Young Latvians

Young Latvians (Latvian: jaunlatvieši) is the term most often applied to the intellectuals of the first Latvian National Awakening (Latvian: tautas atmoda), active from the 1850s to the 1880s. "Jaunlatvieši" is also sometimes translated as "New Latvians," but "Young Latvians" is the more accurate term because it was modeled on the Young Germany (German: Junges Deutschland) movement led by Heinrich Heine. Originally a derogatory epithet applied to these nationalist intellectuals by their mostly Baltic German opponents, the term "Young Latvia" (German: "ein junges Lettland") was first used by Gustav Wilhelm Sigmund Brasche, the pastor of Nīca, in a review of Juris Alunāns' Dziesmiņas latviešu valodai pārtulkotas ("Little Songs Translated for the Latvian Language") in the newspaper Das Inland in 1856. Asking who could appreciate such literature in Latvian (Alunāns' book was the first major translation of classic foreign poetry into Latvian), Brasche warned that those daring to dream of "a Young Latvia" would meet the tragic fate of the boatman in Heine's poem "Die Lorelei," a translation of which appeared in Alunāns' anthology. The Young Latvians were also sometimes known as "Lettophiles" or "tautībnieki" ("ethnicists").