The Mērija Grīnberga Jr (1909-1975) collection is a testimony to the rescue by museum employees of cultural values threatened by both the Second World War and by political change. It is also a testimony to the persecution and distrust of members of the 'old' Latvian intelligentsia in Soviet Latvia, despite their sometimes desperate attempts to accommodate the political demands of the regime.
The collection is a testimony to the rescue by museum employees of cultural values threatened by both the Second World War and by political change. They are also testimony to the persecution and distrust that members of the 'old' Latvian intelligentsia experienced in Soviet Latvia, despite their sometimes desperate attempts to accommodate the political demands of the regime. The Mērija Grīnberga Jr collection is a part of a bigger one, the Grinbergs-Grosvalds family collection. This family was one of the most prominent families in the political and cultural life of Latvian society until 1940. Members of the family include the painter Jāzeps Grosvalds (1891-1920) and the diplomat and art historian Oļģerds Grosvalds (1884-1962). Their sister Mērija Grīnberga Sr (1881-1973) was the founder and proprietor of a popular salon of applied arts in the 1920s and 1930s. Her son Emanuels Grinbergs, despite persecution during the Stalinist period, became a prominent mathematician. The collection of family artefacts, including material on Mērija Grīnberga Jr, was donated to the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation in 1975-1977 by Emīlija Gadziņa, the wife of Mērija‘s brother Emanuels Grinbergs (1911-1982). Mērija Grīnberga Jr (1909-1975) worked in several museums from the late 1930s. From October 1944 to February 1946, she accompanied the most valuable items from the main Riga museum collections evacuated by Nazi Germany's state institutions to the Opava region in the present-day Czech Republic. Thanks to her efforts, most of the collection was preserved and returned to Riga, although she could not prevent the loss of some items through looting and transport (initially the collections were packed in approximately 700 boxes, she returned to Riga in February 1946 with 406 boxes). Her efforts were not acknowledged, there are several drafts of accounts to authorities about her actions in Czechoslovakia in the collection. In 1950, under the pretext of non-compliance with the instructions of her superiors, she was fired from her job in the museum, although she tried to accommodate the demands of the Soviet authorities, and even began evening courses at the University of Marxism-Leninism. After some temporary jobs, she found work in a factory. In 1958, when the attitude towards the 'old' intelligentsia softened somewhat, she found a job as a librarian at the State Museum of Latvian and Russian Art (now the Latvian National Museum of Art). There are several publications and a documentary about M. Grīnberga Jr. 'Mērija's Voyage' (Mērijas ceļojums) is in the process of shooting. She is often mentioned as a charismatic personality in recollections about the National Museum in the 1960s and 1970s, most recently in the novel 'The Museum' (2017) by Jānis Rokpelnis.
Popis obsahu
The collection consists of around 100 artefacts: documents and photographs of Mērija Grīnberga Jr. These artefacts are testimony to the dramatic story of the rescue by museum staff of cultural values threatened by both the Second World War and by political change. They are also a testimony to the persecution and distrust of members of the ‘old’ Latvian intelligentsia in Soviet Latvia. The very fact that Mērija Grīnberga brought back the collections of Riga museums, and did not choose to remain in Western occupation zones, as other people did who looked after collections, was treated with suspicion by the Soviet authorities in Latvia. Among the documents, there are several draft versions of accounts of her actions in Czechoslovakia. Harassment by her superiors led to a nervous breakdown. In 1950, she was dismissed from her position at the State Museum of History (now the Latvian National Museum of History), and had to work on a factory assembly line. Only in 1958 did she return to museum work, as a librarian with the State Museum of Latvian and Russian Art (now the Latvian National Museum of Art). In this capacity, she was a kind of legend for the younger generation in the 1960s and 1970s, a living link between pre-Soviet Latvian cultural life and the present day.
