Sofijos Kymantaitės-Čiurlionienės pastangos XX a. pradžioje įtvirtinti moters vertę ir savivertę

Author(s): Nida Gaidauskiene / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 1/2018

This article examines the ways in which the self-awareness of a feminine identity, the perceived value of women and the self-esteem of a particular author have been evolving from 1904 to the end of the First World War; the author in question is Sofija Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė (1886–1958), Lithuanian publicist, writer and educator. During her studies at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków in 1904–1907 (and in Adrian Baraniecki’s High Courses for Women), she decisively chose to study the humanities and became one of the first modern Lithuanian women engaged in literature, literary criticism and the politics of education. This article presents the context of the women’s emancipation movement that at beginning of the 20th century in Kraków, where the increasing possibilities of education for young women had become increasingly available. Right after her return to Lithuania in 1907, Kymantaitė took part in the Lithuanian Women’s Congress in Kaunas and became involved in the preparatory work on the regulations of the Lithuanian Women’s Society. In her collection of articles Lietuvoje: kritikos žvilgsnis į Lietuvos inteligentiją (“In Lithuania: A Critical Look at the Lithuanian Intelligentsia,” 1910), besides a wide scope of issues that were considered, Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė discussed the issue of the relationship between well-educated men and women and questioned the equal value of women in the nascent modern Lithuanian society. In 1910, Čiurlionienė wrote a dramatic dialogue Ateities moteris (“Woman of the Future”, 1910), which highlights the idea that the equality between man and woman rests on shared human values. The dialogue foregrounds the spiritual faithfulness of the woman to the man she had chosen – faithfulness that is upheld despite the distance that greatly separates them, contradictory to the thought that women are incapable of creating ties of friendship with men, as expressed by one of Nietzsche’s literary characters. The main character of Ateities moteris – Johanna – reveals herself as a rebel only when she confronts the antagonist’s patriarchal worldview and his commanding affirmation of women’s lower position and the determinism of biological needs. References to Otto Weininger’s study Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character, 1903), as well as a quote that evokes misogynistic sentiments from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883), appear in the dramatic dialogue, provoking a polemic with these authors' positions. The dialogue indicates the writer’s interest in the theories of gender struggle. The text reflects Čiurlionienė’s involvement in the preparation of the statute of the Lithuanian Women’s Society as well as the influence of liberal feminist ideas that she had encountered while still in Kraków. Following the Romantic authors’ attempts to reveal female heroism, Čiurlionienė strived to create a distinctive interpretation of the end-of-the-19th-century “Lithuanian Jeanne d’Arc” in her psychological sketch (novelette) Joana Vaidilaitė (1914–1918). Johanna’s worldview is undoubtedly more akin to the ideas of early modernism, whereas Joana Vaidilaitė’s sedentary lifestyle is determined by the young woman’s realia of the 19th-century countryside, and later by her treatment in a psychiatric hospital. The sketch suggests the reality of the protagonist’s mystical motherhood, which others treat as a manifestation of madness. The novelette has never been published. Had Joana Vaidilaitė been published during the first years of Lithuania’s independence, there could have been an opportunity to enrich the history of Lithuanian literature with original efforts to give a sense to motherhood, with the Romantic treatment of madness as a form of clairvoyance and the modernist interpretation of the sea as a fluctuating womb. To conclude, starting with the formulation of the statute of the Lithuanian Women’s Society in 1910, Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė’s attempts to express liberal feminist ideas in literary fiction become more noticeable; in these writings, the author refuses to think of motherhood as a manifestation of the impersonal nature's force (which relates to the views of the misogynists), and she cherishes the idea that conscious motherhood is equated to the creation of an individual capable of enriching cultural resources in the future.

