Indrikis the Blind
(1783 – 1828)
Indrikis the Blind, the first Latvian poet whose poems were published in Latvian language, was born on 15 October 1783, in Apriku congregation, Mazdzerves parish. His parents were servants, and his father’s name also was Indrikis. He had no surname, because surnames to villains were given only starting from 1833. In some publications he is called Indrikis Hartmanis, but it might be only a later given surname.
The life of Indrikis was very simple and poor, as for any other bondman of that time. 18th century started with Northern war and Latvia became one of battlefields where Saxon, Swedish and Russian armies met each other. War led to hunger, in 1710-1711 there was plague which took almost half of population of some parishes in Vidzeme and Kurzeme regions, there were huge lands left without any inhabitants. About 1880 a huge epidemics of pox started in Europe and Baltic.
Little Indrikis also got this disease and at the age of 5 completely lost his sight. Although having very poor and limited existence (soon also his father died), the boy had very sharp mind. He was very depressed by dependence from other people, but he tried to help his family as much as he could – he even acquired shoemaker’s and tailor’s crafts.His older brother had some schooling and could read books. Indrikis had very good memory and remembered very well readings what he had listened to. Later Indrikis himself started to compose poems - that time called songs.
A very good luck for him was to meet a kind man, Carl Gothard Elferfeld (1756- 1819), the pastor of his congregation. C. G. Elferfeld was one of most intelligent and educated litterateurs of his time in Latvia (he was German by origin). He had studied theology, literature, history, philosophy, linguistics and nature science, he had good knowledge of ancient literature, classical German philosophy. He was a progressive man for that time, he disapproved barbaric attitude of landlords towards bondman, was against the idea of “germanization” of Latvians.
C.G. Elferfeld took records of poems composed by Indrikis.
In 1806 the first book of poems «Ta Neredziga Indrika Dziesmas» (“Those Songs of Indrikis the Blind”) was published. There were 14 poems, 40 pages. Thus Indrikis the Blind became the first poet of Latvian origin whose books were ever published. (The first poet of Latvian origin whose poems were published was another man - Kikulu Jekabs.)
After good sale of this book (later on poems of Indrikis were sold in more than 1200 copies) the profit was divided as follows: 50 dalders were spent to improve living conditions of Indrikis, but 50 dalders remained as future supplies.
Quite often Indrikis is compared to Homer.
His first songs were composed without rhymes, but soon he mastered this skill as well. In his songs Indrikis the Blind told about his fate, about beauty of nature, he had love lyrics, songs with religious contents. He also wrote good sermons.
Several poems were translated to German by local poet Ulrih fon Shlifenbach (1774 – 1826) and published in anthologies of Baltic poems, some were published in magazine «Der Freimutige» (Berlin). Shlifenbach suggested to make a portrait of Indrikis the Blind and artist Johann Samuel Grune (1782-1848) did it at about 1806. This is the only known portrait of the poet and now is in founds of Museum of History of Literature.
In 1807 Indrikis got married - his bride was Anna, servant from Padure parish. They got 4 children.
Indrikis continued to write poems, he dreamed about second book. But society had lost interest in his poems, and big disadvantage was the death of pastor Elferferd. Non published poems of Indrikis got lost together with archives of pastor Elferferd, his compositions were never published in full amount and many are lost forever. But still we have enough publications to speak about him as the first Latvian poet.
Indrikis died on January 24, 1828 from pneumonia and was buried in local cemetery Giborti.