The 10th International Conference of Baltic Literary Scholars “The Changing Baltics: Cultures
Within a Culture”
Abstracts
Anna Auziņa (Riga, Latvia)
Female Experience and Language in Monta Kromas’s poetry
Monta Kroma (1919 – 1994) is one of the key female representatives of Latvian poetry in the 1960s 1980s. She is one of the most uncommon Latvian poets of this time as well – a brilliant modernist,
whose poetics is different from the mainstream both in terms of the subject and form. Kroma starts
writing in the 1940s with stanzas of socialist realism, though since the 1960s after completing studies
in Moscow, she mostly writes in vers libre, revealing the female inner world in the city, which in the
context of the Soviet ideology makes her poetry rather individual and not always officially accepted.
The focus of the conference paper is the poetics of Monta Kroma from a viewpoint of feminist
theories. The main purpose is to explore the feminine features of her poetics, analysing the female
subject and writing in accordance with both gynocriticism and post-structuralist French feminism,
paying attention to the language and means of expression.
Though feminine or masculine way of writing exists rather apart from the author’s gender, Kroma’s
poetry can be viewed in the light of the specific female language, alternative to patriarchal discourse.
Such a way of writing – the so-called écriture féminine is emphasized as a concept and also
demonstrated in the works of poststructuralist feminists Helene Cixous and Lusa Irigaray. As
écriture féminine is deeply related with the body and sexuality, Kroma’s sensuous poetics with its
semiotic elements presents a fruitful field of research in the context of these ideas.
Olga Bazileviča (Giesen, Germany)
First Times and Last Years: Representation of Adolescence and Politics in Rūta Mežavilka’s
Dzimuši Latvijai and Kathrin Aehnlichs’s Wenn ich groß bin, flieg ich zu den Sternen.
It is a fact that memory has been one of the most popular research and discussion topics across
disciplines and nations in the last decades. For the Baltic States, 1991 was the year that offered
possibilities for various national projects, one of the central ones being “writing our own history”
(Artis Pabriks). There has been a lot said and written about the particular situation in the Baltic
States in 1940-1991. Comparisons with other countries and nations have been drawn, mostly in order
to stress the differences (ao Inesis Feldmanis, Stefan Troebst). And while it is undeniable that the
political and social situation in the Latvian SSR was very different from that in, for example, GDR or
Russian SSR, there are many features that these socialist societies shared. These features can be most
easily detected in the everyday life of “simple citizens”; even more so of those citizens who were not
yet completely integrated into the macrosystem “state” (Urie Bronfenbrenner) – children and
adolescents.
In this paper, I will provide a comparative analysis of two novels (Latvian and German), written
after the fall of the socialist regimes in Europe, in which the socialist past is remembered. In both of
the texts, grown-up female narrators remember their adolescences. And even though every aspect of
their lives are affected by the totalitarian state, the challenges that their age present outshine the
political background of the narration. By examining such categories as sexuality and gender, as well
as social interactions in school and at home, I seek to show the parallels in the texts on the level of
plot and narrative structure.
Gintarė Bernotienė (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Changing the Modes of National Representation: Anthologies of Lithuanian Poetry for Foreign
Readers (1980-2012)
The 1970s for Lithuanian literature were the years when national literature reached its maturity, and
the branch of soviet Lithuanian poetry in its poetic condition became equal to Lithuanian emigration
poetry, development of which was free from the ideological constrains and thus natural. In the 1980s
an anthology of Lithuanian poetry was published in English and German and was spread not only
in the Soviet Union, but in the countries of the communist bloc or even wider. In 1983 appeared an
anthology Contemporary East European Poetry, focusing on the political writing in circumstances of
censorship and notwithstanding the ideological limitations. In the late 1990s and later, after
Lithuanian independence was restored, officially sanctioned by authorities grouping of prominent
poets in anthologies collapsed, and this transition is a core subject of my research.
Comparing forewords for anthologies, authors‘ selection for them, and regarding the deliberated
literary process which brought some elements of decomposition of the previous well-built corps of
Lithuanian literary canon, the shift from collective to individual strategies, accepted or rejected in the
field of contemporary literature and personal authors‘ careers, is analysed. The subtle change of the
social role of poetry is also revealed: as a literary critic and a head of the major publishing house
Valentinas Sventickas said in 2002, contributing anthology for German readers, Lithuanian poetry
during soviet years undertook the care of nation‘s survival as its fundamental mission and theme.
Another prominent publisher and poet Kornelijus Platelis, presenting the collection of contemporary
Lithuanian writing in 1997, sadly declared: “Lithuanian poetry no longer is dominant in our
society‘s spiritual life and is slowly being withdrawn into the same place this art form holds in the
Western world.” What cultural change surpassed our society, how the turn from the singularising
culture into multicultural politically correct world was made – these are my concerns in this paper.
John K. Cox (Fargo, USA)
The Adriatic-Baltic Transversal: Danilo Kiš Through the Prism of Baltic Writing on Essentialism
and Diversity
The purpose of this paper will be to compare the ideas of one highly regarded southeast European
writer, Danilo Kiš (1935-1989) from Yugoslavia, with those of some leading writers and thinkers
from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. My analysis will centre on the vague concepts of "identity" and
"national culture." I will explore, by reference to the many essays and interviews (some translated
and some in the original Serbo-Croatian) of Danilo Kiš, concrete topics such as essentialism and
linguistic and ethnic diversity and look for parallels or contrast in the works of some Baltic writers.
The presentation will, I hope, spark a discussion based on sources broader than those that I
command (unfortunately I do not read Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian) about what terms such as
“identity” and “national culture” actually mean and how they effect the production, or reputation,
of writers. It should also be possible to look at some issues relating to cultural translation in Kiš,
because he grew up in the contested border area between Hungary and Serbia, and he was the
product of an ethnically and religiously mixed marriage, and translated and taught internationally
for much of his life.
Although Kiš disdained political nationalism, he wrote with great sensitivity about the emotional
pull and literary importance of language, especially one's first language, and he revealed in the
cultural achievements of South Slavic and Hungarian writers (from Ivo Andrić to Endre Ady) whom
the West considered hopelessly obscure or irredeemably politicized and one-dimensional.
Sometimes he wrote in the familiar vein of György Konrád, Czesław Miłosz, and others, about the
cultural ties of the Central European societies, but more often he eschewed nearly all forms of group
identity to celebrate the highly distinctive self, connected to others through ethics and history but
not necessarily culture (and definitely not by politics).
Below please find some of the works I will use in delineating these arguments. The titles for the
Baltic component do not in any way represent a complete listing of the Baltic literatures available in
English. They simply represent, in about half of the cases, recent translations – often with critical
apparatus attached, such as notes and introductions – from two excellent publishing houses in the
U.S.; the other cases are somewhat older books to which I have ready access in our library here or in
my personal collection. The works are almost exclusively prose, because that is the medium in which
I typically conduct research in Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and other fields of intellectual history.
