July 26, 2019
Brother who inspired radical Latvian writer died in Minneapolis
Among the luminaries to emerge in Latvia during the early 20th century revolutionary period was Ernests Eferts-Klusais (1889-1927), a writer and teacher regarded as a talented and dedicated Marxist. However, this story is not about him, but about an older brother, Jānis, who became one of the first Latvian immigrants to die in Minnesota.
May 26, 2019
Evidence dispels story that Latvian among first to die in Civil War
One of the legends about the early Latvian presence in the United States is that among the first to die in the American Civil War was a man named Mārtiņš Buciņš. Perhaps he fought for the Union Army, or maybe he served with the Confederate Army, or possibly he was a civilian who had become a casualty of the conflict. But he was Latvian and that’s what mattered.
March 28, 2019
Two small Latvian periodicals remain mostly a mystery
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to collect details, and in some cases even samples, of most of the various periodicals published by early 20th century Latvian immigrants and their descendants in the United States. But two publications, both produced in Chicago before World War I, remain largely a mystery.
December 19, 2018
Latvian émigré’s tale of torture heard around the world
The brutality of the 1905 Revolution and the subsequent punitive expeditions in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire saw frequent coverage in European and American newspapers, even after the worst of the repressions were over.
November 22, 2018
Immigrant catalogued Latvian books, proposed new orthography
A little-known writer who immigrated to the United States more than a century ago helped build a collection of Latvian books in the Chicago Public Library, but failed in his efforts to bring bibliographic and orthographic reform to his homeland.
Reviews
December 1, 2020
Crime novel puts an Icelandic lawyer in Greenland
The front cover of my copy of The Day is Dark by Icelandic crime writer Yrsa Sigurðardóttir sports a blurb from a review that appeared in the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “Iceland’s answer to Stieg Larsson,” it says, referring to the late Swedish author of the Millennium trilogy.
November 23, 2018
A decade later, Tursten’s inspector Huss still solves odd murders
A series of ritualistic murders keep a slightly older Detective Inspector Irene Huss busy as she continues to balance the demands of a two-career family in one of the most recent crime novels by Swedish writer Helene Tursten to be translated into English.
