On Forms of Crafting and Their Meaning

Akvilė Rėklaitytė, Meistraujantis žmogus: poetinė Marcelijaus Martinaičio antropologija, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2020, 286 p.

Dissemination of Lithuanian Literature: Becoming Part of World Literature

The article discusses the policy of dissemination of national literature abroad as one of the soft power practices used for the formation of the image of the country and the country’s literature, created through the translated and published works of Lithuanian authors in foreign languages. It also reviews the current situation, the selection of the works to be translated, institutions and bodies in charge of this dissemination, and problems of the research on the reception of the works (authors) translated into foreign languages.

Lithuanian Dramaturgy and Its “Crises”

The cultural shift that has been taking place over the thirty years since Lithuania regained its independence is bound up with the role of a rapidly changing – in terms of both stage and text – theatre. These changes were mostly expressed through rhetorical formulations of a discourse of “crisis”. It is no exception that this word has been used as a usual descriptor of the state of Lithuanian dramaturgy. Through a discussion of the differing aspects of the relationships between the defenders of the logos theatre and the proponents of stage praxis, this article argues that during the transitionary period that changed Lithuania’s history, and which also supplied the concept of “crisis”, the world of Lithuanian theatre, afflicted with constant perturbations, revealed itself. The multifariousness of “crisis” is also elucidated: at the start of the period of independence the term was used to describe the vacuum problem of Lithuanian drama, after ten years – the lack of current relevant plays, today – the limited access to contemporary dramaturgical texts. The conclusion is thereby drawn, that the dissemination of dramatic texts is not only a prerequisite of lessening the long-lived tensions between text and stage authors, but also of deeper studies of the development of contemporary Lithuanian dramaturgy.

The Impact of Deconstruction on the Lithuanian Literary Criticism

In the article I discuss how deconstruction (Jacques Derrida and other Yale School participants) came to Lithuanian literary criticism and how it changed habits of humanitarian thinking during the three decades after independence. The most unusual and radical deconstruction critique of essentialist metaphysical thinking, new terminology (inter-text, elimination of center, footprint, writing, difference, blinding, labyrinth narrative, guest / enemy, etc.) and new strategies for interpreting texts were very important for Lithuanian humanities liberated from Soviet ideology. Literary critics have noticed and discussed the undoubted connection between postmodernist literature and its deconstructive reading.We can find three tendencies in the deconstructive criticism of Lithuanian literature. The first tendency is the interpretation of general theoretical concepts of deconstruction, second tendency - searching the deconstructive features in literary works and the third tendency of criticism, expanding its own self-criticism and self-irony, is discussing chrestomathic and structuralist interpretations of the literary works or deconstructing icons of Soviet culture. We know very well, that many feminist, postcolonial, historiographic, anthropological, or interdisciplinary researches of literature cannot escape the effects of deconstruction.

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.

Merry Science of Literature (Almost an Essay)

The article investigates the development of the literary studies of Lithuanian literature over the past three decades pointing out some mental movements as well as difficulties of „transferrence“ and „hermeneutics“ of selfreflection. The article is not focused on describing all the schools of literary studies that were under formation at that time, the translated theoretical works or on classifying the researchers of the period (some names are mentioned sporadically as an example only). The aim is to give just one perspective without aiming to provide an objective wholsome overwiew.

Lithuanian Literature in Search of Historical Truth: Three Decades of Independence

The article focuses on the beginning of the Singing Revolution in Lithuanian culture and tries to identify the most significant dominant features in order to understand the entirety of the new changes in literature. In the face of political upheaval, such a dominant feature was the question of truth; however, the well-established poetry tradition – romantic, neo-romantic, modern neo-romantic, which coexisted with social realism in Soviet times, and experimental – did not raise such questions of truth but only reflected the nation’s collective expectations. The evolution of Lithuanian literature, which was highly fragmented during all the decades of the Soviet occupation, united the country through the expatriate poet Bernardas Brazdžionis while he was visiting Lithuania in the summer of 1989. Poetic texts predominated during the first demonstrations of Sąjūdis (the Reform Movement), but while trying to understand their position in the general Lithuanian culture and literature discourse, one needs to acknowledge the leading nature of poetry throughout the Soviet times: having its niche in the cultural system, poetry posed a large number of vexed questions, sought philosophical profundity, and was able to constantly address the deepest metaphysical questions even in strict censorship conditions. Lithuanian prose, which evaded the requirement by the doctrine of social realism to portray the world and characters engaged in class struggles, also found support in the poetry system and created a non-linear but coherent narrative where metaphors prevail. Lithuanian prose poetry became a sign of esthetic quality in independent Lithuania too, where the question of truth, which was important for achieving independence, found a way similar to that of poetry – through memoirs and essays to esthetics and little prose. At the beginning of independence, poetry, which had fed Lithuanian prose with its ideas, themes, conception of the world and esthetic solutions, also merged with memoirs and essays, thus being part of the discourse of telling the truth.

Alexey Slapovsky vs Fyodor Dostoyevsky, or Life Without Being

The article examines the dialogue in A. Slapovsky’s works of the late 1990s–2000s with F. Dostoevsky. The article highlights forms and functions of this dialogue: the mention of the writer's name, the reinterpretation of his works perform the function of an ironic, often parodic, reflection on the changed status of the author, the nature of the readership, the perception of literature during a crisis of literary centrism; the value deformations occurring in society are emphasized with the help of a literary prism. “Dostoevsky's context” reflects the writer's reflection on his own work and allows us to judge the direction of Slapovsky's creative evolution.

The Meaning of Memory in Bunin and Hippius

This paper illustrates the meaning of memory by the fate and change in spiritual orientation of Ivan Bunin and Zinaida Hippius, two prominent literary figures of the late tsarist Russia and interbellum émigré Paris. Most importantly, it examines the post-revolutionary transformation of values and reconciliation with external circumstances and internal afflictions of these two writers. The significance of memory becomes prominent in Bunin after his realization of the tragic and frightening consequences of the revolution, which results in his turn to the past as the source of tranquility and comfort. Hippius’s diaries and poetry, especially after her husband’s death, also show her turn toward eternal values and away from the hitherto paramount terrestrial, fleeting aspirations. The oeuvres of both writers are placed in the context of pre-revolutionary orientation towards the past that is contrary to the modernist shift to the future, which announced and precipitated the Russian Revolution of 1917.