About Rainis
Jānis Pliekšāns, known by his pseudonym Rainis, was a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician. Rainis' works include the classic plays Uguns un nakts and Indulis un Ārija, and a highly regarded translation of Goethe's Faust. His works had a profound influence on the literary Latvian language, and the ethnic symbolism he employed in his major works has been central to Latvian nationalism. In 1897 Rainis was arrested and deported first to Pskov, and later to Vyatka guberniya (now Kirov Oblast). Those lines were removed by the censor when the work was first published in Moscow.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.