Lithuanian Poetry Research Articles

Interpretation of the war in Ukraine: ukrainian, polish, bulgarian, and lithuanian poetry (based on the anthology «Armed spring»)

The study analyzed the anthology «Vesna ozbroiena (Armed Spring)», initiated for publication by The National Writers’ Union of Ukraine. The book was published during the unfolding of a full-scale war in Ukraine, in the spring of 2022. The anthology is based on several principles — the coverage of regions with different levels of authorship is particularly noticeable, the principle of generational experiences is sporadically manifested, on the other hand — in the organization of anthology shows the consideration of the tendency to cover the phenomenon, especially how exactly the topic of war is highlighted in Western European poetry. The experimental nature of the anthology «Vesna ozbroiena (Armed Spring)» is that the editor, the author of the foreword, Mykhailo Sydorzhevsky, qualified it as an anthology of military lyrics and under one cover collected small selections (up to six works) of Ukrainian, Polish, Bulgarian and Baltic poets about the acute feeling-reflection of two stages Russia-Ukraine war (1st stage — 2014‑2022, 2nd stage — ongoing since 24.02.2022). The authors of the «Vesna ozbroiena (Armed Spring)» anthology belong not only to different artistic circles and generations, they are more or less known to the readership, but the fact is that their style palette is very diverse, from masterful maturity to imitative manners that are easy to follow by those who have already established themselves in the literature. Predominant in the anthology is the understanding of the helplessness of a peaceful person amid the tragic events of war. At the same time, the depth and knowledge of events and details differ — this is volunteer experience, and the experience of refugees, emigrants, the experience of mothers waiting for their sons and daughters from the front, the experience of soldiers and descendants of soldiers, the experience of orphans and those who covered these events in the media and in research, which provides sufficient discourse throughout the war and keeps the phenomenon visible, because it is the same age as the relayed disaster.

Preserving the Dance: R. M. Rilke’s Concern for the Preservation of Objects and its Reflection in Lithuanian Poetry

The article examines the connection between Rainer Maria Rilke’s concern for the preservation of objects and the poetic-aesthetic concept, which he applied to the phenomenon of dance. The article treats the dance, which receives relatively little attention as a separate art form in Rilke’s work, as a kind of (non-material) object. Overall, Rilke’s conception of the object goes beyond the “ordinary” and direct materiality. However, the desire to preserve objects in texts presupposes a special transformation, which can be identified as a distinctive phenomenological process. In Rilke’s poetry, dance appears in a variety of contexts and is often dependent on the image rather than the movement. Here, the poet applies Sehen Lernen, or “Learning to see” program. The article discusses Rilke’s poems that are related to the phenomenon of dance, including “Spanische Tänzerin” [“The Spanish Dancer”], “Toten-Tanz” [“Death-Dance”], an excerpt from “Die fünfte Elegie” [“The Fifth Elegy”] and Sonnet XVIII from Part II of Die Sonette an Orpheus [The Sonnets to Orpheus]. The article also explores the poetic reception of Rilke’s dance in Lithuanian poetry, the poems of Salomėja Nėris (“The Red Rose”), Henrikas Nagys (a fragment from “The Psalm of Fulfillment”) and Jonas Juškaitis (“Ballet”).

Meaning Twist: National Images in Lithuanian Poetry of the Late Soviet Period

Meaning Twist: National Images in Lithuanian Poetry of the Late Soviet Period

Examining the Concept of Space in Soviet Lithuanian Poetry

Examining the Concept of Space in Soviet Lithuanian Poetry

Strategies for Reading Visual Poetry: A Semiotic Approach and Its Practical Application

