In March 1958, a group of 55 well-known scientists, writers and public figures signed a petition against plans by the Gidroenergoprojekt Institute to build a hydroelectric power plant (HPP) on the Daugava (the Pļaviņas HES), which envisaged the flooding of one of the most beautiful parts of the river's glacial valley, with many natural and historical monuments. This part of the River Daugava was an important part of the Latvian nation-building myth. It was the landscape in which the eponymous hero of the epic poem 'Lāčplēsis' (1888), from the period of National Romanticism, by Andrejs Pumpurs, was born and lived. The petition was signed by people of high social standing in Soviet Latvia, such as the poetess Mirdza Ķempe (1907-1974), the sculptor Teodors Zaļkalns (1876-1972), and the head of the first pro-Soviet government in 1940 Professor Augusts Kirhenšteins (1872-1963). The petition was given to the journalist Vera Kacena (1912-1999), whose support was vital to ensure that it would be handed personally to Vilis Lācis (1904-1966), the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR. The signatories to the petition acknowledged that the construction of the power station was necessary, but they asked that it be built in such a way as to take into account the interests of other branches of the economy (such as fisheries), and the protection of natural and cultural values. The document contained an alternative proposal for the construction of the station, the ‘derivative’ channel. Kacena published an article in the weekly Literatūra un Māksla (Literature and Art), in which, without referring to the existence of the petition, she explained the arguments for the dire ecological, cultural and economic consequences of building the station according to the plan envisaged by Gidroenergoprojekt. The article stirred up great feeling among the general public: it was the first time in Soviet Latvia since the Second World War that a collective mass protest action developed. It was neutralised by the KGB, and the signatories to the petition were careful to keep out of any mass protest actions. In July 1959, liberal-minded communists in the government of the Latvian SSR were defeated at a plenary meeting of the Latvian Communist Party Central Committee, and they were gradually excluded from power. Their opponents presented the protests against the flooding of the Daugava valley as a manifestation of 'bourgeois nationalism', and any discussion of the project was impossible. The construction of the Pļaviņas HPP started in 1961, and finished in 1966. The reservoir of the HPP was constructed according to the initial plan, in a way that was most merciless to historic and natural sites. When the HPP was under construction, there was a sort of mass pilgrimage to the sites that were to vanish (Koknese, Staburags). Later, in 1966-1974, the next big station, the Riga HPP, was built on the Daugava, and its reservoir also flooded many historical and archaeological sites. In general, the case of the Pļaviņas HPP caused a deep wound in the Latvian national consciousness, and a sense of the powerlessness of society against the technocratic arguments of Moscow and the local authorities. As Dainis Īvāns said in an interview, Pļaviņas HPP became a symbol of occupation. In 1986, a mass campaign started against the construction of the Daugavpils HPP, which became the first step in the fight to regain national independence, and grew so large due to the harm caused by ignorance of the protests in the case of the Pļaviņas HPP.
Sources: Mārtiņš Mintaurs (2013). "Ieskats Pļaviņu hidroelektrostacijas tapšanas vēsturē". In: Jānis Ivars Padedzis, Mārtiņš Mintaurs (compilers), Atmiņu Daugava. Biedrība "Koknesei", pp. 50-106;
Interview with Dainis Īvāns, 18.08.2017.
