Encountering the Other in the Middle Ages: from Ibn Fadlan’s Account to Michael Crichton’s ...

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LIETUVOS LYGINAMOSIOS LITERATŪROS ASOCIACIJA

Acta litteraria comparativa

EUROPOS KRAŠTOVAIZDŽIO TRANSFORMACIJOS: SAVO IR SVETIMO SUSITIKIMAI

TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE: ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE OTHER

MOKSLO DARBAI

52010–2011

Vilnius

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ISSN 1822-5608

Sudarytojos / FormersProf. dr. Nijolė Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas

(Lietuva)Prof. dr. Aušra Jurgutienė Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas (Lietuva)Dalia Kaladinskienė Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas (Lietuva)

Atsakingoji redaktorė / Executive SecretaryDalia Kaladinskienė Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas (Lietuva)

Recenzentai / ReviewersProf. habil. dr. Kęstutis Nastopka Vilniaus universitetas (Lietuva)Prof. dr. Viktorija Skrupskelytė Kauno Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas

(Lietuva)

Mokslinis komitetas / Scientific CommitteeProf. dr. Alain Montandon (Klermon-Ferano universitetas, Prancūzija)Prof. dr. Jüri Talvet (Tartu universitetas, Estija)Dr. Lucia Boldrini (Londono Goldsmito universitetas, Anglija)Prof. dr. Aušra Jurgutienė (Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, Lietuva)Doc. dr. Žydronė Kolevinskienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, Lietuva)Doc. dr. Genovaitė Dručkutė (Vilniaus universitetas, Lietuva)Prof. dr. Nijolė Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, Lietuva)

Adresas / AddressLietuvos lyginamosios literatūros asociacija / Lithuanian Association of Comparative LiteratureT. Ševčenkos 31, LT–03111 VilniusLietuva / LithuaniaTel. (+370 5) 2333635, fak. (+370 5) 2335299, el. p. [email protected]

Leidinį remia

LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKOS KULTŪROS RĖMIMO FONDAS VALSTYBINIS MOKSLO IR STUDIJŲ FONDASLIETUVIŲ LITERATŪROS IR TAUTOSAKOS INSTITUTASVILNIAUS PEDAGOGINIS UNIVERSTITETAS

© Lietuvos lyginamosios literatūros asociacija, 2010–2011© Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, 2010–2011

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Turinys / Content

ĮVADAS / ForeworD

Aušra JurGuTieNėKultūros žemėlapio pokyčiai – nauji klausimai komparatyvistikai ............9

I. THE CHANGING CULTURAL MAP OF EUROPe / EUROPOS KULTŪRINIO ŽEMĖLAPIO POKYČIAI

Alain MONTANDONProgrès techniques et métamorphoses des espaces européens au XIXe siècle ................................................................................................19Techninis progresas ir Europos erdvių metamorfozės XIX amžiuje

Genovaitė DruČKuTėUn projet de l’Europe dans l’oeuvre d’Oscar Milosz ...............................32Europos projektas Oscaro Miloszo kūryboje

Manfred SCHMeLiNGDe l’humanisme au post-humanisme: Le discours sur l’Europe chez Thomas Mann, André Gide et Hans-Magnus Enzensberger .....................41Nuo humanizmo iki post-humanizmo: Europos samprata Thomo Manno, André Gide’o ir Hanso Magnuso Enzensbergerio diskursuose

Jüri TALVeTWestern Humanism and the “Other” .........................................................54Vakarų humanizmas ir „Kitas“

Vytautas MArTiNKuSAksiologinis aspektas XXI amžiaus Europos literatūroje: Tesėjo (iš Lietuvos?) beieškant ...........................................................................65Axiological Aspect in the European Literature of the 21st Century: In Pursuit of Theseus (from Lithuania?)

roumiana L. STANTCHeVALa notion de “Littérature européenne” et ses problèmes identitaires inhérents. Quelques échos des zones peu explorées ................................74„Europos literatūros“ sąvoka ir su ja susijusios tapatybės problemos. Keletas duomenų iš mažai tyrinėtų teritorijų

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Dearbhla McGrATHChanging Attitudes Towards Gender in Europe – a Comparative Analysis of Fairy Tales Written by Women ..............................................90Keičiant požiūrį į lytį Europoje (moterų parašytų pasakų lyginamoji analizė)

Aleš VAuPOTiČThe Cultural Archive and the New Media Literature .............................102Kultūrinis archyvas ir naujųjų medijų literatūra

II. RHETORIC OF IDENTITY / TAPATYBĖS RETORIKA

Farouk Y. SeiFThe Dynamics of Cultural Identity: Persevering the Paradox of Self and Others ...................................................................................112Kultūrinės tapatybės dinamika: Savęs ir Kitų paradoksas kaip galimybė

raïa ZAÏMOVARattraper l’Europe dans la recherche de soi-même? ...............................125Pavyti Europą ieškant savęs?

Anneli MiHKeLeVMyths in National Epics, Myths in Society: Some Chronotopes in European Epics ...................................................................................136Mitai tautiniuose epuose ir visuomenėje: keletas europinės epikos chronotopų

Benedikts KALNAČSNational History, Folklore and the Bible as Sources of the Baltic Modernist Drama ....................................................................................144Tautinė istorija, folkloras ir Biblija kaip moderniosios Baltijos šalių dramos šaltiniai

Viktorija DAuJOTYTėLietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradicija: Strazdas, Baranauskas, Geda (archetipai ir universalijos) ............................................................151The Tradition of Lithuanian Poetical Landscape: Strazdas, Baranauskas, Geda (Archetypes and Universalities)

Nijolė VAiČiuLėNAiTė-KAŠeLiONieNėLa perspective des recherches imagologiques. Image de Paris dans la littérature lituanienne ..............................................................................169Imagologijos tyrimų perspektyva. Paryžiaus įvaizdis lietuvių literatūroje

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Christina PArNeLL“The world repeats itself in its boredom”. Third Spaces in Lithuanian Literature ..........................................................................180„Pasaulis nuobodžiai pasikartoja“. Trečiosios erdvės lietuvių literatūroje

Brigitte Le JueZDe Banville à Banville: le développement littéraire de la représentation picturale du mythe de Cythère ...............................192Nuo Banville‘io prie Banville‘io: mito apie Kiterą tapybinės reprezentacijos literatūros raidoje

Laura Fernanda BuLGerOut of the Remains of an Old World – The British at War in Novels by Woolf, Ishiguro and McEwan ............................................................209Iš senojo pasaulio likučių – britai kare Woolf, Ishiguro ir McEwano romanuose

Nicoleta CĂLiNAA Journey in Search of the Human Self: Alessandro Baricco – “Novecento” ............................................................................................223Kelionė ieškant savo žmogiškosios savasties: Alessandro Baricco „Novečente“

Beata WALiGOrSKA-OLeJNiCZAKThe Category of Montage as the Tool to Understand the Grammar of the City in Postmodern Cinema. Representation of the Changing World in “Pulp Fiction” ..........................................................................229Montažo kategorija kaip įrankis suprasti miesto gramatiką postmoderniame kine. Kintančio pasaulio reprezentacija „Bulvariniame skaitale“

Sandra VLASTAThe Creation of “Global Ethnoscapes” in the Literature of Migration ...239„Globalių etnovaizdžių“ kūrimas migrantų literatūroje

ekkehard Wolfgang BOrNTrÄGerVers un radieux avenir English speaking? Quelques réflexions sur l’impact et les enjeux linguistiques de la mondialisation en Irlande et en Inde .................................................................................................250Į šviesią ateitį su anglų kalba? Keletas pamąstymų apie kalbines globalizacijos pasekmes Airijoje ir Indijoje

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David ADAMSModern Paranoia and Kafka’s “Der Bau” (“The Burrow”) ....................265Modernioji paranoja ir Kafkos “Der Bau” („Urvas“)

III. CENTRE / PERIPHERY AS A CHALLENGe / CENTRO / PERIFERIJOS IŠŠŪKIAI

Marko JuVANWorld Literature(s) and Peripheries ........................................................272Pasaulio literatūra(-os) ir pakraščiai

Sonja STOJMeNSKA-eLZeSerThe Urban Landscape in Macedonian Literature in the Context of the Centre / Periphery Discussion ......................................................286Miesto peizažas Makedonijos literatūroje centro / periferijos diskusijos kontekste

Zanda GŪTMANeThe Borderline Situation and the Border Crossings in the Baltic Prose at the Turn of the 90’s .............................................................................294Pasienis ir sienos kirtimas Baltijos šalių prozoje įžengiant į paskutinį XX a. dešimtmetį

Nana GAPriNDASHViLi, Nino TSereTeLi Georgian-Lithuanian Literary Relationships (Historical and Philological Overview) ...........................................................................301Gruzijos-Lietuvos literatūriniai ryšiai (istorinė ir filologinė apžvalga)