The article explores the ways in which the Greimasian method of semiotics can be applied to the analysis of contemporary Lithuanian poetry texts, specifically visual poetry. Bearing in mind the nature of visual poetry, I consider a semiotic approach, which allows explaining the strategies of meaning making in visual poetry. The methodological question goes back to the origins of Algirdas Julius Greimas’ semiotics, in particular the works of Louis Hjelmslev. I draw attention that based on Hjelmslev’s approach, it is important not only to treat any unit of meaning as a certain relationship between the plane of content and the plane of expression, but in the case of visual poetry, also to supplement it with a more detailed description of Hjelmslev’s levels of language (form–substance–purport) and their interrelations. It calls attention to the plane of expression, which has a special status in visual poetry. I argue that one of the most important conditions for the emergence of signification in visual poetry is the phenomenon of unstable correlation, which is a semiotic relationship between the plane of expression and the plane of content that appears as a process of production of reciprocal presupposition, which, in turn, is dependent on the focus point of reader’s gaze. In the first part of the article, in which I address theoretical considerations regarding all the above-mentioned topics, I examine how the model of structural linguistics can assist in complementing the semiotic analysis of visual poetry. In the second part, I analyze two works by contemporary Lithuanian visual poets using the proposed model of meaning creation: “PASTAZENKLAS ISLEISTAS KREPSINIO CEMPIJONATUJ” (“A POSTALSTAMP ISSUED FOR THE FOOTBALL CHEMPIONSHIP”) by Gytis Norvilas (2006) and “om rekonstrukcija I“ (“om reconstruction I”) by Donaldas Apanavičius from his three-poem cycle (1999). The analysis reveals the points of unstable correlation and various reading possibilities.

Trapped in Silence. Vladas Šimkus – a Silent Modernizer of Lithuanian Poetry

The article introduces the fi gure of Vladas Šimkus (1936–2004), who had a great impact on the work of many poets of his time, although he himself remained in the shadows. He belongs to a prominent poetic generation, which also includes Vytautas Bložė, Marcelijus Martinaitis, Tomas Venclova, Judita Vaičiūnaitė, Jonas Juškaitis and Sigitas Geda, but he is mostly known as an outstanding translator and editor. Many great Lithuanian poets admit that Šimkus has infl uenced them, but he is a rather forgotten poet. One of the most important elements of Šimkus’s poetics is silence, the meanings and functions of which can be analyzed on several levels and in different contexts.

Malda kaip žodis ir veiksmas Gražinos Cieškaitės, Skaistės Vilimaitės ir Lauros Sintijos Černiauskaitės poezijoje

The object of the research is a poetic expression of prayer as a word (language, speech) and action (its inner and outer dimension) in the works of three authors of contemporary Lithuanian poetry. The article examines several poems by Gražina Cieškaitė (b. 1951), Skaistė Vilimaitė (b. 1972), and Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė (b. 1976). The choice of the object is determined by the poetry itself, its religious experience, as well as the modern concept of prayer based on the Christian tradition, and its literary and cultural relevance. The aim of the article is to investigate the poetic transformations of prayer in the works of the three authors, focusing on the interaction of action and word, the poetic expression of the language and actions of the subject of prayer, and the addressee (God). The search for the poetry of prayer is primarily empowered by the variations of the words “prayer”, “Mass”, “cantata” and others, allusions to the texts of the Gospel, the Psalm, and the litany. Being primarily a word (a conversation between God and man, a monologue or narrative of a subject of prayer), prayer is also an action. The significance of everyday ritual and aesthetic actions of humans and God is made possible both by direct allusions to prayer and by a conversation with God that is less defined but close to traditional religious experience. In response to the Christian tradition and the Lithuanian poetry that protects it, the subject of prayer is still often expressed in the name of the soul. This identity of a man and God makes it possible to express one of the most important intentions of prayer – the cognition of the mysteries of God. Love turns out to be one of the most important mysteries of God, experienced by the subject in both the language of the soul and the language of the body. All three poets are brought together by the meditation of the creation of the divine world in poetic prayer and the special place of aesthetic experience in this meditation. In this case, one of the most important horizons of the action of prayer is the ritual taking different forms and the world of transformations that represents it.

