Rainis - Return To Latvia

Return To Latvia

Rainis and Aspazija returned to Latvia on April 4, 1920 and received a heroes welcome. They had served as the spiritual leaders for the fight for Latvian independence. Rainis, as a member of the Central Committee of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party, resumed his political activities and was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia (Satversmes sapulce) and Saeima (Parliament) and of the Ministry of Education Arts Department, founder and director of the Dailes Theater, and director of the Latvian National Theatre from 1921 to 1925, Minister of Education from December, 1926 to January, 1928, and a member of the Cultural Fund and (Military) Order of Lāčplēsis Council. During this period he wrote:

• plays — Iļja Muromietis (Ilya Muromets), Mīla stiprāka par nāvi (A Love Stronger Than Death), Rīgas ragana (The Witch of Riga);
• poetry — Treji loki, Sudrabota gaisma (A Silvery Light), Mēness meitiņa (Moon Girl), Zelta sietiņš (The Gold Strainer), and others;
• memoirs — Kastaņjola (Castagnola).

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.