Oksana WereTiuKBetween the Center and the Periphery: the Past and the Present of the Literature of the Polish-Ukrainian Borderland .............................310Tarp centro ir periferijos: Lenkijos-Ukrainos pasienio literatūros praeitis ir dabartis

Nina BOCHKAreVAVasilij Kamenskij and Aubrey Beardsley: Vulgar Russia versus Refined Britain ........................................................................................322Vasilijus Kamenskis ir Aubrey’is Beardsley’is: vulgarioji Rusija prieš rafinuotą Britaniją

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roland LYSeLL“Tysk host” (“German autumn”) – The Swedish Author Stig Dagerman’s Journalism on Germany immediately after World War II ..337“Tysk host” („Vokiškas ruduo“) – švedų rašytojo Stigo Dagermano reportažai apie Vokietiją po Antrojo pasaulinio karo

Aušra JurGuTieNėLooking for Regional Literary History ..................................................349Regioninės literatūros istorijos paieškos

Livija MAČAiTYTėXXI amžiaus pastoralė: „naujieji išvietintieji“ šiandienos prozoje ........362The XXIst Century Pastoral: “New Displaced Persons” in Contemporary Prose

IV. TrAVeL LITerATUre / KELIONIŲ LITERATŪRA

Maria Teresa NASCiMeNTOL‘Itinéraire de la Terre Sainte de Fr. Pantaleão de Aveiro – un voyage de spiritualité ...........................................................................................372Brolio Pantaleão de Aveiro piligrimystės į Šventąją Žemę užrašai kaip dvasinės kelionės vadovas

Francesco GiuSTiEncountering the Other in the Middle Ages: from Ibn Fadlan’s Account to Michael Crichton’s Fiction ...................................................381Susitikimas su Kitu Viduramžiais: nuo Ibn Fadlano kelionių aprašymų iki Michaelio Crichton‘o mokslinės fantastikos

Kai MiKKONeNThe Immediacy of Reading Novels. Travel Fact and Fiction in André Gide’s Central Africa ..............................................................................394Skaitymo betarpiškumas: Centrinė Afrika André Gide’o kūryboje – faktai ir grožinė literatūra

Maija BuriMATravel Narratives in Latvian Literature of the Early XXIst Century .......410Kelionės pasakojimai XXI amžiaus pradžios latvių literatūroje

Sigutė rADZeVČieNėTravels of Lithuanians from Scandinavia: Searching for The Other ......418Lietuvių kelionės iš Skandinavijos: Kito beieškant

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Anneli KÕVAMeeSBorder State Traveller in Europe ............................................................426Pasienio valstybės keliautojas Europoje

VIETOJ IŠVADŲ / BY WAY OF CONCLUSIOn

Nijolė VAiČiuLėNAiTė-KAŠeLiONieNėThe Achievements of this Congress will be Measured by Time… .........438

Contribution de Karl ZieGerRound Table Discussion / Table Ronde finale ........................................441

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ĮVADASForeworD

Kultūros žemėlapio pokyčiai – nauji klausimai komparatyvistikai

Akivaizdu, kad išsiplėtus Europos Sąjungai, kinta ir bendroji Europos kultūros, ir atskirų nacionalinių literatūrų tapatybių samprata, literatūroje intensyviau aptariami kintantys geografiniai centro ir periferijos santykiai, o gausioje kelionių literatūroje iš naujo apmąstomos „nepažįstamųjų“ iš Rytų Europos pakraščio sugrįžimo į bendruosius Europos namus proble-mos. Šie konkretūs susivienijusios Europos pokyčiai skatina plėtoti lygi-namuosius literatūros tyrinėjimus: tampa įdomu ir būtina nagrinėti vienos šalies kultūros įvaizdį kitos (ar kitų) kultūros kontekste, tirti tų įvaizdžių kaitą laike bei erdvėje. Tokiems tyrimams svarbios įvairios kultūrų dialo-gų formos, suaktyvintos išaugusios migracijos ir globalizacijos. Suinten-syvėję Savo ir Svetimo kultūroje susitikimai gilina ir keičia individo, lite-ratūros, kultūros tapatybės sampratą, neatsiejamą nuo kalbinės tapatybės problemos.

Tokioms temoms ir problemoms skirtas naujas Acta comparativa lei-dinio numeris. Jame iškeltus klausimus svarsto Lietuvos lyginamosios asociacijos nariai, pasikvietę kolegas iš Europos lyginamųjų literatūros studijų tinklo asociacijos (REELC-ENCLS), žinomi komparatyvistikos profesoriai ir jauni mokslininkai, siekiama suaktyvinti skirtingų kartų ir kultūrų dialogą.

Pirmoji leidinio dalis europos kultūrinio žemėlapio pokyčiai skir-ta bendrosioms Europos kultūros kaitos problemoms. Norint suprasti, ką reiškia Kitas šiandienos kultūroje, dera kreiptis į istoriją. Prancūzų kom-paratyvistas profesorius Alainas Montandonas primena XIX amžiaus tech-ninio progreso atneštas naujoves. Anot jo, XIX a. naują erdvės percepcijos posūkį nulėmė ne tik miestuose įvestas elektrinis apšvietimas, pavertęs natūralų nakties peizažą dekoracija, bet ir tuo metu prasidėjusios kelionės geležinkeliu, nes greitis keitė peizažą, paversdamas jį labiau vienodu bei banaliu, kai lekiama pro šalį nieko neįsidėmint. XIX a. viduryje Théophi-le Gautier teigė, jog tada, kai Europoje bus sukurtas geležinkelių tinklas ir galėsime nuvykti visur, kur norėsime, nebebus į ką žiūrėti, nes nusitrins ir dings visos kultūrų skirtybės, keistumas, originalumas, skatinantys žmogų keliauti. Jis apgailestavo, kad Europa jau ima rengtis ir gyventi vienodai,

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ĮVADASĮVADAS

o tai reiškia, kad greitai visi ims jaustis tarsi gyvenantys vienoje šalyje. europeizacijos terminas atsirado jau 1806 metais de Ligne raštuose, o po-etas romantikas Gautier numatė kultūros MacDonaldizaciją, kuri reiškia, kad technikos progresas pakeis žmogaus ir erdvės santykius, panaikins papročių ir kultūros tradicijų įvairovę. Montandono nuomone, šiandien, praslinkus dviems amžiams, ši techninio progreso sukelta kultūrų nivelia-cijos grėsmė, nurodyta XIX a. prancūzų ir kitų Europos rašytojų kūryboje, tampa dar aktualesnė.

Genovaitės Dručkutės (Vilniaus universitetas) straipsnyje analizuoja-ma lietuvių kilmės prancūzų simbolisto Oscaro Miloszo politinė ir kul-tūrinė Europos vizija, kuria jis siekė nurodyti Lietuvos vietą ir vaidmenį Europoje po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo. Jo Europos projekte Lietuvai, dar nesugadintai civilizacijos bei techninio progreso ir išsaugojusiai Vaka-ruose jau prarastas amžinąsias dvasines vertybes, buvo skirtas ypatingai svarbus vaidmuo. Straipsnyje daroma išvada, kad Miloszo publicistiko-je ir eseistikoje išplėtotas naujosios pokarinės Europos projektas liko tik įspūdinga vizija, kuri nebuvo suprasta ir neturėjo jokių realių pasekmių.

Profesorius iš Vokietijos Manfredas Schmelingas, pristatydamas Euro-pos sampratą trijų rašytojų Thomas’o Manno, André Gide’o ir Hanso-Magnus Enzensbergerio knygose, nurodo, kad visi jie priešinosi Europos literatūrų suvienodėjimo tendencijoms. Nors visi trys kultūros progresą suvokė kaip dialektinį vyksmą, kurį skatina individualumo, tautiškumo ir tarptautiškumo jungtis, Mannas ir Gide’as reiškė idealistinę humanis-tinę Europos viziją ir gynė vieningos Europos idėją, o Enzenbergeris siū-lo didesnį dėmesį atkreipti į globalizacijos keliamus pavojus, jausdamas nostalgiją prarastajai senajai Europai, pasižymėjusiai tradicijų ir kultūrų įvairove.

Jüri Talvetas (Tartu universitetas) taip pat svarsto Europos humaniz-mo problemą, aptardamas jo istorinę raidą, tikslindamas jo koncepciją. Visiems yra gerai žinoma, kad humanizmas prasidėjo XIV a. Italijoje, iškėlus žmogaus proto, mokslo ir pažangos idėjas, o Apšvietos amžiu-je ir XIX a. amžiaus idealistinėse vokiečių filosofijose buvo susietas su „transcendentaliniu Aš“, kaip pagrindiniu pažinimo šaltiniu. Bet turėtu-me atkreipti dėmesį, kad Europos humanistinėje kultūroje, be protingojo subjekto galios ir tapatumo problemos, buvo formuojama ir jam priešin-go – silpnojo ir svetimo Kito – suvokimo problema (Erasmuso, Thomas More’o, Rabelais’o, Montaigne’o, Cervantes’o, Shakespeare’o, Quevedo, Lope de Vegos, Tirso de Molinos, Calderóno, Herderio, Schlegelio, Nova-

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FOREWORD

lio, Goethe’s knygose). Humanistinėje kūryboje įsitvirtinusio pokalbio su Kitu reikšmė yra naujai permąstyta Jurijaus Lotmano semiosferos teorijo-je.

