Author, screenwriter and essayist Zigmunds Skujins passes away at age 95

  • 2022-03-30
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - On Tuesday, March 29, author, screenwriter and essayist Zigmunds Skujins passed away at the age of 95, lsm.lv reports citing the late writer's daughter Inga Skujina.

According to LETA archives, Skujins was born in Riga on December 25, 1926.

The writer studied at Spilve Primary School, Riga State Technical School, Janis Rozentals Art School and Rainis Evening School.

According to the National Encyclopedia, Skujins is one of the most outstanding and popular Latvian writers of the second half of the 20th century, whose works in the second half of the 1950s restored the connection with Latvian literature of the independence period. Skujins urged people to learn about the history of the Latvian people, Latvia and Riga, important personalities, values and traditions, to protect, nurture and develop the Latvian language, opposed Russification.

Skujins was an active participant in Latvian independence restoration process. In 1987, together with Imants Ziedons, Imants Lancmans, Janis Stradins and others, he participated in the establishment of the Latvian Culture Foundation and was a member of the first board of the foundation.

Skujiņš wrote a speech that President Guntis Ulmanis read at the Freedom Monument in July 1994, when Latvia and the Baltic countries were visited for the first time by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Skujins' most popular works include novels "The Grandsons of Columbus" (1961), "Nakedness" (1970), "The Bed with the Golden Leg" (1984) and "Flesh-Colored Dominoes" (1999).

The writer received the Cabinet of Ministers Award in November 2007, and in 2008 he was awarded the Order of the Three Stars.