Folklora latviešu fantāzijas literatūrā. Autoetnogrāfisks skatījums

In the period from the restoration of Latvia’s independence until 2023, several diverse fantasy books have been published that contain Latvian folklore motifs. These books reveal several trends, including an overly sacred attitude towards Latvian heritage in the early works. Later, as the influence of Western culture grew, authors turned to foreign themes and hardly used Latvian folklore at all. However, several works firmly based on Latvian folklore have been published in recent years, including my novel “Gardens of Stars” (Zvaigžņu dārzi, 2023). The use of folklore in Latvian fantasy literature, and especially the considerations behind author’s choices regarding this use have not been intensely studied, thus this article aims to gain insight into the use of folklore motifs by analysing the works of various authors, as well as examining my own experience as a fantasy author using analytical autoethnography. The identified folklore motifs are divided into seven thematic categories, and their meaning in folklore and representation in the selected works are examined. At the same time, similar examples of folklore motifs that I have used in my novel are highlighted to illustrate from a personal perspective the considerations that may determine their selection and use.