Arvido Purim
Viganth Arvido Purim (born 1933) is a Latvian-Brazilian community historian and translator. He is best known for his decades-long work preserving the history of the Colônia Leta do Rio Novo (Latvian Colony of Rio Novo) in Orleans, Santa Catarina, through the blog “Colônia Leta do Rio Novo – Esta é parte da história”, where he translates, annotates and publishes letters, church records and photographs of the Latvian Baptist diaspora in southern Brazil.
Family background and early life
Purim is a descendant of Latvian Baptist immigrants Jahnis (João) Purens and Lisete Rose, who left Latvia for Brazil in 1892 and settled with other Latvian families in the Rio Novo Colony in the municipality of Orleans, Santa Catarina.
Creation of the Colônia Leta do Rio Novo project
The blog “Colônia Leta do Rio Novo - (1892–1953) Esta é parte da história” was launched in 2009 as a project by Purim. He had spent years gathering and preserving the letters sent from Rio Novo to his uncle, Reynaldo (Reinis) Purim, who had left the colony in 1917 to study at the Baptist seminary in Rio de Janeiro.
In the blog, Purim translated the letters one by one, mostly from handwritten Latvian, in chronological order, and adds explanatory footnotes based on his own lived experience in the colony. The blog organizes this material alongside an extensive collection of photographs, maps and later reminiscences, aiming to reconstruct the everyday life, internal conflicts, religious debates and family networks of the Rio Novo community.
Links and Sources
[1]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/esta-e-parte-da-historia/
[2]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/1938/01/01/familia-de-artur-otto-purim-1938/
[3]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/author/vapurim/
[4]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/introducao-a-historia-da-familia-leimann/
[5]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/page/79/
[6]: https://pt.scribd.com/document/77938120/1932-40-Anos-da-Igreja-Batista-Leta-de-Rio-Novo
[7]: https://angelinawittmann.blogspot.com/2015/02/propriedade-da-familia-urubici-sc-apos.html
[8]: https://static.even3.com/anais/279590.pdf?v=638953192847888936
[9]: https://rionovo.wordpress.com/