Stanislovo Moravskio lietuvių kalba: 1850-1852

Author(s): Giedrius Subacius / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 07/2005

Stanislovas Moravskis (Stanisùaw Morawski, 1802-1853) was the well-known author of Vilnius' memoirs (Several Years from My Young Days in Vilnius, 1818-1825). He wrote predominantly in Polish, but in the rough draft of his "Pieúni" ("Songs"), ca. 1850-1852 (preserved in the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius: f. 165 - 404) Moravskis wrote some Lithuanian texts, phrases, and words (151 Lith. words with a total of 269 occurrences). Moravskis was curious about the meaning and the form of the Lith. words Anksti, Dobiùas and its derivative dobieùelis, Palidnikas, Ratiela. He knew well how to use the velar (nonpalatal) consonant [l] before the e type vocalism (Ùeki 'lëkë; flew'), etc. It might seem that Moravskis had mastered certain characteristics of the Lithuanian language better than a novice. On the other hand, Moravskis was unable to hear the exact phonetics of the words anam, eþeraitis, mergelë, nabagëlis, nedëlia, nematau, Nemunas, penki, subata; he could not identify exactly the ending -o (gen. sg. and praes. 3); he did not clearly differentiate between the diphthong [ie] and the vowels [ë], [e], or between the diphthong [uo] and the vowel [o] (he wrote ); he did not perceive precisely the unstressed diphthong [au] (sometimes he wrote it as ) and there are some inaccuracies in his translations from Lithuanian into Polish. These characteristics of Moravskis's texts could suggest the opposite view that Moravskis was far from being a specialist in Lithuanian.

Stodamas į aukštąją mokyklą…

Author(s): Donatas Sauka / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 1/2017

Donatas Sauka (1929–2015), a professor of Lithuanian Literature at Vilnius University, worked at the Department of Lithuanian Literature from 1956 to 1993, teaching courses in Lithuanian literature and folklore to several generations of students. These different generations of students were equally impressed by the professor’s erudition, his uncompromising attitude and the perfectionism that he demanded of himself and others; also surprising were his endless curiosity and sincere interest in every new phenomenon that he had encountered or person that he had met. In conversations, essay and publicity articles, Donatas Sauka expressed himself as an insightful, precise yet also sensitive critic of society. D. Sauka wrote his fundamental study Lietuvių tautos savitumas ir vertė (The Peculiarity and Value of the Lithuanian Nation, 1970), a textbook for schools of higher education Lietuvių tautosaka (Lithuanian Folklore, 1987, with a second, extended edition published in 2008) and the monographs Žemaitės stebuklas (The Miracle of Žemaitė, 1998) and Jurgis Savickis – XX a. literatūros šifras (Jurgis Savickis: A Cipher of the 20th c. Literature, 1994). During the Lithuanian National Revival, Professor Sauka published an essay book titled Noriu suprasti (I Wish to Understand, 1991), while his culturological study Fausto amžiaus epilogas (An Epilogue of Faust’s Age, 1998) earned him the Award of National Culture and Art. After the professor’s passing, an intellectual, biographical manuscript was discovered in his personal archive, written during the last decade of the 20th century – a work born out of a need to pay his debts to his own time. This publication is dedicated to reminiscing on the period of his studies at Vilnius University as well as the postgraduate studies he undertook during 1948–1956. Some fragments of the manuscript and the respective comments were prepared for publishing by Saulė Matulevičienė.

Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Philologia

Frequency: 4 issues / Country: Romania

ISSN (print): 1220-0484

ISSN (online): 2065-9652

ISSN-L: 1220-0484

Subject : Lingvistics Journal

Text in : English, French, German, Romanian, multiple languages;

Abstract and Keywords in English

Year of the first edition : 1956

History: [1956-1957: Buletinul Universitatilor "V. Babes" si "Bolyai" Cluj. Seria Ştiinte Sociale ISSN 1220-0395; 1958-1961: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai. Series IV (Historia, Philologia), ISSN 1220-0417; 1962-1973: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai. Series Philologia, ISSN 0039-3444; 1974: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai. Series Historia. Philologia. Oeconomica, ISSN: 1220-0476; 1975-today: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Philologia, ISSN 1220-0484]

Periodicity : quarterly

(March, June, September, December)

Type of the publication: scientific/academic

Editor : Prof. Dr. Corin Braga, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

For more than a half-century (its first issue was published in 1956), Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Philologia has run continuously, acquiring national and international prestige. Its fields of interest – literary and linguistic research, together with ethnology, poetics, etc. – have attracted many contributors, the great majority of them from Romania and Europe.

