Even in the times when we lived under the tsar's sceptre or the Soviet sickle we were always seeking to broaden our world outlook. This is a trait characteristic to small nations. We've always been interested in what is going on elsewhere. We need to know that we are not alone on this planet, that there are many like-minded people in the world. Our best trait as a small people is the great tolerance not commonly seen in so-called great nations. In the interests of self-preservation we know many languages. We simply have to know them. We can read the original and, feeling kinship of soul, effortlessly translate it – be it prose or verse. Did you know that Rainis rendered Goethe's Faust into Latvian verse that is more euphonious than the original? That Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra also moved the youth of Latvia to the search for self-awareness?

In the period between the world wars we mostly translated Scandinavian authors, so similar to us in their mentality. We've translated sagas and volumes of Nordic family chronicles. You'll still find Knut Hamsun's books in many a Latvian home. We can also boast good translations of German and Russian literature. The newest works by authors of different styles, different eras were translated as soon as they left the printing press. Translators Ieva Lase and Elza Stērste were sent to the Siberian death camps for twenty-five years, just for translating French literature.

When PR magicians who shape the consumer society advise the civilised peoples of good faith to speak five or six languages, we object. We're interested in the literature of the so-called small peoples. Our poets and translators Uldis Bērziņš, Pēters Brūvers, Knuts Skujenieks are working on Hebrew psalms and writings, ritual songs of Tuvan shamans, the folk songs of Crimean Tatars. We translate from the languages of our neighbours, Lithuanians and Estonians.