I will read the Baltic works with an eye to finding dialogue and description in the works relating to
the above-mentioned themes, but a number of them, supplemented by scholarly articles available on
J-STOR, also contain essays by literary scholars or translators.
Jūlija Dibovska (Riga, Latvia)
Cinema in Works of Alberts Bels: Allusions, Themes and Symbols
Elements of a cinematic narrative in one’s prose as the feature of author's individual style can be
distinguished into two formal parts: 1) cinematic elements in a plot of literary work – such as
allusions, themes, symbols or even cinematic ekphrasis; this side of cinematic prose can be easily
captured as the intertextual feature or natural evidence of current culture – used by the author
(sometimes even unconsciously); 2) elements of cinematic narrative (mostly like a screenplay) in a
composition of literary work (including syntax, punctuation, graphic features, etc.). Both of them
work in the cinematic prose together – completing the idea of cinematic influences on literary work
or showing other meanings that cinema as a cultural phenomena undoubtedly has given to the
written text.
Alberts Bels as one of the most cinematic Latvian writers (based on the education of a screenwriter)
adds to his works such cinematic compositional elements as the “camera eye” (modernistic concept
of vision) from a limited point of view, etc. Bels also works with intertextual elements proving he is
keen to show the technique of montage and also proving that he knows and admires not only such
cinematic authors from the first part of the 20th century as Mikhail Bulgakov and Franz Kafka. In
some of his novels Bels mentions Italian director Michelangelo Antanioni (“Poligons”), some of his
characters have seen films with Tarzan (“Saknes”). In his interview with prof. Viesturs Vecgrāvis
Bels says that his novel “Latviešu labirints” begins just like a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s film.
All these cinematic elements – symbols, allusions and themes – are important in the context of
Alberts Bels writing as a whole. Most important – the addition of compositional cinematic elements
to these direct allusions represent Alberts Bels prose as cinematic and allows seeing his works in a
new meaningful light.
Ramutė Dragenytė (Vilnius, Lithuania)
The Conception of National Literary History
This paper focuses in the conception of national Literary History.
What do we call national Literary History? Literary History as a genre of our memory confirms
national identity, but can it be purely national as we live in the multicultural world?
In the last decades we have disputed about the need of literary history and the methods of writing it.
The versions of the story of the past told by the present have always been associated with the
question of cultural authority and identity. Since the 19th century the identity has been mostly
national, and the history has played a significant role in the formation of national self-imaginings.
Literary history is a gross distortion of literary culture serving as it does the ideological needs of
nationalism, but certainly not literature.
In the beginning of the 20th century literary histories in Lithuanian were fairly national, but now we
call such histories engaged because we live in a multicultural world and especially global migration
acquires new historical contexts and methods. New histories are written from the perspective of
marginalized social and ethnic groups. When we talk about literature of a particular country
(Lithuanian), we cannot ignore national minorities (Polish, Russian, German, etc.). Mykolas Biržiška
in the beginning of the 20th century talked about the need to include the literature of others nations
in our literary history. And this question is especially relevant in our days. So, in my paper, I will try
to reveal the conception and its changes from the beginning of writing Lithuanian literary history to
the present days.
Jana Dreimane (Riga, Latvia)
Authors, Publishers and Customers of Popular Literature in Latvia in the late 1980s and early
1990s
The book publishing in the communist-occupied Latvia (1944-1990) was a state monopoly. All
published information, including fiction, had to correspond to the ideology of the communist power
and was subjected to censorship. The main functions of literature were the propaganda of the ruling
ideology, the shaping of “homo soveticus”, while the aesthetic and entertaining functions were
moved aside. The choise of the entertaining literature was insufficient. Majority of books were
visually ascetic.
With the decline of the censorhip and the request from the state to the publishers for self-financing in
the late 1980s, the offer of popular literature started growing steadily. After renewal of the
independence of Latvia and removal of the censorship in 1990, the book publishing was recognised
as a business branch providing opportunities for profit. The number of book publishers increased,
book market in Latvia was crowded with popular literature in Latvian and in Russian. Most of these
books were reprints from the previos period of the Republic of Latvia. Only from 1993 the first
editions started to prevail over reprints. Gradually the offer of popular literature was replaced by a
range of high-quality literature provided by experienced publishers, as well as new publishers. A
significant role in stabilizing the situation was played by the Latvian Book Publishers’ Association,
founded in 1993, which already in 1994 achieved the waiving of VAT for publications of original
literature.
The purpose of the research is to identify the offer, demand and consumption of the popular
literature during the period of the political, economic and cultural changes. The Latvian case will be
compared with the neighbouring countries, were similar changes were observed. The research
highlights the discussion among publishers, authors and readers about the publishing and
consumption of the popular literature in Latvia.
Luule Epner (Tallinn/Tartu, Estonia)
Border State: Twenty Years After
Tõnu Õnnepaluʼs widely translated novel Border State (1993) popularized the image of a newly
independent Estonia as an ambivalent border zone between the East and the West. During the past
twenty years the Baltic States have been subjected to the global processes – including massive
migration, increasing social mobility, rise of multiculturalism, etc. – that seem to erode all kinds of
cultural borders. As a result, cultural identities are undergoing continuous transformation.
Identities in the present-day world are increasingly fluid and flexible, and more often than not they
are constructed across borders. New patterns and models of identity have emerged – broadly
labelled as the shift “from pilgrim to tourist“ (Zygmunt Bauman); on the other hand, one can speak
of the formation of multiple and/or transnational identities.
How the abovementioned global changes have affected the perception and understanding of
“Estonianness” and “Europeanness” and of their complex interrelations? How the emerging
identities are reflected and represented on the cultural scene? In my paper, I will discuss literary and
theatrical works that display different perspectives on these issues. In theatre, international
collaborative projects with multicultural cast will be analysed: stage productions of German director
Sebastian Nübling in Theatre NO99 – Three Kingdoms (2011) by English playwright Simon Stephens,
featured as “a journey in Europeʼs subconsciousness”, and Ilona. Rosetta. Sue (2013), loosely based on
three European films. In the field of literature, I will focus on the novels of Estonian Russian writer
Andrei Ivanov: Hanumanʼs Journey to Lolland (2009), a story about people seeking for a refuge in
Denmark, and A Handful of Dust (2011), depicting the 21st century europeanizing Estonia through the
eyes of a Russian.