The publication’s thematic diversity attracted appreciation from many academic environments: European (especially Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, and Russia), American and, recently, Japanese and Korean, which has lead to an increase in the number of external partners in charge of coordinating thematic issues.

Studia Universitatis is presently enjoying higher visibility in the academic circles thanks to the quality of the published material and the activity of the review committee (both domestic and foreign) who evaluate the contributions from authors and coordinators of thematic issues.

After the CNCSIS evaluation in 2005 all issues were published entirely in foreign languages, mainly in English, French and German, but also in Spanish, Italian, Norwegian and Japanese.

The editorial board have included personalities representative for the new fields of research towards which the publication is expanding. The editorial team, as well as the ISI reviewers, believe that linguistic diversity acts as a guarantee for global visibility for Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Philologia.

Tapatybės išgyvenimas: Julijono Lindės-Dobilo Blūdo analizė

Author(s): Giedre Šmitiene / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 6/2006

The model of the exchangeable identity is widely spread out in the academic discourse as well as in the common thought. On the contrary this paper deals with the passive identity as the sameness that functions in the corporeality of senses or acts. The passive identity anchored in a flesh in question here is treated as a generator of the declared identity. The following considerations in the paper are based on the novel Blûdas by Julijonas Lindë-Dobilas. The considerations begin with the identity set from the outside; then they cross over to specific experiential fields in which the own incorporated identity is recognized and elucidated for self awareness. The novel Blûdas is interpreted as the text where the national self-consciousness unfolds.

Tapatybės virsmo istorija: Vaižganto Pragiedruliai ir 1918–1920 m. konfliktas dėl Vilniaus

Author(s): Mindaugas Kvietkauskas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 5/2006

This article deals with the problem of representation of the Lithuanian national identity in the novel Pragiedruliai (Bright Spaces) by Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas (1869–1933). The classical novel, which was planned to become an epos of the Lithuanian national revival, was published in three parts during 1918–1920 in Vilnius, at the height of political and military conflict between Lithuania and Poland over the possession of this multinational city. The author himself was one of the main Lithuanian combatants in the field of nationalist ideology and press as he edited the main Lithuanian dailies (Lietuvos Aidas, Nepriklausomoji Lietuva) in Vilnius in that period. In his numerous press articles, Vaižgantas discussed Lithuanian identity as a phenomenon born from the local spirit of nature, formed by the primeval forces of biosphere, and organically evolving into the modern state of national consciousness. By suggesting this model of “organically modern” and “naturally democratic” Lithuanian identity, Vaižgantas was creating an antithesis against the image of Lithuanians as uncivilized barbarians propagated by the Polish nationalist side. However, the novel Pragiedruliai reveals much more diverse and complicated process of conversion of the “natural” or “pantheist” Lithuanian consciousness into the modern national selfimage. While trying to elaborate the symbolic literary narrative of this identity transformation, Vaižgantas included intertextual references to Pan Tadeusz, a 19th century Polish epos about the Lithuanian Grand Duchy noblemen by Adam Mickiewicz, as well as symbols indicating the intricate link between the Lithuanian identity and the cultural history of the Grand Duchy. The original opening chapters of Vaduvų kraštas (The Land of Vaduvos), the second volume of the novel, presented an acute criticism of the Lithuanian “natural” consciousness from the perspective modern cultural liberalism. Thus the clear construction of identity used by Vaižgantas in his political rhetoric becomes complicated and in some cases is even undermined in the polysemantic literary texture of his novel.

