E‑mail: zans.badins@du.lv
Tel.: + 371‑2834‑67‑88 13,
Vienibas str., Daugavpils, LV‑5401, Latvia DSc in Philology, Research Fellow, Daugavpils University
The Latvian National Commission for UNESCO was established by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia in 1992. Such National Commissions are created by their respective governments for the purpose of coordinating governmental and non-governmental bodies in education, the sciences, culture and communication, both with each others’ activities and with UNESCO’s work. UNESCO is the only UN agency that has such a global network.This article analyzes the compilation of the “Latvian Cultural Canon” that lists Latvian cultural entities to be officially recognized as the most important, fundamental for the country’s cultural heritage and that of the Latvian nation. It pays special attention to the problem of preserving and studying the intangible cultural heritage as presented in the section “Folk traditions”. The compiling of the “Canon” — both its content and function — sparked a widespread public discussion. Despite the fact that the “Canon” is an open structure and that the Ministry of Culture has discussed the possibility of expanding it several times, the number of cultural entities has not changed in almost ten years. The preservation and study of the intangible cultural heritage, however, is not limited to the “Canon” and the article discusses the activities of two research centers at the Latvian and Daugavpils Universities
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