Loreta Jakonytė (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Facing a Chinese Granddaughter: The Issue of Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Lithuanian
Literary Field
Contemporary literature in Lithuania is rarely concerned with the issues of the present-day cultural
diversity. The mediation of different nations and societies is more relevant to modern émigré fiction,
though literary critics dealing with these books are mostly interested in the representation of
Lithuanian identity. In recent years, however, several authors have published stories on the
experience of meeting people of different (non-Western) cultures and reinitiated the discourse about
cultural diversity in the local literary field. The paper focuses on two books that interpret
Lithuanians’ encounters with the Chinese: Vaiva Grainytė’s book of essays Pekino dienoraščiai (Diaries
of Beijing, 2013) and Audronė Urbonaitė’s novel Cukruota žuvis (Sugar Coated Fish, 2012). The first one
recounts the story of the author’s one-year sojourn in China for studying the Chinese language; its
reception proves the demand for this topic: the book was awarded the prize for the best prose of the
year, included into the list of the Book of the Year in 2012, and has been already published in four
editions. The second one develops its plot in Vilnius, when a son of an aging woman brings home
his Chinese daughter; this novel is not praised by critics, nevertheless it represented Lithuanian
prose in a large Asian book fair and is advertised abroad as a book mocking cultural arrogance. The
paper has two aims: a) to explore cross-cultural perception thematized in these works; to compare it
with the previous Lithuanian literary tradition and the Western literary representations of modern
Chinese; b) to highlight the debates on cultural diversity that these books raised in the literary field
(readers’ comments, reviewers’ attitudes, strategies of publishing houses etc.).
Viktorija Jonkute (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Memory and Identity in Lithuanian and Latvian Literatures in the National Revival Period in the
Late 20th Century
The national revival of the late 20th century is an intensive expression of national self-awareness of
the Baltic peoples, herewith – a significant moment changing history and cultural life of the Balts.
Such a situation highlights the main shifts in culture and history giving a possibility to distinguish
the substantial features of the Baltic memory and identity – an identity that is contradictory and
changing. It is determined, but intentionally seeking to deny itself, deconstruct and redefine.
As Pierre Nora has said, identity, like memory, is a form of duty, an obligation to become who you
are. The Lithuanian and Latvian literatures of the period 1988–1992 prove that texts of the time
reveal intensive historical thinking, sense of national identity or socio-cultural reflections. Such
Lithuanian writers as Sigitas Geda, Justinas Marcinkevičius, Jurgis Kunčinas, Romualdas
Granauskas, Saulius Šaltenis or Latvians Māra Zālīte, Gundega Repša, Andra Neiburga, Aleksandrs
Bels, Knuts Skujenieks, Juris Kronbergs, etc. could stand as examples.
The Baltic literature of the period 1988–1992 is characterized by the sites of memory (Lieux de
mémoire) that refer to the national ideology and identity exemplified as historical events, symbolic
historical figures, Baltic or folk images, national geographical dominants, reflections on the Soviet
and post-war periods, experiences of the occupation or exile, mythologized, poetized or
sentimentalized motives of homeland, birthplace and nature, expressions of agrarian culture
traditions or the opposite – cityscape, urban culture.
The paper aims to define the general representations of the collective memory and identity
reconstructed in the Baltic literature of the period 1988–1992. It is noted that not only the abstracted
forms of the past are important, but also their variations, storyline, speaker's attitude and position.
That allows describing the relation of the speaker and the past, as well as the types of historical
senses. The comparative method is very useful here, because it reveals the differences and
similarities of national self-awareness and its textual reflections of two countries of mainly the same
socio-cultural context.
Aušra Jurgutienė (Vilnius, Lithuania)
The Deconstruction of National Identity in Lithuanian Literature: Ivaškevičius’s Theatre
A warming national identity with myths of the "golden age" makes the necessary emotional glue
bringing harmony to societies. A coherent narrative of national history and collective memory are
inseparable from the ideology of nationalism (Benedict Anderson). But we also have to emphasize
that the nationalist ideology, when it is used too trustingly, can foster chauvinism, intolerance and
ethnic conflicts (95% of Russians purportedly supported the occupation of Crimea). The impact of
patriotism on society can be compared to deconstruction’s ambivalent term pharmacon, which means
that medicine used in too great a dose may become poison. Therefore, deconstruction’s suspicion of
the national myth does not weaken national health, as may appear at the first glance, but may
actually strengthen it.
We can find such a freezing identity in the works of Antanas Škėma, Tomas Venclova, Ričardas
Gavelis, Gintaras Beresnevičius Juozas Erlickas, Sigitas Parulskis, Marius Ivaškevičius. The plays by
the latter two authors Madagaskaras(Madagascar) and Išvarymas (Banishment) still find a great
resonance with readers and theatre audiences and will be the subject of my paper.-The two plays of
latter auther, Madagaskaras (Madagascar) and Išvarymas (Banishment) still find a great resonance
with readers and theater audiences and will be the subject of my paper.
Is it possible to speak about a postmodern Lithuanian nation unified by a new deconstructive
national identity? Why not?
Zita Karkla (Riga, Latvia)
Women’s Writing and Women’s Culture: Meanings of Domesticity in Prose by Latvian Women
Writers
Women writers have used images and metaphors of domesticity such as cooking, cleaning,
gardening, ironing, knitting, weaving and other household tasks to express emotions, describe
relationships, symbolize ideas and convey values. Elaine Showalter, one of the biggest supporters of
a female–oriented criticism she calls gynocriticism, points out that women’s writing cannot be
defined by biological essences and not everything in women’s writing can be explained by gender.
However, gender inscriptions in women’s texts cannot be neglected.
The aim of the paper is to analyze how through domestic tasks women’s consciousness, thoughts
and emotions are inscribed in texts – in Regina Ezera’s story “Reflection of the Sun” (1969), Gundega
Repse’s novel “Thumbelina” (2000), and Inga Abele’s stories “The Well House” (1999) and “Marja is
gone” (2004).
Female experience of housework has been treated as trivial, personal, unworthy of analysis and
often overlooked, and it would be easy to read these texts without stopping to acknowledge the
deep significance of the domestic realm in their plot and character development. However, the same
patterns of meaning recur in all of them – all texts share domesticity’s power to bring order from
chaos – not just physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually, as well as domesticity’s ability
to tie connection with nature, the body, the self and the community.
The body, and the female body in particular, is central to performances of domestic rituals that are
seen as mostly connected to the physical realm, however, as French feminists have pointed out, the
body must be seen as contributing the very condition of thought - there is a fundamental
inseparability and interdependence of the concepts of mind and body, reason and emotion, and
ultimately, masculinity and femininity.
Tiina Kattel (Tartu, Estonia)
Lithuanian-Estonian Literary relations (1918-1940)
I will focus on the events and individuals (Liudas Gira, Aleksis Rannit) that contributed to the
development of a meaningful literary communication between Estonia and Lithuania, as opposed to
the previous random translations in the respective language.
