Memoirs of lithuanian exile writers of the second half of XX century: genre development ; XX amžiaus antrosios pusės lietuvių išeivijos memuarai: žanro raida

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Sujets

• Immigration
• Les Exilés (comics)
• Exodus
• Memoir
• Philology

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• Publié par: vytautas_magnus_university
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 49

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VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY   INSTITUTE OF LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE  

Kristina BARTKIENĖ      MEMOIRS OF LITHUANIAN EXILE WRITERS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX CENTURY: GENRE DEVELOPMENT

Summary of Doctoral Dissertation Humanities, Philology (04 H)                              

Kaunas, 2010

The dissertation has been prepared at Vytautas Magnus University in 2006-2010.   The right for the joint doctoral studies was accorded to the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Vytautas Magnus University on July 15, 2003 according to the decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania No. 926.   Research supervisor:  Prof. dr.Irena Buckley     Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology – 04H   The dissertation will be defended before the Council of Philological Sciences of the Vytautas Magnus University and Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Kaunas.   Chair:  Doc. dr.Dalia Kuizinienė    Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology – 04H   Members:  Prof. PHDVioleta Kelertienė    University of Washington, Humanities, Philology – 04H  Prof. habil. dr.Virginija Balsevičiūtė-Šlekienė    Vilnius Pedagogical University, Humanities, Philology – 04H  Doc. dr.Indrė Žakevičienė    Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, Philology – 04H  Dr.Daiva Dapkutė    Vytautas Magnus University, Humanities, History – 05H   Oponents:  Prof. dr.Roma Bončkutė               Klaipėdas University, Humanities, Philology– 04H  Dr.Žydronė Kolevinskienė    Vilnius Pedagogical University, Humanities, Philology – 04H     The defence of the dissertation will be open to public. It is to be held at a public meeting of the Council of Philological Sciences of the Vytautas Magnus University and the Institute of Lithuanian Languagein the Marija Gimbutienė hall (room 211) of Vytautas Magnus University Faculty of Humanities at 1 p.m. on November 23, 2010. Address: K. Donelaičio st. 52, LT-44248, Kaunas, Lithuania Phone: [phone], fax: [phone]   The summary of the doctoral dissertation was sent out on 22 October 2010.   Those interested may acquaint themselves with the doctoral dissertation in the M. Mažvydas National Library and in the Library of the Lithuanian Language in Vilnius, as well as in Vytautas Magnus University Library in Kaunas.      

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VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS   LIETUVIŲ KALBOS INSTITUTAS  

Kristina BARTKIENĖ          XX AMŽIAUS ANTROSIOS PUSĖS LIETUVIŲ IŠEIVIJOS RAŠYTOJŲ MEMUARAI: ŽANRO RAIDA                  

               

 

Daktaro disertacijos santrauka Humanitariniai mokslai, filologija (04 H)              

Kaunas, 2010

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Disertacija rengta 2006 – 2010 metais Vytauto Didžiojo universitet.e    Doktorantūros teisė suteikta Lietuvių kalbos institutui kartu su Vytauto Didžiojo universitetu Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybės 2003 m. liepos 15 d. nutarimu Nr. 926.     Mokslinė vadovė:  prof. dr.Irena Buckley     Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H   Disertacija ginama Vytauto Didžiojo universitetoir Lietuvių kalbos instituto   Humanitarinių mokslų krypties taryboje.   Pirmininkė:  doc. dr.Dalia Kuizinienė    Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H   Nariai:  prof. PHDVioleta Kelertienė              Vašingtono universiteta,s humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H   prof. habil. dr.Virginija Balsevičiūtė-Šlekienė    Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H  doc. dr.Indrė Žakevičienė               Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H  dr.Daiva Dapkutė               Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H   Oponents:  prof. dr.Roma Bončkutė               Klaipėdosuniversitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04 H  dr.Žydronė Kolevinskienė    Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, humanitariniai mokslai, filologija – 04   Disertacija bus ginama viešameVytauto Didžiojo universiteto ir Lietuvių kalbos institutonHumanitarinių mokslų krypties tarybos posėdyje 2010 m. lapkričio23 d. 13 val. Vytauto Didžiojo universiteto Humanitarinių mokslų fakulteto Marijos   Gimbutienės(211) auditorijoje. Adresas: Donelaičiog. 52, LT - 44244, Kaunas, Lietuva Tel. [phone], faks. [phone]   Disertacijos santrauka išsiuntinėta 2010 m. spalio mėn.22 d.   Disertaciją galima peržiūrėti Lietuvos nacionalinėje   Martyno Mažvydo, Lietuvių kalbos   instituto bibliotekose Vilniuje ir Vytauto Didžiojo universiteto bibliotekoje Kaune.   

