Elza Pliekšāne, known under the pseudonym Aspazija, was an important figure in Latvian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the age of fourteen, she was already writing poems in German and, due to her intellectual curiosity, was given the pseudonym Aspazija, named after the ancient goddess Aspasia. After a failed first marriage, during which she had to make ends meet as a seamstress, baker and tutor, she began writing plays, including the scandalous drama Zaudētas tiesības. In 1894, she met the lawyer and writer Jānis Pliekšāns (‘Rainis’), who became Latvia's renowned national poet thanks to her encouragement. During his politically motivated imprisonment (1897-1898), they translated Goethe's Faust into Latvian together. After her marriage in 1897, she followed Rainis into exile in Slobodskoy and supported him financially through translation work. During her exile in Switzerland (1905-1920), she wrote key works such as the poetry collections Saulains stūrīts (1910) and Ziedu klēpis (1911), which influenced her ‘Lyrical Biography’. After returning to independent Latvia, she was politically active until her death in 1943, including in the Constituent Assembly, and continued her literary work with socially critical dramas.