Corner House to premiere performance-tour "My Father – A Russian"

The Corner House in Riga is set to premiere a performance-tour called "My Father – A Russian," written by author Inga Žolude. The piece draws on the writer's own family history and invites audiences to reflect not only on their personal experience but also on Latvia's experience as a nation facing various historical challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Memory as the basis of identity

Žolude explains that history is essentially a narrative of memory, and that everyday life depends on memory, which largely shapes a person's identity and character. The performance-tour shows that individuals are shaped not only by their own private memories but also by a historical memory shared across an entire society and multiple generations.

According to the author, ideological manipulation under the totalitarian regime influenced, altered and reshaped memory, making it selective and often subjecting it to forgetting. This, Žolude says, distorts narratives and leads to the manipulation of the very concept of truth.

Forgetting and dementia

The phenomenon of memory and its role in a person's life is one of the production's central themes. The work also addresses the phenomenon of forgetting and the experience of Alzheimer's disease, with Žolude noting that dementia is currently considered one of the statistically fastest-growing illnesses in the world. Still, as the author emphasizes, there are things that must not be forgotten.