The first thorough survey of Lithuanian literature was written by August Gailit in 1920. His novel
“Toomas Nipernaadi” was the first Estonian work of fiction to be translated into Lithuanian and
published in 1938. The first article on Estonian literature was written by Juozas Tysliava in 1926. It
was a survey of the life and works of Henrik Visnapuu, who played an important role in the
development of the literary contacts between Estonia and Lithuania in the years to come.
Literary communication became more active after 1935, when the anniversary of the first book in
Estonian was celebrated and the festivities in Tallinn were attended by L. Gira and V. MykolaitisPutinas. In December 1935, the first Lithuanian-Estonian literary evening was held in Tallinn, which
was followed by another literary evening in Kaunas in February 1940. L. Gira presented an idea to
create a union of the writers of the three Baltic countries, which is still actual and tempting. The tasks
and goals of this union were formulated by H. Visnapuu in 1940. This era could be best
characterized by a quote taken from H.Visnapuu: “Spiritual sharpness is the weapon for small
nations like us. /…/ Baltic countries will stand only if they create a strong intellectual bridge between
themselves”.
Ilze Knoka (Riga, Latvia)
The Role of the Material Culture in Aivars Kļavis’ Tetralogy “On the Other Side of the Gate”
The tetralogy of Aivars Kļavis “On the Other Side of the Gate” was awarded the Baltic Assembly
Prize for Literature in 2012. According to the Joint Judging Committee, “Aivars Kļavis’s tetralogy is
remarkable for several reasons, not only because it was a monumental work that took him more than
ten years to write. His works are a challenge to the historic novel as a genre, for they are based on an
original perception of time as a nonlinear concept. All events in his works take place simultaneously,
here and now, thus making us wonder whether our actions are the cause or the effect of an event;
each person becomes a history maker”. Along with the remarkable contribution to the genre of
novel, the tetralogy gives possibility to examine the role of material heritage in lives of people
described given by the author. As the text covers a long period of time – numerous centuries – it also
refers to different aspects of human life, including those of sacred moments, sentiments and
generational links: aspects traditionally having their expression in objects, souvenirs, and other
memorabilia of different sorts being collected on regular or occasional basis. The aim of the paper is
to analyse how and to what degree Kļavis’ tetralogy describes relationship between humans and
objects of material culture through eras of the Latvian history.
Anneli Kõvamees (Tallinn, Estonia)
Out of the Unknown and in the Limelight
In the era of hyphenated identities (e.g. British Asian, African American, etc.) the exact definitions
have started to blur. One's identity may not be as clear as decades before and the same applies to
culture and literature. Over the past years there have been discussions about the exact definition of
national literature. For example, in Estonia there have been debates surrounding the definition of
Estonian literature: is it a literature written in Estonian or is it a literature written in Estonia? There
are also discussions of transnational literature. One of the most interesting literary debates erupted
in connection with the Estonian Russian writer Andrei Ivanov (born 1971) whose novels in many
cases have been written in Russian, but first published in Estonian. In the beginning of the 21st
century Estonian literary criticism started to deal with the Estonian Russian-language literature as
part of the Estonian literature. The authors of the younger generation (born in 1970 and later) or the
so-called noughts-generation are the first credibly taken authors as part of the Estonian literature.
The position of the Estonian-Russian literature has shifted from rejection and periphery in the
spotlight. The emergence of the Estonian-Russian literature and more broadly the emergence of the
Baltic- Russian literature can be seen as signs of cultural changes and shifts. The paper deals with the
cultural diversity, the position of the Estonian Russian literature and analyses some of the books by
Estonian Russian writers from the point of view of identity and cultural translation.
Laine Kristberga (Riga, Latvia)
Documenting Performance Art in Latvia and Estonia: Problems and Contradictions
Among scholars there have been on-going debates, whether performance art must be seen and
experienced as “live” actions with the presence of audience at the same time and space, where the
performance takes place (Jon Erickson, Amelia Jones, Peggy Phelan and others), or whether it is
possible to interpret and critically analyse the event from the available mediated or technologically
transferred forms of representation (Philip Auslander, Roselee Goldberg, Frazer Ward, Richard
Bauman and others). Nowadays, in the social networks and media world, dictated by electronic and
digital signals, a mediated image and experience is nothing surprising. Besides, there are many
performance artists and even artist groups, who work solely in the digital environment. However, if
looking retrospectively, the documentation of performance art reveals many problematic issues and
questions, especially, whether a documented performance is only a form of evidence or it can be
considered as an autonomous work of art. In fact, performance art historians can be divided in two
groups: the first are adamant that performance must be seen as a “live” event, the second – that
performance art cannot exist without documentation.
As indicated by Philip Auslander, in the traditional approach the truth of performance
documentation lies in its indexical relations with the event that is being documented. In this context,
the performance documentation provides both the record of the event and evidence that such an
event has actually happened. The relation between a performance and a document can, thus, be
considered as ontological, with the event preceding and authorising its documentation. Auslander
offers an alternative perspective, too: a photographed or filmed performance is not a secondary
record of a performance that has already happened before, but it is a performance on its own taking
place at the representational space, namely, in the photograph or video space. Consequently, the
event is staged, in order to be documented and to be shown to the audience, which becomes an
audience when looking at the photograph (or video).
The paper will examine the problematic relationship between performance art and its
documentation by juxtaposing two photographically mediated performances created in Latvia and
Estonia in the 1990s.
Laura Laurušaitė (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Lithuanian and Latvian Hetero-Images: An Imagological Examination of the Baltic Émigré Fiction
The aim of the presentation is to investigate the Baltic national-characterological image that other
nations usually attribute to the Baltic people. Narrative corpus addressed in the presentation
includes several Lithuanian and Latvian émigré narratives, written in contemporary exile. The paper
draws on imagological criticism in order to examine some Lithuanian and Latvian hetero-images,
prejudices and stereotypes, which, as Dutch imagologist Joep Leerssen puts it, “refer to the opinion
that others have about a group’s purported character”. Certain symbols and attributes that have
become associated with the Balts (people from geographically unknown land with the distinctive
language often compared to Russian, heavy drinkers and closed introverts) often tend to be
exaggerated, multiplied from one book to another and holds stereotypical nature.
The settled political reputation determined that the Balts obtained literary reputation of the “Other”
– a slave, a servant, a second-rate human-being, and unskilled labour force since the time when
World War II emigrants from the Baltic states entered the labour market in their new-found
countries of residence. That image was to persist into contemporary émigré prose where the Balts
are seen as a population of rustic underclass of limited intellectual ability and carries the reputation
of the White slaves (Laima Muktupavela “The Mushroom Convenant” or servants with dog’s pride
and mentality (Marius Ivaškevičius “The Banishment”). Some émigré texts suggest that America’s
(or latter-day Britain’s) multicultural societies offered more possibilities for identification, while
Swedish society proved to be the most hostile to the Baltic immigrants due to its social and moral
conservatism. Scornful attitude is ironically or humorously subverted in some of the fiction books,
e.g. in Paulina Pukytė’s “Their customs”, Zita Čepaitė’s “The Diary of Expatriate” or Otto Ozols’
“Latvians are everywhere”. Humorously rethinking our mentality specifics and attitudes offered by
other nations, Lithuanian and Latvian émigré writers try to reconsider misperception and
misjudgement as well as re-signify themselves and evoke the lost national pride.
