When “hippie” was a slander – Alfred Stinkula’s autobiographical story of resistance to the Soviet regime / Article / LSM.lv

Ideological freethinkers, supporters of an autonomous lifestyle, visually bright freelancers and preachers of national self-confidence were hippies in Soviet Latvia. One of the brightest representatives of the hippie movement in Latvia – Alfreds Stinkuls – tells about life in the 70s and 80s in the book “Hair in the Red Wind” through personal experience. –

In three hundred and sixty pages of the autobiography “Hair in the Red Wind”, along with beautiful photographs, there are stories about Alfred Stinkula’s experience in Soviet Latvia, where you can feel endless longings for freedom, peace and respect for human rights.

“The book is about hair. There is a saying in English – “Hair is holy, its curls belongs to God”, which in translation would be “Hair is sacred, its curls belong to God”, “notes the author of the book Alfreds Stinkuls.

Alfred Stinkul remembers the 1970s and 1980s as a “time of complete despair”. At the time, he did not want to become a servant of power, an existing system, and support ideas he did not believe. Instead, together with like-minded people Ieva Akuratera, Valdis Muktupāvels, Gunārs Astras and others, they chose to lead a different lifestyle. However, this was not understood by the Soviet public and the authorities.

“Now everyone says – hippies, hippies… I got that name like a llama name, because I dipped my finger said – oh, you fucking hippie!

Maybe “garmatainais”. Hippie was the last that could be, the last. State criminal, traitor, drug addict, ”the author emphasizes. “It’s the 70th year we were caught on the street, detained and taken away, as if for 5 minutes of conversation, and it ended with violently cut hair against your will.”

Stinkuls says about the idea to write an autobiography: “The story is very simple. When” Thumbing in Latvia “came out, it was 1982 in Sweden, then there was a sign that some ideas were done. Realizing that you are not younger and that there is what events, memories, adventures that fade away, then you think, maybe you should try to post them now so that maybe someday you can run somewhere, all this is a 30-year event, and if I started writing down in 1988, then thanks For Daina and “Lauskas”, we have only just come to that. ”

The book was published by the cultural management center “Lauska”. The head of the center, Daina Zalal, reveals that she was already familiar with the author of the book when she once lived in Germany. Moreover, this is not the first book the two have worked on together, as her parents helped to reproduce the slides from Alfred’s collection included in her first book.

But the story about the creation of the book is connected with the desire of the director of the publishing house “Lauska” Juris Zalāns to interview Alfreds Stinkuls about his experience. Stinkuls did not agree to the interview because he replied that everything had already been written down.

Daina Zalaine reveals that he once brought a manuscript of about 300 pages, the computer printout of which had disappeared. He then started working on it about two years ago to make a book.

The book ends with the author leaving Latvia.

“The seventies are a time of complete despair. Every day your life is a mess, then you are the last dung, then everyone barks at you and, in a word, you are just unnecessary. Then roll away from there. I was glad you had the opportunity to get away , “Stinkul remembers and also adds that it has not been easy.

At the moment, his life is between America and Latvia and, as he says, “more and more Latvian features are gaining ground, and of course, in the end only Latvia will be.”

Assessing life in Latvia today, Stinkuls admits that it is “quite free, in any case everyone can do and everyone has the opportunity to shape their life, which is very important”.

Alfreds Stinkuls hopes that the book will be a valuable read for young people, allowing them to appreciate the fact that they currently live in a free Latvia.

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