Sudrabu Ajus

The son of a village teacher. After graduating from the Baltic Teacher Seminary in Riga in 1882, he taught. In 1884-1887 - he taught at elementary schools in the Ufa province . In 1887 he returned to Latvia.

During his studies, he deeply studied German and Russian classical literature. Over time, he became a great connoisseur of world literature. Often published in newspapers and magazines, mainly with poems of romantic content and genre stories.

An active participant in the Revolution of 1905-1907 in Russia , after its suppression, was forced to leave his homeland and move into the interior of Russia. He lived in Siberia, from 1907 - in the Caucasus. 11 years worked as a teacher in Baku. In 1920 left Azerbaijan .

After the end of the Civil War, he lived in Moscow, then - in Pskov . In 1924 he moved permanently to Moscow, where he began to write historical novels in the Latvian language.

He died on January 30, 1941 in Moscow, was cremated, and later his ashes were reburied at the Rainis cemetery in Riga.

He began his literary work in 1880. Created a series of romantic poems of historical content. In the 1890s, his realistic stories and novels appeared. His first works - verses and several poems - are imbued with the national romance that was characteristic of a whole generation of Latvian poets of that time. In its further development, national romance turned into a bourgeois literary movement, against which the most revolutionary poets and writers, who adjoined the so-called “ New Movement ” (Jaunā strāva), including Sudrabu Ejus, took up arms.

The novels dedicated to the return of Latvian refugees to their homeland - “Curse of the past” (1921), “Vultures” (1923), “In the swamp fog” (1925) contain criticism of the bourgeois system. The following stories are dedicated to peasant life: “Dullais Dauka”, “Pusmāsas dēls”, “Laimzemes skola”, “Velnu dzinējs”.

He is the author of the novel in verses Before the Storm (1922) about the revolutionary movement in Latvia at the beginning of the 20th century. In poems and poems of the Soviet era, Sudrabu Ejus sang the liberated labor. For his more than half a century of literary activity, he has written more than ten volumes of novels, short stories, epic poems, poems, and fairy tales.

He wrote works for the youth: short stories, the novel "The Hall" ("Velnu dzinējs", 1925).

In the story, Sudrabu Ejus will forever remain as the author of one of the most moving and sad stories ever written for children and adults - the story of “The Wonderful Dauka” (“Dullais Dauka”, 1900) about a boy who lived on the beach who wanted to know what lies behind the horizon ...

He translated prose and poetry from French, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Czech and other languages ​​into Latvian. Among them, the works of M. Lermontov , A. Pushkin , A. Delvig , L.N. Tolstoy , N.V. Gogol , A.P. Chekhov , V.M. Garshin and M. Gorky , from Polish - Mickiewicz , G. Senkevich , M. Konopnitskaya , from Lithuanian - Donelaitis , from Slovak - Gurban-Vayansky , from French - Rene Bazin , Charles de Coster , from Czech - " Brave soldier Schweik " J. Hasek and others.

• In 1985, the writer’s house was restored in Mengel and a museum dedicated to the life and creative work of Sudrab Ejus was created.
• One of the streets of Riga since 1950 bears his name .

• Sudrabu Ejus // Riga: Encyclopedia = Enciklopēdija “Riga” / ch. ed. P.P. Eran. - Riga: Main Edition of Encyclopedias , 1989. - P. 703. - 880 p. - 60,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89960-002-0 .
• History of Latvian Literature, Vol. 1. - Riga, 1971.

• Sudrabu Edgus (Latvian)