Colloquia is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. The mission of the journal is to disseminate research into twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary scholarship, theoretical works, and interdisciplinary literary studies in Lithuania and Eastern Central European region.
The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore / Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Aušra Jurgutienė 2023. Dekonstrukcinių skaitymų užrašai, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 310 p., ISBN 978-609-425-286-0.
Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Čiurlionis’s “Effect”: Why the Artist’s Oeuvre Still Invites New Interpretations
<p style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Antanas Andrijauskas 2023. Čiurlionis: Nesuprasto genijaus tragiškas skrydis: monografija, t. 1, Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas. ISBN 978-609-8231-68-7, 632 p. <p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Antanas Andrijauskas 2024. Čiurlionis: Nesuprasto genijaus tragiškas skrydis: monografija, t. 2, Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas. ISBN 978-609-8231-83-0, 880 p.
Reading the Correspondence of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, Nijolė Adomavičienė, Petras Kimbrys 2019. Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. Korespondencija, I tomas: 1892–1906 – Korespondencja, tom I: 1892–1906, teksto ir paaiškinimų parengimas, įvadas Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, įvado bendraautorystė, pirminis teksto dešifravimas, kalendorius ir laiškų katalogas Nijolė Adomavičienė, lenkiško teksto redagavimas Helena Żytkowicz, vertimas į lietuvių k., paaiškinimų papildymai, rodyklės Petras Kimbrys, laiškų katalogo vertimas, lenkiško teksto korektūra Beata Piasecka, mokslinis redaktorius Tadeusz Bujnicki, lietuviško teksto redagavimas ir korektūra Aurelija Gražina Rukšaitė, konsultacijos Rasutė Andriušytė-Žukienė, Osvaldas Daugelis, Rokas Zubovas, Kaunas: Nacionalinis M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejus, 552 p., ISBN 978-9955-471-71-4 ISBN 978-9955-471-72-1 Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, Nijolė Adomavičienė, Petras Kimbrys 2024. Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. Korespondencija, II tomas: 1907–1910 – Korespondencja, tom II: 1907–1910, teksto ir paaiškinimų parengimas, įvadas Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, kelių tekstų vertimas į lenkų kalbą Nijolė Adomavičienė, įvado bendraautorystė, pirminis teksto dešifravimas, kalendorius ir laiškų katalogas Petras Kimbrys, vertimas į lietuvių k., paaiškinimų papildymai, rodyklės, dalies tekstų vertimas Audra Kairienė, lenkiško teksto redagavimas Helena Żytkowicz, mokslinė redaktorė Nida Gaidauskienė, lietuviško teksto redagavimas ir korektūra, rodyklės Aurelija Gražina Rukšaitė, lenkiško teksto korektūra, kalendoriaus vertimas Joanna Tabor, Kaunas: Nacionalinis M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejus, Uždaroji dizaino ir leidybos AB Kopa, 455 p., ISBN 978-9955-471-71-4 ISBN 978-9955-471-92-9
“Čiurlionis Cannot Be Confined to a Single Formula”: Saulius Vasiliauskas Speaks with Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn
The Speech upon Receiving Vytautas Kubilius Prize
Criticism that Remembers, Reflects and Responds: Laudations for Jūratė Čerškutė, Winner of the 2025 Vytautas Kubilius Prize
Comparative Literature in the Era of Post-Critical Theories: Threat or Opportunity?
Diskusijoje dalyvavo asociacijos narės – jos įkūrėja ir ilgametė pirmininkė prof. Nijolė Kašelionienė, steigėjos: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos instituto vyriausioji mokslo darbuotoja prof. Aušra Jurgutienė ir Vytauto Didžiojo universiteto docentė Žydronė Kolevinskienė. Taip pat Vilniaus universiteto docentė Jūratė Levina. Kalbėjo ir dr. Donata Mitaitė, dr. Laura Laurušaitė, dr. Gintarė Bernotienė, prof. dr. Eglė Kačkutė-Hagan, doc. dr. Audinga Peluritytė-Tikuišienė. Diskusiją užbaigė prof. dr. Viktorija Skrupskelytė, kuriai buvo suteiktas LLLA garbės nario vardas. Ją moderavo dr. Karolina Bagdonė.