Eroso trauma Vitalijos Pilipauskaitės-Butkienės ir Tomo Petrulio poezijoje

This article aims to raise and reveal the relationship between eros and trauma in contemporary Lithuanian poetry. The object of the article is the situation of the trauma of eros in contemporary Lithuanian poetry, which manifests itself as a significant part of the phenomenon of eros for the experience of the lyrical subject and the perception of the world. This situation is represented by the most relevant contemporary poetry from the following authors and collections: Vitalija Pilipauskaitė-Butkienė’s “Breath” (2015) and Tomas Petrulis’ “Sterile” (2020). The problem of the article is the intersubjectivity of the human body in a relationship, allowing the subject to experience not only himself but also another who, through his bodily touch, causes suffering. The article uses the phenomenological perspective of trauma to attempt to answer the questions of what trauma is, what is the relationship between eros and trauma, and what identity of modern poetry is revealed by the violation of the body occurring in the social environment. The research is carried out using the methodologies of Alfred Schutz’s social phenomenology and Husserl’s phenomenology. It is also based on the research of trauma theorists Gabriele Schwab and Sonia Sonia Baelo-Allué and the thoughts of other philosophers relevant to the article. In the poetry of Petrulis, the eros experienced by the subject marks aspects of modern everyday life from a philosophical, social, and cultural point of view. In poetry, the motif of the (used) body is clear, tense, and rich in erotic, pornographic images. In contemporary Lithuanian poetry, violence and traumatic experiences manifest as part of the phenomenon of eros. In Pilipauskaitė-Butkienė’s poetry, the body experiences constantly recurring physical and emotional abuse. Directing another force to the body of the subject is constructed in a frightening, open world in which not only the use of a body subjected to physical force constructs the concept of eros but also a motif of spiritual suffering when the subject reflects on the meaning, guilt, eroticism of the body.

Shifting Emotional Expression in Lithuanian Love Songs

The article focuses on social and cultural background of the shifts taking place in the stylistics and contents of Lithuanian love songs. Applying theoretical assumptions from the field of history of emotions, the author analyzes shifting expression of emotions in folksongs on the topic of love. The subject of the article embraces love songs that spread from the 19th to the first half of the 20th century and were shaped not only by the folklore tradition, but also by Lithuanian and foreign poetry of the time, and by popular romances. These compositions differ in terms of poetic quality, displaying both the traditional folksong elements and changing attitudes by the singers and people that are depicted in the songs, as well as a new vocabulary of emotional expression. Applying insights by Peter N. and Carol Z. Stearns (1985) regarding the society’s standards on the expression of emotions, and the concept of emotive, or emotional statement, introduced by W. Reddy (2001), the author regards the shifting expression of emotions in love songs as a reflection of emotionality spreading in written culture (primarily poetry) of the 19th century. Utterances of love-related emotions are essentially perceived as manifestations of the changing poetic vocabulary. The first chapter discusses social and cultural conditions of the changing folksongs, concentrating mostly on the notion of love and its significance in traditional Lithuanian peasant family, and the spread of literacy in the 19th century. The growth of written culture is considered a factor in introducing tropes and prototypes of emotional language that express the notion of romantic love into the sphere of folksong. The second chapter analyzes the relationship between love songs and individual poetry. Various collections of Lithuanian folksongs published in the 19th century, as well as their publications in the press testify to the process of interaction between written and oral culture gaining momentum at that time. This process was further stimulated by the increase of Lithuanian poetry composed by representatives of Lithuanian intelligentsia and literati with roots among the small noblemen and peasants; their compositions were significantly influenced by foreign poetry. Romantic lyrics also grew popular among the peasants. The third chapter explores the distinction between classical folksongs that encode communication of the young people in symbols and draw on the ritual code, and the new love songs that preserve traditional images but lose their symbolic meaning and ritual orientation. The author concludes that these new love songs employ a predominantly poetic vocabulary of emotional expression typical to written culture, their folkloric formulas mixing with new phrases yet unpolished by the tradition and straightforwardly naming certain emotions; a direct relation between “I” and “you” becomes more prominent too. She discusses samples of folksongs that directly name love and openly depict such related emotions as worry, sorrow, or anger, and loveʼs parallel with death.
 To sum up, it is stated that expressions of personal emotions increasingly become established in the new love songs. Although such expressions are frequently artistically rough and unpolished, they testify to the necessity of mastering new means of poetic expression, acutely felt by the newly literate people. Moreover, the songs also expand the semantic field of love, associating this feeling with intense emotions, overwhelming anxiety and longing, while the absence of love is conceptualized as a failing health and lost inner peace. Obviously, the stylized and frequently sentimental poetic vocabulary of emotional expression, characteristic to individual poetry affected by foreign literature and romances, presented new possibilities to discuss emotions in folksongs. These practices should be regarded mainly as “legitimization” of a new emotionally expressive rhetoric in the sphere of folkloric communication rather than a direct testimony to the experienced feelings.