Vytautas Martinkus (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas) svarsto klasi-kinės aksiologijos šiuolaikinėje Europos literatūroje transformacijos pro-blemas. Autorius kelia klausimus, kaip suderinti nuomonių toleranciją, pliuralizmą ir reliatyvizmą su nenykstančiu poreikiu vertinti literatūrinę kūrybą neprarandant vertybinės orientacijos. Jis tai vaizdingai palygina su poreikiu išeiti iš postmodernizmo sukurto aksiologinio labirinto. Rem-damasis prancūzų, rusų ir lietuvių romanų pavyzdžiais, išsilaisvinimą iš labirinto Martinkus sieja su žmogaus gebėjimu susikurti individualią ver-tybių sistemą ir ją išreikšti per praktinę ir kūrybinę veiklą.

Sofijos universiteto profesorė Roumiana L. Stantcheva kelia aktualų klausimą apie periferinių Europos literatūrų galimybes aktyviau dalyvauti bendrame kultūros procese. Ji teigia, kad nors šiuo metu išleista daug gerų lyginamosios literatūros veikalų, juose pateiktoje faktografijoje esančios didžiulės spragos paverčia niekais gerus autorių norus. Ypač nedaug in-formacijos pateikiama apie Centrinės ir Pietryčių Europos, Skandinavijos ir Baltijos kraštų literatūras. Pavyzdžiui, paskutinis Lietuvą Béatrice Di-dié veikale pristatantis faktas – Juozo Baltušio romanas Sakmė apie Juzą (1979). Apskritai bulgarų, rumunų, lietuvių ir dar daugelio kitų kraštų literatūros – tai baltos dėmės Europos literatūros žemėlapyje, nearti dir-vonai lyginamosios literatūros laukuose. Todėl Stantcheva siūlo naujus tyrimų kelius ir savo mintis iliustruoja konkrečia kūrinių analize: lygina folklorą imituojančius bulgaro Konstantino Pavlovo, rumuno Marino So-rescu, prancūzo Jacques Prévert‘o ir lietuvio Marcelijaus Martinaičio eilė-raščius, išryškindama juose žaidimą su tekstu, slepiantį socialinį protestą. Tokia analizė leidžia autorei padaryti išvadą apie totalitarinių visuomenių poezijoje išplitusį travesti žanrą.

Dearbhla McGrath (Dublino universitetas) domisi daugelį amžių mote-rų kuriamu ir puoselėjamu pasakų žanru, kaip parankia ardomąja priemo-ne, leidžiančia iškelti uždraustus visuomeninius klausimus, iš kurių vieni svarbiausių yra lyties ir seksualumo. Pasak autorės, Europos rašytojos šį literatūros žanrą puikiai išnaudojo, kad parodytų, kokie lyčių santykiai su-siklostę mūsų visuomenėje ir kaip jie keitėsi, ypač kai tradicinės pasakos imtos moderniai perpasakoti. Straipsnyje tiriami anglės Angelos Carter, prancūzės Marie Darrieussecq ir airės Emmos Donoghue modernūs pasa-kų perpasakojimai. Atliekant šių rašytojų kūrybos socialinę ir lyginamąją

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ĮVADASĮVADAS

analizę, siekiama prisibrauti prie pasakų giliojo turinio sluoksnio ir išsi-aiškinti, kaip Europoje keitėsi požiūris į lyčių santykius.

Pirmasis skyrius yra baigiamas Alešo Vaupotičio (Liublijanos dizaino akademija) straipsniu, kuris skirtas naujiems kultūros archyvams ir naujų-jų medijų technologijoms bei literatūrai aptarti.

Didžiausią leidinio skyrių Tapatybės retorika sudaro straipsniai skir-ti tautinės ir kultūrinės tapatybės problemai. Farouko Y Seifo ir Raios Zaimovos straipsniuose analizuojama tautinio tapatumo dinamika, neats-kiriama nuo intensyvaus tarpkultūrinio bendravimo. Faroukas Y. Seif’asFaroukas Y. Seif’as (Sietlo Antioch Universitetas, JAV) tautinio tapatumo kaitos problemą siūlo susieti ne su įprasta Savo ir Svetimo priešprieša, o labiau įsigilinti į paradoksalų savęs pažinimą per kitą ir su kitu. Toks tautinio tapatu-mo suvokimas, kai sava ir svetima jau netraktuojamos kaip absoliučios skirtybės, padeda išvengti ydų ir problemų, kurias sukelia etnocentriz-mas ir tautinio išskirtinumo ideologija. Paradoksinio tautinio tapatumo pripažinimas padeda suvokti, kad žmogui yra lemta gyventi nuolatiniuose skirtingų kultūrų prieštaravimuose, kurie skatina jo kūrybiškumo galią. Svarbiausia straipsnio išvada yra ta, kad tautinio savitumo išsaugojimas yra neįsivaizduojamas be jo nuolatinio konstravimo ir atnaujinimo. Panašias mintis tęsia Raïa Zaïmova (Balkanų studijų institutas, Bulgarija) pastebėdama, jog XIX amžiuje tautinė tapatybė Bulgarijoje ir Rumunijoje formavosi Vakarų Europos pavyzdžiu. Tautinę savivoką Pietryčių Bal-kanuose žadino tai, kad žymusis prancūzų poetas Pierre‘as de Ronsard‘as yra kilęs iš jų krašto; o ginčas dėl jo tautinės tapatybės privertė iš naujo permąstyti vengrų, čekų, rumunų ir bulgarų tautinio tapatumo problemas. Autorės teigimu, Kito kaip Svetimo įvaizdis pagrįstas veidrodiniu prin-cipu, todėl paribio literatūrų tautiškumo savivoka turi grįžtamąjį poveikį ir Vakarų „didžiosioms“ kultūroms.

Anneli Mihkelev (Estijos mokslų akademija) ir Benedikts Kalnačs’o (Latvijos universitetas) straipsniuose ieškoma genetinių kultūros tapatu-mo šaknų ir šaltinių. Mikhelev, remdamasi Bachtinu, tiria mitinio chro-notopo, kaip tautinio tapatumo išraiškos, savybes, lygindama tris epus (anglosaksų Beovulfas (Boewulf), estų Kalevo sūnus (Kalevipoeg) ir latvių Lačplėsis (Lāčplēsis). Kalnačs’as lyginimo analizei pasirinkęs dvi XX a. pr. dramas (latvių rašytojo Rainio Juozapas ir jo broliai ir estų rašytojo A. H. Tammsaarės Judita) aiškinasi, kaip juose panaudoti Biblijos, fol-kloro ir tautos išsivadavimo iš carinės Rusijos okupacijos istoriniai mo-tyvai padeda sukurti personažų individualybes, kurioms būdingas vidinis

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FOREWORD

konfliktiškumas, atsirandantis aktualizuojant tradicines vertybes ir elgesio normas.

Kiti trys skyriaus straipsniai yra skirti lietuvių literatūrai ir jos tautinio tapatumo problemoms. Viktorija Daujotytė (Vilniaus universitetas) strai-psnyje apmąsto lietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradiciją, siūlydama pažvelgti į ją iš modernaus poeto Sigito Gedos (1943 – 2008) taško. Taip žvelgiant, atraminiais tautinio gamtovaizdžio tradicijos vardais tampa XIX a. poetai Antanas Strazdas ir Antanas Baranauskas. Teigiama, kad Strazdo gamtovaizdžio dominantė yra laukas, o Baranausko – miškas. Tačiau paties Sigito Gedos gamtos poezijoje išskirtinę vietą užima van-duo, save poetas net buvo pavadinęs vandenžmogiu. Lietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradicijoje veikia skirtingi archetipų ir universalijų deriniai, priklausomi nuo rašytojo pasaulėjautos ir jo poetinės kalbos principų.

Nijolė Kašelionienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas) tautino ta-patumo problemą susieja ne tik su dviejų, lietuvių ir prancūzų, kultūrų istorinių ryšių problema, bet ir su imagologijos bei postkolonializmo tyrimų metodologinėmis nuostatomis. Autorė aptaria Paryžiaus įvaizdį lietuvių literatūroje, atskleisdama jo ypatumus ir skirtumus įvairiuose pa-sirinktuose kūriniuose.