Laimdota Ločmele (Riga, Latvia)
Reflection of Values in Literary Critical Media Texts
In this paper values are viewed from the semiotic perspective, based on the assumption of culture as
communication where messages are sent, received and interpreted and as a result values are
formulated, shared and promoted. The discussion of values in this paper is based mainly on recent
(2010-2013) literary critical media texts in Latvian dailies (KDi, LA, NRA) in print and on the
internet, news portals, e.g., delfi.lv, tvnet.lv, etc; these media reaching a broad audience and
involving different kinds of readers (age, social status, education, media literacy, etc). This paper
covers the following types of literary critical texts – short news items, blogs, book reviews,
interviews, feature articles and readers’ comments in the internet – all the mentioned text types
reflecting current issues concerning literature, reading and interpretation of media texts. This paper
attempts to identify the values, which are most often cited in media texts and thus make up a system
of values inherent to the reading public. Also, the paper discusses relationship between the moral
and spiritual values, which are explicitly communicated to the audience as priorities and other
values which are more implicit, but nevertheless insistently compete with the spiritual ones. Values
promoted by writers, readers, the media and the government agencies are different, even
controversial.
Yordan Lyutskanov (Sofia, Bulgaria)
Bulgarian Cultural Identity as a Borderline One
Bulgarian cultural identity has been conceived as a borderline, intermediary (in-between), or
composite by the majority of Bulgarian thinkers throughout the 20 th century. This notion of
compositeness etc. has been crucial for developing the understanding that cultural identity is plural.
It seems to me that the latter understanding is an indispensable prerequisite to maintain what can be
called “border(line) thinking”, a mode of extracting/constructing cultural sense which is the most apt
in borderline cultural regions like the Balkan (or Balkan-Caucasian-Anatolian, or Black Sea) one.
In order to understand how “understanding-culture-as-plural” works in the case of Bulgaria and
Bulgarian self-representations, three moments (two historical and one theoretical) must be
examined. First, the notion and, subsequently, awareness of plurality could only come to existence
when “modernisation” became able of critical self-reflection. What had been conceived as “raw
material”, “nature” subject to modernisation, became to be conceived as another, a different
“culture”, with a centre of reason of its own. This happened in the memoir, historiography and
culture-philosophic discourses of the 1920s. Second, the mentioned notion has been reinforced by the
2000s, when awareness was attained about the more or less universal span of the cultural identity’s
plurality; plurality is no more conceived as an exceptional (or close to such) peculiarity of Bulgarian
cultural identity. Third, in order to maintain a stance that would not turn our “ideographical” mode
of thinking into a “nomothetical” one, we should abstain from thinking that all cultural “pluralities”
are alike. That is, we maintain that the plurality “in/of” French, Latvian and Bulgarian identity is
different not only because the components within each of these cases are different. The adequate
“calibration” of our view is the main issue here: we have to count for the different levels that expose
a collective identity of a nation (sub-national, (inter)national, super-national). We have to reinforce
our awareness of cultural regions and, if you wish, “civilisations”; we ought to understand that
“mankind” and “world history” are no less imaginary constructs than “Europe” and nations.
Borders that undermine a nation’s unity can run not only along social class or state borders, not only
along the borders of minorities’ enclaves and not only along the borders between continents.
Vanesa Matajc (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Cultural Diversity and National Literature: the Seeming Conflict
Contemporary comparative literature studies have recognized the trans-national models of
nationalisms that characterized the history of the European national literatures (Juvan). In case of the
separatistic nationalism (Leerssen), the basic integrative agent of constructing the national
community was national language and, therefore, also the art of this language, i.e. the national
literature. However, the fusion of the so-called cultural and spatial turns in contemporary literary
studies moved focus to the field of cultural space. The cultural space of one national community has
revealed its intra-cultural diversity, which can be perceived in linguistic communication and literary
representations of the discursive diversity. Can this cultural diversity threaten the concept of
national literature? The answer is “no”. In order to argue this opinion, the paper will present two
aspects of the cultural diversity represented by the contemporary Slovenian (national) literature. The
example of the first aspect is literary representation of the occasional cultural conflicts between the
Slovenian communities of majority and the Romani people. These conflicts are represented as a
confrontation of different discourses and sociolects in one Slovenian novel (Skubic), which
methodically deconstructs the standard of the Slovenian written, literary language. The example of
the second aspect is literary representation of a hybridized identity of the second generation of the
economic immigrants from Bosnian and Serbian territories. This hybridity (Bhabha) can be perceived
in the hybridized languages, i.e. conversational discourse used in the everyday culture of this
“second generation”. Two Slovenian novels (Vojnović, Skubic) represent this hybridity by “quoting”
its sociolects. Especially these two novels provoked a question (“a scandal”) if they can represent
Slovenian national literature at all. The paper will present some arguments for the opinion that
literature which represents cultural diversity and hybridity even by deconstructing the standard of
one national literary language can, in fact, intensify the artistic power of the national literature.
Anneli Mihkelev (Tallinn, Estonia)
Modernity, Intertextuality and Decolonization in Estonian and Latvian Literature
Estonia and Latvia have been colonized for several times in different periods of history. Every
colonization influences the colonized countries politically, economically and culturally, and the
colonial traces appear everywhere in the colonized society: first of all, in the social manners,
behaviour and culture. The theoretical background of the paper originates from the colonial and
postcolonial theories and in the theory of cultural transfer, analysis of intertextual, intercultural and
intra-cultural dynamics. The main aim of the paper is to analyze and interpret Estonian and Latvian
modernist literature in the context of Walter D. Mignolo’s concept “decolonization”. The main
problems are: cultural transfer, cultural relations and modernisation of smaller and periphery
national cultures. Another important question is how the small and periphery nations find their own
originality in European culture, and how literary works represent smaller national cultures in the
process of modernisation.
The paper concentrates mainly on Gustav Suits’ poetry and Rudolfs Blaumanis’ and Eduard Vilde’s
short stories. Intertextual analyses indicate to different cultural transfers and contacts in Estonian
and Latvian literature in the modernist period at the beginning of the 20 th century. At the same time,
we can see how different fragments of European culture are mixed in the literatures of the small and
periphery nations. Finally the paper will examine how the smaller and peripheral cultures find their
own national cultures.
