Cilvēks un zirgs mijiedarbībā: Rūdolfa Georga Bindinga olimpiski apbalvoto miniatūru kontekstuāls raksturojums

The topic of horses and horse breeding has its place both in the folklorized cultural heritage of Northern Europe (for example, Sleipnir, the mythological horse figure of the god Odin) and in authorised literature in the Baltic Sea region, including in Latvian and German, as well as in the range of writings of other countries and peoples. Horses and riding form an integral part of socio-historical existence and prove to be a particular background for representing human relationships. This topic area has a special place in the German short story “The Great Sacrifice” (Der Opfergang, 1912; translated into Latvian and published in 1944 under the name “Upurgājiens”) by writer, captain and horse breeder Rudolf Georg Binding (1867–1938). Based on this prose plot, a German movie of the same name was made in 1944. In the 1920s, Binding wrote literary-psychological miniatures from the position of an expert in this field with a general title “Riding Regulations for a Mistress” (Reitvorschrift für eine Geliebte, 1924), which has not been translated/published in Latvia, but a Latvian adapted title could be “Jāšanas sporta pamācības mīļotajai”. For this work, the author won a silver medal in the category of lyrical works at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928, as medals for artistic achievements were also awarded at seven Olympic Games between 1912 and 1948. The article aims for an analytical-interpretive characteristic of the artistically specific representation, thus also providing motivation for translating the literary text. Methodologically, the focus is first on a cultural-historical overview of the topic. The texts of miniatures are examined from a hermeneutic perspective, looking at the correlation between its individual units – miniatures – and the wholeness at the level of discourse understanding, highlighting the communicative function and the connection to the ecocritical interaction between people and environment, more precisely – between humans and animals. It should be noted in the conclusions that the collection of miniatures, with their challenging attitude, shows aspects of the most successful possible understanding and interaction between humans and animals (here – female riders and horses), which are poetically consistently reflected in the texts. Thus, the translation of the collection of miniatures into Latvian would also be helpful for general pedagogical and educational purposes, for youth and amateur sports, as well as for appreciators of poetically lyrical prose.