Soviet Ideology on a Platter: Food in Lithuanian and Latvian Literature
<p style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The article investigates how food imagery in contemporary Lithuanian and Latvian literature re-articulates the Soviet period and its ideological imprint. Drawing on imagological and gastropoetic perspectives, the study examines three works by Lithuanian and Latvian authors: Laima Vincė’s non-fiction text Lenin’s Head on a Platter / An American Student’s Diary from the Final Years of the Soviet Union / September 1988 – August 1989 (in Lithuanian and English 2008), Nora Ikstena’s novel Soviet Milk (Mātes piens, 2015; in English 2018) and Dace Rukšāne’s novel Russian Skin (Krieva āda, 2020; reissued in 2025). <p style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">These texts demonstrate how culinary motifs illuminate power relations: meat foregrounds the intrusive dictate of Russian imperial masculinity; milk, typically associated with care, acquires a bitter taste shaped by coercive worldviews; vodka reflects the regime’s levelling pressure, while wine signals fleeting moments of inner resistance. Food-related scenes also reveal Soviet social hierarchies structured by scarcity and informal access networks. Gastronomic imagery is a means that allows Baltic authors to show the impact of the Soviet era on local identities and to illuminate the possibilities of their renewal and cultural restoration with the onset of perestroika.
The Intertext of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis in the Late Twentieth-Century Lithuanian Poetry: Ideological and Interpretative Directions
<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">This article analyzes the intertext of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis in Lithuanian poetry of the late twentieth century, focusing on the processes of literary modernization during the Soviet era and raising the question of whether the poets’ fascination with the phenomenon of the Čiurlionis’s work could have contributed to this. The object of the study is poetic texts in which Čiurlionis’s work is made relevant as an intermedial phenomenon, including references to his paintings, ego-documentary, musical compositions, or commonly perceived principles of interaction between the arts. Based on texts published in commemorative anthologies (<em lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Saulėtos vizijos<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> and <em lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Žvaigždynų sonatos<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">), the article discusses two dominant approaches in the interpretation of Čiurlionis’s artistic ideas: turning the motifs of Čiurlionis’s paintings into ideological emblems and artistic interpretations of the paintings, characterized by varied degrees of dramatization and self-reflection. The study has revealed that the political context of the Soviet era had an impact on the content of the interpretations—the stereotypical and romantic reception of Čiurlionis as a cultural figure. However, the interpretation of ekphrasis confirms that the artist’s allegorical work created favorable conditions for the development of ambiguity and encouraged both culturally contextual and more subjective interpretations of themes in Lithuanian poetry.
The Semiotic Take on Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis: The Analyses by Jean-Marie Floch and Jacques Fontanille
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">This article presents, compares, and supplements two semiotic analyses of paintings by Lithuanian painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis—his sonatas painted in 1907–1909 (“Sonata of the Spring”, “Sonata of the Summer”, “Sonata of the Sea”, “Sonata of the Serpent”, “Sonata of the Pyramids”, “Sonata of the Sun” and “Sonata of the Stars”) by French semioticians, Jean-Marie Floch (article “The Life of Form. A Look at M. K. Čiurlionis’s Sonatas”, 1985) and Jacques Fontanille (article “Poliscopy in Čiurlionis’s Sonatas”, 1995), the disciples of Algirdas Julien Greimas, a founder of the Paris School of Semiotics. Focusing mainly on the analysis of two paintings from the “Sonata of the Stars” cycle, “Allegro” and “Andante”, the article proposes introducing a transcendental addresser while describing their narrative level. The article analyses significant semiotic expressions and elements of content which form in paintings and realizes the idea of the synthesis of the arts revealing the influence of the musical form of sonata on painting. It also discusses the new meanings that opened in the paintings by Čiurlionis, underlines the European art trends characteristic of Čiurlionis’s painting and its universal cultural dimension.
The Presence of Holiness in Landscape and the Ecstasy of Colours in Lithuanian Poetry of the Second Half of the Twentieth-Century: The Footprint of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article discusses the reception of some ideas and worldview adopted from Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s paintings by poets Sigitas Geda, Leonardas Gutauskas and Jonas Juškaitis, who debuted in the 1960s and were sensitive to the mysticism of nature. Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn’s arguments that the Polish literature, especially Juliusz Słowacki’s poems (the historiosophical poem “Anhelli” and the epic-symbolic poem “The Spirit King,” describing the history of the Polish nation as a series of incarnations of the national spirit) had an influence on Čiurlionis’s art encouraged to look deeper into metaphysical thinking and experiences of holiness discussed more widely in Lithuanian academic texts in the twenty-first century. Evident in the Čiurlionis’s work, they have been manifested in Lithuanian poetry through ecstatic visions of colour, high style rhetoric and hermetic imagery. The comparative method enabled to highlight the overlaps in the perception of Čiurlionis and the aforementioned poets in art and poetry, noting the close relationship between landscape and historical themes. The author of the article considers the influence of Čiurlionis’s apolitical work on the theurgic ethos of poetry and the pathos of the cultural of resistance during the Soviet era, as well as the formation of the image of Čiurlionis as a national genius in poetry after 1990.
