Rainis was the pseudonym of Jānis Pliekšāns, a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician. Rainis' works include the classic plays Uguns un nakts and Indulis un Ārija, and a highly regarded translation of Goethe'sFaust. His works had a profound influence on the literary Latvian language, and the ethnic symbolism he employed in his major works has been central to Latvian nationalism.
Early life
Rainis was born on "Varslavāni" farm, Dunava parish in Jēkabpils municipality. His father, Krišjānis Pliekšāns, was a tenant farmer. His mother was Dārta, née Grikovska, and he had two sisters, Līze and Dora. During his education at the Riga City Gymnasium he met and befriended Pēteris Stučka, Dora Pliekšāne's future husband, who later become a prominent Latvian communist.
Early career
Rainis studied law at the University of St. Petersburg, where he shared a room with Pēteris Stučka. While still a student, Rainis was already collecting folk songs, writing satirical and lyric poetry, and translating literature. Together with Stučka he edited a collection of epigrams and satire, Mazie dunduri and published Apdziedāšanas dziesmas about the third All-Latvian Song Festival. The two men, however, would later split because of the differences between socialist and communist ideologies. After completing his studies, he worked at the Vilnius regional courtrooms and with Andrejs Stērsts in Jelgava. Rainis wrote for Dienas Lapa, Tēvija and the Latvian Conversational Dictionary. From 1891 to 1895 Rainis was editor in chief of Dienas Lapa. The Dienas Lapa scene was mostly a group of young Latvian liberal and socialist intellectuals who came to be known as the New Current. After attending the congress of the Second International in 1893, Rainis began to emphasize socialist ideology and news of socialist events in "Dienas Lapa." He is recognized as the father of Latvian socialism. It was during this period that he met Aspazija, another Latvian poet and playwright active in the New Current. Because of their social criticism and calls for various reforms, the New Current was viewed as a seditious movement and was the subject of a Tsarist crackdown. In 1897 Rainis was arrested and deported first to Pskov, and later to Vyatka guberniya. It was during this period of internal exile that Rainis translated Faust and other works from classical literature. Here he also produced his first collection of poems, Tālas noskaņas zilā vakarā.
Foreign exile
Rainis was also socially active and politically prominent, being one of the national leaders of the Revolution of 1905 in Latvia and the New Current that foreshadowed it. With the failure of the Revolution, he emigrated to Switzerland together with his wife Aspazija, settling in Castagnola, a suburb of Lugano. As an émigré, Rainis wrote:
plays — Zelta Zirgs , Jāzeps un viņa brāļi, Spēlēju, dancoju, Daugava, and Ģirts Vilks;
poetry — Klusā grāmata, Vēja nesta lapas, Tie, kas neaizmirst, Gals un sākums, Ave sol, and Sveika, brīvā Latvija.
His dramatic ballad Daugava contained the first explicit demand for Latvian sovereignty: Those lines were removed by the censor when the work was first published in Moscow. After the defeat of Bermondt-Avalov's forces at Riga in November 1919, the ballad was given a performance at the National Theater to mark the first anniversary of Latvia's proclamation of independence; many soldiers carried this work into battle. "Zelta Zirgs" was translated to English in 2012 by Vilis Inde.
plays — Iļja Muromietis, Mīla stiprāka par nāvi, Rīgas ragana ;
poetry — Treji loki, Sudrabota gaisma, Mēness meitiņa, Zelta sietiņš, and others;
memoirs — Kastaņjola.
Rainis had the ambition of becoming Latvia's president and became less prominent in politics when this ambition was not fulfilled. During the 1920s, Rainis was among the candidates considered for a Nobel Prize in Literature. His journals from these years exhibit both his great longing for this international recognition, as well as his bitter disappointment at never receiving the award. He died in Majori in 1929.
Legacy and commemoration
A number of Rainis' poetry collections were published posthumously: Sirds devējs, Dvēseles Dziesma, Lielās līnijas, and Aizas ziedi. Rainis' statue at the Esplanāde in Riga is a gathering-place that highlights the complex way his multi-faceted career and works are interpreted. It is the focal point for the national poetry festival, always held on his birthday, as well as a focus for the left wing, from the Social Democrats to the radical opposition to Latvia's education reform. Similarly, criticism of his work has often been strongly affected by politics; while the Soviets emphasized his socialism, Daugava and other patriotic works were omitted from editions of Rainis' texts prior to the Third Latvian National Awakening.
