Klāra Anna Luīze Kalniņa, née Veilande (1874–1964), was a Latvian

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

, editor, and politician, a long-time member of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party ( lv, Latvijas Sociāldemokrātiskā Strādnieku Partija (LSDSP)).

Life

Kalniņa was born in the village of Vanči in

Courland Governorate The Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland, Governorate of Kurland (german: Kurländisches Gouvernement; russian: Курля́ндская губерния, translit=Kurljándskaja gubernija; lv, Kurzemes guberņa; lt, K ...

, Russian Empire (today in Latvia) on 24 February 1874. She finished four grades of schooling in 1890 in Jelgava, where the language of instruction was German, not Latvian. She was admitted into the sixth grade of the Jelgava Gymnasium at the age of 20 and graduated in 1897 having completed the seventh grade. In the meantime, she had gone to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, the capital of the Russian Empire, in an attempt to further her education, but was forced to return home in 1896 by financial difficulties. Kalniņa met her future husband,

Pauls Kalniņš Pauls Kalniņš (3 March 1872, in Vilce Parish – 26 August 1945, in Lustenau, Austria) was a Latvian physician and politician ( LSDSP), a long-term Speaker of the Saeima, one of the signatories of the Memorandum of the Central Council of Latv ...

, in 1895 and they married three years later. They had one son, the politician Brūno Kalniņš. During the German occupation of Latvia during World War II, she and her husband participated in the pro-independence

Latvian Central Council The Latvian Central Council (LCC, lv, Latvijas Centrālā Padome, LCP) was the pro-independence Latvian resistance movement during World War II from 1943 onwards. The LCC consisted of members from across the spectrum of former leading Latvian po ...

. After her husband's death in 1945, she fled to Sweden and lived there until she died in 1964.

Activities

While still a student, Kalniņa was one of the founders of a literary group, Aurora ( lv, Austra), that rejected the bourgeois idea that women's roles in life were limited to Kinder, Küche, Kirche. In the mid-1890s, she became involved in the New Current ( lv, Jaunā strāva) and the beginnings of the

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

movements. While in St Petersburg, she participated in the activities of the Social Democrats there and then became active in organizing the social democratic group in Kurzeme from 1901 to 1903. Kalniņa and her husband left Russia that same year and lived in Germany and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

until the outbreak of the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

prompted their temporary return.Novikova, pp. 210–11 She was elected to the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia in 1920. Alongside Aspazija, Apolonija Laurinoviča,

Valērija Seile Valērija Seile ( ltg, Valereja Seile; 1891–1970) was a Latvian politician, educator, historian, librarian and writer. She was educated in St Petersburg. She returned to Latvia in 1916, was the secretary of the Provisional Land Council of Latg ...

and Berta Vesmane, she was one of five women elected to the proto-parliament.

Citations and references

Cited sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kalnina, Klara 1874 births 1964 deaths People from Jelgava Municipality People from Courland Governorate Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party politicians Members of the People's Council of Latvia Deputies of the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia Latvian feminists Latvian socialist feminists 20th-century Latvian women writers 20th-century Latvian writers Latvian women's rights activists 20th-century Latvian women politicians Latvian World War II refugees Latvian emigrants to Sweden