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INTRODUCTION

  The research of memoir books is still not common in Lithuanian literature. Some books on autobiographies(Vanagaitė 2008) and diaries (Glinskis 2006) have appeared; however, memoirs are left aside, even though it is one of the most popular genres nowadays. French, Russian and American scholars have done much more in this area: the theories are created, memoirs are analyzed and articles are published. In Lithuanian literature, these issues are discussed, certain methods are applied but the works themselves are hardly analyzed. A lot of memoirs have been written by exile writers. XX century was difficult and painful for many people. Exile writers are the group which escaped physical and spiritual destruction and can express the richness and value of exile literature with their memoir books. Using their memory, they tell about the extraordinary interwar culture and its people, about complicated historical conditions, political peripeteias and the individual, who is crippled by the wars and concentration camps, about the Lithuanian agrarian tradition and internal contradictions of the person, who is leaving his/her homeland. The writers tell about the special time of the XX century and the person. In the memoirs of the middle of the XX century, the speech is more official, there is a lot of documentary material; later on, the person and his/her experiences appear in addition to historical facts and political events, while at the end of the century, the person’s emotions and his/her inner development become more important than the history of the period. Based on this consistency, the hypothesis is formulated that the memoirs were developing during the second half of the XX century, they have certain stages from the documentary and factual expression, where a close relationship between the person and history is prevalent, until subjective expression based on self reflexion and similar to fiction. Theaimof this work is to reveal the variety, character, development and thematic and structural changes of the memoirs of exile writers, examining the genre of memoirs. After the analysis of the exile writers’ memoirs, the aim is to ground the statement that exile memoirs changed from documentary and political works to subjective ones, analyzing personal problems. The aim requires answering certain questions and performing the followingtasks:

 

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• To discuss the theoretical aspects of memoir genre: the variety of memoir definition, the boundaries of genres, the problem of synthesis, close genres, theoretical treatment of memoirs, which are used in the work. •   To present exile representations in the Lithuanian memoirs, which started in XVI century and continued until the end of the XX century; to emphasise the formation of new exile memoirs influenced by exodus. •   To emphasize the chronology of exile memoirs from with the fathers of memoirs in exile and to the “emigrant” E. Juodvalkė at the end of XX century.   •   To show the social variety and the character of recollections of the writing people, politicians, historians, teachers, foresters, agronomists, publicists, etc. and to provide a short classification of exile memoirs according to professions, types of memoirs and themes. •   To reveal the development of memoir genre of exile writers, distinguishing them into traditional memoirs (documentary and literary) and the transformations of memoirs. •   To find the principles of the classification of literary memoirs and to classify the cases of genre transformations.

While analyzing the development of the genre of exile memoirs, variousproblems arise: psychological, as it is analyzed why the wish to tell about one’s life arises, to what extent the person reveals about himself/herself, and the search for identity in the memoirs; social, as it is discussed what historical, social or political reasons influence this and what the differences are between the memoirs written by different social groups or professions; literary, as the following questions are answered: how is the life of a person depicted, what is the difference between the depiction of a person and the time in documentary and literary memoirs?; technical, as the criterion of the authors’ choice is emphasized, as well as the memoir writers, who reflect the tendencies of the period, are distinguished.  Theobjectof the work is the memoirs by exile writers, their development, thematic and structural peculiarities, character and distinctness. In order to reveal a broader view of exile memoirs closely related to history, the second half of the XX century and the memoir writers of this period we chosen. However, after depicting the general situation, only exile writers and their memoir works are analyzed in the main analysis. The