Kristijonas Donelaitis and Lithuanian Poetry of the Nineteenth Century: Variants of Reading

The reception theory by Hans Robert Jauss is applied in the article that aims to analyse how Donelaitis’s works were evaluated and interpreted by Lithuanian poets and readers in the nineteenth century. The article discusses genetically and typologically common thematic, ideological, and creative poetic connections. By maintaining the methodological principle of reception, i.e., the horizon of expectation, the scope of the article is limited to only those Lithuanian poets of the nineteenth century who entered the history of Lithuanian literature as readers of Donelaitis’s works (Simonas Stanevičius, Silvestras Gimžauskas, Vincas Kudirka, Pranas Vaičaitis, Maironis). It should be noted that the relation of the nineteenth-century poets and readers with the creative legacy of Donelaitis is manifold and therefore it is possible to speak about the revived Donelaitian tradition in Lithuanian poetic texts of the nineteenth century. Poetic works by Stanevičius and Donelaitis are united by the Kantian ideology of Enlightenment, which highlights the axiological content necessary for a national community. These two authors are brought together by the actualisation of the legacy of antiquity, the choice of narrative strategies typical of Aesopian fables, application of the cataloguing principles of epic poetics, common poetics of salutations- glorifications, and the significance of the evangelical love. Both Donelaitis and Gimžauskas highlight the significance of national identity and moderate way of life, the dominant of Christ-centred faith and Christian poetics (common metaphor of the protecting divine hand). Typological unity of Donelaitis’s and Kudirka’s poetic works is revealed through the dominant of rational mentality, attention to the concreteness of human existence, significance of the agricultural way of life and everyday work, and the evangelical idea of equality. As for Vaičaitis and Donelaitis, they both create epic narratives that convey the repetition of the cosmogonic action, the cyclical perception of existence emphasising the significance of reviving life. Epic narratives of both authors glorify divine existence by idyllically joyful poetics. Both authors employ the theme of the paradise lost on earth, which they both explain by the loss of sanctity and moral downfall of humanity. Reception of Donelaitis’s works can be observed in Maironis’s poetry and texts on literary criticism, thus Maironis can be viewed as a reader and evaluator of Donelaitis. It is worth noting that Maironis held contradictory opinions about Donelaitis’s work: he both adored and criticised it. On the other hand, the poetics of Lithuanian autumn and winter scenery in Maironis’s early manuscript poem “Lietuva” (Lithuania) is based on Donelaitian stylistics of material rustic epic narrative. The literary name of Donelaitis is glorified in Maironis’s poems “Lietuva” (Lithuania), “Tarp skausmų į garbę” (Through pain to glory), and “Jaunoji Lietuva” (Young Lithuania). However, the poem “Tarp skausmų į garbę” (Through pain to glory) maintains that Antanas Baranauskas’s poetry meets the aesthetic criterion, obligatory to creative works, better than Donelaitis’s works do. Interestingly, Maironis’s literary criticism published in the third decade of the twentieth century barely shows any unfounded criticism of Donelaitis, while his works are included in the world heritage together with Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare. Here Maironis also accentuates the significance of Donelaitis’s work to the development of Lithuanian literature and compares it to the impact that Dante’s The Divine Comedy had on Italian literature. Discussing the specificity of Donelaitis’s works in his critical reviews, Maironis paid considerable attention to indicating possible literary contexts, especially the idyll and the epic of antiquity. He emphasised the importance of “the strong-impact atmosphere” in which a creative work is born. Thus, according to Maironis, Donelaitis had created his own poetic tradition which influenced the future generations of Lithuanian poets and writers.

Contingency of Bodily Experience in Texts of Lithuanian Poetry

The article demonstrates a correlation between the poetic articulation of a non-normative bodily experience and a topic of different modalities (particularly contingency). The main goal of the article is to reveal this probable correlation, thus verses of the three Lithuanian poets will be rethought. All three poets encounter a different and unique bodily experience that is connected to severe kinds of disability. These three ways of articulation of disability in poetical texts demonstrate slightly different focusing on modalities: the first and the third examples (the verse of Rita Skorochodova and Jonas Mačiukevičius) show disclosure of a level of contingency. The second case, the poetry of Elvina Baužaitė, focuses on the level of impossibility (the universal one) being on the verge of necessity. Every example in its own way reveals limits of human abilities, the vulnerability of human existence, the fragility of a life-flow. All these notions can be revealed through experience of disability and because of this experience if only a poet chooses to articulate it. The second part of the article is aimed at revealing the relation between the concept of contingency, the bodily experience, and modes of its articulation. Explaining the correlation of the poetry analysed with the contemporary philosophical texts (especially of some post-humanist authors and representatives of the contemporary social critique) shows that the articulation of contingent situations and non-universal constellations (which is inherent to the contemporary observations of culture) moves the concept of disability out of the margins of cultural discussions and into a most intensive field of observation.

