Jānis Jansons-Brauns (18 March 1872 – 13 April 1917) was a Latvian revolutionary, literary critic and journalist.

Biography

Jānis Jansons was born in the large family of a farmer. After his graduation from Liepāja Nikolajas gymnasium he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the

Imperial Moscow University Imperial Moscow University () was one of the oldest universities of the Russian Empire, established in 1755. It was the first of the twelve imperial universities of the Russian Empire. Its legacy is continued as Lomonosov Moscow State Universit ...

was then transferred to the Faculty of Law of the University of Tērbatas where he became a member of the literary group Pīpkalonija. During this period he became a of the leading representative of the

New Current The New Current () in the history of Latvia was a broad leftist social and political movement that followed the First Latvian National Awakening (led by the Young Latvians from the 1850s to the 1880s) and culminated in the 1905 Revolution. Par ...

movement and a member of the editorial staff of the newspaper ''

Dienas Lapa ''Dienas Lapa'' ('Daily Sheet') was a Latvian newspaper published from 1886 to 1905. It espoused progressive politics, including workers' rights and Latvian cultural autonomy. The editors of the newspaper included Pēteris Stučka (1888–91, ...

''. In 1897, he was arrested and sent to Smolensk Governorate. In 1903 he returned to Latvia and in 1904 joined the

Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party The Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (, LSDSP) is a Social democracy, social-democratic list of political parties in Latvia, political party in Latvia and the second oldest existing Latvian political party after the Latvian Farmers' Uni ...

and at its 1st congress was elected a member of the Central Committee and a member of the Foreign Committee. At the same time he started to use the pseudonym Braun and participated in the development of the LSDSP program. During the

revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, he was the editor of the illegal newspaper ''Cīņa'' and the newspaper ''Dienas Lapa''. In 1906, he emigrated through Finland to Belgium, then to England and worked in the Foreign Committee of the Central Committee of Latvian Social Democracy in London, Berlin and Switzerland and continued to be the editor of ''Cîņa'' from 1910 to 1914. After the beginning of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1914, he joined the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

and worked in the London group of the LSDSP. After the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

, he returned to Latvia, but was among the 11 passengers who died when a German U-boat sank the steamer "Zara" in the North Sea on April 13, 1917, which was traveling from London to Trondheim.

Works

Jansons-Brauns in 1908 published a critical book “Fauns or Clowns?” (“Fauni vai klauni?”), in which he criticized the ideological foundations of decadent literature and modernist aesthetics, laid the theoretical foundations for a revolutionary revaluation of reality under the dominance of Marxist philosophy and demanded realism in art and literature. He is the author of the series of articles “Thoughts on Contemporary Literature”, which became the first examples of Marxist literary criticism. He is also the author of the book “Historical Materialism” (1910). With his articles, including the landmark “Will we have proletarian art?” (1913), acted as an active propagandist of Marxist philosophy and aesthetics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jansons-Brauns, Jānis 1872 births 1917 deaths Latvian revolutionaries Latvian literary critics Latvian journalists Latvian essayists Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution of 1905 Latvian Marxists Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party politicians Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Old Bolsheviks University of Tartu alumni Deaths due to shipwreck at sea