Vilis Lācis

Vilis Lācis (born April 29 ^{. Jul} / 12. May  1904 ^greg. In Rinuzi (now Vecmīlgrāvis) in Riga , † 6. February 1966 in Riga) was a Latvian writer and politician of the Soviet era .

Life

Lācis was born into a working class family. He initially worked as a dock worker in Riga and only wrote in his free time. In 1933 he published the novel Zvejnieka dēls ( The Fisherman's Son ), which made him one of the best-known and best-selling writers in Latvia of the 1930s. His novels did not always meet with the approval of intellectual critics, but they met the taste of the masses and were read by large sections of the population.

During this time, Lācis had contacts with the underground Communist Party of Latvia , which had been banned since 1920. Because of these contacts, he was temporarily monitored by the Latvian secret services. However, when Lācis became more and more successful as a writer and became one of the favorite authors of the head of state Kārlis Ulmanis , he personally ordered the destruction of the files. Lācis wrote editorials in which he supported the Ulmani government, although he was still secretly close to the communists, and was generously funded by the state. Among other things, this resulted in an expensive film adaptation of Zvejnieka dēls .

Lācis' links with the communists became apparent after the occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union . He became Prime Minister of the Latvian SSR and served in that capacity from 1940 to 1959. However, he had little power, as most of the actual decisions were made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. As prime minister he shared responsibility for the Stalinist crimes against humanity and signed orders for the arrest and deportation of more than 40,000 people.

Lācis' books have been translated into more than fifty languages, with the Russian translations having the highest print runs. To date, no other Latvian writer has been translated more often.

Web links

• Literature by and about Vilis Lācis in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography , student help (Latvian)
• Biography , Chronos (Russian)