Baltic Souls

A monumental journey through Baltic history and culture, in which we encounter well-known personalities and forgotten ones, and a disconcerting picture of Europe in the twentieth century.

From 1999 to 2010, Jan Brokken explored life stories in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The result was his masterly Baltic Souls, available here for the first time in English. Brokken uncovered the stories of famous artists and writers such as Mark Rothko, Sergei Eisenstein, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Lipchitz, who were all born in the regions bordering the Baltic Sea before leaving to build their work abroad, spreading a bit of the Baltic soul across Europe and America.

Less well known were the stories of people such as the Rozes and their family bookstore in Riga, or the von Wrangels, the ultimate descendants of the Baltic barons. Or the story of the titanic struggle that violist Gidon Kremer fought with his father in Riga, who was burdened by the death of thirty-five family members in concentration camps. Or the story of Loreta Asanaviciute, who was run over by a Russian tank in 1991.

It is this melancholy imbued with fatalism, this vitality forged by the upheavals of history, this appetite for reading, music, and art, that enriches the portraits painted by Jan Brokken.

Conducted in the style of a travel diary where chance encounters and biographical sketches mingle, Baltic Souls makes us feel the cruelty and violence of an era, but also the tenderness and solidarity of an entire people, united across borders.

Praise for The Just-

'If I had known Jan Zwartendijk's story before, I would have had filmed that.'
-Steven Spielberg

'He Zwartendijk filled desperate lives with hope during a period of great darkness, and his actions will remain a beacon of decency and righteousness for generations to come.'
-Bill Clinton

'The Just documents a rescue operation to save Jews from the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania ... Deep dives into archives, and documented encounters with people who were involved in the operation, contribute to a strong narrative about ordinary people performing extraordinary deeds at great risk to their personal safety. The lives of some of the people who were saved are chronicled, as are the struggles of Zwartendijk's family and friends to have him officially recognised for his work on behalf of Jewish people, an experience of which he was robbed during his own lifetime. In telling the life story of Jan Zwartendijk, The Just adds one more piece to the memory of the Holocaust.'
-Foreword Reviews, starred review