Tarmės įtaka Mariaus Katiliškio raštų kalbai

Author(s): Janina Švambaryte-Valužiene / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 76/2017

The article describes linguistic views of writer Marius Katiliškis (real name is Albinas Vaitkus, born on 15 September 1914 in Gruzdžiai, Šiauliai district; died on 17 December 1980 in Lemont, a suburb of Chicago), who comes from Northern Lithuania, Žagarė district, discusses the lexis of Šiauliai sub-dialect of the Western Aukštaitian used in Katiliškis’ works and dialect speech patterns that the writer is known for. The article is compiled with reference to the material of the manuscript of the Glossary of Marius Katiliškis Works (abbreviated as KtŽ), compiled by the author of the article. KtŽ lexis is compiled from the novels Miškais ateina ruduo (1969), Užuovėja (1990), Išėjusiems negrįžti (1990) and a collection of short stories Seno kareivio sugrįžimas (2003). Katiliškis had a good command of Žagarė speech: he had heard quite a few stories told in it, collected and noted individual words, their forms and language expressions. Dialect lexis abundant in Katiliškis’ writings indicates that the writer acted as a dialect user, i.e., created words, formed collocations not included into any dictionaries, used various nuances of word meaning. Words used or created by Katiliškis are affective, noticed by the reader as new, emotional, finally interesting in the way of phonic and semantic meaning. In Katiliškis’ writings the story is relayed by using simple and extended sentences or thoughts that are divided into short sentence components. It seems that the writer wishes to halt the reader for a moment and to emphasise every collocation or phrase. Usually, this kind of fragmented sentence also conceals an emotion expression. Katiliškis’ writings, as indicated in the article, are written in local dialect, i.e., dialect language used in 20th century. Up till this day, the development of standard language requires a more in-debt study by linguists focused on various areas of research, and Katiliškis’ writings are texts on which such an investigation should be grounded.

Tarp dviejų kontekstų, Solveiga Daugirdaitė. Švystelėjo kaip meteoras. 1965-ieji su Simone de Beauvoir ir Jeanu Pauliu Sartre’u. V., Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2015

Author(s): Vytautas Bikulcius / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 4/2016

Solveiga Daugirdaitė. Švystelėjo kaip meteoras. 1965-ieji su Simone de Beauvoir ir Jeanu Pauliu Sartre’u. V., Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2015

Tautinė tapatybė lietuvių biografijose (Jonas Basanavičius, Jonas Šliūpas, Vincas Kudirka)

Author(s): Vaidas Šeferis / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 5/2006

The article deals with the autobiographic and biographic texts of three most important authorities of the Lithuanian national revival at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century: Jonas Basanavičius, Jonas Šliūpas and Vincas Kudirka. The goal of the analysis is to capture significant moments in the evolution of the national Lithuanian identity becoming a part of the personal identity by Basanavičius, Šliūpas and Kudirka and also to compare their autobiographic self-images with those provided by later biographical texts. The article shows not only that Basanavičius, Šliūpas and Kudirka represent very different forms of the national self-consciousness, but also that there are large differences between autobiographical and biographical interpretations of the national identity.

Tautiškosios religinės tapatybės svarstymai literatūros teologijos aspektu

Author(s): Dalia Ciocyte / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 5/2006

The article sets to explore the theoretical principles of literary theology which is employed to discuss and interpret the works by Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas – the classic writer of Lithuanian literature. It is assumed that several Putinas’ works represent different forms of Lithuanian religious identity: traditional Western Christianity and modern individualism. The latter is being interpreted in the context of the deistic notion of God. A hypothesis is being made that some strong emphases on such aspects of Lithuanian Christianity as the fear of God may have been influenced by the emergence of the deistic and atheistic concepts of the Deity.

