The theologian and painter Miervaldis Ķemers (1902.05.03–1980.19.06) is an unusual personality in the culture of Latvia, whose place and role as a preacher of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia in the second quarter of the 20th century and also after the Second World War still lack a scientific evaluation. Similarly, a scientifically based study is necessary of M. Ķemers’ artistic creativity, the brightest period of which is associated with the name of Vilhelms Purvītis, the founder of the Landscape Master Workshop at the Art Academy of Latvia. The article briefly outlines the complicated fate of M. Ķemers and his family during the First World War, when they moved to inland Russia and, like many Latvians, suffered many privations and difficult circumstances, at times at a great sacrifice went through the hard times and returned to their homeland after the emergence of an independent state of Latvia. Captivating are M. Ķemers’ biography pages which testify to the young and artistically gifted person’s search for one’s way of life, as he obtained the education of a Lutheran pastor and served the church at the so-called Jaunlatgale — the Russian border area. When in Latgale, fortuity and the amateur painting skills brought M. Ķemers to meet Vilhelms Purvītis, under whose influence the formally educated theologian enrolled for a second time, only this time it was at the Art Academy of Latvia to fulfil his dream of becoming a pupil of V. Purvītis. It was only in 1947 that M. Ķemers could complete the studies when his esteemed professor had gone into exile and died there. Under the Soviet occupation, however, an artist who could not abandon his main job as a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, but wanted to be a recognized artist, could not expect loyalty and appreciation from the regime’s watchmen. Therefore, the published insight into documents and facts is an attempt to evaluate the events in an objective and retrospective way, to analyse the causes and consequences of changes in M. Ķemers’ life, and to give an insight into the events of the Third Awakening. Through the prism of culture between 1989 and 2007, they reflect the economic interests of the Soviet regime nomenclature, as a result of which the psychology of socialist collective property, in times of change, acquires the grimaces of the Post-Soviet-distorted society of market economy
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