Miguel Ángel Pérez Sánchez (Riga, Latvia)
Jacint Verdaguer, Andrejs Pumpurs and Petar Petrovic Njegos: Three Moments in the Romantic
National Epic of the 19th Century Europe
In the course of the 19th century, from one extreme to another, literary manifestations of nationalism
have shown up in several different genres, and meaningfully in the epic genre, which is perceived,
according to the Western literary canon, with its beginning in the Greek epics of the Iliad and the
Odyssey, as a primary expression of the cosmogonic myths of an ethnic group in search of the
national identity.
This paper, through the analysis of the works of three major European poets, the Catalan Jacint
Verdaguer, the Latvian Andrejs Pumpurs, and the Montenegrin Petar Petrovic Njegos, each one of
them writing unknowingly to the other three, tries to state that despite the obvious social, historical,
geographic and linguistic differences separating them (which are also the subject of research), there
is one common spirit rooted in the Romantic Movement, connecting and providing them with
similar motives and topics.
Anneli Saro (Tartu, Estonia/Helsinki, Finland)
Language on the Stage – Questions of Identity, Ideology and Morality
Language used on the stage always bears certain connotations to the identity, ideology and morality
of characters, theatre makers and audiences. In my paper, I am going to analyse how different
languages, dialects and other sublanguages have been used or represented in Estonian theatre and
theatre histories, drawing parallels with other Baltic, Easter European and Scandinavian countries.
The establishment of national theatre was almost a compulsory element in building up national
consciousness and later on also the nation state in most of Eastern European countries, but also in
Finland, Norway and Iceland. National theatre meant performances in national languages,
presented and received by native-speakers. Nevertheless, theatre tradition in these countries was
already developed in some other languages (mostly in German or Russian, in Scandinavia in
Swedish or Danish), which did not fade after the establishment of local national theatres. What kind
of position did these troupes and theatres acquire after the establishment of national theatres and
how their work is represented in theatre histories, is the main core of my research.
Internationalization of theatre scene has brought language issues to the fore again, especially in
contemporary dance and music theatre, but to a certain extent also in drama. Mostly
internationalization results in wider use of English or combinations of different languages.
Another aspect worth of analysis is, how different sublanguages (especially dialects and low style)
are represented on the stage. In general, sublanguages tend to be rather displaced from the stage.
Dialects have been used in literature and theatre mostly in the context of standard language as a
specific characteristic of speech of certain character, which often serves as a comic effect. But
performances in dialect signal the rise of importance of local identity and language. Low style tends
to appear in provocative and alternative forms of theatre.
Marija Semjonova (Riga, Latvia)
Transcultural Spaces in Short Prose by Postmodern Latvian Women Writers. Textual Analysis of
Inga Ābele’s Short Novel “Graffiti of Hebe” (1997) (Hēbes grafiti)
The concepts of postmodern literature and postmodernity are flexible and theoretically unstable.
According to the most recent research regarding the question of the formation of the previously
marginalized cultural and social experiences of different local identities, I argue that Latvian women
writers’ literary texts render the postsocialist experience as a specific postmodern condition. It is also
a process of the complex formation of the post-socialist cultural development that could be seen as
an attempt to create the transcultural spatiality. Among other questions, that emphasize the
existence and functioning of transcultural spaces in contemporary women’s literature, is the
question that emphasises the structures of ethnicity and gender and their involvement in
transcultural relationships. In this paper I will try to examine the problem of the formation of
women’s individual identity and subjectivity in the historical and cultural polyphony of the world.
The key differences of the postmodern paradigm that modulate the epistemological framework for
creating and understanding women’s literary experiences include the concepts of the cultural
borderline and the borderline of identity, the concept of the time-space continuum (according to
Homi Bhabha, postmodernity is based on a specific past-present continuum, to which individual
identity is “placed into” (see: Homi Bhabha, The Location Of Culture, 2004, 1-12)), cultural
translation of individual experience and memory and others.
In my paper I will discuss how [and why] the processes that I see as post-socialist and the processes
of transcultural identification are addressed in the postmodern technique used in short prose by Inga
Abele. Another question is about the meaning and influence of the narrative strategy of epistolary
subgenre, used in the novelette “Graffiti of Hebe” (1997) to the formation (or bildung) of a female
protagonist. One more important analytical approach of the paper is about the different types of
reading and interpreting the selected text material. The last question for this part of the paper is:
How a postmodern literary text is perceived in the cultural space of the early post-soviet era? Are
there any ideological limitations still possible?
I will also theorize how and why the space of letter (and the process of writing the letter by itself)
can be described [or understood] as a creation of transcultural space that aims to unite different local
identities and practices of the [specific] alienation of the character. Another perspective of the paper
is devoted to the search for the possible intertextual bonds between contemporary Latvian women’s
literature and its historical predecessors (in case of Inga Ābele I will try to argue how her text
correlates with the short prose by Regina Ezera).
Zane Šiliņa (Riga, Latvia)
Tendencies of Expressionism in Rainis’ Literary Works: “I Played, I Danced”
During the years of World War I, Rainis’ creative world underwent changes. The poet not only
significantly accented the responsibility of art in front of its time and called for necessity to express
actual feelings and solve the important questions posed by the era, but also begun searching for new
stylistics that would lead into the direction of Expressionism.
Although expressionism in its most impressive manifestation appears in German literature, kindred
world-sense can be also found in other countries, in some cases even earlier than in Germany. For
instance, expressionistic tendencies are characteristic to the literary works of the Russian writer and
playwright Leonid Andreyev (1871-1919). Rainis’ diaries, letters and notes demonstrate stable and
permanent interest about expressionism and particularly L. Andreyev. Although the Latvian poet’s
attitude to the Russian colleague’s literary works mostly can be characterised as negative, Rainis’
notes show that in L. Andreyev’s artistic quests he has also found some impulses for his own literary
work.
While exploring the tendencies of Expressionism in Rainis’ literary work, a special attention to the
play “I Played, I Danced” (1915) should be paid. The specific use of grotesque and the intensified
relations of the living and the dead have a special place in the play. It is significant that the relations
between life and death, the living and the dead is one of the central themes of expressionism, and its
actuality is determined by the political events of the beginning of the 20th century (especially, World
War I), as well as the development of industrial society. In order to demonstrate the most significant
points of interaction shared by “I Played, I Danced” and the expressionist art, as well as the
uniqueness of Rainis’ artistic manner, the paper gives insight in aesthetics of Expressionism and
provides comparative analysis of Rainis’ play and creative works of Expressionism (e.g. G. Kaiser, E.
Toller, L. Andreyev).