Teksto adresato vaidmuo lietuvių egzodo poezijoje

Author(s): Karolina Bagdone / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 69/2018

The role of the reader as a textual model, the impact of the text on the reader, and the correlation of the two are not sufficiently studied in the Lithuanian 20th century exodus poetry. Studies often focus on the empirical role of the reader with an emphasis on the reader’s reactions, on images or themes, leaving aside the reflection of the act of reading. The study of the reader model in the context of exodus poetry is complicated due to a purified, “unornamented”, airtight, and un-communicative poetic language. This language is used to tell the fate of a literature in exile (‘a literature without a reader’). This article focuses on the conditions of literary communication, structural elements of the texts, studies of poetic language, and uses them to reconstruct the reader model, which appears in the texts of Liūnė Sutema (Zinaida Nagytė-Katiliškienė). The analysis of the interaction of a poetic text and the reader reveals the commonality of literary creation and our nature. And the attempt to evaluate questions about reading the texts is parallel to the reflexion of all human experience.

The (Non)Presence of Julian Tuwim in Lithuania

Author(s): Teresa Dalecka / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2016

The reception of Polish literature in Lithuania is a complex phenomenon. For a long time there was a dominant trend of expanding the area of Lithuanian literature by incorporating into it some of the Polish-language authors who maintained contacts with Lithuania. As a result, the horizons of national literature naturally broadened. However, the reception of Julian Tuwim’s writing belongs to a different category. It needs to be remembered that in the Soviet period Polish literature offered Lithuanian intellectuals a passage to the outside world. It was in the work of western poets, Tuwim’s work included, that Lithuanian authors sought ways of expanding their avant-garde forms and dictions. Tuwim’s poetry has been largely read in its original, Polish version; therefore, there are few books collecting his poems. However, the influence of Tuwim’s work is recognized by some experts in translations of his work. However, Tuwim was made publicly known in Lithuania thanks an argument over the naming one of the street in Vilnius after his name. The article analysis public reactions to this argument and shows how this non-literaryevent made Tuwim a public figure in the country.

The ‘London Glossary’ (London, British Library: C.38.b.47, fols. [1–6]): A late 17th century Lithuanian–English glossary

Author(s): Anna Helene Feulner / Language(s): English / Issue: 13/2011

Printed in Königsberg in 1680, the Calvinist catechism Pradzia pamoksla del maʒu weykialu must have found its way to England soon after. By 1703, when the only exemplar known today was bought for Sir Hans Sloane’s library in London, a handwritten Lithuanian–English glossary went with it: the ‘London Glossary’. A short – although quite useful – description has been given by Alfonsas Laučka, obviously based on the microfilm referred to by Juozas Balčikonis4 and in LBP,5 but the ‘London Glossary’ has never been edited. The following article offers an edition and critical evaluation of the text, based on an autopsy of C.38.b.47, in order to make the full text available to scholars.

The Adriatic-Baltic Transversal: Danilo Kiš Through the Prism of Baltic Writing on Essentialism and Diversity

Author(s): John K. Cox / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

The purpose of this paper will be to compare the ideas of one highly regarded southeast European writer, Danilo Kiš (1935–1989) of Yugoslavia, with those of some leading writers and thinkers from the Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. My analysis will center on the vague concepts of “identity” and “national culture”. I will explore, by reference to the many essays and interviews of Danilo Kiš, concrete topics such as essentialism and linguistic and ethnic diversity and look for parallels or contrast in the works of some Baltic writers. These thoughts will, I hope, spark a discussion based on sources broader than those that I command about what terms such as identity and national culture actually mean and how they effect the production, or reputation, of writers. It should also be possible to look at some issues relating to cultural translation in Kiš, because he grew up in the contested border area between Hungary and Serbia, was the product of an ethnically and religiously mixed marriage, and translated and taught internationally for much of his life.

