Similarly, criticism of his work has often been strongly affected by politics; while the Soviets emphasized his socialism (his image even appeared on a commemorative Soviet ruble coin; being buried next to Rainis' grave in Rainis' Cemetery in Riga was an honor reserved for senior Soviet military), Daugava and other patriotic works were omitted from editions of Rainis' texts prior to the Third Latvian National Awakening.
Rainis |
Blanks sought to distinguish between the New Current (in Latvian: Jaunā strāva) — a broad and radical socio-economic, political, and cultural movement that lasted from the late 1880s until the 1905 Revolution, led by Rainis and influenced by Marxism — from the more nationalistic direction taken in 1903 by Ernests Rolavs and Miķelis Valters; to Blanks, the 1890s "could be stricken completely from the history of national thought."
He translated into Russian various children’s writers and poets, including Rainis, Imants Ziedonis, Eduardas Mieželaitis, Spiridon Vangheli, Akhmedkhan Abu-Bakar, Michio Mado, Yoko Sano, etc.