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- Title
AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE THROUGH THE EYES OF LATVIAN WRITERS.
- Authors
Daukste-Silasproģe, Inguna
- Abstract
When first Latvians started to leave the refugee camps for Australia in 1947, they scarcely had any idea of the country. The first impressions about Australia were formed when they arrived there: ëThis land is wild' ('The Extirpated' (Ar saknēm izrautie, 1968) by Elza Ābele); 'Nature here looks so cruel and unyielding. It seems to me that it has no soul' ('Eingana' ('Eing,na', 1973) by Lūcija Bērziņa,); '[..] I don't like this land. [..] Everything here is so unusual, strange, even dangerous" ('New Australians' ('Jaunaustrālieši, 1998) by Richards Kraulis). Latvians regarded the Australian landscape in a detached and disassociate manner; the scenery they saw was strange, unfamiliar and worlds apart from the Latvian landscape which was the only illusory connection with their lost home, land and the loved ones. The Australian landscape is depicted both in prose fiction and poetry. Although landscape description is not a dominant feature of exile literature, but merely used as a means to emphasize the contrast between the native and the foreign, to show the otherness of the new home country, it becomes the background against which the world perception and feelings of Latvians are depicted. Reflection of landscape and its uniqueness in literature adds a new page to the geography of Latvian exile literature. Landscape is depicted as nature and environment (rocks, the blue-green ocean, the outback, flora, especially eucalyptus, Jacaranda blossoms, acacias, oleanders, magnolias, etc. and fauna ñ kookaburra, opossums, etc.). Compared to the works of other exile writers (USA, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain) Australia is marked by a much stronger denial of the new environment, unfriendliness of the landscape. This alienation was aggravated by the climatic conditions, which were difficult for Europeans.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; LANDSCAPES in literature; LATVIAN authors; REFUGEE camps; NATURE stories; PLANTS; LATVIAN literature
- Publication
Comparative Studies (1691-5038), 2013, Vol 5, Issue 2, p60
- ISSN
1691-5038
- Publication type
Article