Nature and culture in the prewar Lithuanian consciousness

Abstract

From the numerous nature descriptions present in Lithuanian literature in all its genres, it would seem that nature must hold a special place in the Lithuanian consciousness.1 Some incisive literary histories, such as Czeslaw Milosz' The History of Polish Literature, find that Lithuanian literature excels at nature description, and that this genre of writing has been especially well developed. However, while a cursory glance might suggest that it would be useful to examine the role of nature alone in Lithuanian prose fiction, nature is best treated in tandem with its binary opposition culture, as has been remarked by Claude Levi Strauss and structural anthropologists, literary analysts and cultural historians in his wake. The nature/culture opposition has been accepted as one of the most fundamental structural elements in a society's perception of itself; thus a study of the early years of Lithuanian prose fiction can be expected to reveal not only how the opposition operates in literature, one form of art, but also it can yield some vital clues as to the opposition's function and relevance in the society in general. Analyzing impressionist and expressionist prose of the period of independence (1918-1940), Janina 2ekaite verbalizes die conclusion traditionally favored by Lithuanian criticism: nature and the countryside have always been sources of spiritual tranquillity for Lithuanians.2 Romantic and nonromantic literary currents could come and go, but the hero's or heroine's relationship to nature remained constant: he or she continued to regard nature as the space in which consolation and refuge from the vicissitudes of life could be found. Perhaps in an agrarian society, which Lithuania remained until Soviet