Editing Rainis (section)

== Early career ==
Rainis studied law at the [[University of St. Petersburg]], where he shared a room with [[Pēteris Stučka]]. While still a student, Rainis was already collecting folk songs, writing satirical and lyric poetry, and translating literature. Together with Stučka he edited a collection of epigrams and satire, ''Mazie dunduri'' (The Small Gadflies) and published ''Apdziedāšanas dziesmas'' (Mocking Songs) about the third [[Latvian Song and Dance Festival|All-Latvian Song Festival]]. The two men, however, would later split because of the differences between socialist and communist ideologies.

After completing his studies, he worked at the [[Vilnius]] regional courtrooms and with Andrejs Stērsts in [[Jelgava]]. Rainis wrote for ''[[Dienas Lapa]]'' (The Daily Page), ''Tēvija'' (Fatherland)<ref>Founded 1884; published in Jelgava from 1886 to 1914. Not to be confused with the daily newspaper of the same name published during the [[Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany]] in [[World War II]].</ref> and the ''Latvian Conversational Dictionary''.

From 1891 to 1895 Rainis was editor in chief of ''Dienas Lapa'' (Daily Page).<ref name="UNAMS">Unāms, Žanis. ''Es Viņu Pazinu (I Knew Him, Biographical Dictionary)''. Grand Haven, Michigan: Raven. 1975 reprint of 1939 edition.</ref> The ''Dienas Lapa'' scene was mostly a group of young Latvian liberal and socialist intellectuals who came to be known as the ''[[New Current]]''. After attending the congress of the [[Second International]] in 1893, Rainis began to emphasize socialist ideology and news of socialist events in "Dienas Lapa." He is recognized as the father of Latvian socialism. It was during this period that he met [[Aspazija]] (pseudonym of Elza Pliekšāne, born Rozenberga), another Latvian poet and playwright active in the New Current. According to ''[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]'', it was while editing the paper that Rainis developed "his own philosophy [which] showed no trace of [[Marxism|Marxist]] materialism—he regarded life as an incessant series of mutations of energy."<ref name="Rainis">{{cite web |title=Rainis |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rainis |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=29 April 2021}}</ref>

Because of their social criticism and calls for various reforms, the New Current was viewed as a seditious movement and was the subject of a Tsarist crackdown. In 1897 Rainis was arrested and deported first to [[Pskov]], and later to Vyatka [[guberniya]] (now [[Kirov Oblast]]). It was during this period of internal exile that Rainis translated ''Faust'' and other works from classical literature. Here he also produced his first collection of poems, ''Tālas noskaņas zilā vakarā'' (Far-Off Moods on a Blue Evening, 1903).<ref name="UNAMS" /> In addition to ''Faust'', Rainis also translated the works of [[William Shakespeare]], [[Friedrich Schiller]], [[Heinrich Heine]], and [[Aleksandr Pushkin]] into [[Latvian language|Latvian]]. These translations helped to expand his native language by adding new words to its [[vocabulary]].<ref name="Rainis"/>