Grigulis, Arvids

Born Sept. 29 (Oct. 12), 1906, in Lāde Volost, present-day Limbazhi Raion. Soviet Latvian writer and literary critic; Honored Cultural Worker of the Latvian SSR (1947). Member of the CPSU since 1954. Born into a peasant family.

Grigulis graduated from the law department of the University of Latvia in 1937. His first verses were published in 1927. His collections of verses Notes of a Reporter (1929), Imitation and Heart (1931), and a novella in verse In the House of the Tired (1934) reflected a dissatisfaction with bourgeois reality. Grigulis grew artistically during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), in which he was a participant. His verses from the war years are included in the collections In the Storm (1946) and A Branch of Lilac (1959). He published the collection of lyrical verses Autumn Rain in 1966, Wind Through the Willows in 1968, and Second Roosters in 1970. The wartime stories make up one of the best collections of his works. Through Fire and Water (1945).

In his first satirical plays. Into What Port? (1945) and How History Was Made at the Garpēteros (1946), Grigulis ridiculed bourgeois nationalists and kulaks. His play Clay and Ceramics (1947; State Prize of the USSR, 1948) depicts the new attitude of people to labor. In 1954 he published the satirical comedy The Professor Lives in Clover. The play The Soldier’s Overcoat (1955) deals with moral issues. For the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, Grigulis wrote the historical play The Stormy Baltic Sea (1957). The comedy How Things Are in the Wide World appeared in 1959. Grigulis is the author of the novel When Rain and Wind Rap at the Window (1965). He also writes tales for children and juveniles. His play You Don’t Hear Your Own Bullet (1966) is on a military theme. He compiled the collection Latvian

Literary Criticism (vols. 1–5, 1956–64). He has been awarded five orders, as well as medals.