Viktorija Slūka (Riga, Latvia)
Stylization of Commedia dell’Arte in Latvian Drama and Theatre: Methods and Sources
The paper is a comparative analytic multicultural study of the theory and history of the literature
and theatre; it is about an important feature of modernism art – theatralization – and its specific
manifestations in Latvian and foreign drama. The aim of the paper is to provide a theoretical
analysis on the concept of commedia dell’arte and theatralization; to describe its genesis, to fix its
sources and methods; to find this form of art in different manifestations in Modernism and in
different cultures; to make a comparative and creative analysis of drama by classifying texts by
certain principles and research methods. The aim is to describe commedia dell’arte first major
examples pre-20th century in drama, which form the basis of the theatralization tradition in Latvian
and foreign modern drama.
The chosen research object – commedia dell’arte in modern drama – is a little studied theme in Latvian
literary and theatre theory. Unrealistic representations (which are connected with theatralization) are
key features of the modern drama that manifests in different way each of the modernism
movements. The most important features that will be discussed are theatralization, commedia dell’arte,
the Eastern theatre technique, the Medieval theatre form – stylization or restoration in modern drama
and the principle of theatre in theatre or play in play; balagan, life and art balaganization; circle aesthetics;
people ‘dummization’ etc.
I will analyse selected plays by Latvian authors who represent different modernism movements –
E.Stērste, A. Mētere-Ozoliņa, V. Dambergs, E. Vulfs. Foreign authors selected include such
dramatists as L. Pirandello, A. Schnitzler, F.G. Lorca, A. Block, A.Strindberg, etc. One group of these
foreign authors directly influenced Latvian dramatists, because they were regularly staged in the
Latvian theatres; while the second are partly influenced, because their work aesthetics typologically
coincides with the Latvian authors’ plays aesthetics and aims.
Jüri Talvet (Tartu, Estonia)
Culture in the European East-Baltic Periphery: An Embarrassed Coexistence of Fashion,
Officialism and Resistance
Despite some historically conditioned differences between three Eastern-Baltic cultures, none of
them seems to have had sufficient defence mechanisms to develop any substantial resistance to
powerful cultural fashions and officialism in culture imposed by major centres of economicalpolitical power of Europe and the West in different stages of their cultural history. A more detailed
and concrete analysis of these processes has hardly been possible, as the mutual access to the “other”
in its respective permutations has been deficient and highly fragmented. Genuinely comparative
cultural studies have been quite weak so far even in such fields of creativity as music and visual arts,
not to speak of literature, the most complicated and multi-layered creative-cultural area, in which
the dependence on the linguistic factor is exclusive and unavoidable.
For the time being – without any guarantee that future could bring some improvement - we can only
intuitively grasp some parallel developments. What we can do in the field of comparative literature
is to describe and establish the contours of a model of the interaction between fashion, officialism
and resistance in one particular ethnic culture. After that first step we can follow to the comparison
of all three models, as well as to introduce their correction and modification, describing concrete
cases of coincidence, overlapping and also difference.
Thus in my paper I will make an attempt to provide some preliminary-tentative outlines of the
Estonian model of cultural fashion, officialism and resistance as based on a short characterization of
some key phenomena in Estonian literary culture from its beginnings in the 19 th century through the
short first independence period between the 20 th-century world wars to the latest developments in
the equally short and young political independence extending from 1991 to nowadays.
Baiba Tetere (Greifswald, Germany)
“Latvian Types”: Hybridized Visions of Rural Life in Latvia in the 1890s
This paper on the representation of Latvian farmers in photography will examine relations between
the nation building, science, and modernity in the colonial society, which inhabited the Baltic region
of the Russian Empire in the late 19th century. The analysis focuses on the development of the local
patterns of the field of visual anthropology, which were profoundly shaped by the multicultural
context and brought a very unique set of influences to the practice of photography.
In particular, this paper looks at the case study of the Latvian Ethnographic Exhibition taking place
during the 10th Congress of Archaeology of the Russian Empire from August 1 to September 15,
1896. As the organizer of this exhibition, the Rīgas Latviešu Biedrība (Riga Latvian Association)
commissioned Jānis Krēsliņš (1865 - ?) to take photographs of Latvian types for the 3 rd Section of the
Exhibition Anthropology and Statistics. The collection of more than two hundred photographs
provides a chance to look at the transmission and reception of scientific knowledge, how certain
ideas originating in the centres of scientific culture became locally absorbed and appropriated by
Latvian national movement. Moreover, the new technology of representation offered Latvians an
unprecedented opportunity for self-representation.
The key question concerns how the Latvian national movement adopted and absorbed scientific
ideas in relation to its photographic practice? How these quasi-scientific representations of Latvian
farmers were used to perform Latvian identity and shape its visual culture?
Kārlis Vērdiņš (Riga, Latvia)
Queer (Post)Soviet Narratives in Interviews by Rita Ruduša and Fiction by Klāvs Smilgzieds
One of the cultures within culture is the culture of LGBT people or, to use contemporary name,
queer culture. In Latvia, it is still practically invisible. In my paper I am going to analyse queer
narratives of two types: documentary life stories, collected by Rita Ruduša in her book
“Underground Otherness” (2012) and approximately 20 short stories by Klāvs Smilgzieds (this is a
pseudonym), published in the 1990s in underground Latvian gay magazines.
As it can be seen, both types of texts make different emphasis talking about queers in the Soviet and
post-Soviet life. Ruduša’s interviews reflect on the situation of closet, fear and loneliness, while
Smilgzieds’s stories celebrate the male body, casual sex and unfulfilled loves. While Ruduša’s
interlocutors (mostly gay men, more or less closeted) construct their narratives to seem acceptable
for a straight woman, Smilgzieds, a closeted homosexual himself, uses various modes of narrative
(parable, miniature, pornographic prose) to express both his experience and imagination.
Both Ruduša and Smilgzieds reveal the slow changes in people consciousness – transition from the
Soviet to the post-Soviet society and its consequences (decriminalization of male homosexuality,
existence of LGBT organizations and clubs, queer issues as topics for tabloids and TV shows, etc.).
Inese Vičaka (Riga, Latvia)
Post-Apocalypse: Culture and Nature in Gundegas Repše’s and Cormac McCarthy’s Works
The theme of post-apocalypse has gradually found its path into postmodern works. The paper
focuses on nature and culture in a post-apocalyptic world, which becomes devoid of life and culture
and at the top lingers a question of further existence of nature in the world. The works of Latvian
writer Gundega Repše and American writer Cormac McCarthy will be analysed in a comparative
way to see how nature set on a bleak stage with the only decoration of empty houses can give a
promise of further existence. Do the two works make it possible to answer the question of existence
in its turning point: “How many people does this world need to be a fully natural and cultural place
to inhabit?” The paper tackles these issues from the perspective of ecofeminism, eco-criticism and
philosophy in a unique and interesting way embracing literary, culture and gender studies.