Christina Parnell (Erfurto universitetas, Vokietija) straipsnyje pratęsia tautinio tapatumo temą lietuvių literatūroje, savo tyrimo objektu pasirink-dama rašytojo Mariaus Ivaškevičiaus romaną Žali (2002), kurio pasiro-dymas sukėlė didžiausius politikų, literatūros kritikų ir šiaip skaitytojų ginčus. Rašytojas pasirinko politiškai labai aktualią temą – pokario (1944-1953) lietuvių partizanų („žaliųjų“) pasipriešinimą rusų okupacinei kariu-omenei („raudoniesiems“). Bet savo romane jis atsisako iki tol buvusio is-torijos dualistinio savi/priešai interpretavimo, sukurdamas „trečiąją erdvę“ (Homi K. Bhabha terminas), kurioje vieni su kitais kariaujantys lietuviai, ir rusai suvokiami kaip totalitarizmo aukos.

Laura Fernanda Bulger (De Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro universite-tas, Portugalija) straipsnyje analizuojama anglų identiteto problema, pa-sitelkus tris romanus Virginijos Woolf Tarp veiksmų (Between the Acts (1941)), Iano McEwan’o Atpirkimas (Atonement (2001)) ir Kazuo Ishi-guro Dienos likučiai (The remains of the Day (1988)). Autorė parodo, kaip šiuose romanuose vaizduojamas Antrasis pasaulinis karas sugriauna mitą, kad didžiosios anglų imperijos tautinė tapatybė sustiprėja istoriškai kritiškais valstybei momentais, o kolektyvinė pariotiškumo galia prabun-da ir save išreiškia pajutusi išorinio priešo pavojų. Straipsnyje problema

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svarstoma ir plačiau, keliant klausimą, ar „angliškumo“, kaip globalizaci-jos reiškinio palydovo, plitimas, nėra tik dar viena išpuoselėto anglų gero tono kaukių, slepianti nesustabdomus tautinio tapatumo dezintegracijos procesus.

Brigitte Le Juez (Dublino universitetas) aptaria Kiteros mito, pasakojančio apie graikų meilės deivės Afroditės gimimą Kiteros saloje, interpretacijas literatūroje ir mene, ypatingai išskirdama parnasiečio poeto Théodoro de Banvillio kūrybą, kurioje Kitera buvo pavaizduota kaip Vakarų sumaterialėjusios vsuomenės prarastasis rojus.

Nicoleta Călina (Rumunijos universitetas) nagrinėja Alessandro Baric-co romaną Novečentas (Novecento), jo teatrinius pastatymus, pristatyda-ma protagonistą kaip nuolat keliaujantį tarp Europos ir Amerikos muziką, mįslingą, tautybės neturintį, bet nuolat savęs ieškantį individą. Beata Wa-ligorska-Olejniczak (Adomo Mickevičiaus universitetas, Poznanė) anali-zuoja QuentinoTarantino filme Bulvarinis skaitalas panaudotą montažinę techniką, kuri leidžia parodyti, kaip įvairių miestų ervės kartoja viena kitą, kurdamos popkultūrinių vertybių mišinį ir suteikdamos jų gyventojui iliuzinę kultūros tapatybę.

Sandra Vlasta (Vienos universitetas) migrantų literatūros ir žiniasklai-dos skaitymui pritaiko antropologo Arjuno Appadurai „globalios etno-erdvės“ sąvoką. „Globali“ erdvė nuo įprastos etnocentrinės skiriasi tuo, kad nėra tvirčiau susieta su rašytojo kilmės vieta, o susidaro iš įvairiausių vietų, panašiai kaip laikraščio informaciniai tekstai, ir turi tendenciją kar-tu su migracija plėstis. Ji taikoma tiems autoriams, kurie liaujasi rašę gim-tąja kalba ir yra pirmos, antros arba trečios kartos emigrantai. „Globali etnoerdvė“, kaip naujo identiteto išraiška, yra tiriama Julijos Rabinowich romane Suskilęs protas (Spaltkopf (2008)), Seher Çakır apsakymų rinki-nyje Citrinų tortas penkiasdešimt šeštai moteriai (Zitronenkuchen für die sechsundfünfzigste frau (2009)), Monicos Ali romane Plytų gatvė (Brick Lane (2003)).

Komparatyvistika mums gali ir turi padėti įsisąmoninti tai, kad Euro-pos tautinė ir kalbinė įvairovė yra didžiausia jos vertybė. Globalizacijos akivaizdoje turėtume būti dar labiau suinteresuoti kiekvienos tapatybės ir kiekvienos kalbos išsaugojimu. Būtent tokias mintis kelia Fribūro uni-versiteto profesorius Ekkehardas Wolfgangas Bornträgeris. Konkrečiai aptardamas anglų kalbos ekspansijos šiuolaikiniame pasaulyje problemą. Pasitelkęs Airijos bei Indijos kultūros pavyzdžius, Bornträgeris pastebi, kad priešingai bendroms prognozėms pastaraisiais metais jose labai iš-

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FOREWORD

augo vietinių kalbų prestižas. Autorius abejoja, ar minimos šalys daug laimėjo iš vadinamosios anglofonijos – juk šis importas nustelbė vietinius autorius ir išugdė savotišką nepilnavertiškumo kompleksą, kurio eman-cipuota visuomenė dabar stengiasi nusikratyti. Lietuvą ir kitas Baltijos valstybes profesorius mini kaip lenkiančias Airiją nacionalinių knygų lei-dyba ir suteikiančias galimybę saviems, kad ir vidutinio lygio rašytojams, sėkmingai dalyvauti rinkos procesuose. Bornträgeris perspėja, kad jo ne-laikytume anglų kalbos priešu, jis tik stengiasi aiškintis naujas lingvisti-nes tendencijas, kurioms įtakos turi modernėjantis socialinis-ekonominis gyvenimas.

Trečiasis leidinio skyrius Centro ir periferijos iššūkiai yra skirtas nau-jam Vakarų ir Rytų ar Pakraščių Europos santykių permąstymui. Jį prade-da Marko Juvano (Slovėnijos mokslų ir menų akademija) konceptualiai svarstomi pokyčiai, kuriuos išgyvena lyginamieji literatūros tyrimai, kai iš Goethes apibrėžtos pasaulio literatūros sampratos, kurioje kosmopoli-tiškumas buvo derinamas su tautiškumu , pereiname į globalaus pasaulio erdvę, kur dominuoja intertekstualumas ir tarptautinė skaitytojų auditorija, o lyginamosiose studijose silpnėja tautinis aspektas. Juvanas klausia, kaip šiuo metu yra „globalizuojama“ XIX a. iškelta kultūrų tautinio savitumo idėja ir kaip visa tai veikia bei keičia šiuolaikinę komparatyvistiką?

Oksanos Weretiuk, Sonjos Stojmenska-Elzeser ir Zandos Gūtmanės straipsniuose kalbama apie paribių literatūras ir jose išnykstančią centro/periferijos opoziciją. Weretiuk (Žešuvo universitetas, Lenkija) analizuo-ja Galicijos literatūrą kaip dviejų Ukrainos ir Lenkijos literatūrų paribį. Galicijos istorinis regionas skirtingais laikotarpiais visas ar iš dalies pri-klausė Kijevo Rusiai, Lietuvos Didžiajai Kunigaikštystei, Lenkijai, Aus-trijai-Vengrijai, Ukrainos TSR, o dabar yra padalintas tarp Ukrainos ir Lenkijos. Lyginamoji šio regiono lenkų ir ukrainiečių literatūrų analizė parodo, kaip skirtingai atskiros grupės yra suvokia bendruosius regio-no politinius ir kultūrinius reiškinius, kaip tai yra susiję su skirtingomis kalbomis, religijomis, tautinėmis tradicijomis ir kultūriniu kanonou. Šio regiono skirtingas literatūras galima traktuoti kaip to paties regiono skir-tingus pakraščius, puoselėjančius savas vertybes ir savus kultūrinius cen-trus (Lvovas ir Krokuva). Tačiau nepaisant didelių kultūrinių priešpriešų, esama ir kultūrinių mainų bei bendravimo momentų, kurie taip pat nusako šio paribio kultūros savitumą. Elzeser (Makedonijos literatūros institutas) tyrimo objektu pasirinko šiuolaikinio Makedonijos rašytojo Kica B. Kolbe romaną Sniegas Kasablankoje, kuriame kalbama apie Skopję, pateikiamas

