Riga - European Capital of Culture 2014 candidate

freedom streetWhen a ruling power changes, and in European history thishas usually happened after a revolution or war, the firstthing that power does is to change the names of streets.Freedom Street, within the context of the Riga as EuropeanCapital of Culture programme, is not just the story of astreet. Freedom Street is a symbolic stage, a system ofsigns, a tale of history and wars, which we can say onlyended yesterday, even though perhaps a whole century haselapsed.The “Freedom Street” programme which refers to the centenaryof the 1 st World War, is intended as a story of collisions, which peoplewho live in any city in any place in the world experience. Riga’shistory is one such space for collisions, where echoes of globalhistorical events can be found. Over the entire course of the 20 thcentury Riga has found itself in postwar-prewar relationships, orloser-winner relationships, but the local people’s memories of historicalevents have not been inherited – they are alive and real, justas in the consciousness of many Europeans.Freedom Street has experienced a lot. Power and war have alwayssought acknowledgement in this street, changing or not changingits name. Freedom Street is the axis of the city of Riga, the mainstreet (Via Magna), which has been called Large Sand Street,Aļeksandrovskij buļvar, Petrogradskoje šosse, Revolution Street,Adolf Hitler Strasse, Lenin Street and finally – Freedom Street oncemore. In 2014 the street will regain its historic names in the formof artistic events along its entire length, above all stressing theinvaluable virtue of freedom and democracy.Freedom Street is the stage for the history of global power. Itis the story of one European city’s and its inhabitants’ relationshipwith power – invincible and at the same time overcome. The1 st World War, which dates back 100 years before 2014, and itsconsequences, in the interpretations of many European historiansends around the time when Riga’s main street retrieved itsname of Freedom. In 1914, Riga was one of the group of citiesthat formed part of the indisputable European prestige, which,together with the 1 st World War, Europe lost, leaving indelible consequencesin the consciousness of Europeans. Riga, in war-time,has always been drawn in between other powers. And FreedomStreet is also this type of axis - between East and West, betweenother powers. Freedom Street has experienced several wars –First World War, Second World War, Cold War, Singing Revolution,August 1991 putsch. Many military forces have entered and leftRiga via this street. War has its reflections in the cultural code ofEurope, which has also defined cultural mobility, destroying andcommanding resurrection anew. It has always exploited the cityfor its own gains, demonstrated itself in the main street of anyEuropean capital city. In a way, for Riga, the 1 st World War endedin 1991.Prewar and postwar periods have taken European culture, homes,places, people, generations, stories, memories, monuments andspirit, facilitating progress and always – on someone’s account.Freedom Street is a stage for both destruction and renewal. Thefeminine and the masculine. Collisions and war never end, theyjust continue the search for fresh forms of acknowledgement. Thegreatest philosopher on freedom in the world, Sir Isaiah Berlin, wasborn in Riga and taken for walks by his nanny on the Esplanade byFreedom Street (then - Aļeksandrovskij Buļvar). Paradoxically, hischildhood promenade place, the Esplanade, during his lifetimeand later, became the location for military parade rituals. Freedomis a symbol and a value, which becomes these things preciselyas the result of an invincible force (force majeure). When Berlinwas asked whether the focus of his thoughts was influenced bythe fact that he was born in the Russian province of Riga duringits period of sophistication and peak period of development andafter leaving Riga experienced the revolution in Petersburg, hereplied that this was undoubtedly true. A place always leaves itsimprint. Freedom is this city’s captive name.Freedom Street continues to be the symbol of power of its time.Where once radios were manufactured people now exercise,where once matchsticks were made people now shop and goto the cinema, the place where once people who thought differentlywere captured is now abandoned and awaiting the decisionof the powers that be, where once stood a statue of Leninnow stands a Christmas tree, where once the statue of Peter I –now the Freedom Monument. “Freedom Street” is the story of thebonds of love between the street and the calculations