Katja Will (Greifswald, Germany)
The Challenged Familiar. The Homecomer as a Crisis-Character in Contemporary Scandinavian
Literature
Whether moving from a big city to the province, returning home from a hospital or simply never
catching home in virtue of travelling about – returning is always an outstanding challenge. Both the
homecomer and his/her home have changed during his absence. The Austrian sociologist Alfred
Schütz asserts: “Both sides […] build up a system of pseudo-types of the other which is hard to
remove and never can be removed entirely […].” This circumstance composes the crisis potential of
return processes which allows, maybe even requires, reflections on the question: “What is home?”
As a first step the space theory of the French philosopher Michel de Certeau is helpful in order to
make the emerging crisis describable. Why does return cause crisis? A second step asks about the
generation of meaning in return stories. How does return work? This leads to interesting insights
about how becoming and feeling home is produced.
Stories from contemporary literature (context of globalisation) might be of special interest in the
context of this conference. Return scenarios are formed by the awareness that “home” (whatever it
means) has to be “performed” [e.g. Linn Rottem: Forestillinger om et hjem (2013), Helle Helle: Hus og
hjem (1999)]. In general, it is assumed that the character of the homecomer is presented as a
“disturbing third-party” located somewhere between the space of experience abroad and the former
home.
The proposed paper wants to build a framework for the description of return scenarios in literature.
A case study about homecomers in contemporary Scandinavian novels attempts to show different
strategies of performing home. The central objective is to enlighten the inner logic of return
processes, especially of the inherent crisis moment and its overcoming.
Eugenijus Žmuida (Vilnius, Lithuania)
The Lithuanian Poetry in the Light of European Existentialism
The paper concentrates on perspectives of two disciplines – philosophy and literature – and their
specific manifestations as literature of Existentialism in Lithuanian poetry of the 20th century.
The key turn to existentialism in the Lithuanian poetry was made by Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas
(1893–1967), who focused on the condition of human existence, personal responsibility, the meaning
and purpose of life. Working as professor in Kaunas at the University of Vytautas Magnus (1922–
1940), he made impact on younger generations of future philosophers and poets. Already in 1936
Juozas Girnius (1915–1994) chose the topic for his graduation thesis The Principles of Heidegger’s
Existential Philosophy. In 1951 the Montreal University (Canada) awarded him a PhD for thesis Liberty
and Being. Existential Metaphysics of Karl Jaspers. Juozas Girnius and another former student of
University of Vytautas Magnus Antanas Maceina (1908–1987), also known as poet Jasmantas, both
lectured at the Kaunas University during the WWII and were introducing existential philosophy to
Lithuanian culture, using for the analysis of philosophical concepts the fictional works by Rilke,
Hölderlin, Ibsen, Dostoyevsky and others. This lectures and poetry of Mykolaitis-Putinas influenced
almost an entire generation of young Lithuanian poets, who made their debuts during the WWII and
now are classics of the Lithuanian poetry: Vytautas Mačernis, Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas, Bronius
Krivickas, Mamertas Indriliūnas, Henrikas Nagys.
In my paper I will discuss how the main themes of Existentialism where transformed in the poetry
by Mykolaitis-Putinas and developed later in the poetry by younger generation of Lithuanian poets,
especially in the poetry by Nyka-Niliūnas (born 1919), the most famous poet of his generation.
Inga Žolude (Riga, Latvia)
Confessional Poetry in Latvia as a Form of Freeing the Self
Though the origin of the core concept of the “confessional poetry” can be traced back to the USA and
the canonical confessional poets are mainly American, confessional poetry has spread to other
cultures. However, in every culture in which it has reached artistic value, it has been perceived
controversially because of its daring emotion and uncompromising openness. The attention to the
arguing of the existence of the confessional poetry genre in Latvia is drawn by the change in arts and
culture in the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, which had accordingly been initiated by the
ideological and social change. Turning to the confessional genre could be viewed as an indirect, but
logical consequence of the diminished role of the artist in the new socio-political circumstances.
Confessional poetry could be also viewed as encouraged by the ever-increasing openness of literary,
social, sexual etc. discourses. However liberal or up-to-date, or Western the society can be perceived,
it is less so when we touch the subject of private and/ vs. public. The confessional poetry is
concerned with the private becoming public, thus creating a feeling of inconvenience in the readers,
and thus creating the inconvenience of the genre as such. This paper will explore the concept of
confessional poetry as a form of freeing/ emitting one’s privacy into the public and the interaction
and the collision between the both opposites. Since it touches upon the dichotomy of the private/
public and is on the verge of such disciplines as ethics, religion, law and others, it encourages a
rather multifaceted view on the genre and its role within the discourse.
Manfredas Žvirgždas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Henrikas Nagys as the Mediator between Lithuanian and Latvian Poetry
Lithuanian poet, essayist and translator Henrikas Nagys (1920-1996) was born in Mažeikiai, northern
Lithuania, and his relatives from his mother’s side were Latvians; he spoke Lithuanian, Latvian and
German fluently from his young days and was well acknowledged with Latvian culture. Nagys
spent the greatest part of his life in exile: he got educated in the post-war universities of Austria and
Germany, and later moved to Canada. Even the German poetical and intellectual tradition was
received by him through Latvia: the first and the most stunning encounter with poetry of Rainer
Maria Rilke, Nagys’s favourite poet, occurred in his teenage years when his aunt brought two
volumes of Rilke’s Gesammelte Werke from Riga. Later, in the era of displaced communities, Nagys
was a member of poetical group Žemininkai and tried to revive post-Romanticist symbolism and to
resume the experience of Western modernism in the ruins of WWII. Sometimes Nagys was called the
“Sibelius of Lithuanian poetry” (referring to the world-famous Finnish composer) because the
motives of the North were evident in his poems, the spatial perception inspired metaphors, and the
northern landscape was often meditated as a distinctive symbol. The North was a symbolical figure
to Nagys, and it comprised different territories, such as the polar regions of Canada, northern
Lithuania, Latvia, the metaphysical space, and the abstract field of many opportunities and intact
nature. Under the circumstances of exile in 1953 Nagys wrote a short review of Latvian poetry for
the influential Lithuanian cultural magazine Literatūros lankai. He was in search of analogies between
historical phenomena in both literatures; he emphasized that the authority of Romanticist tradition
was the target of revolt for both Lithuanian and Latvian poets. Nagys translated Latvian poetry into
Lithuanian language and was familiar to Latvian exile poets. Nagys was considered an important
mediator between both cultures. The critics often pointed to the influence of German postImpressionist poetic school to Nagys, but the influence of Latvian poetical tradition was also
significant, especially in the stylistic level: Nagys appreciated its laconic style, formal austerity, and
its modern versification.