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naujas demitologizuotas požiūris į šio miesto praeitį ir šiuolaikines jo er-dves. Svarstoma, ar Makedonijos rašytojų vaizduojamas Skopjės miestas laikytinas vienu Europos kultūros centru, ar jo periferiniu variantu. Gū-tmanė (Liepojos universitetas, Latvija) tiria ne geografinį, o istorinį kul-tūrų paribį, kada Baltijos šalys ėmė vaduotis iš sovietinio politinio režimo ir tapo naujomis posovietinėmis demokratinėmis visuomenėmis. Kaip šis istorinis virsmas buvo suvoktas ir išsakytas tuo metu rašytuose lietuvių rašytojo Ričardo Gavelio romane Vilniaus pokeris (1989), latvių rašytojo Aivaro Tarvido Sienos pažeidėjas (robežpārkāpējs (1990)) ir estų rašy-tojo Tõnu Õnnepalu (slapyvardis Emil Tode) Pasienio valstybė (Piiririik (1993))? Tai klausimas, į kurį straipsnyje yra ieškoma atsakymo. Nors visų trijų romanų protagonistai yra panašūs į Bildungsromanų maištaujan-tį prieš savo aplinką herojų, tačiau tyrėja renkasi postkolonijinį interpreta-vimo aspektą, nes jis geriausiai leidžia parodyti, kaip buvo kolonizuotas žmonių protas ir sugriauta okupuotų šalių kultūra. Visų trijų romanų pro-tagonistai siekia išeiti iš fizinių ir psichinių kolonizuoto žmogaus ribų, bet jiems tai nepavyksta. Todėl jie apibūdinami kaip paribio situacijos figūros. Romanų analizė parodo, kad lengviau yra paskelbti tautos politinę nepri-klausomybę nei išlaisvinti pavergtą žmogaus mąstymą.

Tbilisio universiteto dėstytojos Nana Gaprindashvili ir Nino Tsereteli pateikia istorinę gruzinų ir lietuvių literatūrinių ryšių analizę, pabrėžda-mos, kad, nepaisant cenzūros suvaržymų, jie buvo intensyviausi sovie-tmečio periodu.

Ninos Bochkarevos (Valstybinis Permės universitetas, Rusija) straips-nyje Vasilijus Kamenskis ir Aubrey’is Beardsley’is: vulgarioji rusija ver-sus rafinuota Britanija, atliekama dviejų menininkų kūrybos lyginamoji analizė, ieškant jų panašumų ir skirtumų. Kamenskio ir Beardsley‘io kū-rybą vienija vadinamoji žodžių muzikos vizualioji grafika, atsirandanti iš jų knygų iliustracijų, grafikos ir literatūros sukurto vientisumo. Taip pat juos sieja panaši gyvenimo teatralizavimo idėja ir naujos kūrybos akty-vus propagavimas. O jų didžiausi skirtumai išaiškėja suvokiant meninin-ką Beardsley‘io romano Kalvos papėdėje (under the Hill) protagonisto minezingeriu Tannhäuserio išrankaus skonio kūryba atstovauja Wagnerio ir Nietzshes dionisinei tradicijai, o Kamenskio romano Stenka razinas protagonistas kovingasis dainininkas Stenka Razinas yra išaugęs iš rusų folklorinės tradicijos ir iš futurizmo estetikos.

Rolandas Lysellis (Stokholmo universitetas), remdamasis švedų ra-šytojo Stigo Dagermano straipsnių rinkiniu Vokiškas ruduo (Tysk höst,

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(1947)), aptaria penktojo dešimtmečio švedų kartos, kuri vadinama mo-derniosios literatūros viršūne (Fyrtitalisterna), santykį su karą pralai-mėjusia Vokietija. Savo knygoje Dagermanas sukritikavo visas dabartinės Vokietijos politines partijas, išskyrus kelias nedideles karo metu veikusias antifašistines grupeles, ir dar kartą patvirtino nuomonę, kad anarchistinis sindikalizmas skeptiškai vertino valstybiškumą. Jis išreiškė penktajam de-šimtmečiui būdingą metafizinį skepticizmą, kai nepajėgiantis suvokti savo tikrovės žmogus, paniekintos aukos kerštą ir nuolatinius kentėjimus Dager-mano priklausomybę savajai kartai paliudija rašymo stiliaus ypatumai – pa-radoksalumai, meistriškos metaforos bei intertekstualinės nuorodos.

Aušros Jurgutienės (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas) straipsnyje keliama mintis, kad pastaruoju laiku augant globalizacijai, plečiantis Eu-ropos sąjungai ir stiprėjant nacionalinių literatūrų metanaratyvų kritikai, vis aktualesne tampa regioninė literatūros istorijų modeliavimo bei tyri-mo tendencija. Įvairiai profiliuojamos regioninės atminties žadinimas gali būti motyvuotas tik šiandieninės literatūros interpretatorių savimonės ypa-tumais. Šalia tradicinio tautinės kultūros tapatumo, daugeliui vis labiau tampa patrauklesnė jį savaip papildanti, performuojanti ir komplikuojanti regioninės kultūros tyrimo perspektyva, kuri autorės iliustruojama naujau-siais pavyzdžiais.

Paskutinysis, ketvirtasis leidinio skyrius yra skirtas kelionių literatū-ros interpretacijoms. Pirmieji jo straipsniai primena seniausius kelionių aprašymus ir aiškina jų santykį su šiuolaikine literatūra. Maria Teresa Nascimento (Da Madeira universitetas, Portugalija) atidžiai analizuoja pranciškono Pantaleão de Aveiro piligriminės kelionės į Šventąją žemę užrašus. O Francesco Giusti (SUM - La Sapienza Romos universitetas) tiria, kaip Michaelio Crichtono romane Negyvėlių ėdikai (eaters of the Dead (1997)) buvo perrašyta poema Beovulfas (Beowulf), ją papildant Ibn Fadlan’o kelionės po Bulgariją užrašais ir naujai perinterpretuojant tradicinius personažus bei motyvus. Kai Mikkonen (Helsinkio universi-tetas) analizuoja André Gide’o kelionių knygas Voyage au Congo ir Le retour du Tchad kvestionuodamas tyrėjų nuomonę, kad tai buvo rašytojo „bėgimas“ nuo romano žanro. Straipsnyje lyginant kelionių literatūros ir romanų žanrus prieinama prie nuomonės, kad Gide’o kelionių knygose labai daug yra grožinės literatūros ir romano požymių ir kad unikali fakto ir fikcijos jungtis būtent ir sudaro jų savitumą.

Paskutiniai trys šio skyriaus straipsniai aptaria Baltijos šalių keliautojo tipažą ir jo kelionių patirtį. Sigutė Radzevičienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis

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universitetas) tiria, kaip lietuvių rašytojus, išvykusius gyventi į Skandina-viją, paveikė šio krašto kultūra ir kaip keitėsi jų tautinė tapatybė. Anneli Kõvamees (Talino universitetas) pristato XX a. estų kelionių į Italiją tyri-mą. Teoriniu pagrindu pasirinkdama imagologiją, ji aiškinasi, kaip kelio-nių literatūroje buvo sukurtas italų tautos įvaizdis ir kas nulėmė skirtingus jo variantus. Lygindama ikitarybinę ir tarybinę estų kelionių literatūrą, autorė parodo, kaip ji buvo paveikta skirtingos ideologijos: pirmieji estų keliautojai Italiją vertino kaip Vakarų katalikiškos kultūros centrą, sukau-pusį svarbiausius kultūrinio paveldo lobius, o tarybinis keliautojas, nusi-teikęs kritiškai buržuazinės kultūros atžvilgiu ir ją matantis iš Maskvos suponuoto galios centro, Italijos kultūrą vertino kaip periferinę ir menka-vertę kapitalizmo išraišką. Maija Burima, apibrėždama kelionių literatūros žanrą, akcentuoja tai, kad joje, be įvairiausių aplankytų geografinių vietų ir įvairiausių sutiktų žmonių aprašymų, kuriamas mentalinis žemėlapis . Šiuo aspektu ji ir pristato naujausias latvių kelionių knygas.

Leidinio straipsniai, tęsiantys komparatyvistinio tyrimo tradiciją, įvai-riais teminiais pjūviais interpretuoja labai įvairią Europos literatūrą nuo Pantaleão de Aveiro piligriminių kelionių iki naujausių migrantų Julijos Rabinowich ar Seher Çakır knygų, kuriose atrandama naujos „globalios etnoerdvės“ požymių. Leidinyje išryškintas ir aptartas Europos literatūros polifoniškumas yra vienas iš svarbiausių jo privalumų. Be to, daugelyje probleminių straipsnių kritiškai svarstoma ir klausiama, kaip globalizaci-jos sąlygomis keičiasi literatūroje tautinio ir kultūrinio tapatumo samprata ir kaip tai veikia lyginamosios literatūros studijų objektą, kurį Goethe apibrėžė kaip Weltliteratur (derinančią tautiškumo įvairovę su tarptautiš-kumo vienybe). Straipsniuose užgriebta labai svarbių problemų, rodančių tyrėjų pastangas ne tik įvairiomis metodologinėmis priemonėmis atidžiai įsižiūrėti į šiuolaikinę literatūrinės kultūros kaitą, bet ir bandyti brėžti jos lyginamųjų tyrimų ateities projekcijas.

