Pastor and writer who headed Latvia's pro-German government of 1919
"Not clever speeches or treaties but force decides a nation's fate," he declared at his 1924 treason trial.
A leading Latvian novelist and Lutheran pastor, he headed the pro-German government backed by von der Goltz after the Liepāja coup of 1919. His regime fell after Cēsis, he fled to Germany and, returning in 1924, was tried for treason and expelled.
Career timeline
1890–1899Studied theology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu)
1903–1906Edited and published the journal Austrums in Cēsis
1906–1918Lutheran pastor in the Matīši, Kalsnava and Vietalva parishes
1917Co-founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, member of its board
1919.05–06Prime Minister of the pro-German provisional government
1924Convicted of treason, then expelled by presidential pardon
1926–1930Pastor of a German congregation in Altstadt, East Prussia
Proletarian children's theatre pioneer who led Walter Benjamin to Marxism and Brecht
Benjamin dedicated One-Way Street (1928): 'This street is named Asja Lacis Street, after her who as an engineer cut it through the author.'
Latvian theatre director who pioneered proletarian children's theatre after the Revolution, drew Walter Benjamin toward Marxism in 1924, and collaborated with Brecht and Piscator. After ten years in camps, returned to lead the Valmiera Theatre.
Career timeline
1915–1917Studies at Komissarzhevsky Theatre School, Moscow; teaches at Latvian refugee school
Latvian-born Civil War hero turned defendant in the Tukhachevsky trial
On the night of 7 August 1920, Eideman's Right-Bank Group crossed the Dnieper to seize the Kakhovka bridgehead, a position sixty kilometres from Perekop that turned the flank and rear of Wrangel's army.
A Latvian-born Soviet commander and writer whose defence of the Kakhovka bridgehead as 13th Army commander helped break Wrangel's offensive from Crimea. He later trained Red Army cadres at the Frunze Military Academy and built the Osoaviakhim civilian defence apparatus, but in 1937 he was shot as a defendant in the Tukhachevsky trial and rehabilitated in 1957.
Career timeline
1916Graduated Kiev Military School, ensign in 16th Siberian Reserve Regiment
1917–1918Deputy chairman of Centrosibir, joined the Bolshevik Party
Master of montage: the revolutionary filmmaker who created a new cinematic language and reshaped world cinema
The Revolution gave me the most precious thing in life — it made me an artist. Without it, I would never have broken the father-to-son tradition of engineering.
Soviet film director and montage theorist whose *Battleship Potemkin* reshaped the grammar of world cinema. From revolutionary avant-garde to Stalin-era historical epics, he explored a cinematic language responsive to his times.
Career timeline
1924Debut feature Strike, an experimental film introducing 'montage of attractions'
1925Battleship Potemkin released — the Odessa Steps sequence becomes a landmark of world cinema
1927–1929October and The General Line (Old and New) — deepens his theory of intellectual montage
1929–1932Travels to Europe, Hollywood, and Mexico; shoots the unfinished epic ¡Que viva México!
1935Awarded Honored Artist of the RSFSR
1938Alexander Nevsky released — awarded Stalin Prize 1st class, Order of Lenin, and doctorate in art history
1940Appointed artistic director of Mosfilm; stages Wagner's Die Walküre at the Bolshoi Theatre
1944–1945Completes Ivan the Terrible Parts I & II; Part I wins second Stalin Prize 1st class
From Ulmanis's favorite novelist to the architect of Latvia's Sovietization
On 21 July 1940, the motion to join the USSR was moved in the Latvian Saeima by none other than the country's most beloved novelist, Vilis Lācis.
Born the son of a port worker, Lācis became Latvia's most widely read novelist with Fisherman's Son (1933). Enjoying the patronage of Kārlis Ulmanis's nationalist regime while maintaining underground Communist ties, he became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (later Council of Ministers) of the Latvian SSR in 1940, serving 19 years and overseeing agricultural collectivization and the mass deportations of 1949. As a writer, he reached the pinnacle of Soviet letters with the Stalin Prize-winning novels Storm and To the New Shore. He also served as Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities (1954–1958). His works, translated into over 50 languages, remain the most widely read body of Latvian literature.
Career timeline
1933–1935Librarian, Riga City Library
1935–1940Journalist, Jaunākās Ziņas newspaper
1940.06–08Minister of Internal Affairs, Latvian SSR
1940–1959Chairman, Council of People's Commissars/Council of Ministers, Latvian SSR
1952–1961Candidate Member, CPSU Central Committee
1954–1958Chairman, Soviet of Nationalities, USSR Supreme Soviet
1959–1966Deputy Chairman and Board Member, Latvian Writers' Union
A documentary filmmaker who recorded Latvia's independence struggle from the ground
On the evening of 20 January 1991 he carried his camera to the barricades to show the world OMON's assault on the Interior Ministry, and was shot dead while filming at Bastejkalns.
Andris Slapiņš was a Latvian documentary filmmaker and cinematographer who worked at Riga Film Studio. His films explored Livonian culture as well as Latvian history and social life, showing how documentary could connect suppressed memory with present struggle. He was killed in Riga on 20 January 1991 while filming the attack on the Interior Ministry, and the footage he helped create became part of the international memory of Latvia's independence movement.
Career timeline
1971–1976Cameraman, Riga Film Studio
1976Graduated from VGIK, cameramen department
1978Cinematographer, Riga
1983Documentary director, Riga Film Studio
1988Director and cinematographer, The Field of Hopes
1989Director, Letters from Latvia
1990Cinematographer, Homeland, directed by Juris Podnieks
1991Killed while filming the attack on Riga's Interior Ministry
