One mother's Latvian condition.


[4] Darkness As Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (1)

The famous play by Sophocles known as “Oedipus Rex” or “Oedipus the King” has long been the amazing gelatin pudding that Sigmund Freud baked at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Freud’s interpretation of Sophocles’ play, taken as if from the frothy top layers of the pudding when not yet set, seemed for a time credible enough.

Summary of plot: A son is taken from his mother’s breast at an early age and transported to another country. He happens to return to the country of his origin, kills the dragon (Sphinx) that threatens the city, and gets—as his prize—to marry the Queen, who is a widow. As it happens the Queen turns out to be his mother.

The mirror of reality.

The question of what happened that Oedipus should be removed from his mother’s breast and taken to another country constitutes the early mystery of Sophocles’ play.



The traditional explanation (and the one apparently encouraged by Sophocles’ himself) is that the King of Thebes, Oedipus’s father, did not want the boy, and to be rid of him had him exposed to the elements on the highest mountain nearby.

The task of taking the infant to the mountain top and leaving him naked and ankles bound to the elements is entrusted to one of the shepherds  of the King. The shepherd however takes pity on the infant and takes him to the kingdom of Corinth on the other side of Mt. Citheron. The childless King and Queen of Corinth adopt the infant for their own.

To prove to King Laius that his son Oedipus did not survive the night, another infant is killed in his place and his body is shown to the king as that of his own son. The dead infant is of course from one of the infants that are periodically offered to the Sphinx, a composite of all the Gods who receive human sacrifice.

The light to light the cave of Dismal.

The loss to Oedipus is that while his life is not exposed to risk and therefore he stays alive for sure, he loses his chance to be raised as the next king of Thebes. He will have to be satisfied with being a prince in a neighboring country, but remain an orphan to the role he was born to in the city-kingdom of Thebes.

There is yet another version of why the infant Oedipus was exposed to the elements. This version is motivated by the need to expose the infant to the will of the Gods.

That is to say, if Oedipus survives the night and is found alive the next morning, the citizens of Thebes will believe that the Gods have given a sign. The message is that the King’s son is fit to become the next king of Thebes. [For my version of the play http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/ ]

What is it about this story of events at the city of Thebes that connects with events in Latvia in our time?



Something like a kitchen cuboard that was.



The answer is to be sought in myth, be it sourced in an actual event or a fantasy. If a fantasy becomes part of the rhetoric of a nation so much so that it is believed to be actual and people act on it if they are ever called to re-found their nation. If the heroism of the past is imitated today, then heroism remains operative in our own time.

The founding myth of Latvia—albeit more than artificial and well worn by the Age of Enlightenment, which emerging Latvians nevertheless felt compelled to adopt as their own—is “Lāčplēsis” (literally: Wripper of Bears).

Whatever this is.

While the poet’s (Pumpurs) mythic hero is claimed by the Earth, when he falls into the Daugava river hugging the Black Knight, he is reassured resurrection by his lover Spidola (Bright One). Spidola jumps into Daugava and shouts: “The battle, Lacplesi, is not over yet. Spidola is coming to help you.”

Reassured of a mating with Spidola on the other side of the Sun (Aizsaulē), the mythic hero is indeed called to a reawakening. Be that as it may, he is reborn as the President of Latvia, one Karlis Ulmanis.

What does Ulmanis do when the Soviets cross the border of Latvia?

The furnace and the chimney.

Ulmanis was forewarned of the event if only by reduction and deduction: the Baltic Germans by special arrangement between Stalin and Hitler were fleeing Latvia for Germany. This writer, who had a German nanny at the time (1940), should know. His nanny offered his parents to take him to Germany with her. Germany was presumed to offer relative safety in those uncertain times. His parents chose not to separate their children to favor one.

However, when show down time came, President Kārlis Ulmanis did not resist the Soviets.

He did not declare war on the Soviets; nor send armed men to resist Stalin without a declaration of war; nor offer a barrage of resistance rhetoric; nor put a pistol to his head when the first Soviet official dared enter his office without his permission and his guard was shot.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!*

Instead, he took a job in the Soviet Union as manager of a collective farm. Had war not broken out, he would have lived many years yet. When the Soviets obliterated his grave, they had not premeditated his death, but took advantage of the circumstance.

(To be continued… )

*Photos are of an apartment assigned to a mother with three children--before renovation.