Aušra Jurgutienė

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I. THe CHANGING CULTUrAL MAP oF eUroPe eUroPoS KULTŪrINIo ŽeMĖLAPIo PoKYČIAI

Progrès techniques et métamorphoses des espaces européens au XIXe siècle

Techninis progresas ir Europos erdvių metamorfozės XIX amžiuje

Alain MONTANDONCeLiS, MSH Clermont-Ferrand, [email protected]

résuméL’article s’attache à deux aspects particuliers concernant les métamorphoses

de l’espace en Europe au cours du XIXe siècle: celui de l’espace urbain nocturne sous l’empire des nouvelles techniques d’éclairage, ensuite la conscience de la globalisation des espaces culturels qui est en train de naître à l’exemple de Théo-phile Gautier qui en attrribue la cause au développement des moyens de commu-nication.

Mots-clefs: l’espace, europe, XiXe siècle, métamorphoses, ville, technologies, globalisation.

Je voudrais m’attacher à deux aspects particuliers concernant les mé-tamorphoses de l’espace en Europe au cours du XIXe siècle. Tout d’abord à ce qu’on pourrait appeler l’espace nocturne, car nous assistons à une transformation radicale de l’espace urbain des grandes villes sous l’em-pire des nouvelles techniques d’éclairage, ensuite en prenant un écrivain qui me semble particulièrement perspicace en la matière, montrer com-ment une conscience de la globalisation des espaces culturels est en train de naître. Sans doute l’Europe connaît-elle depuis longtemps des régions et des continents autres. Voltaire vantait le commerce développé entre les nations (ce que Rousseau critiquait avec vigueur, considérant qu’il n’était pas besoin d’aller chercher aux antipodes des denrées exotiques inutiles auxquelles on devait préférer les produits locaux, une critique que notre

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I. THE CHANGING CULTURAL MAP OF EUROPE

ministre de l’écologie reprend sous une autre forme en critiquant la mode des cerises en hiver et autres fruits ou légumes mangés hors saison car ve-nus de lointains pays). Mais la conscience de ce commerce se fondait pour Voltaire sur la différence des pays et des cultures, sur une diversité fon-damentale que l’exotisme comme tel cultivera encore au XIXe siècle et dans la première moitié du XXe. Cependant Théophile Gautier, qui nous servira d’exemple, avait dès le milieu du XIXe siècle une nette conscience des transformations amenées par les progrès techniques au point que l’on peut parler chez lui d’une lucide pensée concernant ce qu’on peut appeler anachroniquement, mais justement, la globalisation qui est pour lui syno-nyme du nivellement des cultures, de l’uniformisation des mœurs et de la pensée. La notion de progrès est d’ailleurs critiquée par Gautier à de fort nombreuses reprises:

Tout ce qui était véritablement utile à l’homme a été inventé dès le commen-cement du monde. Ceux qui sont venus après se sont renversé l’imagination pour trouver quelque chose de nouveau : on a fait autrement, mais on n’a pas mieux fait. Changer n’est pas progresser, il s’en faut de beaucoup ; il n’est pas encore prouvé que les bateaux à vapeur l’emportent sur les vaisseaux à voile, et les chemins de fer, avec leur machine locomotive, sur les routes ordinaires et les voitures traînées par des chevaux; et je crois qu’au bout du compte, on finira par en revenir aux anciennes méthodes, qui sont toujours les meilleu-res.1

Cette vision conservatrice, nous allons le voir, est la conséquence de la menace que fait peser paradoxalement sur la culture le développement des communications. Il n’est nul besoin de rappeler le développement des réseaux qui tissent des toiles d’araignées non seulement en Europe, mais également avec le reste du monde. La télégraphie électrique se développa énormément dans toute l’Europe dès le milieu du siècle qui vit également la pose de cables sous-marins entre la France et l’Angleterre en 1851 et entre l’Europe et l’Amérique en 1866.

Je voudrais évoquer tout d’abord ce que les progrès considérables dans les techniques d’éclairage apportent à la perception de l’espace, suivant en cela la perspective d’une sociologie qui s’attache aux circonstances maté-rielles de la création littéraire, ce que Claude Pichois avait bien entrevu dans son ancien ouvrage Vitesse et vision du monde2.

De même que la vitesse des voyages n’avait guère variée depuis trois mille ans3, la luminosité des sources d’éclairage n’avait guère fait de pro-grès depuis l’antiquité jusqu’au milieu du XVIIIe siècle où la perception

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EUROPOS KULTŪRINIO ŽEMĖLAPIO POKYČIAI

de l’espace urbain nocturne change en raison même du développement des villes et des activités de la société (l’historien américain Craig Kos-lofsky4 a bien montré que plus une société était raffinée, et plus les acti-vités quotidiennes se déplaçaient vers le soir et empiétaient sur la nuit). «Ainsi objet de luxe et signe d’aisance jusqu’au milieu du siècle, la lumiè-re se diffuse peu à peu, devenant lentement un signe de «progrès» et une nécessité publique» écrit Walker Corinne à propos de l’histoire de la vie nocturne à Genève au XVIIIe siècle5. A ces nouveaux besoins, et surtout aux nouveaux besoins générés par la révolution industrielle répondent des innovations technologiques majeures. Avec la nouvelle lampe de François Ami Argand en 1783, la luminosité est fortement augmentée. Vient en-suite rapidement l’éclairage au gaz dont les premières installations ont été faites dans la grande industrie de Birmingham, dans la firme Watt & Boul-ton sous l’influence de William Murdoch qui fit une première installation en 1802 dans une forge à Soho et en 1805 à Manchester dans un atelier de tissage de coton. Les villes s’illuminent et les cultures européennes s’enfoncent avec délectation dans la nuit, non sans quelque résistance chez certains qui se sentent éblouis. Ludwig Börne pense en 1824 que «la lumière du gaz est trop pure pour l’œil humain et nos petits-enfants deviendront aveugles»6.

Vers 1800 les possibilités d’éclairage passent en puissance de un à dix environ, ce qui a d’importantes répercussions sur la vie nocturne des vil-les qui autrefois se refermaient sur elles-mêmes. Craig Koslofsky a bien montré que le siècle des Lumières commence avec l’éclairage des rues qui contribue à changer l’attitude envers la nuit et engager le passage de la société absolutiste vers une sphère publique et une restructuration de la vie quotidienne en étudiant le cas de la ville de Leipzig7.

Le développement de l’éclairage et les modifications des habitudes et de la photosensibilité, pour être progressifs, n’en sont pas moins réels. La contrepartie semble être un intérêt nouveau pour la nuit et les scènes noc-turnes. D’une manière générale on peut dire que la nuit devient à la mode et que l’on en recherche autant l’atmosphère que les images. La mode de la promenade au clair de lune à partir de ces années a été maintes fois si-gnalée et Goethe n’a pas manqué de l’évoquer ironiquement lorsqu’il écrit que «presque chaque ville eut son clair de lune particulier»8.

Paris, capitale européenne, devient à juste titre une ville lumière justi-fiant l’émerveillement pour la cité transfigurée par l’éblouissement de la lumière artificielle. Les nuits parisiennes se caractérisent par une socialité

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intense au point que Heine pense que les fantômes nocturnes parisiens ne souffrent nullement de solitude, mais se pressent dans des réunions, des salons, des soirées9. Alors qu’autrefois la ville devenait de nuit une sorte de non-lieu, un désert plein de dangers, la grande ville désormais ne commence vraiment à vivre pour certains que lorsque l’éclairage artificiel entre en jeu. «Paris ne vit guère le jour, et la vraie vie ne commence pour lui qu’au lever de l’étoile du berger, je veux dire à l’heure où l’on allume le gaz» écrit Auguste Vitu10. Une telle appréciation, assez communément partagée, implique une prise de conscience implicite de la grande ville comme artefact, construction et milieu opposé à la nature. Ce que Walter Benjamin exprimait en disant que la Stadtschaft avait remplacé la Lands-chaft, autrement dit que le paysage naturel avait été remplacé par le décor de la ville. Ce changement de perception du paysage modifie celle du ca-dre nocturne et inverse les valeurs traditionnelles.

Que me parlez-vous d’arbres, de verdure, de collines ombragées et de ruis-seau limpide ! Le vrai paysage, c’est un salon reflétant dans les mille glaces de ses panneaux mille belles femmes en costumes d’hiver splendidement coif-fées par l’illustre Mariton et déshabillées par Palmyre.Le vrai soleil, c’est le lustre de l’Opéra ; le vrai ruisseau, c’est le ruisseau de la rue St-Honoré, le ruisseau de Mme de Staël.11

Cette inversion du cours naturel des choses («les étoiles s’éteignent, le gaz les remplace»12) a été rendue possible par le passage des anciennes lanternes et des réverbères dont la puissance d’éclairage reste faible à celles bien supérieures du gaz. Le développement des éclairages au gaz transforme l’espace nocturne et crée une nouvelle nuit au point que Lemer peut s’écrier: «Depuis que le gaz a pénétré dans les ruelles les plus étroi-tes de la grande ville, il n’y a véritablement plus de nuit à Paris, puisqu’il n’y a plus d’obscurité»13.