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s Work behind the Iron Curtain: His 1979 Exhibition in West Berlin
<p style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">During the Soviet era, Lithuanian researchers strictly complied with the view that the paintings of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911) could not be taken to exhibitions due to their physical fragility. Such a stance was in line with Soviet policy of imposing limits on cultural cooperation with the West. Nevertheless, in 1975, an exhibition of Čiurlionis’s paintings was organized in Moscow and in 1979, in the Federal Republic of Germany. <p style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The article discusses the circumstances of Čiurlionis’s exhibition at Charlottenburg Palace in West Berlin and its reception. A little-known page in the history of Lithuanian culture has revealed that the Čiurlionis’s exhibition was a natural cultural event and at the same time, a clash of power between the ruling authorities. The article sheds light on the prehistory of the exhibition, investigating the actions and decisions that led representatives of the cultural spheres of two opposing political systems to give the green light to this project. It also attempts to answer whether the impressions of the exhibition and its reception by Western specialists had any impact on later assessments of Čiurlionis’s work in the context of European art. The article uses archival sources available in Lithuania and correspondence with the exhibition organizers.
Prince Witold Kazimierz Czartoryski of the Vytis/Pogoń Coat of Arms and Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Based on the contents of Sofija Čiurlionienė’s thank-you note sent in May 1910 to Prince Witold Kazimierz Czartoryski, which has not been discussed or published to date in Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s studies, the article aims to clarify the main benefactor of the artist’s treatment at the <em lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Czerwony Dwór<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"> clinic. Since Czartoryski is a new name in Čiurlionis’s biography, the article introduces his life, activities and personality. It raises the question of whether the prince was the only member of the historical elite who paid for the artist’s medical care, or whether several aristocrats sent funds. After Čiurlionis’s brother Stasys published his memoirs in 1935 and 1938, the claim that the artist’s medical care was funded by <span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Prince Lubomirski from Brussels, was established. Czartoryski’s secretary, whom Čiurlionienė contacted first, lived in this city. The article also seeks to clarify who mediated this financial support, whether there are more documents related to the matter, etc. Although Čiurlionis and Czartoryski came from different social backgrounds, they were contemporaries, emerged from the same cultural region. This fact called for a comparative analysis, which revealed the common cultural trends characteristic of the period in which they lived.
A Comrade, A Mother, A Trophy: Women’s Narratives in Soviet Latvian Prose of the 1920s and 1930s
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article explores the constructed images and narratives of women in Latvian prose written in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s. It examines how these diaspora texts reflected and negotiated ideological, social, and gender transformations in early Soviet culture. The study asks what kinds of women-centred narratives circulated among Soviet Latvians, how they intersected with questions of identity, belonging, and political loyalty. Methodologically, the article treats narratives as discursive acts that construct meaning and selfhood, combining feminist, imagological, and postcolonial approaches with close textual analysis. The article maps key narrative types to show how literature shaped the image of a “new woman.”
Copyright (c) 2025 Ilze Ļaksa-Timinska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On Literary Translations and Their Ideological Deformations
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Nijolė Maskaliūnienė ir Ingrida Tatolytė (sud.) 2024. Vertimas ir cenzūra sovietinės ideologijos sąlygomis: Lietuva, 1940–1990, Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 572 p. ISBN 978-609-07-1118-7.
What Does the Centennial School Canon of Lithuanian Literature Reveal?
<p lang="en-GB" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Viktorija Šeina, Aistė Kučinskienė 2024. Mokyklinis lietuvių literatūros kanonas: šimtmečio raidos rekonstrukcija, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 614 p. ISBN 978-609-425-399-7
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Rimantas Kmita<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">(sud.) 2024. <em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Virsmo link. Vėlyvojo sovietmečio literatūros socialumas ir estetinė raiška<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 455 p., ISBN 978-609-425-397-3.
“A Dim Light of Dawn”: Viktorija Jonkutė interviews Finnish researchers Tuomas Tepora and Sinikka Selin
The Intertexts of German Culture in Jurgis Kunčinas’s Poetry
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">This article examines motifs and intertexts from German culture and literature in the poems of Lithuanian writer and translator Jurgis Kunčinas. It argues that Kunčinas’s personal and professional connections with the German language and culture determined their distinctive reflection in his work. The article demonstrates, through analytical process, alternative interpretations of Kunčinas’s poems that are seemingly established and detached from certain initial assessments. The study addresses three aspects: the preservation of memory, its reactivation, and the search for self-identification across generations, as well as the influence of German writers and artists on Kunčinas’s poetry.