Lithuanian Literature in Search of Historical Truth: Three Decades of Independence

The article focuses on the beginning of the Singing Revolution in Lithuanian culture and tries to identify the most significant dominant features in order to understand the entirety of the new changes in literature. In the face of political upheaval, such a dominant feature was the question of truth; however, the well-established poetry tradition – romantic, neo-romantic, modern neo-romantic, which coexisted with social realism in Soviet times, and experimental – did not raise such questions of truth but only reflected the nation’s collective expectations. The evolution of Lithuanian literature, which was highly fragmented during all the decades of the Soviet occupation, united the country through the expatriate poet Bernardas Brazdžionis while he was visiting Lithuania in the summer of 1989. Poetic texts predominated during the first demonstrations of Sąjūdis (the Reform Movement), but while trying to understand their position in the general Lithuanian culture and literature discourse, one needs to acknowledge the leading nature of poetry throughout the Soviet times: having its niche in the cultural system, poetry posed a large number of vexed questions, sought philosophical profundity, and was able to constantly address the deepest metaphysical questions even in strict censorship conditions. Lithuanian prose, which evaded the requirement by the doctrine of social realism to portray the world and characters engaged in class struggles, also found support in the poetry system and created a non-linear but coherent narrative where metaphors prevail. Lithuanian prose poetry became a sign of esthetic quality in independent Lithuania too, where the question of truth, which was important for achieving independence, found a way similar to that of poetry – through memoirs and essays to esthetics and little prose. At the beginning of independence, poetry, which had fed Lithuanian prose with its ideas, themes, conception of the world and esthetic solutions, also merged with memoirs and essays, thus being part of the discourse of telling the truth.

Escape of poetry from the village to the city in interwar Lithuania

The article examines the thematic transformation of interwar Lithuanian poetry from the countryside to the city in 1918-1940. Based on images and lyrical experiences in interwar Lithuanian poetry, it reviews the changing features of the urban poetry of the time, discusses the city as it is revealed in it; the changing perception of oneself as an individual in the society of the time, the changes in one's environment and community in the face of urbanisation. During the two decades of independent Lithuania, the tension between countryside and urban poetry has come almost full circle: at the beginning of the period, we experience the natural "invasion" of the city into poetry; at the end of the period, the city becomes a commonplace, and the reminiscences of countryside adopt nostalgic feeling.

Bread in Lithuanian Literature

Bread is one of the most important cultural realities distinguished by its direct and symbolic significance. In Lithuanian folklore, there are clear direct connections between bread and the most important categories of national values: diligence, thoughtfulness, responsibility, kindness, and spiritual nobility. Bread symbolises strength, mind, self-control, loyalty, kindness, and humility. It was of immense sacral importance in the lives of our ancestors: it became the central element of numerous customs of family life, calendar rituals, agrarian celebrations, and was widely featured in Lithuanian folk songs, fairy-tales, tales, and beliefs. Bread has always been an important image in Lithuanian literature. A loaf of bread, a slice of bread, daily, wholemeal bread, the bread of life, mother’s bread are traditional images of Lithuanian poetry and prose, reflecting the reality of the nation’s life and at the same time visually drawing the hierarchy of the nation’s spiritual values. In the poem Metai (The Seasons), the pioneer of Lithuanian literature Kristijonas Donelaitis gives a vivid picture of the life of the serfs of Lithuania Minor in the eighteenth century, and his characters primarily address their thanks to God for giving people bread, the greatest grace of all. Since then, images of the worshiped daily bread have become stronger in literature, pointing to its vital importance. The image of holy bread takes root in Lithuanian twentieth-century poetry, perhaps most clearly meaningful in the work by Kazys Bradūnas, one of žemininkai, or the ‘earth’ poets. In his poetry, bread is associated with the meanings of the holiness of agricultural existence. In the poet’s work, bread is an important moment in the cosmogony of the microworld, symbolising rebirth and the higher moments of an individual’s existence. Such a poetic interpretation of bread is also characteristic of Sigitas Geda’s works. In the poetry of Justinas Marcinkevičius, Janina Degutytė, Alfonsas Maldonis, and Robertas Keturakis, bread becomes an important element in the poetic programme of goodness and is associated with the artistic meanings of human spiritual nobility, inner warmth, and love. In Lithuanian literature, bread emerges both as the great manifestation of the woman in traditional Lithuanian culture (Birutė Baltrušaitytė, Vanda Juknaitė) and as a symbol of harmony in dehumanised reality (Juozas Kundrotas). One of the most striking literary transformations of the artistic image of bread is its desacralisation in the works by Valdas Gedgaudas and the group “Svetimi” (Strangers). Here bread is interpreted as a symbol of chaos and disharmony between the human and the world. Thus, one of the most important realities of Lithuanian culture, the image of bread in Lithuanian literature, is changing; it reflects the worldview of the human of the epoch and his or her spiritual orientations and attitudes.