Emerveillement et éblouissements aux nombreuses ambiguïtés, étant donné que la fascination exercée sur le promeneur nocturne ne va pas sans quelque regret pour la perte définitive de la nature, que l’enchantement n’est pas sans perversion ni corruption, que la foule ne peut effacer la solitude et les illuminations les ombres et la nuit intérieures14. L’agitation de la vie parisienne est redoublée par l’image d’un Paris entrevu comme une aventure sans fin et une fête pour les yeux, un catalogue inépuisa-ble de choses vues, le kaléidoscope changeant de tableaux où dominent l’hétérogénéité et la solution de continuité. Et avec cette esthétisation des

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choses par la lumière artificielle une nouvelle poétique est en train de naître qui prendra nom de modernité. A la figure du veilleur de nuit du ro-mantisme allemand, qui traverse les rues désertes en déclinant les heures, spectateur nocturne et solitaire, figure d’un poète désespéré, succède celle d’un flâneur qui se fait noctambule et voyeur de la vie citadine plongée dans de singulières ténèbres qui, sous les nouveaux lampadaires, prend un nouveau visage. Les poètes sont attirés certes par les aventures de la nuit qui bouleversent le sentiment de la profondeur, remettent en cause les lois de la perception, donnent naissance à d’inouïs vertiges. Mais le vide, le noir et le nu, la rencontre insolite, la fulgurance de l’apparition dans les ténèbres qui caractérisent l’atelier de nos rêves et de nos fantasmes qu’est le manteau de la nuit, fascinent en raison de leur évanescence et de la conscience que quelque chose est irrémédiablement en train de dis-paraître. Lorsque les noctambules parisiens parcourent la cité de nuit, ils le font avec le sentiment que c’est toute une ville qui va disparaître sous la lumière. S. Delattre se demande non sans raison si «les Noctambules des années 1840 ne cherchent pas à fixer pas à pas le souvenir d’un Paris ombreux qu’on sent en voie de disparition?»15 Parcours nostalgique, mais aussi lumière dans la nuit qui laisse apparaître ce qui était caché: la révé-lation de l’inconscient. Michelet dira encore ses craintes envers l’impéria-lisme de la lumière, qui ne laisserait plus de zones d’ombre pour penser et rêver, en attendant que les utopies négatives ne mettent l’accent sur la surveillance générale induite par une omniprésente clarté à laquelle rien n’échappe. La destruction de la nuit (Jules Janin, écrira en 1839 que «Le gaz a remplacé le soleil») apparaît pour certains comme une mutilation existentielle profonde. L’espace nocturne européen s’est cependant ouvert à de nouvelles perceptions et activités, caractéristiques du nouveau théâtre de la modernité dont la «ville-lumière» est le symbole. Ville-lumière sy-nonyme de luxe et de consumérisme:

[T]out est magasins brillants, pompeux étalages, cafés dorés, illumination permanente ; de la rue Louis-le-Grand à la rue Richelieu, le flot de lumière qui jaillit des boutiques vous permettrait de lire votre journal en vous prome-nant.16

Les magasins de la rue Vivienne étalent leurs richesses aux yeux émerveillés. Éclairés par de nombreux bec de gaz, les coffrets d’acajou et les montres en or répandent à travers les vitrines les gerbes de lumière éblouissante.17

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On sait l’exploitation littéraire, de Baudelaire à Zola, de Dickens à Stevenson, de Mörike à Trakl qui a été faite du nouvel espace nocturne.

- - -Avec l’invention du chemin de fer, là encore, la perception de l’espa-

ce européen se modifie considérablement. Théophile Gautier découvre le train lors d’un voyage en Belgique et «cette sotte invention» est pour lui l’objet d’une haine féroce, paradigmatique du bouleversement des moyens de communication:

Le chemin de fer est maintenant à la mode; c’est une manie, un engouement, une fureur! Mal parler du chemin de fer, c’est vouloir s’exposer de gaieté de cœur aux invectives agréables de messieurs de l’utilité et du progrès; c’est vouloir se faire appeler rétrograde, fossile, partisan de l’Ancien Régime et de la barbarie, et passer pour un homme dévoué aux tyrans et à l’obscuran-tisme.18

La description qu’il en fait est l’occasion d’un tableau grotesque, qui n’est pas sans quelque relent hoffmannesque dans le style, afin d’en dé-montrer la monstruosité:

En tête un remorqueur, espèce de forge roulante, d’où s’échappent des pluies d’étincelles, et qui ressemble, avec son tuyau dressé, à un éléphant qui mar-cherait la trompe en l’air. – Le reniflement perpétuel de cette machine, qui, en fonctionnant, crache une noire vapeur, avec un bruit pareil à celui que ferait, en soufflant l’eau salée par ses évents, un monstre marin enrhumé du cerveau, est assurément la chose du monde la plus insupportable et la plus pénible; l’odeur fétide du charbon de terre doit aussi être mise en ligne de compte parmi les avantages de cette manière de voyager.19

En outre le confort de cette nouvelle machine est loin de le satisfaire puisqu’au lieu de l’oscillation verticale des anciennes voitures, on doit maintenant subir un tangage horizontal, d’avant en arrière, celui d’un mouvement «pareil à celui d’un tiroir à coulisse qu’on ouvrirait et qu’on refermerait plusieurs fois de suite avec précipitation» dans une bruit de ferraille peu réjouissant à l’oreille. Aussi Gautier fait-il l’éloge des no-bles coursiers d’antan, des anciennes voitures attelées avec des chevaux hennissant, avec des grandes crinières, des croupes satinées, des pom-pons rouges et des grelot, conduits par un postillon seulement à moitié ivre, qui fait claquer allègrement son fouet. En outre l’intérêt des trans-

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ports traditionnels est qu’ils peuvent aller à droite et à gauche, traverser et couper au lieu de suivre imperturbablement la ligne droite, s’arrêter également pour boire ou se restaurer quand on le souhaite, alors que «les corbillards glissant silencieusement sur ces rainures au bruit asthmatique du chaudron ignorent toute poésie et n’ont pas conservé dans un coin de leur âme ce sentiment du beau, provenant de l’emploi des lignes rondes et des zigzags», «vérité très connue des enfants qui vont à l’école». On ne s’étonnera donc pas que Gautier ait recueilli un certain nombre de ses pérégrinations (dont le récit dont nous parlons) sous le titre de Caprices et Zigzags en 1852.

Rien de plus néfaste à la flânerie que la vitesse qui décourage la vue et transforme le paysage. Aussi lorsque le cheval de vapeur a mangé son avoine de charbon, «renâclé d’impatience et soufflé par ses naseaux en-flammés, avec un râle strident d’épaisses bouffées de fumée blanche, en-tremêlées d’aigrettes d’étincelles», il s’anime pris d’une incroyable furie de vitesse. «Les peupliers du chemin fuyaient à droite et à gauche comme une armée en déroute, le paysage devenait confus et s’estompait dans une grise vapeur […]; de loin en loin une grêle silhouette de clocher se montrait dans les roulis des nuages et disparaissait sur-le-champ comme un mât de vaisseau sur une mer agitée». De fait le paysage disparaît avec la vitesse, ce n’est plus un tableau figuratif, mais un tableau abstrait où tout est indistinct, où plus rien n’est visible et où le goût si affirmé de Gautier pour la précision des lignes et la plasticité des formes est profon-dément déçu. «Les champs étoilés des fleurs du colza commencèrent à s’enfuir avec une étrange vélocité, et à se hacher de raies jaunes où l’on ne distinguait plus la forme d’aucune fleur; le chemin brun, piqué de petits cailloux blancs crayeux, avait l’apparence d’une immense queue de pinta-de que l’on aurait tirée violemment sous nous ; les lignes perpendiculaires devenaient horizontales […]».20 Aussi pourra-t-il dire dans le voyage en Russie, qu’il n’y a, avec le train, pas de manière de voyager plus abstraite. «L’on franchit des provinces, des royaumes sans en avoir la conscience». Les frontières sont supprimées et de manière conséquente «les chemins de fer amèneront la suppression des passeports. – Allez donc demander leurs papiers à deux mille voyageurs qui traversent une ville à vol d’oiseau»21

Benjamin Gastineau écrivait au milieu du siècle: «La distance n’est plus qu’un être de raison, l’espace qu’une entité métaphysique dépourvue de toute réalité»22. Ainsi l’impression est-elle que non seulement on assiste à une métamorphose du paysage (Eichendorff en Allemagne par exemple

