Žemaitė XX a. II pusės lietuvių poezijoje ir prozoje

Abstract

The article dedicated to the works of the Lithuanian literature written in the second half of the 20th century depicting the writer Žemaitė (pen name of Julija Beniuševičiūtė-Žymantienė, 1845–1921). This writer was not rejected by the Soviet authorities because of her realistic outline and her democratic political views, the social criticism expressed in her work towards greed, selfishness and clericalism. Lithuanian writers dedicated to her their poetry, fiction, and drama works. However, Soviet writers were also impressed by Žemaitė’s personality traits, which mentioned less frequently in public: independence, perseverance, wit, the courage to stand out from her surroundings and to disregard the societal norms that stifled older women in traditional society. The article analyses the features of Žemaitė’s personality in works of Lithuanian literature created by poets Salomėja Nėris, Judita Vaičiūnaitė, and others. The author reveals how different aspects of Žemaitė’s work and personality were emphasised depending on the time of writing. This change partly reflects the shift of literature from socialist realism to more modern literature. Among the works of prose, the author singles out Bitė Vilimaitė’s cycle of short stories “Apsakymai apie Žemaitę” (Short Stories about Žemaitė) from her collection Papartynų saulė (Fernery Sun, 2002). The stories reveal both the character of Žemaitė, her environment and people close to her, and the most important features of Vilimaitė’s own work: attention to a woman’s fate, subtle psychological insight, attention to detail, and a specific model of a short novella. Since the protagonists of the cycle are usually real people, Vilimaitė’s talent for using documentary material and combining it with fiction is also evident here. The article concludes that Soviet-era authors portraying Žemaitė’s character raised aspects relevant to the time of writing, such as the promotion of national culture, problems of women’s emancipation and, also the fact that for female writers, Žemaitė was a role model.