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material for this area is very extensive, there are a lot of writers who wrote in exile, therefore, it is impossible to focus on all of them in the dissertation; for this reason, the group of well-known and worthy people was distinguished. The French theoretician Ph. Lejeune and G.Dručkutė (2004), referring to him, state that the reader will be interested in the history of the person if he/she is worth the reader’s attention. Therefore, public, well-known and having merits people should write. It is difficult to draw a dividing line between a writer and an amateur. Many of the mentioned memoir writers are included inLietuvių literatūros enciklopedija (Encyclopedia of Lithuanian Literature). For the detailed analysis, mainly the well-known and acknowledged Lithuanian writers were chosen, the texts of whom have literary value. The memoirs about B. Sruoga were collected by the historian, pedagogue and public person V. Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė; they provide the testimonies by many exile writers about this distinctive creator. Consequently, this book was also analyzed. The situation is similar with the collection of separate memoirs by publicist J. PrunskisBėgome nuo teroro (We Were Running away from Terror), where quite a lot of exile writers tell about the running away from death. Political memoirs by V. Krėvė are also a collection of articles and speeches compiled by A. Zalatorius. Here the reader cannot find the plot common to memoirs; however, the main aspects, such as the reflections of the period and the survey of historical events, are revealed very well. The choice of the authors is one of the main problems of the research. The memoirs, which illustrate a certain theme or structure, were often chosen, while the less typical ones were not analyzed. In order to perform effective and exhaustive analysis of the works,analytical, descriptive and hermeneutical methodsused. The theory of autobiography by  are French theoretician Philippe Lejeune (1989) and the theoretical insights while analyzing autobiographical texts by Vytautas Kavolis (1998) were chosen as the theoretical background. Lejeune distinguishes three categories, which contribute to the concept of autobiography, and emphasizes that the autobiography is based on double selection of facts (performed by the memory and the writer) and states that the point of view of the writer towards his/her past is very important. It is significant to understand what the writer achieved until the moment of writing, who he/she is because he/she interprets and evaluates the past events grounding on these aspects. As emphasized by Lejeune, the testimony about the life of social and historical groups is important. Therefore, it is

 

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important to emphasize how the history of the period is viewed and understood by every memoir writer. Memories, according to the theoretician, are an interpretation, thus it is not useful to search for indisputable facts. Kavolis emphasizes the importance of the beginning and the end of the autobiographical text and speaks about the change of the individual who lived his life once again, while Kubilius identifies the memories with the imagination of the things that happened in the past. In order to provide the development of the memoir genre and to show the variety of the relationship between the people and the time revealed in the memoirs by exile writers, the researchis subdividedinto three parts. In the first one,Memuaro žanras –teoriniai aspektai (Genre of Memoirs – Theoretical Aspects)the theoretical conception about memoirs is provided: the variety of definitions is analysed, the problem of genre boundaries and synthesis and close genres are discussed; theoretical approaches to memoirs are presented. In order to emphasize the distinctness and peculiarities of exile memoirs, the theoretical introduction becomes significant. Also, the prehistory of exile memoirs is necessary, thus, the second partMemuarų žanro raida Lietuvoje (Development of Memoir Genre in Lithuania)presents the overview of Lithuanian memoirs since the first memoirs and travel descriptions, which started in XVI century. The peculiarities of each period are reflected in memoirs. The memoirs by the participants of the revolt of the XIX century, books spreaders, deportees of the XX century and partisans are abundant. The ones expressing exile state are emphasized. Exile memoirs are distinguished from the general Lithuanian memoir tradition; the distinctness is created by the exile situation itself. While creating a broad and general view of exile memoirs, the classification of memoirs, which appeared in exile, is presented, the profession of the author, the topic and type of the work is enumerated. The third main partXX a. išeivijos rašytojų memuarai: tematika ir struktūra(Memoirs of Exile Writers of XX Century: Topics and Structure) the peculiarities of reveals memoir development. The memoirs by the writers emigrants are grouped according to the genre peculiarities: traditional (documentary and literary memoirs) and the transformations of this genre (autobiographical memoirs, memoir essays, combination of memoirs and a diary). Some memoirs are similar to documents (V. Krėvė, L. Dovydėnas, I. Šeinius), while other arecalled literary memoirs (E. Juodvalkė, M. Aukštaitė, M. Mykolaitytė-Slavėnienė, V. Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė,   J. Narūnė), which

