From July 26th to August 4th 2024, the fourth Livonian Summer University will take place on the Livonian Coast, in Kuoštrõg (Košrags) – a university-level program organized by the Livonian Institute of the University of Latvia and the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics of the University of Tartu, which is the only program in the world specifically intended for studies of the Livonian language, culture and history.
The summer university takes place once every few years, bringing together 35 doctoral and master’s students, Livonian researchers and speakers of the Livonian language, to get to know the Livonian language, culture and history for more than a week on the Livonian coast, to talk about their research, make future contacts and share ideas, encouraging future researchers to focus on Livonian topics and to use knowledge about Livonians in their research in other fields. As usual, the range of universities represented at the summer university is very wide – the participants are students and lecturers from the University of Tartu, the University of Helsinki, the University of Vilnius, the University of Turku, the Ludwig and Maximilian University of Munich, the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, the University of Gdańsk, the University of Groningen, the University of Paris Cité and Kobe University.
Participants of the third Livonian summer university (2021) in Kuoštrõg. Source: LU Livonian Institute.
The three previously held summer universities (in 2013 and 2021 in Kuoštrõg and in 2017 in Pizā (Miķeļtornis)) have made a great contribution to the development of research on Livonian – four participants have defended dissertations on the Livonian language, several more dissertations are currently being prepared, and the graduates of the program have also prepared a series of MA theses devoted to the topic of Livonian.
This is the first Livonian summer university which is fully supported by the Latvian state, namely by the Ministry of Education and Science. It is part of the Livonian language and culture learning system, ensuring the training of Livonian language teachers as well as the preparation of teaching materials and learning methodology for Livonian in universities.
Currently, it is possible to regularly study the Livonian language and culture at university level only at the University of Tartu, where 15 students have studied it this year. Some Livonian language and culture courses implemented by the Livonian Institute of the University of Latvia were also made available thanks to separate Erasmus+ projects, as part of the curriculums of the Liepāja Academy of Riga Technical University and of other universities.
The organizer of the summer school is the Livonian Institute of the University of Latvia (Lețmō Iļīzskuōl Līvõd institūt), a research institution created to ensure research of the Livonian language, culture, history and heritage, as well as endangered languages and cultures. In addition to research, the institute creates and maintains digital resources of the Livonian language and culture and takes care of the sustainability of the Livonian language and culture, including involvement in the development of the National Language Policy Guidelines, the Development Plan of Latvian Historical Lands, the Public Media Strategy and other documents. The Institute has encouraged the installation of road signs in the Livonian and Latgalian languages on the roads of Latvia, was the initiator of the idea of the Livonian Heritage Year (2023) and the coordinator of the events, and has also made a large contribution to the education of the Latvian and international community about the Livonian and their heritage, including involvement in the education of youngsters and teachers.