On the Threshold of Editorship. Or From Collection to Oeuvre

The sole collection of verses by Jonas Mačiulis (1862–1932, pen name Maironis), the father of modern Lithuanian poetry, went through five editions in the author’s lifetime. The poet continued to improve the works of his youth until his advanced age, producing hundreds of textual variants. The first published versions of some verses, which are ranked as national classics today, cannot be considered finely crafted works by a long shot. From a retrospective point of view, one is surprised that such lengthy and tedious corrections could have yielded such nice final results, while a prospective approach might incite amazement at how the crude, primary rock of first versions could have concealed the possibility of such poetic gems. Taking a grandmotherly attitude towards his works, the author did not only polish their versification, but also applied different strategies throughout his rewriting process to use new editions to consolidate his own social and cultural position with the changeable standards of bibliographic codes over time. The problem editors of the Maironis’ posthumous editions face is that the authorial editions of his works differ in title, textual variants, and arrangement. As this article argues, both Maironis’ high standing in the Lithuanian cultural landscape and the elusive expectation of stability and comprehensiveness have discouraged editors to plunge into the dynamic nature of Maironis’ authorial manipulations up until today.

Romantic Motives in the Lithuanian Partisan and Deportee Songs

The aim of the article is revealing the manifestations of romanticism in the songs created during and after the World War II by the partisans and their supporters, political prisoners and deportees. The author employs studies by Vytautas Kubilius and other literary scholars; however, her research is a folkloristic one, since the songs’ lyrics are perceived as a layer of folklore created at a definite period and characterized by the common stylistic features. Having noted a coherent continuation of the tradition of national romanticism, the author suggests defining the new wave of this style originating in the postwar period as folk romanticism. This folk romanticism blossomed precisely at the time when anti-romantic tendencies prevailed in the public artistic expressions. National culture was suppressed in the occupied Lithuania, and its famous creators silenced. Therefore, the idealist creativity moved to the underground, while traditional national and romantic motives were further developed in the illegal publications by the partisan movement and in the orally spread folksongs. The great representative of the 19th century literary romanticism Maironis established the high style of the Lithuanian poetry; notions prevailing in his poems express the most cherished values, including the glorious past, noble ideals, honor, struggle, and unity. According to Vytautas Kubilius, “the high style shaped by Maironis affected the Lithuanian cultural worldview: several generations used his poems to appreciate the nature and the past of the native country, learned of loving, believing and endurance in the center of the historical whirlwinds” (Kubilius 1993: 145). The return of the romantic ideals of the 19th century in the middle of the 20th century is hardly surprising, since it is only natural in the war and postwar times – the critical period again required resistance and defense from the literature and poetry. The songs created during war and postwar period harbor almost all the typical romantic literary motives. They exalt the beauty of the homeland praising its green villages, winding rivers with meadow banks, the roadside crosses, and faraway woods. These motives are often entwined with those of spring, blossoming, and youth. The native country is frequently portrayed in the songs of resistance as a beloved girl with a “rue spray in her hair” and as a mother taking care of her children. In the songs’ lyrics, there are harsh winds blowing, thunders striking, falcons taking up to the skies notwithstanding, and one is led to hope for the dawn, sunrise, and the glorious morning of freedom. The liberated Lithuanian capital with a tricolor flag blowing out above the Gediminas’ Castle is also often depicted. The motive of Lithuanian woods, or green forests is especially prominent both in the romantic literature and in the postwar folksongs. From ancient times, the woods used to protect Lithuanians against their enemies; during the postwar period, they also served as the only shelter for people prosecuted by the fierce regime.As noted by the folklore researcher Kostas Aleksynas, a huge number of patriotic songs has been created in the course of a comparatively short period of the armed national resistance (Aleksynas 2009: 7), the folksong creativity seemingly acquiring new powers. The continuation of the national romanticism and elaboration of numerous motives employed by the Lithuanian poets analyzed in this article could perhaps explain this phenomenon. Composition of the new folksongs did not require forming of a new poetic language, since the well-established romantic tradition presented itself to use, and only certain appropriate motives had to be selected.

