Laidi Legends

Ieva Epnere was interested in the non-material evidence of the past and the Spirit of this place revealed in legends. From this, the idea for a play was born that was performed at the Laidi School’s centenary gathering, which was postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

By cooperating with the school dramatic group and inviting the choreographer Elīna Gediņa, five “Laidi Legends” plays were created. About the white lady, the Countess of Laidi, who wanders around the castle due to unfulfilled love as a reproach to prejudices and greed in different social groups. About the foundation sacrifice, or the blood sacrifice of Valtaiķi Church, which is necessary so that the building does not collapse. For the best place in the ravine near the Rudzīši stone where marigolds flourish. About the mystical 70-metre abyss in the middle of the forest where Turlava, Snēpele and Laidi border, and the marsh sedge feeds on the passions of territorial interests. About the red cow that appears once in a hundred years from which money can be shaken.

In the flames of the Russian revolution of 1905, Kazdanga Castle, belonging to the owners of the Laidi manor burnt down. In Laidi, farmers were beaten. The censor Remiķis who came from Laidi shortly before Tsar Nicholas II’s manifesto on freedom of speech had passed through censorship the drama tale “The Silver Veil” written by Aspazija in which the main character, Guna, sets fire to the royal palace with a red veil.  The White German newspaper “Düna-Zeitung” (1905, 221) wrote indignantly about the provocation in the New Latvian Theatre. The theatre mingled with life.  About 450 German-Baltic castles and manors were burnt down. The buried gold of the censor Remiķis, mentioned in one of the legends, is nowhere to be found.

The information from the Ministry of Education shows that in the last twenty-three years, more than 400 schools have been closed in Latvia; Laidi School was closed with fireworks.

The artist Ieva Epnere, together with the cameraman Valdis Celmiņš, continues to work on the documentary film about the last semester of Laidi School in which the celebration and farewell were mixed in a symmetrical inversion.