Adolfs Alunans

Born Sept. 29 (Oct. 11), 1848, in Jelgavā; died June 22 (July 5), 1912, in Jelgavā. Latvian actor, producer, and playwright.

From 1866, Alunāns was an actor in German theater companies in Dorpat (now Tartu), Reval (Tallinn), and St. Petersburg. He organized and directed the Riga Latvian Theater (at the Riga Latvian Society)—the first national theater in Latvia—from 1870 to 1885 and a traveling theater company in Jelgavā from 1885 to 1904. He wrote the comedies The Homebred (1869—the first original Latvian play), The Cooper and His Wife (1872), and The Charity Bazaar (1911) and the plays He Who Sang Late at Night (1888), The Elders of the Lielpils Volost (1888), Six Little Drummers (1890), All My Relatives Are Crying (1891), and others. As the founder of Latvian national theater, Alunāns trained the first generation of Latvian actors and promoted the development of realism in Latvia’s dramatic arts. During the 1880’s and 1890’s and at the beginning of this century, he published satirical calendar-almanacs and wrote satires against the reactionary Latvian bourgeoisie, the landowners, and the clergy; he also wrote against the Germanization of Latvian culture. His memoirs were published in 1924.