of powerover a period of several centuries. “Freedom Street” is the sceneof tragedy, theatre, rural and urban events, politics, art, travel, arrivals,departures, transit passengers and motor vehicles, marketsand philosophy.The 1 st World War and its traumatic nature in the consciousness ofEuropeans initiated a new wave of monument construction. Themonument became a new form of 20 th century European historyand ideology. In Riga, as one of the settings of war, monumentshave always battled and been the ritualistic embodiment of thecombat between ideas, the fruits of the writers and re-writers ofhistory, the embodiment of the consciousness of the winnersand the losers. When the 1 st World War broke out monumentswere evacuated from Riga. Amongst the evacuated monumentswere the statues of Peter I and Barclay de Tolli, J. G. Herder’sbronze bust and the bronze adornments of the Victory column.Some of the monuments were lost during evacuation (Barclay deTolli’s statue), the statue of Peter I sank together with its boat, andafter the war the adornments of the Victory column were neverreturned.The battle of monuments has always continued in Riga, initiatingarguments as to what should be pulled down and what erected.Out of all the monuments evacuated during the 1 st World War, onlythe bronze bust of the German thinker and Lutheran minister inRiga, J. G. Herder returned to its place. Herder was the one whowas driven by the conviction that no universal truth exists, but thatdifferent cultures have different answers to various principal questions,which themselves vary for different cultures. Every culturehas its centre of gravity, its point of reference; there is no causefor one culture having to fight another. Herder was the one whoconsidered that adherence to a culture unites groups of people.Riga is the battleground for these differing cultures, with a dreamof universal culture. The “Freedom Street” programme, within thecontext of European Capital of Culture, will be the location for theencounter of ideas and discussions, where monuments, ideasand truths from various periods will fight amongst each other,and will take over the pedestals of past and present monuments.Poetry battles, concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions at thefoot of the Freedom monument, by the statues to the greatest20 th century Latvian poet Rainis and the statue Barclay de Tolli,monthly artistic events at the former location of the monumentto Lenin – creating living, physically accessible monuments freefrom ideology, against which no-one has any objections. The“Freedom Street” programme will include rituals of regret, truce,commemoration and forgiveness in the form of culture.The European Capital of Culture “Freedom Street” programmewill reclaim premises that haven’t been available to the generalpublic, but whose historic existence is directly linked to the 1 stWorld War. In 1915, with the approach of the First World War frontline,Riga’s factories and manufacturing plants were evacuatedto Russia. The evacuation mainly affected Riga, where 59% of allLatvia’s enterprises, employing 79% of all workers, were concentrated.Evacuated enterprises included the wagon manufacturersFenix, Russian-Baltic wagon factory, shipbuilders “Lange andSon”, the largest rubber plant in Russia Provodņiks, and the factories“Unions” and “Felzer and Co”. The evacuation of factoriesand manufacturing plants incurred huge losses for Latvian industryand for Riga in particular. Thirty thousand wagons were usedto transport machines and machinery, raw materials and means oftransport, church bells and copper roofs at a value of 186 millionroubles. Some of these manufacturers were located directly onFreedom Street. In 2014, these former factory territories will betransformed into locations for cultural events.The “Freedom Street” will be an explosion, with reference toProfessor Jurij Lotman of the Tartu School of Semiotics, who comparedculture to an explosion, accentuating its dynamic, openand unpredictable nature.Today, the pillars of an old bridge that can be seen on the RiverDaugava next to the Railway Bridge remind us of the war-time explosionsthat destroyed bridges during the First and Second WorldWars. The task of the European Capital of Culture programme isto seek out the “explosions” of thought and culture that stimulateits openness and dynamics. In the place of the exploded bridgeartistic campaigns will symbolically construct a cultural bridgeover the River Daugava to the National Library, where the world’ssemiotic experts will discuss the relationship between culture andinvincible force at a conference.50 51