Berankis and Vargalys – Postcolonial Antiheroes? A Comparative Analysis of “Handless” and Vilnius Poker by Ričardas Gavelis
<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">This paper applies postcolonial theory to works by Lithuanian writer Ričardas Gavelis. It presents a comparative analysis of his short story “Handless,” published as part of the collection <em lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Nubaustieji<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1"> (The Punished, 1987), and his novel <em lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Vilnius Poker<span lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1"> (1989). A speech given by Lithuanian poet Sigitas Geda at a 1988 Sąjūdis rally, considered a potent expression of the postcolonial condition, serves as a conceptual reference point for the analysis. Gavelis’s novel and short story are viewed as examples of postcolonial literature, and the postcolonial concepts of liminality and mimicry are applied to these works. The antihero is understood as an inversion used for criticizing the Soviet regime. This paper posits that the antiheroic nature of Gavelis’s protagonists originates in their postcolonial condition.
Charlatanism in Latvian Literature of the 1970s
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">The article explores charlatanism in the works of two Latvian authors, Marģeris Zariņš’s novel <em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Viltotais Fausts<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1"> (<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Mock Faustus<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">, 1973) and Miervaldis Birze’s play <em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Bišentropa balzams<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1"> (<em style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">Bišentrops’ Balm<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;" data-mce-fragment="1">, 1970). Considering the Soviet emphasis on scientific method, progressivism, rationalism, and atheism, the attitudes of the time towards charlatanism can be best described as disdainful. It was regarded as something laughable, often introduced in veiled forms. By employing charlatanism, the writers made the above-mentioned works more credible—or at least more fascinating and playful—allowing those in power to draw a sharp contrast between the foolishness that charlatanism represented and the great Soviet advances in medicine. These dubious practices were often embraced, reflecting a gap between ideological belief and practical reality. However, the rise of so-called Soviet spirituality also signified a broader shift—from the suppression of religion to a renewed pursuit of spiritual exploration in the USSR. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;" data-mce-fragment="1">Birze and Zariņš freely navigate several cultural and linguistic strata and folk motifs. They are interested in the mystical, occultism, and the scientifically inexplicable. The works of both authors on charlatanism can be seen as mere instances within the broader, yet episodic, presence of charlatanism in Latvian literature. At the same time, they represent a kind of culmination within the writers’ legacies, especially in Zariņš’s case.
The Last Patron of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s Work: New Touches to the Portrait of Bronisława Wolman
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The Wolman family played an important role in Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s intellectual growth and his artistic self-realisation. From the end of 1904 until 1907, Bronisława Wolman took care of the artist’s livelihood and encouraged his creative aspirations. The literary salons held in the Wolmans’ apartment were important for the development of Čiurlionis’s worldview. With the support of this family, the artist visited the Crimea, the Caucasus, and the Beskids, and saw art collections in five Central European cities. Bronisława Wolman encouraged Čiurlionis to experiment and try himself in new areas, such as literature and photography. The artist expressed his gratitude for the support and encouragement through dedications. The artefacts and letters preserved by the Wolmans have enriched the artist’s oeuvre and his documentary legacy. The article provides additional information about Bronisława Wolman and her family, introduces new details of Čiurlionis’s biography, and delves into the specific circumstances in which democratic patronage took place. The publication is the result of research carried out in five archives outside of Lithuania. It summarizes primary sources using historical reconstruction and interpretive approaches.
“But Someone Has to Shout”: Henrikas Nagys’s Polemical Position in Literatūros Lankai
The article relates to the position of Henrikas Nagys in the formation process of Lithuanian journal Literatūros lankai (Literary Folios, 1952–1959), analysing his impact to the aesthetical preferences of co-authors. In Nagys’ creative imagination, the literary field was constructed as a scene “where the drama of us (and of those who resemble us) had been acted” (Vytautas Kavolis). Nagys declared that the most important features of a good literary work were originality of the author and fidelity to artistic truth. Critical reviews and interviews by Nagys are taken into account, as well as his correspondence with colleagues.
Comparative Literature Studies in Violeta Kelertas’s Literary Criticism
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article examines Violeta Kelertas’s comparative research in the context of the Lithuanian diaspora in the United States. After WWII, comparative studies of Lithuanian literature on both sides of the Atlantic continued the tradition of comparative historical studies inherited from the interwar period and were developed as an addition to the history of national literature. However, Kelertas and some other diaspora literary critics methodologically renewed comparative literature more than their counterparts in Lithuania. The fundamental shift in comparative literature in the US—from the French tradition to postmodern comparative literature—was also influenced by its thematic, feminist, and postcolonial comparative studies, which enabled Lithuanian literature to raise new questions and introduce it into the global context of literary studies and connections with new thematic aspects. The article argues that comparative literature studies were carried on in the Lithuanian diaspora. In Kelertas’s case, comparative research in literature was modernized through feminist and postcolonial approaches.
Comparative Literature in a Global Context: Politics, Academic Literature, and the Future of Comparativism
David Damrosch 2020. Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age, Princeton University Press, p. 392, ISBN 978-069-123-455-7