Klaipėdos universitetas

In order to be distinguished from the conventional verbal interactional context deliberate violations of the metadiscursive matrix are employed: 1) the informal register instead of the formal; 2) gradable adjectives and superlatives violate the expectation of objectivity and accuracy; 3) the self-conscious pragmatic-rhetoric strategies; 4) ample use of vulgarisms and offensive addresses; 5) a diversity of rhetoric means.

This article examines the impact of the historiographical work of Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) on the dramas by Vydūnas (real name Vilhelmas Storostas, 1868–1953). From 1900 onwards, Vydūnas’ published works increasingly featured mentions of Daukantas and excerpts from the historian’s writings. A number of Daukantas’ intertexts are found in the drama Probočių šešėliai (Shadows of the Ancestors), written in 1900. This article, based on a comparative analysis of the writings by Daukantas and Vydūnas, raises the hypothesis that the author of the dramas was the ideal reader of the historian’s writings, and took various concepts, motifs and images from them. Vydūnas was inspired by Daukantas, and used the historian’s phrase ‘bočių probočių’ (ancestors of ancestors) and the concept of ‘tautos būdas’ (national identity) as a description of the essence of the nation, which is prevalent in his work published in 1845, and other concepts. He was the first to objectify the world created by Daukantas, and allowed Lithuanians to play the role of the ancient Lithuanian on the stage, and choose what was relevant in establishing modern Lithuanian society. The analysis reveals that Vydūnas saw the ancient Lithuanian world created by the historical writings by Daukantas as an archetype, and transposed it to a philosophical level. He also created a universal model for the link between the individual and the homeland; and in dramas, he presented simulation models for testing the proposed axiology.

The article analyzes the links of the poetry of Kristijonas Donelaitis with the origins of European literature, and primarily with the literature of Antiquity (Virgil and Hesiod). The systemic reference to the genre of “The Seasons” leads to an assumption that the classic of Lithuanian literature, born in East Prussia, educated in Königsberg University, and having spent all his lifetime in the heterogeneous environment of Prussian Lithuania, wrote his masterpiece inspired by didactic idylls of Antiquity. Virgil was referred to and quoted by Donelaitis in his letter written in German, and Donelaitis could have read and analyzed Hesiod‘s Erga in the years of his studies. The juxtaposition of “The Seasons” and “Works and Days” demonstrates the layers shared by the two poets: in addition to the relationships of the structure and the genre, there are numerous links at the semantic level that intertextually thematize the categories of nature, time, work, and religion.