Paremias of the Latvians and the Russians in Latgale: From the Holy Scripture to Modern Existence

The paper presents a comparative analysis of some selected Latvian and Russian paremias, the bulk of which has been collected in the time period since the 1970s till nowadays in the south-eastern part of Latvia – Latgale, and studied in the context of Latvian proverbs included in folklore collections and phraseological dictionaries, as well as the archival materials of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and works by Latvian folklorists. The aim of the study is to analyse prototypical paremias from the Holy Scripture and trace the history of their existence and further development among the Latvians and the Russians in the Latgale region based on the qualitative data analysis. The conducted research allows concluding that similar worldview patterns of the Latvians and the Russians are to be searched for in Christianity. The analysed proverbs testify to the fact that culture is a unifying factor for different ethnic groups living in the same region

Transformations of Old Believer Wedding Rites in Latvia: The Case of Latgale

The wedding is an integral part of family life. The ways in which it is organised can differ not only between representatives of different religious groups, but also between members of the same denomination. By applying cultural-historical, ethnographic and qualitative data processing method, the paper focuses on transformations in Old Believer wedding rites between the first half of the 20th century and the present. Analysis of interviews conducted in the south-eastern region of Latvia reveals that there have been several variations in Old Believer weddings (traditional, religious and civil) which interacted and overlapped, thus creating new hybrid forms. The transformations depended on urbanisation and economic processes, political conditions, and the development of the community in interaction with other ethnic and religious groups under conditions of globalisation