The Three-Decade Cycle of Lithuanian Prose

In the period of 1989-2020 Lithuanian literature experienced a very dynamic literary development. The aim of the article is to highlight specifics of the new cycle and to analyze the prose trends of each decade of regained independence. The author discusses the literary process more synchronically than diachronically. The first period, i.e. the transition from the Soviet regime to the new system, was especially outstanding as the censorship was eliminated, the previously banned works of deportees and resisters were legalized, the postwar émigré writers returned back to culture and opportunities for innovation opened up.The role of writer as a cultural hero diminished. Former writers loyal to the Soviet regime described this situation as crisis, while the younger generation developed postmodernist way of writing. Many works were based on the cultural and historical memory reckoning with the Soviet era. All genres underwent certain transformations, such as emergence of peculiar essay genre, spread of ego-documentaries, revival of short stories, and flourishing popular literature.Serious changes took place after 2004 when Lithuania joined the European Union, which led to economic emigration and encouraged changes in mentality and expanse of local contexts. Mobile, “transit” type of Lithuanian character emerged who changed his place of residence but felt lonely in the global world. This is a huge innovation, bearing in mind the sedentary agrarian Lithuanian culture and the confines of the iron curtain during the Soviet era. Increased quantity of published books decreased their quality.

Emigration and Translation Process on the Examples of the Translation of the Novels Red Bread by Maurice Hindus and Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons into Russian and Polish

The article offers a brief survey of the emigration from what is now the territory of Belarus and discusses the impact of such an experience on the mindsets and creativity of émigré writers, with a special focus on the linguistic features refashioned under the infl uence of alien cultures. The article analyzes Red Bread by Maurice Hindus and Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons and their partial translations from English into Polish and/or Russian, highlighting the linguistic diffi culties that the translators may have faced as well as possible solutions. Special attention is paid to the sequence of the translators’ actions when working with a stylistically eclectic text, the importance of pre-translation analysis and extratextual factors.

Эпистолярия как литературные беседы: Письма Г. В. Адамовича А. В. Бахраху [_Epistolaria_ as Literary Conversations: Letters of Georgy Adamovich to Alexander Bacherac]

This article is an attempt at close reading an extensive ego text (Georgy Adamovich’s letters to Alexander Bacherac of the 1940s – 1972) as a thirty-year-long literary conversation of two Russian émigré writers. Regarding the letters as a single cultural text, and relying on the hermeneutic and semiotic approaches, the article singles out three major layers of the text in question, and analyzes the textual body “inwardly,” i.e. starting from the purely existential-informational upper layer, proceeding to the layer of literary criticism, and finally reaching the layer of literary quotations and cultural allusions used as one of the basic devices forming Adamovich’s epistolary style. Comparing the letters with Adamovich’s famous Literary Conversations (Literaturnye besedy) of the 1920s, the author argues that in his correspondence with Bacherach Adamovich followed the tradition of the Russian friendly literary-philosophical discourse borrowed from the West in the 1800s and developed in the 1820s – 1830s by Alexander Pushkin and his circle. KEYWORDS: 20th-Century Russian Literature, Georgy Adamovich (1892—1972), Alexander Bacherac (1902—1985), Correspondence, History of Literature.

Writing Occupation

Why did some of the most brilliant—but often forgotten—Jewish émigré writers of the first half of the twentieth century choose to write in French as a second language, even as they faced a double exclusion as foreigners and as Jews under Vichy? Jewish writers of Eastern European origin who immigrated to France before the Second World War (including Benjamin Fondane, Romain Gary, Jean Malaquais, Irène Némirovsky, and Elsa Triolet) switched from writing in their languages of origin to writing primarily in French, even when their Frenchness was being violently denied by the state. In this manuscript, Julia Elsky argues that these Jewish émigré writers harnessed the potential multilingualism of French to express hybrid and shifting cultural, religious, and linguistic identities before and during the Occupation. When the Vichy regime and Nazi occupiers denied them their French identity through xenophobic and antisemitic laws, Jewish émigré authors from Eastern Europe began to re-examine, and in some cases, reassert their role in the French nation by exploring the possibilities of writing with a “Jewish voice” in the French language. In depicting key aspects of the war experience—the June 1940 civilian flight from Paris, life in the occupied and southern zones, the Resistance in France and in London—their work contests the boundaries between foreignness and belonging.

