‘Displaced Persons’ by Dagnija Innus – a review.
Dagnija had something I didn’t have in my life, her grandparents close at hand as she grew up. I envy this because, in our ‘Latvian experience’ growing up in South London, we did not. My grandparents were far away and we never knew them. The past weighs heavily on the children of immigrants as Dagnija Innus writes. Her book weaves their stories: her parents’, her own and a discovered manuscript from a deported Latvian woman called Elza, which Dagnija’s father passes to her when he hears she is writing a book. Excerpts from Elza’s story are included in the book (and at one point a reproduction of the close-typed original Latvian manuscript).
Elza’s reality differs from my idea of the Siberian North where so many Latvians were ultimately broken and forgotten. I think of heartless ‘camps’ or forced labour on the Trans Siberian railway. Elza is curious, sociable, physically strong, and adapts in a seemingly superhuman way to the demands placed on her. She spends many years fishing in frozen waters as part of the effort to supply the Soviet war machine – trapped in slave labour.
This book weaves several time periods with Dagnija’s personal struggles as a first-generation immigrant in Canada and England. She strived to find her place both as a child in Canada and as an adult, working to recover after a painful divorce. One source of inner conflict was between her love for her children and her need to make a life for herself, and also her residual affection for her unfaithful and cruel husband. After their parents divorce her children are released into the world as young adults to ‘do their own thing’. But Dagnija’s motherly love for them continues with letters and support, at a distance, from Canada to Cornwall.
Dagnija’s grandmother Paulīne was a formidable healthcare worker and midwife who had to travel many miles to practice her skills. She married Alfred who had a ‘protective angel on his shoulder’ and ‘never saw battle’, so he survived. They were both ‘born at the tail end of the 19th century – Tolstoy, Verdi and Ibsen were still living…’ The Latvian family names in the book are the same as some names in our family.
I was touched by Dagnija’s account of her first visit to Latvia- still in the Soviet time. She was greeted warmly by her family, their hands pushed through the fence at the airport, and even literally swept off her feet by her cousin Maris. There is a lot of drinking, and filling up on wholesome Latvian food – sometimes out of politeness. The Intourist rep. monitors what they do, and suggests heavily that they must do the requisite tours, or it would look bad! Perhaps even risking arrest if they don’t ‘play the game’. Dagnija describes a grim Riga before the very necessary reconstruction and re-alignment with the West. Certain foods were hard to come by, personal freedoms curtailed and freedom of thought impossible. She goes on to visit Latvia many times and the resolution of the book is unhurried, touching and thoughtful.
Book details
ASIN : B0CXK9JZFM Publisher : Independently published (1 April 2024)
ISBN-13 : 979-8863046358
