It is not a classical history book, on
the other hand it is not historical novel. This is something in between.
Between biography, autobiography and novel. Based on different sources, but
mostly memories, this book is showing us human dimension of great events. Even
he doesn’t follows main rules of historical science, like always refer to
sources, Eksteins shows why us history is important and
interesting.
Structure and main point of
Walking since daybreak is very interesting. Main story of this book goes until
Hour zero, or end of Second World War, but author speaks about Cold war, Latvia as an
independent state and everything that happened after 1945, but in his unique
way. My personal opinion is that author had several completely different goals
which could not be divided, and again they are completely separated. First one,
which he mentioned in the preface, is to discover history and information of
one German baron. Second goal is to tell his family’s story from Latvia in 19th century to Canada and back to Latvia in the end of 20th
century. Third goal is to write about history of region now known as Latvia
from late middle ages until present time. This is why this book is unique ,
author has made connection between three of his goals even he was writing
separately of every one of them. Even in 20th century when Ekstains
family find a safe place in Canada
this connection was present, but not that obvious. To succeed in his venture, author needed to write in
the way that he wrote. And here lies the answer why he wrote in such uncommon
style.
The real value of this book is in
those parts where author writes different personal stories from his family
collective memory. The story, with which his book begins, about his great grand
mother Grieta is filled with deepest emotions.
The part when he is talking about
this special connection between girl with flaxen hair and German baron is most
charming and very refreshing, since You are reading book about history.
Walking since daybreak is not common
history book, like we can usually read, although it was written by historian. History books are written
carefully, principally based on written or material historical sources,
overcrowded with footnotes and various references of different authors who were
writing about same or similar subject earlier. It is common to write book like
this chronologically, from past to present times. This book is written in
unique style. Like in the motion picture, Ekstains cleverly switches story from family
history to European or national history, or from 19th to 20th century and back, without loosing connection
with the main story.