Asja Lācis
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (May 2022) |
Asja Lācis | |
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Latvian SSR, Soviet Union | |
Occupation | Actress, theatre director, writer |
Genre | Epic theatre |
Spouse | Jūlijs Lācis, Bernard Reich |
Anna "Asja" Lācis (née Liepiņa; Russian: Анна 'Ася' Эрнестовна Лацис, Anna 'Asya' Ernestovna Latsis; German: Asja Lazis; October 19, 1891 – November 21, 1979) was a Latvian actress and theatre director.
Biography
A
In 1922 she moved to Germany where she got to know Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, to whom she introduced the ideas of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
In 1924 she met the German philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin in Capri, and the duo would have an intermittent affair for the next several years as he visited her in Moscow and Riga. She has been cited as a factor in Benjamin's embracing Marxism.[2] In 1928, Benjamin dedicated a collection of essays to her.[3]
In 1938 during
Lācis' granddaughter is the acclaimed Latvian theatre director Māra Ķimele.
References
- ^ Signals from Another World: Proletarian Theater as a Site for Education Texts by Asja Lācis and Walter Benjamin, with an introduction by Andris Brinkmanis, South
- ^ Mark Lilla, "The Riddle of Walter Benjamin" in The New York Review of Books, May 25, 1995
- ^ a b National Library to recount the fabulous story of Latvian pioneer of the avant-garde. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. January 17, 2018
Sources
- Ingram, Susan (2002). "The Writing of Asja Lacis". New German Critique. 86 (86): 159–177. )
- Latsis, Anna (1984). Krasnaia gvozdika: Vospominaniia (in Russian). Riga: Liesma. OCLC 13003307.(memoirs)
- Ķimele, Dagmāra and Strautmane, Gunta. Asja: režisores Annas Lāces dēkainā dzīve [Asja: The Stormy Life of the director Anna Lāce]. Riga: Likteņstāsti, 1996.
- Asja Lascis, Revolutionär in Beruf: Berichte über proletarisches Theater, über Meyerhold, Brecht, Benjamin und Piscator. Munich: Rogner & Bernhard, 1971.