The Deconstruction of National Identity in Lithuanian Literature: Marius Ivaškevičius’ Plays

Author(s): Aušra Jurgutiene / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

A heating national identity that makes use of romantic myths from the Golden Age of Lithuania creates the necessary “emotional glue” that can bring harmony to a social group. A coherent narrative of national history together with collective memories are inseparable from the ideology of nationalism that flourished in East Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Benedict Anderson). But we also have to emphasize that the impact of patriotism on a society can be compared to the ambivalent deconstructionist idea of the pharmacon, suggesting that medicine used in too great a dose may become poison. Therefore, the deconstructionist’s suspicion of national mythology and static national identity does not weaken national health, as may appear at the first glance, but may actually strengthen it. The two plays by Marius Ivaškevičius, Madagaskaras (Madagascar) and Išvarymas (Expulsion), still find a great resonance with readers and theatre audiences and are the subject of this article. I will consider how the deconstruction of national identity is based on the transformation and rewriting of national myths in Ivaškevičius’ plays. The deconstruction of identity, as I call it, emerges as a result of the interplay between opposing types of static heating and dynamic cooling identities. Having rejected extreme notions of national identity (i.e. these which are overly optimistic or utterly pessimistic) we enter into the field of the intricate semantics of identity, which leads us to the acknowledgement that nothing at all is self-evident and permanent, and everything depends on the perspective of each era. Madagascar (2004) is a symbolic memory text where the author not only rejects the Lithuanian myths concerning national identity but also renews them from the contemporary point of view by adding lots of irony. Mocking the past and the idea to create a “reserve Lithuania” on the island of Madagascar allows him to speak of the ongoing national identity crisis: the old myths are no longer valid in our rapidly changing world and we cannot find a clear-cut answer to the question of who we are. In the next play, Expulsion (2011), the author keeps investigating the same problem of national identity: “From the geographical point of view, London is located on an island. But if we were to abandon geographical thinking, all of us are islanders. Humanity still consists of islands called nations.” (Ivaškevičius) In the postmodernist global world there is no such thing as total isolation and islands are indeed interconnected by the seas rather than remaining isolated entities. This applies equally to postmodernist nations and peoples. The play depicts the dramatic integration of Lithuanian immigrants into an alien culture. Benas, them protagonist of the play, and some other young Lithuanians are brought to London as cheap illegal labour. However, the golden grindstone of the free market crushes them all. In order to survive, they must adapt in an alien culture. But are there limits to how much they are actually able to adapt? The writer describes only the destructive cases of integration and sets very relevant social and moral problems about the integration of poor emigrants from the Eastern Europe into rich Western societies. Critics like to call Ivaškevičius an anthropologist of the nation and writer of relevant political drama (Vaidotas Jauniškis, Ramunė Balevičiūtė, ValdasVasiliauskas, Kristian Lupa). We must not perceive the crisis and deconstruction of the national identity in Ivaškevičius’ plays as merely a rejection (or destruction) of past national creation myths, but rather as their ironic recreation, because, in this time of dynamic globalization, our modern national consciousness and culture needs them.

The Imagological Approach to Lithuanian and Latvian Contemporary Émigré Narratives

Author(s): Laura Laurušaite / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

A newly deployed identity, separated from its natural location, loses its solid national or ethnic status and hybridizes, acquiring features of the new context. Employing the concepts of self-image, imageme and counter-image introduced by contemporary literary imagology (Joep Leerssen), the article focuses on the 21st century Lithuanian and Latvian émigré prose to provide an overview of a dislocated tradition and images that encode the continuity or transformation of the national identity. The aim of the discussion is to raise the issue of the specifics of the Baltic ethnic and national identity in the changing mobile world. The focus of the analysis is not on the social, but exceptionally on literary images, which are classified into topical image groups: ethnic images, Eastern European projections and exoticism as an extension of domestic identity. Literary representations bear witness to the atrophy of ethnic and national consciousness, shifting expression of Baltic images, and their creative employment in the new contexts. Applied to the norms and standards of the new (e) migrant society, traditional ethnic and national imagery often looses the common Baltic implications and offers other arguments for self-identification. The inherited patterns of Soviet mentality determine a similar structure of the characters’ consciousness, identical personal values and motivational mechanisms that bear witness to a common stock type “Eastern European”. This is a certain social type with the entire preconceived repertoire of stereotypical images describing the subject of post-Soviet descent. This subject appears in émigré narratives as the inferior figure of the labourer with low self-esteem, a person of no reputation guided by amorality and aggressiveness. Although, at first glance, all the personal and national characteristics of the homo post-sovieticus appear to be negatively charged, every unfavourable estimation contains the positive counterpart of the imageme that can be activated at any given moment (e. g., passivity/faithfulness, humility/patience, primitiveness/honesty, etc.). Baltic literary works produced in more remote and exotic countries (China, Turkey and Georgia), reveal the Baltic identity as European (more specifically – Northern) as opposed to Russian or the Soviet one, and demonstrate the authors’ propensity for embracing it. Common representational clichés of a distant culture as the incomprehensible and foreign Other and of the Orient as the cradle of despotism are being disproved. The images under discussion reflect Lithuanian and Latvian collective representations and the key changes happening in the national identity of the Baltic nations in emigration.

