The granite came from Karelia, but the idea came from Kārlis Zemdega’s unfinished model “Kalnā kāpējs”. In Riga’s Esplanade, the Rainis monument was unveiled on September 11, 1965: Zemdega did not live to see it, so his pupils Aivars Gulbis and Laimonis Blumbergs completed the work in stone, with the architectural design by Dzintars Driba. The seated Rainis is no triumphant orator; he seems more like a walker paused for a moment, in a heavy coat, palms resting on one knee.
The monument was created during the Soviet occupation, when official cultural policy tried to fold Rainis’s legacy into its revolutionary canon. Yet the site soon acquired another, everyday meaning as well: since 1965, Poetry Days participants have gathered there in September.
Related events
- 1865At the Varslavāni farm of Tadenava semi-manor in Dunava parish, Jānis Pliekšāns was born on September 11. As Rainis, he would become a poet, playwright, translator, and Latvian MP.
- 1924Auce received town rights on September 11. The small settlement beside the Jelgava–Mažeikiai railway later became a local centre in the south-west of today’s Dobele Municipality.
- 1988In Cēsis, Latvia’s first local branch of the Popular Front was founded on September 11. Weeks later, the red-white-red flag was raised above the town’s New Castle.