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Annexation of the Baltic states within the Soviet Union in 1940 affected all spheres of life, including culture. Writers and their texts were intentionally selected for being circulated outside the territory of each subject of the USSR. One of the ideological tasks of the Soviet socialist republic writers' unions was creating an impression that peoples incorporated in the whole territory of the USSR have willingly joined the Soviet Union and agree to replacing their national languages by a single official - Russian language. In order to fortify in the people's awareness the myth of Soviet republics as "sisters" that live in complete agreement and welcome mutual culture exchange, the concept of internationalization was used that did not mean stressing the uniqueness of nations but overall unification according to the Soviet standards. Rainis (Jānis Pliekšāns, 1865 - 1929) is one of the major and most promoted Latvian authors outside Latvia at various historical periods. His popularity has been determined by the numerous measures of reforming the literature of the early twentieth century, conceptual application of the poetic of symbolism, thematic focus on the formation of Latvian statehood, motifs of programming a united society and a strong individual. Rainis was included in this circular by means of creating the writer's literary reputation in accordance with the ideology of Soviet socialist realism, i.e. transformed interpretation of his personality and texts. The year of the writer's centenary - 1965 - turned out to be a culminating point of recoding of the writer in the vulgar sociological discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of relations among national and regional literatures is closely bound with the concept of national literary canon. National literary canon is a system for studying and segmenting authors who belong to a national literature. National literary canon is formed by writers and their literary works. A canon has a marked nucleus. In Latvia "Latvian Cultural Canon" was compiled in 2007 as a treasure trove that contains the most important cultural achievements of all times including also the branch of literature. The nucleus of Latvian literary canon entails writers and texts considered as the most significant ones in all history of Latvian literature. There are a number of principles according to which literary works are classified; however, literary canon sets as the criterion of selection the criterion of the worth and recognisability of a text. The idea of literary canon indirectly points to the official status of a text and its author. Changes of canon are subjected to cultural and political changes in the nation. When a literary work is included in the canon, it assumes special status or privilege - it is widely investigated and respected. The present study addresses factors that influence the inclusion/noninclusion of the so-called regional writers and their texts in the literary canon. The object of research is authors from the region of Latgale. Latgale is one of the four geoterritorial and cultural regions of Latvia that lies on the eastern border of the European Union, is marked by multinational population who are speakers of a strongly distinct dialect or literary language. The paper regards twentieth and twenty-first century writers who are of Latgalian origin or live in Latgale. The aim of the present study is to make out why some writers are granted a status of a canonized author being inscribed in national literary canon, whereas others are labelled as writers of regional significance, even if their works proclaim contemporary ideas and vision of topical social transformations in aesthetically high quality and programmatic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Proceedings of the Sarajevo Philogy Meetings / Sarajevski Filoloski Susreti is the property of Bosnian Philological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)