Jelgavas meitene pasaulē: ieskats rakstnieces Indras Gubiņas dzīves ģeogrāfijā

The aim of the present article, based on the vast archive of the writer Indra Gubiņa’s (1927–2017) kept in several repositories, like the University of Latvia Academic Library named after Jānis Misiņš, Museum of Literature and Music, and the National Archive of Latvia, was to select the appropriate data and create a map of the Gubiņa’s places of residence and her travels. Such a map was created using the mapping method of the digital humanities, it is available at the site www.literatura.lv – within Gubiņa’s profile. The writer Gubiņa belongs to the generation of writers who left Latvia at the end of WWII, having to leave unfinished studies, then trying to complete their education while at the camps of the displaced persons in Germany, but later – in the countries of their exile. Gubiņa started her literary activities while living in England, later continued them in Canada. Her literary works show everyday life and situation of the Latvian exiles in England and Canada, the impressions of the foreign environment, relationships of people, family and the problems of married life, complications of a woman’s inner world, as well as the relationships between generations, search for the meaning of life, as well as problems of art. The author reflects on life and culture of her age, trying to show the surrounding people as seen through her own eyes, that is the people of that particular age with their characteristic problems. The works follow the tradition of the psychological realistic prose; her poetry is characterized by a romantic, restrained mood, and personal experience. Gubiņa’s literary heritage is quite voluminous, consisting of twenty-seven books – novels, short prose, poetry, and travelogues (Europe, Mexico, Australia). Her writings in general are characterised by strong autobiographical or biographical features and aspects. Several of her works have been reissued in Latvia. She also wrote reviews of art and exhibitions. Gubiņa believed that a person is formed by one’s age, society, and geographical surroundings. The article provides an insight into the personality and work of Gubiņa from the location or geography aspect. It reveals that the most significant locations in the life of the author have been the following seemingly unlikely list: Līvbērze, Jelgava, Lübeck, Bradford, and Toronto. Arriving in Canada provided to Gubiņa her liberty, opportunity to travel and see the world, provided her with new creative impulses, or sometimes simply an occasion to relax, while the way home – to Latvia – was closed. In 1975 Gubiņa visited Soviet Latvia for the first time, then returning more frequently after 1990, though she never found a true feeling of belonging there. For the life geography of Gubiņa, Jelgava is of particularly great importance, though the town was virtually destroyed at the end of WWII. For Gubiņa, this town meant home, now completely lost; all that was left was a dream of home. She lived in Toronto, Canada, for 65 years, always viewing it as a mere place of residence. “This is anxiety, and longing for peace, that makes one time and time again to pack up the belongings and leave for the world in search of happiness somewhere else,” Gubiņa wrote. The memories of home and the town of Jelgava hold her in their power, while she admits in her poetry: “The road is grown over with nettles, / the ditches full of willows, / and the eyes – of recollections.” Work with the aforementioned digital tools and creat of the map of Gubiņa’s life space allows to visualise the vastness of this space while providing a compact view of it. Such mapping of movements or travels also provides the basis for a better understanding of the writer’s literary works. The experiences, travels and transcultural memories of Gubiņa reveal themselves in the travelogues and the moods and the depicted landscapes of her poetry, thus also enriching the ‘geography’ of the literary texts.

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