I've had friends from all over the world for about sixteen years now, and every summer since then, I've been trying to explain Jāņi to at least one new person. For some reason, I never thought to save any of the links the videos I found, and new ones got uploaded all the time, so every once in a while I'd just start the search again and look at a bunch of videos of Jāņi, trying to figure out which of them best captures the atmosphere of this celebration as I've experienced it, both in my personal celebrations and in the culture more generally.
The video I've linked above is one of the best I've ever seen (specifically for the purpose of sharing with people who've never been to Latvia and have probably never heard of this holiday). So if you have any people like that in your life (or you yourself are reading this as a foreigner), then it's a really good resource! Though it's definitely missing the beer drinking, the bonfire jumping, and the sauna afterwards haha.
However, to get a fuller understanding of the variety of Jāņi celebrations, I've always felt that you need at least three videos (or a longer documentary):
1) one for the casual gatherings where people are just there to drink beer, eat cheese, wear a few flower crowns, and sing songs with their family over a campfire;
2) one where people take traditions a bit more seriously, but mostly as a cultural legacy and a time to connect with nature and community rather than an actual belief in the superstition;
3) and one that feels like genuine neo-paganism, where it's very impressive and feels like something our ancestors might have done a thousand years ago, but also if it's the only source of information a foreigner got about Jāņi, you'd feel compelled to add "well it's not really like that for most people nowadays".
It's a bit hard to draw the line between categories sometimes, but here are some of the others I like:
–https://youtu.be/YEszDiXiO4E?si=4_ioBbhQ3g1K-F7Q (3) (somehow the only one of these where anyone jumps over a bonfire, how is that possible)
–https://youtu.be/NQmH3jDsiWk?si=7rqChFQ1558HTq7i (2)
–https://youtu.be/7bJZIFzq5d0?si=2DJTLV22vqJVFL5Y (3)
–https://youtu.be/HAP-apnIJlM?si=-7noopk5a0HtEI3u (1)
–https://youtu.be/5u4lPgn73oc?si=l4m9rwFAqCOtu4PV (2)
–https://youtu.be/0ehGqa-OvGs?si=o6Wqpo3tA_nn2Ysr (2)
–https://youtu.be/SUAV5c7kB5c?si=bFzCTMFtmD-MlH3_ (2)
–https://youtu.be/ToY2ah7uUno?si=F64_IJ6c6fPnxSkd (3)
There was also a really good video around 2009 of two men in oak wreaths sitting on a hillside drinking beer and making up new verses for folk songs on the spot as dawn was breaking. Unfortunately it got deleted after a few years, but dang, that captured something fundamental about these gatherings for me. 😂
Do you have any favorite videos to share with people?
by awickedspell