Anšlavs Eglītis

Biography

In October 1944 Anšlavs Eglītis left Riga for Courland. The road led on to Germany, and he was never able to return to Latvia.

He was born on 14 October 1906 in Riga, into the family of the writer Viktors Eglītis and Marija Eglīte, née Stalbova, a teacher and translator. His father was one of the most notable representatives of Decadence in Latvian literature. During the First World War the family lived in Russia; in 1918 they returned to Latvia and spent a short time in Alūksne. From 1919 they lived in Riga, where Anšlavs attended Riga City Gymnasium No. 2 and at the same time studied painting in the studio of Voldemārs Tone. The family spent their summers at Inciems, and that house later appeared in his novel “Pansija pilī” (“A Boarding House in the Castle”, 1962).

In 1925 he was found to have tuberculosis and was treated at a sanatorium in Leysin, Switzerland. His mother died in 1926, while he was at the sanatorium; in 1930 his father married the artist and writer Hilda Vīka. Her books and personality are thought to have influenced her stepson’s prose.

Eglītis completed his studies at the Art Academy of Latvia in 1935. He then worked as a teacher of drawing, reportedly of art history as well, at a girls’ gymnasium. In 1936 his first collection of stories, “Maestro”, was published. From 1938 he worked as a journalist for Jaunākās ziņas, the biggest Latvian newspaper, and in 1940–1941 he contributed to the magazine Atpūta. Books appeared in those years too: the poetry collection “Vientulis un dzīrotājs” (“The Recluse and the Reveller”, 1938) and the story “Līgavu mednieki” (“The Bride Hunters”, 1939). The novel “Homo novus” was serialized in 1944; in 2018 a film was made on its motifs, about the passions of Riga artists in the late 1930s.

On 31 December 1941 he married the artist Veronika Janelsiņa. She illustrated most of his books.

From Courland Eglītis went to Germany and settled in Berlin. His flat was destroyed in the bombing, and he moved to Switzerland. In 1945 his father, Viktors Eglītis, was arrested in Riga and shot; the place of burial is unknown. In 1950 the writer moved to California. He managed to live in the United States as a professional writer, which was rare among Latvian exiles. He worked with the largest émigré publishing house, Grāmatu Draugs, in Brooklyn: each new novel was, as a rule, first serialized in the newspaper Laiks and then published as a book in Latvian. For Laiks he also wrote theatre and film reviews, and his reviews appeared in the American press as well.

In 1957 the magazine Zvaigzne in Soviet Latvia began to serialize his “Neierasta Amerika” (“Unknown America”), but the publication was quickly broken off: it was judged to be an “import of bourgeois nationalism”. His plays were staged later in independent Latvia too; one of the most successful productions of the National Theatre is “Shameless Old Men” (1968), directed by Mihail Kublinskis. Some of his works were translated into English, German, Estonian and Russian.

Eglītis died on 4 March 1993 in Los Angeles, and his body was cremated. In 2006 Latvian Post issued a stamp bearing his portrait, in 2008 a monument to him was erected at Inciems, and in 2021 an exhibition in memory of the writer and his family opened in the Inciems water tower.