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The correspondence between Rainis and Aspazija is included in the Latvian National Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World programme. They sent 2499 letters to each other written in Latvian, Russian and German. Rainis wrote 1345 letters to Aspazija and Aspazija sent 1154 letters to Rainis.
Their correspondence covers a long period of time (1887–1927) that includes the birth of Latvian national self-awareness, the events of 1905, World War I and the creation of an independent Latvia. The letters reveal the role of Rainis and Aspazija in the implementation of European ideas in Latvian society, as well as their relationship with their contemporaries. They also exchanged their creative ideas to receive each other’s feedback.
It is known that Aspazija kept her husband’s letters in a wall clock called Sunflower. This clock has become the symbol of the #mindpower short film series.
#mindpower. Publicity photo
Rainis and Aspazija corresponded actively also during the time that Rainis spent in a prison in Panevėžys, Lithuania. In this episode, the Lithuanian actors Toma Vaškevičiūtė and Tadas Gryn, partners both on stage and in life, transform these events into a short silent film.
“Over the past 100 years the freedom of creativity has greatly expanded. I’m an actress, and we can openly speak from the stage. 100 years ago, it would have been impossible to say what we say today. This is a huge step. This is true freedom. We have to remember the price of our nation’s freedom, what we paid for this freedom of thought. We must cherish it,” relates the actress while thinking back to the time when Rainis was imprisoned for his beliefs.
Toma Vaškevičiūtė is a famous actress at the National Lithuanian Drama Theatre. She has worked with such world-renowned directors as Oskaras Koršunovas, Jonas Vaitkus and Yana Ross. She received the most prestigious Lithuanian theatre award, the Golden Scene Cross, for Best Actress in 2009 and the Lithuanian Cinema Spring film festival award in 2012. She has also starred in several movies by Lithuanian, Russian and Ukrainian directors.
Tadas Gryn is a popular Lithuanian theatre and film actor. He also works as a dancer in performances by choreographer Anželika Cholina. He has gained popularity thanks to his involvement in several experimental projects and his leading roles in various TV series.
Toma Vaškevičiūtė and Tadas Gryn. Publicity photo
The #mindpower (#domasspēks in Latvian) project features a collection of 29 short films in which celebrities from all the EU Member States read excerpts from the works of Rainis and Aspazija in their native language and clothe them in images of their culture. Each week a new video is released on the Presidency’s website EU2015.LV.
You can also watch the episodes on the Presidency’s official Youtube channel and on the project’s Facebook page.