Jewish Émigré Writers and the French Language

This chapter provides the historical and theoretical context of the book. It investigates Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to France during the interwar period, and it traces the experiences of Jewish émigré writers in France from the interwar period through the Occupation. It places these authors within a new category of European Francophonie as a form of linguistic resistance to their rejection from French letters during the war. The writers in this book employed literary strategies, including multilingualism, heteroglossia, and transcription of accents in ways that blur the boundaries of belonging within national borders and within national languages, as well as the boundaries between Jewish and secular language.

“This Emigrant Fate of His”: On Włodzimierz Odojewski’s Short Story Collection „…i poniosły konie"

Włodzimierz Odojewski is one of the most famous émigré writers who still deals with the topic of emigration, even in his books published long after his both symbolic and real return to the homeland. Significant extension and dwelling on the said topic can be observed in the book „…i poniosły koine” […and the horses bolted]. The aim of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the short stories gathered in the volume (published in 2006) from the perspective of the biographical context, the rest of Odojewski’s writings, as well as his opinions on various aspects of exile. Such interpretation reveals a more existential and internalized dimension of emigration but also its universal meanings. Thus, emigration is considered to be a metaphor of human fate.

The Image of the United States in the Published Correspondence of Czesław Miłosz Written Between 1945 and 1950

The article discusses the image of the United States depicted in Czesław Miłosz’s correspondence coming from the years 1945-1950. The author of the article refers to the circumstances that led the poet to taking up a job as a diplomat and analyses a variety of opinions on that decision circulating among both Polish and émigré writers. The letters discussed reflect the culture shock and the slow process of acclimatization that the poet went through; his way of perceiving and trying to understand America. The article also focuses on the role Miłosz played as a mediator between the Old and the New Worlds, translating American literature into Polish and trying to popularize Polish culture in the US.

Two letters by the Amfiteatrovs to Petr Krasnov: Finishing the project

Journalist, prose writer, playwright Alexander Amfiteatrov and Ataman of the Great Don Army General Petr Krasnov, the author of numerous novels and short stories, belonged to the older generation of Russian émigré writers. Amfiteatrov lived in Italy, and Krasnov in Paris, and they communicated by mail. Their correspondence that began in 1927 lasted more than 10 years, until Amfiteatrov’s death. The previously published large complex of their letters contains not only significant additions to the literary biography of correspondents, but also an important information on the political, social, and literary history of the Russian Abroad in the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, Krasnov’s letters are only a small part of the huge Amfiteatrov émigré collection, researched by the author of this publication in collaboration with Oleg Korostelev with plans to devote several books of the Amfiteatrov volume in the academic series “Literary Heritage” to these materials. This publication presents two recently discovered letters to Krasnov, written by Amfiteatrov himself and by his widow, reporting on her efforts to collect a book in her husband's memory during the outbreak of World War II.

Émigré Creativity in a Historical Context

Émigré writers such as Kahlil Gibran and Mikhail Naimy proved that it is possible to transcend their historical limitations to become leading literary figures. An examination of the historical context of these writers is important for a rich understanding of their works. The themes addressed in such literary works are better appreciated within their cultural environment, and not as objects detached from their times, author and readers[1]. It can be rightfully argued that such works cannot be fully appreciated without delving into the intricacies of the political ideologies and economic crises of previous centuries. This article does not aim to perform such an undertaking, regardless of its literary merit; however, it presents an overview of the historical context surrounding the Émigré literary movement as a product of two cultures bridged by immigration at the turn of the 20th century. This is based on the belief that a profound critical engagement with Émigré works is better achieved with an examination of their historical and literary background. Thus, this article serves as a foundation for profound literary analyses of Émigré works. [1] Payne, 2005 : 3-4, on the importance of a historical context.

Between Physicality and Symbolism: Kyiv as a Contested Territory in Russian and Ukrainian Émigré Letters, 1920–1939

The paper deals with visions of Kyiv in the writings of Russian and Ukrainian émigré writers during the interwar period. The city became a focal point of intensive intellectual debate whose participants regarded Kyiv not only as a place of a recent battleground but also as a sacral place and a highly symbolic image. Within the methodological framework of ethnic symbolism, this study attempts to explain how this physical/symbolic dichotomy was used to reinforce continuing claims for historical origin and cultural heritage, thus serving the contemporary purpose of national identity and political legitimacy. It also deploys the concept of displacement as a complex process of negotiation between homeland and hostland within an émigré community — whose sense of loss and identity crisis creates additional impetus, though in different forms, for exploiting historical narratives. SOROKA, Mykola Iv.. Between Physicality and Symbolism: Kyiv as a Contested Territory in Russian and Ukrainian Émigré Letters, 1920–1939. Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal, n. 5, p. 143-159, 2018. ISSN 2313-4895. Available at: . doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.18523/kmhj150394.2018-5.143-159.