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deal with personal problems of the person harmed by history or provide the complicated historical period (interwar, occupation, concentration camps) and the reflections of the person living during this period (J. Aistis, M. Vaitkus, St. Yla, J. Švaistas, B. Gaidžiūnas). In the texts byPulgis Andriušis, J. Savickis, P. Orintaitė and B. Raila, the structural aspect is analysed. This structure of the work helps to introduce and analyse the memoir genre on the whole and to show the development of its important branch, exile memoirs. The main concepts used in the dissertation are the following:memuarai, memuaristika, atsiminimai, prisiminimai, išgyvenimai, egzodas, egzilis, išeivija, išeiv   ia(io m,rsiem momoiristics, recollections, experiences, exodus, exile, emigration, emigrants). Memuarai, atsiminimai, prisiminimaiand išgyvenima   i   (memoirs, recollections or experiencesthe text. The concepts refer to the notes about) are used synonymically in the events, in which the author participated or witnessed (Ph. Lejeune). Even though the work analyses only memoirs or the synthesis of memoirs and other genres (memoir essays, memoirs-autobiographies), the theoreticians sometimes refer to autobiographical literature. It comprises all genres (memoirs, autobiography, diary), which have the same background and differ only in details. For instance, Lejeune maintains that memoirs differ only in one criterion common to autobiography, i.e. becoming a personality and the development of an individual history. Kubilius defines it similarly inLietuvių literatūros enciklopedija (Encyclopedia of Lithuanian literature): autobiography is a memoiristic telling about himself/herself. Therefore, the general theory of autobiographical literature can be applied to all modifications of this genre. The usage of these concepts is problematic not only in Lithuanian but also in the literature of the whole world. The French have the longest tradition of memoiristics. In their literature, one term,literature intime (intimate literature) comprises the variety of autobiographical literature. In Lithuanian context, this concept is not very suitable because of the prevalent implications (erotic) and ambiguity (there is intimate lyrics). In the works by the British and Americans, autobiography receives much attention and autobiography theories are represented: (James Olney (1980: 1-27), Barret J. Mandel (1980: 49-72), John Sturrock (1993), Susanna Egan (1984), Janet Varner Gunn (1982), Shari Benstock (1988: 10-33), etc.), while the memoir genre remains aside. In the Russian literature, the research on autobiographical literature is very popular. In this

 

