It records everyday events and experiences until 1963.

Photographer Nikolajs Brīvlauks’s (1928–2003) recollections of the end of the Second World War, when, aged just sixteen, he was conscripted into air defence service and became involved in the war.

The German-language diary of Baltic German Anna Koch, covering the periods 1826–1837 and 1863–1864.

The diaries of artist Jānis Sudmalis (1887–1984), founder and long-serving director of Liepāja Museum. The first diary was written in 1939–1940; the next available diary dates from 1973 and is followed by regular daily entries until 1981.

The Vecsētas manor cash book (1900–1902) contains not only records of various expenses, but also unrelated everyday notes written by an unidentified person in Russian and Latvian between 1914 and 1917.

Andis Mitāns divides his autobiographical reflections into nine thematic parts, each representing a significant aspect of his personal development, family history, or broader historical context: 1) Museums and Personal Memory; 2) A Symbolic Map from “National Geographic”; 3) Young Naturalists’ Club; 4) The Arrival of Ballpoint Pens in Soviet Schools; 5) Remembering a Modest Classmate; 6) Message to Grandchildren About Latvia’s Path to Independence; 7) The Baltic Sea and Diplomatic Tactics; 8) Life on Tērbatas Street (1940–1980).

Submitted by: Andis Mitāns

Architecture student R. Āboliņš’s notes on the excavation of the ruins of the war-damaged House of the Black Heads in 1941.

Sculptor Jānis Zibens’s professional diary records his work and various events while carving an element of the Freedom Monument in 1935.

The correspondence between Andis Mitāns (born 1935) and Gunārs Skubiņš (born 1934) covers 1958–1960. The two childhood friends began exchanging letters regularly after graduation, when Andis started working in Riga and Gunārs’s work took him to Jaungulbene.

Former history teacher and local historian Mečislavs Vertinskis’s (born 1932) recollections of childhood and everyday life around Dagda. Written in Russian in 2011.

The memoirs of Anna Vagale (born 1918), a former Latvian language and literature teacher and enthusiastic local historian, about her native village of Mateļi. She incorporates folklore materials, including folk songs, beliefs and various customs. Written in the late 1980s, the memoir looks back on the village from Anna’s childhood to the Second World War.

Submitted by: Linda Freimane

Jānis was born in 1926 at ‘Lejaskliņģeri’ in Vecate parish, where he lived throughout his life. After his death in 2005, his daughter Gaida Pevko found old papers while cleaning the attic. They turned out to be his diaries from 1945–1947. Everyday concerns and duties on the farm, changing temperatures and observations of nature alternate with uncertainty about his own fate and that of his loved ones in Latvia under Nazi German and Soviet occupation.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

In 1955, while in exile in Siberia, blacksmith Voldemārs Mitenieks (1908–1960) began writing his life story, entitled ‘Lonely Hearts’. He completed the first part, describing his childhood near Dobele in a somewhat romantic and poetic, yet candid manner.

Latvian Legion soldier Imants Jansons’s diary, accompanied by photographs, recounts the experiences and feelings of a nineteen-year-old during the Second World War. The author called it ‘The Book of My Days’, documenting daily life in turbulent circumstances through poetic language and vocabulary characteristic of his native Kuldīga area.

Marta Vītuma began writing her recollections in 1997, aged eighty-eight. Her daughter Zaiga later typed them up and gave each story a thematic title. Zaiga recalls that writing gave her mother ‘an opportunity to fill lonely hours and to tell us, her loved ones, about important events in her life that would otherwise remain unknown’.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa

Jēkabs Ziedars’s (born 1924) memoir, entitled ‘Puišķins, Anūts, Džeks’. Written in the third person, it recounts his childhood in Silene, Latgale, studies at Liepāja Technical School, involvement in the Second World War and time in the prisoner-of-war camp at Zedelgem. His studies at the Baltic University are particularly important in the account. The final part describes his journey to Australia and his first years there.

Submitted by: Jēkabs Ziedars

Herta Egle’s (1913–2004) life story focuses on major milestones: childhood in Anna parish, studies at the Ranka Home Economics School, marriage, the upheavals of the Second World War, years in exile in Siberia, and everyday life in the Latvian SSR after returning home.

Submitted by: Ina Balaņuka

The life story of Adolfs Čerbikovs (1921–2013), a resident of Anna parish in the Alūksne region, recorded in 2006 by his granddaughter Līva Čerbikova. It recounts his experiences in the Latvian Legion during the Second World War and in Soviet penal camps, followed by life after returning to his father’s homestead. He remained actively involved in the cultural life of Anna parish until the end of his life.

Submitted by: Ina Balaņuka

Aivars Puzulis of Alūksne recorded his recollections of his native village of Mazuļi between April 2013 and May 2014. His mother had been the village’s last resident. Accounts of villagers, including Aivars’s parents and grandparents, houses and events are accompanied by an extensive collection of place names from Mazuļi and its surroundings.

Romāns Dūnis’s (1925–2019) memoirs, written in 2003, recount his childhood in Valmiera. They offer a vivid portrayal of the town in the 1930s, describing family members and relatives, his father Jānis Dūnis’s publishing business, its employees and the processes involved in producing books.

Submitted by: Nellija Dūne

Alberts Baltturs’s (1899–1980) diaries, written from 1975 to 1979. Alongside weather observations and a work journal, they contain his poems, quotations, newspaper clippings and drawings, conveying his inner life. The diary entries are in Russian; the poems are in both Russian and Latvian.

Submitted by: Ārija Murāne

The collection includes Elizabete Buša’s (1891–1981) memoirs, written in 1916, of her family’s flight from Sloka to Russia, poems written in the early twentieth century, and a separate notebook of poems from the 1970s.

Submitted by: Ināra Rūce

Juris Emsiņš’s (born 1936) recollections of his childhood and youth in Lielvārde. Particular attention is paid to Lielvārde Secondary School and his studies, the ‘Lāčplēsis’ collective farm’s folk dance group, initially led by Harijs Sūna and later by Uldis Šteins, and sporting events.

Submitted by: Juris Emsiņš

The diary documents scouting activities in 1938–1939. The boys informally describe discussions and activities at scout meetings. Combining criticism with friendly teasing, they record knowledge gained from lectures, skills acquired in practical sessions and shared experiences on several trips. The text is accompanied by drawings, newspaper clippings and photographs.

Aija Vīksna’s (born 1929) recollections of Vecdzērve, a village in Sauka parish where she was born and spent her early years. The memoir describes all the village’s houses in the 1930s, its most memorable inhabitants and notable events.

Submitted by: Aija Vīksna

Lūkass Ozoliņš’s (1879–1962) memoirs, written in Buffalo, USA, in 1959. The first part brings together information about his family, including his grandparents Fricis and Made Ozoliņš and his father Jēkabs Ozoliņš. The concluding part recounts his own life: the 1905 Revolution and the flight that followed, the First World War, service as a member of Latvia’s parliament, teaching in various Latvian schools, emigration to displaced persons camps in Germany and his final years in Buffalo.

Submitted by: Agita Lapsa