73 Chapter 4. Diaspora Festivals as a Way for Development of Cultural Identity … as broad a range of people as possible, ancient traditions are aligned with the interests of a consumer society. Therefore, new rituals which attract public attention appear alongside the traditional. The survey carried out shows that in Daugavpils, under the conditions of historic multiculturalism and globalization, the cultural identity of certain ethnic groups is being subjected to rapid changes. The views of the respondents from various ethnic origins (Latvian, Russian, Polish, and Belarusian) concerning diaspora festivals testify to the hybridization of cultures, for instance, via the regular attendance of solemn Slavic (Russian, Polish, and Belarusian) events. In mixed families, rituals of traditional national festivals overlap and interact. The quantitative dominance of the Slavic diasporas determines the importance of these national cultures in the conscience of the city’s population. Public festivals positively encourage cultural exchange and promote integration. By contrast, closed festivals dedicated exclusively to a particular circle of people strengthen the unity of the community and its cultural values. However, young people, despite the community’s efforts to involve them in their diaspora’s events that aim to preserve ethnic traditions, prefer to participate in public festivals. Therefore, cultural boundaries tend to merge. The respondents represent an age group that reflects the vision of the future society. They do not consider it important to preserve all the now-familiar traditions or identity of a certain culture; nor do they prioritize establishing cultural purity. They perceive other nations and cultures living alongside them in everyday life as familiar and close. Being members of a multicultural community, and in many cases coming from mixed families, they support the preservation and adoption of other cultures’ traditions that hold the greatest appeal for the consumer society. In the circumstances of long-term multiculturalism, creolization and hybridization are natural processes. References Annus, Epp (2012) “The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics.” [In:] Journal of Baltic Studies 43(1); 21–45. DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2011.628551 Bakhtin, Mikhail ([1965] 1984) Rabelais and His World [orig. Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaja kulʹtura srednevekovʹja i Renessansa]. Translated from Russian by Hélenè Iswolsky. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Gross, Joan, David McMurray, Ted Swedenburg (1996) “Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco–Maghrebi Identities.” [In:] Smadar Lavie, Ted
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