Birznieks-Upitis, Ernests

(pseudonym of E. Birznieks). Born Mar. 25 (Apr. 6), 1871, at the Bisnieki estate, Tukums District (now Tukums Raion, Latvian SSR); died Dec. 30,1960, in Riga. Soviet Latvian writer. People’s Writer of the Latvian SSR (1947). Born into a peasant family.

Birznieks-Upitis became a private tutor. He moved to the Caucasus in 1893, but in 1921 he returned to Latvia. He depicted the life of farm workers and village artisans in such works as Upitis’ Stories (1900), From the Morning (1912), Toward Evening (1913), and Tales of the Gray Stone (published in its entirety in 1914). The author of the collections In the Caucasus (1924) and Tales of the Caucasus (1927), he also wrote books for children, including Nina’s Fairy Tales (vols. 1–2, 1922–24) and Our Friends (1925). One of his most important works is the autobiographical trilogy The Diary of Pastarinš (1922), Pastarinš at School (1923), and Pastarinš in Life (1924).