Anna "Asja" Lācis (née Liepiņa; russian: Анна 'Ася' Эрнестовна Лацис, ; german: Asja Lazis; October 19, 1891 – November 21, 1979) was a

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

n actress and theatre director.

Biography

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

, in the twenties she became famous for her proletarian theatre troupes for children and

agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...

in Soviet Russia and Latvia. She believed that children's theater could be used as the cornerstone for the children's general education, which was especially important with poor, proletarian children who often had little or no other educational opportunities. In 1922 she moved to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

where she got to know

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

and

Erwin Piscator Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator (17 December 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a German theatre director and producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of ...

, to whom she introduced the ideas of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky. In 1924 she met the German philosopher and critic

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

, and the duo would have an intermittent affair for the next several years as he visited her in Moscow and Riga. She has been cited as a factor in Benjamin's embracing

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

. Mark Lilla, "The Riddle of Walter Benjamin" in
The New York Review of Books
', May 25, 1995 In 1928, Benjamin dedicated a collection of essays to her.National Library to recount the fabulous story of Latvian pioneer of the avant-garde

Public Broadcasting of Latvia Public Broadcasting of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas sabiedriskais medijs, lit=Latvian Public Media – LSM) is a publicly funded radio and television organization operated by both of Latvia's public broadcasters – Latvian Television and Radio Latvi ...

. January 17, 2018 In 1938 during Stalin's

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

she was deported to

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. Lācis returned to Soviet Latvia in 1948 and spent her old age together with her husband, the German theatre critic Bernhard Reich. 1948–57 she was the main director of

Valmiera Drama Theatre Valmiera Drama Theatre ( lv, Valmieras Drāmas teātris) is a theatre in Valmiera Valmiera (; german: link=no, Wolmar; pl, Wolmar see other names) is the largest city of the historical Vidzeme region, Latvia, with a total area of . As of 20 ...

and used the leftist avant-garde technics in her stage productions. Lācis' granddaughter is the acclaimed Latvian theatre director

Māra Ķimele Māra is the highest-ranking goddess in Latvian mythology, Mother Earth, a feminine counterpart to Dievs. She takes spirits after death. She may be thought as the alternate side of Dievs (like in Yin and Yang). Other Latvian goddesses, someti ...

References

Sources

*(via

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

) *(memoirs) * Ķimele, Dagmāra and Strautmane, Gunta. ''Asja: režisores Annas Lāces dēkainā dzīve'' sja: The Stormy Life of the director Anna Lāce Riga: Likteņstāsti, 1996. * Asja Lascis, ''Revolutionär in Beruf: Berichte über proletarisches Theater, über Meyerhold, Brecht, Benjamin und Piscator''. Munich: Rogner & Bernhard, 1971. 1891 births 1979 deaths Latvian theatre directors Latvian stage actresses 20th-century Latvian actresses Soviet theatre directors {{Latvia-bio-stub