Representations of the Child in Lithuanian Exile Prose
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Laimutė Adomavičienė REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CHILD IN LITHUANIAN EXILE PROSE Abstract In the present article, a comparative method is used to compare works of three writers of Lithuanian exile literature of the 20th century: the novella Surūdijęs garlaivis Kauno prieplaukoj (A Rusty Steamboat at the Kaunas Pier, 1955) by Julius Kaupas; the story Saulėtos dienos (Sunny Days, 1952) by Antanas Škėma; and the novella Žodžiai, gražieji žodžiai (Words, Beautiful Words, 1956) by Algirdas Landsbergis. These authors have become a 'tradition' of Lithuanian exodus culture, and therefore their works were read on the basis of cultural codes, according to cultural categories as provided in the History of European Mentality: individual, family, society. The writings of these authors have distinguished the differences in 'thinking' of child and 'thinking' of adults about a child. Comparison of writings by J. Kaupas, A. Landsbergis, and A. Škėma shows that the representation of children has changed: more attention is dedicated to the psyche of a child, and problems get more complicated. A. Landsbergis and A. Škėma show children in an especially complicated environment, consigning to them a path of inner quests that is too complex for their age and an unadorned encounter with brutal reality. The novella by A. Landsbergis presents the problems of an alien language, culture, and identity as encountered by little Lithuanian in exile. Protagonists of novellas by J. Kaupas and A. Landsbergis solve problems that are more specific to everyday life, while A. Škėma elevates a child up to contemplation of metaphysical problems (death, God). The paradigm of child representation in exile literature depends on the personal experience of the authors, the prevailing cultural understanding of individual-family-society, and the aesthetic aims of each author. Keywords: Lithuanian exile prose of 20"' century, representation of the child, cultural categories: individual, family, society. Introduction The twentieth-century crisis of two World Wars, and achievements in science, particularly in the fields of physics and psychology, changed the conception of both the individual and society in Western culture. Cultural changes encompassed the representations in art of the individual, including the child. An accustomed norm dominated Western art until the first half of the twentieth century—to represent happy children and repeatedly to render the motif of a fortunate childhood (Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velazquez, Joshua Reynolds, etc.). Once the surge of expressionism was established, the representations and evaluation of reality changed.' The choice of children as characters, or the representation of childhood, is not unprecedented in the Lithuanian literary tradition. This is illustrated in the work of Jonas Biliūnas, Šatrijos Ragana, Vincas Krėvė, Petras Cvirka, and others. From the 1930s, children's literature shifted toward more intense psychological tendencies. Transformations in the representations of the child also became apparent in the work of Lithuanian exile writers. This article refers to modern literary theory (Hawthorn 1998), the cultural studies work of Vytautas Kavolis, Dinzelbacher's Europos mentaliteto istorija (The History of European Mentality, 1998), and psychological research. The literary texts are read as the 'decoding' of cultural codes according to the categories presented in Europos mentaliteto istorija: individual, family, society. In cultural studies, the meaning of men and women is distinguished; there are different approaches to the substance of men and women (Kavolis 1992: 12). This article presumes that it is possible to differentiate a child's meaning and to identify the substance of a child. The goal of this article is to explain the transformation of representations of the child in Lithuanian emigrant prose. Using a comparative method, works written in the 1950s by three exodus writers will be analyzed: the novella Surūdijęs garlaivis 1 A picture by Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) entitled Children playing (1909) in which a girl and boy are portrayed with body forms that are out of proportion and children are melancholy Illustrates this tendency. Kauno prieplaukoj2 (A Rusty Steamboat at the Kaunas Pier) by Julius Kaupas; the story Saulėtos dienos1 (Sunny Days) by Antanas Škėma; and the novella Žodžiai, gražieji žodžiai* (Words, Beautiful Words) by Algirdas Landsbergis. The choice of these particular authors was prompted by V. Kavolis's verdict: they (the authors) are individual persons who have become part of the tradition of exile culture (Kavolis 1986: 185). Various conceptions of exile Many Lithuanian writers, among them Julius Kaupas (1920-1964), Algirdas Landsbergis (1924-2004), and Antanas Škėma (1910-1961), fled Lithuania in 1944. For A. Škėma, this was the second emigration, because during the years of the First World War he lived with his parents in Russia and Ukraine, and returned to Lithuania only in 1922. These writers