Arvīds Brastiņš

Arvīds Brastiņš (1893 to 1984) was a Latvian sculptor, writer and neopagan leader, educated at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, where he began exhibiting folklore-inspired sculptures from 1918. He worked as a schoolteacher and wrote about Latvian folklore, publishing collections of folksongs. His brother Ernests Brastiņš founded the Baltic neopagan movement Dievturība in the 1920s, and both brothers became major intellectual leaders within it; after resettling in the United States following the Soviet occupation of Latvia, Arvīds Brastiņš led an émigré continuation of the movement until his death.