In the first three months since the website www.21augusts.lv was launched, video interviews with the eyewitnesses of the restoration of the de facto independence of Latvia have attracted the greatest number of visitors.

The website devoted to the 21 August celebrations features material on the role of 21 August 1991 in Latvia’s history, as well as topical information on various events to be held to honour this significant date. Since early May, the website has been visited more than 10,000 times by visitors from various countries worldwide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Iceland and Australia. The 21 August website is available in Latvian, English and Russian.

In order to mark the anniversary of the de facto restoration of independence of our country, the Saeima has begun compiling a comprehensive video archive of eyewitness accounts, experiences and memories of that time. The archive project will immortalise accounts of events as witnessed by members of the Supreme Council and their contemporaries who supported the idea of an independent state.

Excerpts from the series of interviews titled History of the Rebirth of Latvia have been published on the website www.21augusts.lv; they include the recollections of Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Dainis Īvāns, Jānis Peters, Ivars Godmanis, Einārs Cilinskis, Ilma Čepāne, Andris Bērziņš, Ints Cālītis, Dzintars Ābiķis and Linards Muciņš. The video archive is regularly supplemented. For instance, it is planned to include interviews with Raimonds Pauls, Indulis Bērziņš and Andris Grūtups.

The interviewers are people who were members of the Supreme Council themselves at that time and whose professional activity is associated with journalism – Edvīns Inkēns, Jānis Gavars, Viktors Avotiņš, Jānis Krūmiņš and Normunds Beļskis.

On 21 August 2011 we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of restoration de facto independence of our state. 21 August 1991 was a turning point in our state’s history, when the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia adopted the Constitutional Law on the Statehood of the Republic of Latvia, which restored the de facto independence of Latvia.

This Law renewed the effect of the Satversme (Constitution) adopted in 1922 and its intrinsic values of a Western democratic state that is governed by law. Adoption of the Constitutional Law annulled the effect of all laws of the USSR in Latvia. This Law served as a reference point for other countries that recognised the restoration of Latvia’s independence.

To see the video interviews, please visit: http://www.21augusts.lv/video-intervijas/viewcategory/12/latvijas-atdzimanas-vsture

Saeima Press Service