The Same in Polish, or Peculiarities of Bilingual Occasional Poetry in the Eighteenth-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Author(s): Asta Vaškeliene / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

The paper addresses eighteenth-century occasional poetry of Lithuania written in parallel Latin and Polish. The research seeks to draw attention to bilingual creation as a literary phenomenon that reflects the linguistic priorities and cultural needs of the time, and to reveal the most distinct semantic and artistic peculiarities of bilingual occasional poetry. As a phenomenon of Lithuanian neo-Latin literature, bilingualism has not yet been addressed in detail in scholarly historiography. Only an article by Eugenija Ulčinaitė, in which she introduces linguistic expression, semantics and stylistics of sixteenth to seventeenth-century Lithuanian bilingual texts is devoted to this thematic. Research in eighteenth-century occasional poetry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has shown that parallel texts occur in nearly all poetry genres, but they were most popular among epigrams. Language variants of the works can be written both by the same and by different authors. Comparative analysis of texts has shown that when the primary – Latin – content is conveyed in Polish, it can be modified or complemented with information relevant to the dedicatee. Such alteration causes semantic and stylistic differences and creates a shift in the emotional tone of a work. Despite the fact that both – Latin and Polish – versions of a work are officially dedicated to the same dedicatee, the group of recipients seems expanded. It is quite possible that the Latin version is addressed to the individual named in the title, while the Polish version is meant for the general public or people lacking in education necessary to understand the Latin text. The need to convey the same content in Polish points to the vitality of occasional literature and its universally perceived purpose.

The textual influences of Jacob Ledesma’s catechism and the catechism of Mikalojus Daukša on the anonymous catechism of 1605

Author(s): Anželika Smetoniene / Language(s): English / Issue: 68/2016

The article compares the relationship between the texts of the Polish Ledesma’s catechism, the catechism of Mikalojus Daukša and the catechism of 1605. The problem of the source for the Polish translation of Ledesma’s text and, consequently, for the two Lithuanian versions of the catechism is briefly introduced: scholarly opinions differ as to when the Italian original of Ledesma’s catechism was published. Likewise unknown is the exact date of the translation of Ledesma’s catechism into the Polish language. Both Lithuanian translations were accomplished from the Polish Ledesma’s catechism; however, there are significant differences between them. Daukša was the first to accomplish a translation of such nature into Lithuanian, whereas the anonymous translator of the catechism of 1605 used not only the Polish source, but also Daukša’s catechism, which had been rendered ten years earlier. Although the relationship between the latter text and the Polish translation as well as the Italian original has already been investigated, the comparison of the catechism of 1605 to the Polish version of Ledesma’s catechism and to the catechism translated by Daukša still needs to be drawn. The aim of the present article is to compare the three catechisms and to investigate the textual influence of Daukša’s catechism (which had been published earlier) on the anonymous translation of the catechism of 1605; in other words, to determine whether the catechism of 1605 was translated directly from the Polish catechism of Ledesma, or whether the translator relied more on the text of Daukša’s catechism; also, to identify the authorial lines of the anonymous author.

