Juli Petrovic Vanags

Born June 25 (July 8), 1903, in Medne Volost, modern Jekabpils Raion. Soviet Latvian writer. Honored Cultural Worker of the Latvian SSR (1953). Member of the CPSU since 1963.

Vanags studied at the Agricultural Technicum in the city of Viatka. He began to publish in 1927. In his early stories, poems, and plays he expressed a critical attitude toward the capitalist world. Vanags took part in the Great Patriotic War (he was in the ranks of a Latvian rifle division). In 1946 he published the collection of poems At the Gates of the Sun. Reflected in the collection Deep Furrow (1950) is the path of the Latvian peasantry toward collectivized agriculture. Vanags is also the author of the poetry collections Silver Rails (1951) and Bitter Flowers (1960). His plays Meeting on the Shore (1948) and The Ships Go Out to Sea (1955) and the film scenario Story of a Latvian Rifleman (1958) were very popular. Vanags has written for children (The Great Deeds of Little Mikin, 1955, and other works). He has also translated Russian classical and Soviet literature into Latvian.