PROGRAM
Let’s Focus on Love
January 25, 2025
Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum
Curated by Vladimirs Svetlovs
Playwright by Nelli Vysotskaya
Artist: Toms Auniņš
Producer: Evgeniya Shermeneva
Thank you to our collaborators:
Nadežda Zālītie, Pēteris Zālītis, Latgale Photographers’ Association and Igors Pličs.
Myths of almost supernatural powers surrounded the mysterious "shaman", oncologist, hypnotherapist and sexologist Jānis Zālītis. His book ‘Mīlestības vārdā’ [‘In the Name of Love’] addressing the issues of sex life and sexual health featured illustrations by Jānis Gleizds. The book was published in 1981 in a run of 99 000 copies and sold out very quickly, it dealt with issues of sexual health but, despite the scientific style of the text, also commented on woman’s duty ‘to be morally pure and beautiful in appearance, have a pleasant posture and walk’ (Jānis Zālītis, Mīlestības vārdā. Rīga: Avots, 1981, p. 69).
The second edition of the book with added drawn pictures of sexual positions by Edgars Ozoliņš, was destroyed at the orders of the Communist leaders who deemed its content pornographic. Zālītis was then removed from the list of authors allowed to publish, but he continued to give lectures and his popularity only grew.
The aim of the performance was to explore together how Janis Zālītis' techniques work and how they are perceived by contemporary audiences.
photo from Nadežda Zālītie archive
“The phrase ‘erotisation of conjugal life in order to improve the mental and physical condition of Soviet citizens’ sounds rather comical today.
As do arguments about, for example, what music is better to use for love foreplay (you can, of course, and modern pop music, says the doctor, but you can also experiment: one of his patients experienced her first orgasm in her life with Ravel's Bolero).
And yet it was not a joke — the actor recreated the image of Zalitis with respect and even a certain reverence.
The playwright of the project, Nelli Vysotskaya, who has studied Zalitis' book from cover to cover, says that this work is still relevant today. If, of course, we put aside some of the signs of the times and focus on the essence — the idea that sex is a two-way street, and that competent eroticisation of family life can save many marriages from divorce.”
(Translated from Russian by ChatGPT)
Elena Vlasova
Sex enlightenment of the 1980s in a museum:
a reconstruction of Dr Zalitis' lecture, LSM.LV
photo by Elena Vlasova