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case, memoirs are included as a documentary literature or life writing genre (Marina Balina (2003: 186-209), Beth Holmgren (2003), T. G. Simonova (2002), Marja Rytkönen (2004), etc.). All autobiographical literature (autobiography, memoirs and even travel literature) is referred to as life writing. In Lithuanian literature, the analysis of memoirs is not common. They are only mentioned while analyzing autobiographies (V. Kubilius, V. Kavolis). There is no common term, which comprises all genres of autobiographical literature. The termsmemuarinė literatūraandotuanė rafibiog literatūra (memoir literatureandautobiographical literature)are used synonymically. The termsišeiviai, egzilai (emigrant)s are also used synonymically. An emigrant, a deportee and a refugee are the terms, which have a different shade of meaning. Emigrants tend to avoid using these terms. K. Ostrauskas (1974) discusses this question in greater detail. This work analyses the memoirs by exile writers of the second emigration wave (according to the established periods). They are Lithuanians, who left Lithuania in the third or fourth decade of the XX century. Most of them left their homeland in 1944, when the second Russian occupation was approaching, and moved to Germany, to DP camps. Later on, a lot of emigrants came to the USA, while others (Pulgis Andriušis, M. Mykolaitytė-Slavėnienė) reached Australia. M. Aukštaitė left her homeland earlier, in 1930 and settled in Canada, while I. Šeinius emigrated to Sweden in 1940. The position of E. Juodvalkė remains exceptional, as she was born in the family of Lithuanian emigrants and views herself as a Lithuanian. Her text was chosen in order to show the periods of the memoirs written in emigration. Even though she is an emigrant child, she touches upon the peculiarities of living in a multicultural country but also she speaks about patriotism, being a Lithuanian and her and her parents’ experiences. This book serves the purpose of revealing the variety and development of memoirs in exile. Memoirs of emigrants have not been widely analyzed. Most of the authors are acknowledged Lithuanian writers:J. Aistis, Pulgis Andriušis, I. Šeinius, V. Krėvė, L. Dovydėnas, St. Yla, J. Švaistas, J. Savickis, etc. Theirlives and creation are known, their texts are deeply analyzed. There is some information about their recollection books. In the monograph about J. Aistis, V. Kubilius (1999: 207-212) analyzes the recollection book by the poet and looks for the difference between reality and fiction, methods of fiction and even calls it a fragmentary autobiography. J. Žėkaitė (1999: 215-

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217) speaks very little about the memoirs of the author in the monograph about I. Šeinius. She devotes more attention to the history of their appearance rather than their analysis. Political memoirs by V. Krėvė have probably received the most responses. Lots of articles related to V.Krėvė and his political activities were published by V. Turčinavičius, the director of V. Krėvė’smemorial museum (2006a; 2005; 2006b: 2; 2008: 77-78; 2010). In the with M.articles, his polemics (Turčinavičius 2004) Tamošaitis (2004: 557-0) O. Voverienė   (2005) and others becomes apparent. V. Krėvė political activities have received much attention by historians (Vareikis 2008: 18-21; Butkus 1995; Butkus 1998), literature specialists (Gudavičius 1992: 3) and others.In the monograph about the writer, A. Zalatorius (2003) discusses his recollections in great detail, their fictionality and purpose of writing, as well as historical and political nuances are also analyzed. An interesting interpretation of the political activities of the writer is the novel abousummer of 1940, when V. Krėvė was an authority persont the (Vėlyvis 2002). One more author, J. Savickis, is quite a lot of analyzed by literature specialists. His memoir diary is analyzed by J. Žėkaitė (1994), focusing on the origin of the book. V. Kubilius (2001) looks for mulitilayeredness in the text by Savickis, B. Vaškelis (2004: 430) compares the diary with an autobiographical novel, while I. Vedrickaitė (2009: 55-77) analyzes the relationship between the character and world. In the book by R. GlinskisXX amžiaus lietuvių dienoraščiai (Lithuanian Diaries of XX Century) (2006), the focus is on the diary genre and the analysis of the works of this genre is presented to the audience. The author discusses the memoir diary by J. Savickis in an exhaustive and interesting way. The peculiarities of life and cultural activities by the poet and prosaist M. Aukštaitė, as well as herabundant memoirs are described in the collection of articlesU(tylėerukž-Baltinienė 2003). This is the first publication, which analyses the creation of an emigrant in greater detail. The memoir book by E. Juodvalkė was quite sufficiently discussed after it was published; however, a more detailed analysis was provided only by G. Vanagaitė (2002: 19-24). She attempts to show that Cukraus kalnas (The Sugar Mountain) isan autobiography rather than memoirs as the  author claims herself. Of course, some reviews or surveys were produced about the memoirs of other authors; however, a more detailed analysis of their recollections was not found. There is very little information about some authors, such asJ. Narūnė, V. Kulbokas, B. Gaidžiūnas.Therefore, it is useful to broaden the topic of memoir

 

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