A Snapshot of the Soviet Literary Field in the Letters to Eduardas Mieželaitis of the 1960s

Abstract

Based on the letters of writers of the Soviet period to Eduardas Mieželaitis stored in the Archive of Lithuanian Literature and Art, the paper reconstructs the field of Lithuanian literature of the 1960s: the position of hierarchically-oriented groupings, struggles, tensions, and private attitudes. The author of the article distinguishes between central and marginal groups of writers arguing that at that time, the structure of the Soviet literary field was formed by the relations between the traditionalists, or the so-called ‘senators’ (Juozas Baltusis, Teofilis Tilvytis, and others) and the modernists, or ‘innovators’ (Mieželaitis, Justinas Marcinkevicius, Algimantas Baltakis, and others). On the margins of the literary field, there were the ‘ideologically unreliable’ writers of the older generation, repressed by the Soviet authorities (Valys Drazdauskas, Jonas Graiciūnas, Kazys Jankauskas, Viktoras Katilius, Antanas Miskinis, and others) and the ‘outsiders’ who accepted their marginal position (Antanas Pakalnis, Kazys Marukas, and Kostas Kubilinskas). The letters of differently positioned writers to Mieželaitis show how the structure of the literary field was perceived by its participants, what type of tactic was adopted, and what means were used to dominate or at least to survive in the field. Keywords: letter, literary field, the 1960s, Eduardas Mieželaitis, Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, Antanas Miskinis. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2015.20