Abstrakt: |
While awaiting for the centenary of the foundation of the state of Latvia, it is important to honour those personalities who have cultivated the Latvian language and literature, prepared teachers who would in their own career continue the work of their predecessors. One of such personalities is Kārlis Kārkliņš who was born in 1888 in the township of Kauguri near Valmiera. As a son of a Latvian farm hand, K. Kārkliņš had to mount up the social ladder to get a decent education. After having graduated from the Teacher Training Seminary in Valmiera (1910), he worked as a teacher at two commerce schools in Valmiera until 1920. Afterwards he moved to Riga where he worked as a teacher but at the same time he began to study Latvian philology at the University of Latvia. Within 6 years he finished his studies, which was not easy as he was working as a teacher at Secondary School No. 3 and during his last semesters at Secondary School No. 2 and at the Teacher Training Seminary in Riga. In the years of his studies he wrote the book "Fundamental Course in Literature for Primary Schools" (1921) which has been revised and re-edited several times. K. Kārkliņš dedicated his life to studying literature and education, and he wrote and published several important editions in these subjects. There are textbooks for the Latvian language for primary schools in the 1920-30s as well as research about the Latvian writers and poets Rūdolfs Blaumanis, Fricis Bārda (produced together with K. Kraujiņš), about Atis Kronvalds (together with A. Goba), and articles about Anna Brigadere, Apsīšu Jēkabs and others. While he worked at the University of Latvia (1930-1944), K. Kārkliņš defended his doctoral dissertation about the writer R. Blaumanis (1940). K. Kārkliņš became professor at the University of Latvia (1943), but at the end of World War II he emigrated and worked for some years at the Baltic University in Pinneberg, Germany. There he wrote his books about the history of Latvian literature and a textbook for foreign literature as well as several poems. His final years he passed in the United States but due to his impaired health condition he did not manage to execute many of his plans. K. Kārkliņš' life came to an end in Washington in 1961. The family of K. Kārkliņš is familiar to Latvian scholars, yet more research needs to be done concerning his personality and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |