Egle, Rudolph

Rudolf Egle ( Latvian. Rūdolfs Egle , in the Russian Empire and the USSR Rudolf Karlovich Egle ; April 17 (29), 1889 , Mazvasarauji, Druviena parish - December 17, 1947 , Riga ) - Latvian literary critic and translator. Brother Karl Egle .

He studied at the Riga Commercial School A. Keninsha (1906–1910), the Dresden Conservatory (1910–1911), and the Riga Polytechnic Institute (Department of Commerce, 1911–1914), but did not graduate from the course and did not receive a diploma. Since the beginning of World War I, he was evacuated to Petrograd , was one of the co-editors of the Latvian newspaper Jaunās Pēterpils Avīzes (1915-1916, with A. Gulbis ). From 1917 he worked in the department of Slavic literatures of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences , in 1918-1922. head of department.

In 1922 he returned to Latvia, worked in the Fund of Culture, since 1929 its chairman. In 1922-1931 together with brother Karlis he edited the first Latvian bibliological and bibliographic journal Latvju grāmata ^[1] . In 1926-1929 and 1931-1932. chairman of the trade union of writers and journalists. In 1935-1940 led his own literary studio.

In the years 1940-1941. He took an active part in the creation and work of the Writers' Union of the Latvian SSR. During the German occupation of Riga, he spent several months in prison. After the end of World War II from 1944 until the end of his life, he headed the Department of Theory of Literature at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Latvia . In 1945 he received a degree in philology, since 1946 a professor. Simultaneously, from 1946, deputy director for scientific work at the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the LSSR.

He made his debut in print in 1908, publishing a poem in the newspaper Dzimtenes Vēstnesis. In the interwar period he was one of the authors and editors of the encyclopedia "Latviešu konversācijas vārdnīca" (1927-1940), together with A. Upitom wrote "The History of World Literature" ( Latvian. Pasaules rakstniecības vēsture ; 1930-1934, in 4 volumes). Compiled and commented on the collected works of E. Weidenbaum , J. Poruka , K. Skalbe , M. Yu. Lermontov (1945–1946), G. Heine (1948), the anthology “Latvian Lyrics” ( Latvian. Latvju lirika ; 1934), the first volume of collected works of Shakespeare (1938). He translated into Latvian the Lermontov novel “The Hero of Our Time ” (1927), the works of Shakespeare, Guy de Maupassant , Walt Whitman, and others.

The selected critical and literary works of Egle are collected in the book “Articles on Literature” ( Latvian. Raksti par literatūru ; 1989, ed. E. Damburs , foreword and bibliography by S. Sirsone ).

The wife (since 1914), Elsa Egle (1888–1950) is a translator, has translated into Latvian many works of Maxim Gorky , as well as novels by A. Cronin , stories by A. I. Kuprin, and others.