Tikrovėje ir vaizduotėje išsuptas miestas. Skaitant Kazio Bradūno „Vilniaus varpus“

Author(s): Algis Kaleda / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 2/2017

The article aims at describing and interpreting the first collection Vilniaus varpai (The Bells of Vilnius, 1943) by Kazys Bradūnas (1917–2009), one of the founders of the “Žemė” literary movement and the laureate of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts (1992), and showing the significance of this book in author’s creative biography, in which Vilnius theme occupied a unique place. After the restoration of independence, Vilnius was the palace where the poet returned to live in 1994. It is important to note that the book was soon published for a second time in 1947 by “Patria Publishers” in a large volume of 3,300 copies. At the time, two other his collections, Pėdos arimuos (Footmarks in Plough) ir Svetimoji duona (Alien Bread), were already published. The Bells of Vilnius consists of seventeen sonnets, representing an emotional personal and national relationship of the whole generation with the recently regained capital of Lithuania. The symbolic leitmotiv, the bells, as well as the majestic beauty of Vilnius churches and the animated state of lyrical “I” create a sacred aura (poems “Cathedral,” “Gothic,” “Baroque,” “To Eternity,” and “In Rasos Cemetery”). The collection marks the beginning of Bradūnas’s poetic road, an individual interpretation of the city’s topicality, and a testimony to lasting links with the space. The goal of the article is to briefly discuss how the book coexists with the wider visual landscape of the city and its cultural artefacts, interpreted by various artists of different nationalities.

TRADICINIO IR MODERNAUS TIKĖJIMO SANDŪRA IKIEGZILINĖJE BERNARDO BRAZDŽIONIO KŪRYBOJE

Author(s): Silvija Rakutiene / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 1/2018

Looking back at the first half of the 20th century reveals the subjective conception of religiosity in Lithuanian poetry. During the interwar period, the works of Fr. P. Jakas and the philosophers S. Šalkauskis and A. Maceina, who examined the social aspects of Catholicism, helped ideas of Catholic modernism to emerge in Lithuania. The concept of Lithuanian neo-Catholicism is based on the validation of the search for personal faith and for a middle ground between Thomistic transcendentalism and modernistic immanentism. This concept changes the usual religious poetry, the essence of which is the interpretation of the truths of faith and the glorification of the Lord. Modern poetry reveals a more personal, deeper relationship with faith and religion, determined by the deliberate self-determination of a mind-conscious person. This impulse is particularly evident in the pre-exile creations (1924-1944) of one of the most famous Lithuanian poets, Bernardas Brazdžionis. Publications of his early poems drew on the tone of prayer, the relation with God was rather traditional and even acting as a kind of template – it is a poetry of praise, thanksgiving and sacrifice. However, the modern human being of the early 20th century was no longer able to experience the Deity immanently. Natural, rustic, agricultural religiosity through which a person could perceive the Creator in manifestations of creation was lost. Thus, in later texts, the disturbed and restless man in the poems of Brazdžionis feels existential loneliness and begins to seek dialogue with the Lord, longing for unity with the Transcendent. This unity is perceived as the only way to realise the meaning of human existence. The poet enables his subject to become a seeker of God, giving him the right to doubt and question, reject or accept, and attempt to rewrite the biblical story. He views religion as a sign of culture and strives to restore the original essence of faith, to experience the catharsis of the believer. The modern understanding of the relationship between belief and being religious helps Brazdžionis to observe some sort of separation between society and God, the hypocrisy of people, inability and unwillingness to live according to God’s laws. He considers the issue of true and figurative religiosity, confronting sincere prayer and cold religious rituals. The poems of Bernard Brazdžionis, steeped in ideas of neo-Catholicism, enrich Lithuanian religious poetry. The existential interpretation of Christianity allows this poet to be regarded as a representative of Catholic existentialism in Lithuanian literature.