had to confront a foreign world: culture, language, society; and to 'fight against the existential alienation of themselves and others' (Kavolis 1992:125). The writers were able to integrate their work in a foreign space, universally interweaving their Lithuanian experience within a multicultural, multilingual context. It is characteristic of the work of J. Kaupas (along with several other Lithuanian exile writers) to avoid themes of life's 'ruins'. He moves the action to Lithuania (with rare exception), as though the threatening wars and humanitarian crises are imagined. J. Kaupas was among those writers in exile whose work was dominated by the 'paradise lost' of the 'past' (Škėma 1994b: 437). In both the Displaced Persons camps and in the United States, J. Kaupas nostalgically created stories about the lost homeland, for example Daktaras Kripštukas pragare (Doctor Kripštukas in Hell, |Freiburg] 1948) and the novel Saulėgrąžos mėnulio šviesoj (Sunflowers in the Moonlight). He consciously chose the dimension of fantasy. The writer's neo-Romantic view of life is an 2 Lietuvių dienos, 1955, 8. 1 Škėma, Antanas, 1952: Saulėtos dienos, Šventoji Inga, Chicago, Terra. ' Landsbergis, Algirdas, 1956: Žodžiai, gražieji žodžiai, Ilgoji naktis, London: Nida integral part of his world outlook. J. Kaupas, in a letter to his friend Henrikas Nagys, wrote that when one looks at the world through dreamy eyes, a different reality unfolds: T know that today you are not the only one disappointed in life. Many young people question and seek. Many of our childhood dreams were broken in the stark reality of life, though even those broken dreams seem somehow more valuable than the gray, everyday reality' (Paplauskienė 2006: 5). In the novella A Rusty Steamboat at the Kaunas Pier, which was written during his time in America, a discourse of the past, not the present, prevails. He does not focus on harsh realities, nor is it an adaptation of society, but instead he writes about the period of Lithuanian independence, the world of the individual. A. Landsbergis and A. Škėma, who also experienced feelings of exile, did not avoid actual problems of emigrants in their works. According to A. Škėma, a writer of modern literature, the goal of every decent writer is to exist in your epoch, and also in the eternal tenor of a persons life' (Škėma 1994c: 498). A. Landsbergis was especially troubled by the problems faced by Lithuanians whose language and native land was uprooted. A unique, foreign paradigm is apparent in his work: the world, language, inhabitants, and culture. A. Škėma, who experienced several dramatic upheavals in his childhood, sought to transform reality in his work (he did not like to portray 'things the way they are'). He created an original logic, where the T' no longer exists, but conditional scenes demonstrate a sense of the world, dramatization, disillusionment in God, lack of meaning, and the existence of suffering. The children in his text are a part of the absurd world: truly, a child's experiences leave him with such a tragic sense of life, which scarcely corresponds to the adult sense of life. An adult usually has a defensive shield. A child does not have this armor. Weaponless, a child experiences the temporary 'for what?' from Kafka's The Trial, or else Van Gogh's crazy stars whirl in the heavens above. This is one psychological moment. The brighter moments do, in fact, arrive, and the child forgets the nightmare he experienced. Relatively forgets. It would take too long to address the various feats of the subconscious, which later manifest themselves in different forms—no matter which representative of psychoanalysis you choose. It is unfortunate that elite critics select and brighten up childhood memories, their succession, and consciously (or maybe unconsciously) philosophize it. And yet, the poets themselves are not entirely averse to the analysis of critics. Seeing as they are poetically strong and ideological: it is guaranteed that, though gracefully, they will address futility, nothingness, and death' (Škėma 1994b: 434). A. Škėma is open to the world, to cruelty, suffering, and disillusionment, which even an innocent child encounters. Children are not insured, protected, they are more easily hurt and crippled. There is no sunny childhood—it is only the beginning of suffering. The chronotope of the works The settings of the works by J. Kaupas, A. Landsbergis, and A. Škėma are localized in an urban environment. Time is not concrete; it is reconstructed according to corresponding historic realiae, except in the story by A. Škėma, Sunny Days, where an exact date is given—1918. In J. Kaupass novella A Rusty Steamboat at the Kaunas Pier, the action is concentrated in Lithuania between the two World Wars, in the temporary capital, Kaunas. Sunny Days by A. Škėma takes places during the civil war in the Ukrainian town Rostov- on-the-Don, and in the city Selo Pokrovskoe. New York in the 1950s-'60s is the setting for the novella Words, Beautiful Words by A. Landsbergis. This author's chosen chronotope befits the peculiarities of the socialization of Lithuanian emigrants and the examination of problems in the United States.