ŽYDINČIOS SAULĖGRĄŽOS VAIZDINYS LIETUVIŲ POEZIJOJE

The aim of the present research is to analyse and to discuss the linguistic expressions and the semantic paradigm of the images of the sunflower in bloom that have formed in Lithuanian poetry. The methodological basis of the research is cognitive linguistics. The paper verifies that visual features of the sunflower in bloom are emphasized in poetry. The sunflower is perceived as a large in shape object that shines and moves (swings, sways and rises, bends, turns to the sun) or keeps one’s balance. The indicated features are the basis of metaphorical names of the plant.

Kaža Biņķa „Vējgrābslis” un Aleksandra Čaka „Pilsētas zēns” kā lietuviešu un latviešu modernisma programmas

The article analyses two poems: a poem “A Giddy-Headed” (Vėjavaikis, 1923) by Kazys Binkis (1893–1942) and a poem “A City Brat” (Pilsētas zēns, 1929) by Aleksandrs Čaks (true name Aleksandrs Čadarainis, 1901–1950). The analysis is based on a kind of poetics that could be called micropoetics. Both poems are treated as the modernist programmes of unique Lithuanian and Latvian literatures compared in all essential aspects: 1) conception of man and world; 2) relation to earlier literary trends; 3) genre, expressive means, etc. “A Giddy-Headed” expresses a more abstract, more symbolic, more passionate variant of modernism closer to futurism. “A City Brat” conveys a more realistic, more ironic instance of modernism. Lithuanian modernist poetry, represented by “A Giddy-Headed”, is much closer to the traditional rustic and ethnic culture. In comparison with Latvian poetry, this poetry lacks a stronger urbanistic paradigm, nuanced expression, and a more self-critical attitude.

KLEOFO JURGELIONIO LAIŠKAI VALERIJAI TYSLIAVIENEI

The article examines the letters of Kleofas Jurgelionis (1886–1963; Kleopas Jurgelionis, USA – Ray Jurgen), who was a moderniser of Lithuanian poetry, a literary critic, a translator, an editor of periodicals, publicist and lawyer, to Valerija Tysliavienė (1914–1984), who from 1938 to 1940 was a secretary of his newspaper “Tėvynė”, preserved at the Klaipėda University Library (KUB RSS). These letters (1949–1961) are very rich in content, in them the subject themes are abundantly weaved with courtship. This article discusses the topics of Jurgelionis’s letters to Tysliavienė. Taking into account the reasearch into Jurgelionis’s life and creative works and the KUB RSS archive and publications, this article sets out a twofold purpose: to discuss the content of Jurgelionis’s letters to Tysliaviene and to discuss poetry manuscripts and their publications with a textological lens.First of all, this article discusses the general features of the letters, then the article touches upon the dominant topics in the letters. Another, co-stored material is used for interpreting the letters: dozens of letters from the poet to other people; a letter from Henrietta Jurgen, his third wife, to Tysliavienė; several poetry poems; manuscripts of articles revealing new details about his life and the origins of his creative work, his relationship with the Lithuanians in the USA, the activities of the Lithuanian Writers’ Society (USA), the behind the scenes look at the operations at the newspaper “Vienybė”, the cultural and social life of the emigrants, etc.; as well as a bundle of the American Lithuanian periodicals from the archive of “Vienybė”.

Unexpected Laureate: Louise Glück in Lithuania

The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the work of the American poet, Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, with a discussion of what kinds of challenges her poetry might pose for translators. Very few people knew of her work in Lithuania prior to the Nobel Committee’s announcement. Her poems were only published in Lithuanian translation for the first time in July, 2020, and only a handful at that. This paper argues that her work has important similarities and differences to Lithuanian poetry of the twentieth century, and that despite her free-verse lyrics written in rather plain diction, there are still many challenges to rendering her work in another language. The Lithuanian translations reveal stumbling points over ambivalent word choices, surreal imagery caused by ambiguous syntax, and the need for careful attention to the tone of the narrative voice (the lyrical subject) of the poems.