Aleksandra Čaka lektora darbība Rūdolfa Egles Literatūras studijā

Abstract

In the history of Latvian literature, Aleksandrs Čaks (1901–1950) is better known as a poet-urbanist. There is much less information about his work as a lecturer. In 1924, after entering the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Latvia, Čaks could not pass the necessary exams of the first semester and abandoned his studies. Encouraged by his family, in 1925, he entered the Compulsory School Teacher’s Course in Riga and graduated from it, obtaining practical teaching experience at the Drabeši six-grade boarding school and in the Literary Studio of Rūdolfs Egle (1889–1947). The purpose of the research is to describe and find out what was the importance of Čaks as a lecturer in Egle’s Literary Studio from 1935 to 1939, where Čaks gave lectures on the theory of poetry and the history of Russian poetry, paying special attention to the modernists. The study was carried out using the biographical method, which helps to reveal the relationship between the personality and the environment, using documents and memories of colleagues. This allows us to see Čaks’s personality in specific historical circumstances – his interest in the work of a lecturer, which, in the first decades of the 20th century, taking into account the political and social changes in society after the First World War, forced to re-evaluate the subjects and learning methods so that students acquired new skills through practical training. Teaching by doing was also the main idea of John Dewey (1859–1952), and it formed the basis for Čaks’s interest in the lecturer/student collaboration process. Čaks’s interest in Russian poetry began in the 1930s when he published descriptions of contemporary Russian poets in the press. Čaks’s public introductory articles about Latvian writers and their works were also important. It is difficult to evaluate the period of activity of Egle’s Literary Studio in the biography of Čaks because there are no preserved plans and notes of Čaks’s lectures, which could provide a deeper insight into his opinion as a literary theorist. Čaks’s activity in the Studio is evaluated through his publications, the books on the field in his personal library, and notes on memories of colleagues and the Studio’s students, which confirm the importance of Čaks’s personality in the overall context of the activities of the Egle’s Literary Studio.