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a bien le sentiment d’une perte irrémédiable du contact que l’homme avait avec la nature), mais que les cadres mêmes de la perception changent – ce que Heine notait à son tour:

Quelles transformations doivent maintenant s’effectuer dans nos manières de voir et de penser ! Même les idées élémentaires du temps et de l’espace sont devenues chancelantes. Par les chemins de fer, l’espace est anéanti, et il ne nous reste plus que le temps […] Que sera-ce, quand les lignes vers la Belgique et l’Allemagne seront exécutées et reliées aux chemins de fer de ces contrées! Je crois voir les montagnes et les forets de tous les pays marcher sur Paris. je sens déjà l’odeur des tilleuls allemands; devant ma porte se brisent les vagues de la mer du Nord.23

La révolution industrielle transforme le paysage, l’aplatit, l’uniformi-se, le dégrade. Arsène Houssaye, l’ami de Gautier, écrivait dans L’Artiste de mars 1842:

Poètes, peintres, voyageurs enthousiastes, hâtez-vous de réjouir vos yeux, bientôt il ne sera plus temps. La vapeur et l’industrie vous suivent, vous tou-chent, vous dévorent, vous dépassent : l’industrie qui dessèche les marais, qui laboure les prairies, qui défriche les bocages et les collines; la vapeur qui culbute les moulins à vent, qui renverse les moulins à eau, qui coupe les mon-tagnes, les rivières et les entiers des rêveurs, qui plante à tout bout de champ des cheminées gigantesques dont la fumée nous gâte le peu de beau ciel que nous laisse l’orage.

C’est un peu comme si le voyage lui-même devenait inutile, le monde étant comme apporté au sujet situé au point de convergence halluciné du réseau tout entier, par chemin de fer, ou par bateau à vapeur24. Ce dont témoigne les Expositions Universelles qui sont pour Gautier un symptôme de la disparition des distances: «les Anglais ont mis l’Inde toute entière dans des caisses et l’ont apportée à l’Exposition»25.

Sans doute Gautier reviendra-t-il sur sa critique des chemins de fer, fi-nissant par en apprécier le confort. Mais une raison plus profonde lui fera cependant toujours regretter le développement des communications plus rapides, car Gautier y voit une uniformisation croissante du monde. Déjà la critique de l’européanisation de Constantinople ou des pays de l’Orient est un leitmotiv constant.

C’est un spectacle douloureux pour le poète, l’artiste et le philosophe, de voir les formes et les couleurs disparaître du monde, les lignes se troubler,

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les teintes se confondre et l’uniformité la plus désespérante envahir l’univers sous je ne sais quel prétexte de progrès. Quand tout sera pareil, les voyages deviendront complètement inutiles, et c’est précisément alors, heureuse coïn-cidence, que les chemins de fer seront en pleine activité. A quoi bon aller voir bien loin, à raison de dix lieues à l’heure, des rues de la Paix éclairées au gaz et garnies de bourgeois confortables?26

Le chemin de fer apporte l’uniformisation, la banalisation et la mono-tonie, faisant disparaître l’un des principaux intérêts des voyages qui est la rencontre des différences et le charme du pittoresque, de l’originalité, de la singularité. «Il deviendra impossible de distinguer un Russe d’un Espagnol, un Anglais d’un Chinois, un Français d’un Américain. L’on ne pourra même plus se reconnaître entre soi, car tout le monde sera pareil. Alors un immense ennui s’emparera de l’univers et le suicide décimera la population du globe, car le principal mobile de la vie sera éteint: la curio-sité»27. Dans le premier chapitre de Constantinople il constate avec regret que la civilisation fait disparaître toute différence de peuple à peuple et que, à l’époque où le réseau de fer terminé et que l’on pourra aller partout, il n’y aura plus rien à voir nulle part.

L’aspect de l’architecture moderne, celle du nouveau quartier d’Alger (en comparaison avec la casbah) ou encore celle des maisons madrilènes, rebute celui qui se définit comme une espèce de barbare à qui plaisent les vieilleries pittoresques. «Beaucoup de maisons neuves se sont élevées, plus confortables sans doute que les anciennes, mais à coup sûr, moins ca-ractéristiques. Elles présentent un aspect uniforme et plat, idéal de l’archi-tecture moderne. […]Un grand hôtel, dans le genre de l’hôtel du Louvre, s’est substitué au portail de style jésuite, orné de volutes contournées et d’un cadran à rayons d’or figurant un soleil. D’élégants magasins se sont ouverts avec devantures de glaces et étalages à la parisienne»28. Gautier porte un intérêt tout particulier à l’habillement qu’il décrit toujours lon-guement et avec de nombreux détails. Quand il cherche la couleur locale en Espagne, lorgnant les costumes éclatants, il ne voit que redingotes, pantalons, chapeaux gibus, robes longues et manches à gigot. Aussi, lui qui aime se fondre dans le pays adoptant le costume local (voir sa fierté de se promener dans les rues de Constantinople «coiffé d’un fez, vêtu d’une redingote boutonnées, le visage bruni par le hâle de la mer, la barbe longue de six mois» qui lui donne l’air d’un Turc»), et qui fait sensation quand il déambule avec dans Paris29, il se fait faire un habit «magnifi-

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que» à la mode espagnole. Le tailleur traditionnel de Grenade lui confie: «Hélas! monsieur, il n’y a plus que les Anglais qui achètent des habits espagnols». C’est que maintenant toute l’Europe s’habille de la même manière. Il éprouve à Constantinople une vraie douleur lorsqu’il voit trois petites filles turques, de huit à dix ans, belles comme des houris, porter sur une robe de rouennerie un caftan de drap anglais. Le voyageur a le sentiment que non seulement voyager c’est mettre les pieds dans d’autres pieds, que tout a déjà été vu et que tout a été dit et écrit (le voyage en Orient était devenu ainsi d’une grande banalité), mais qu’en outre il ne voit plus que le même, car les mirages s’évanouissent. Déjà Flaubert écri-vait de Constantinople à sa mère le 14 novembre 1850: «Il est temps de voir l’Orient, car il s’en va, il se civilise». Cinq années plus tard, Joseph Méry, ami de Gautier, écrivait à son tour: «Quand tout le monde sera vêtu de la même façon, tout le monde se croira dans le même pays.» 30

Les jeunes gens sont mis comme les gravures de Jules David, à l’avant-der-nier goût; on ne les distinguerait d’élégants Parisiens qu’à une fraîcheur un peu trop crue de nouveauté ; ils ne suivent pas la mode, ils la devancent. Chaque pièce de leur ajustement est signée d’un fournisseur célèbre de la rue Richelieu ou de la rue de la Paix; leurs chemises sont de chez Lami- Housset; leurs cannes de chez Verdier; leurs chapeaux de chez Bandoni; leurs gants de chez Jouvin […].31

Gautier voit dans tout cela des dissonances qui affligent l’artiste, non seulement parce qu’elles rappellent le mauvais goût bourgeois, mais aussi parce qu’elles font affront tout autant à la Beauté et l’Harmonie qu’à des racines culturelles qui se dépravent et s’aliènent. Or ce que Gautier re-cherche dans son vagabondage, dans sa nostalgie de l’étranger, ce sont d’autres images et tout d’abord les détails qui font la différence. Il accorde à cette tâche de rassembler ces détails et ces mille et une différences pres-que imperceptibles qui vous avertissent à chaque instant qu’on a changé de pays une importance décisive dans la caractérisation d’un peuple.

En lisant les récits des voyageurs, il nous est arrivé de souhaiter des détails plus précis, plus familiers, plus tracés sur le vif, des remarques plus circons-tanciées sur ces mille petites différences qui avertissent qu’on a changé de pays. […] Cela n’est-il pas aussi intéressant, de savoir comment se coiffe une grisette vénitienne et quels plis fait son châle sur les épaules, que d’entendre raconter pour la centième fois la décapitation du doge Marino Faliero sur l’es-

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calier des Géants, qui ne fut bâti, par parenthèse, qu’un siècle ou deux après sa mort?32

Mais avec le développement des chemins de fer, du télégraphe, de la presse, toute l’Europe s’uniformise, s’habille de même manière se subs-tituant aux vêtements de terroir, dont l’originalité était un régal pour les yeux de l’artiste. C’est là une caractéristique du phénomène d’européa-nisation, un terme qui apparaît pour la première fois en 1806 dans les Œuvres choisies du prince de Ligne et qui s’imposera au milieu du siècle. Pour Gautier, c’est un mouvement qui va de l’hétérogène à l’homogène, de la différence à l’uniformité, du particulier à l’identique. Le poète ro-mantique a eu l’intuition avant la lettre d’une MacDonaldisation du mon-de et de la culture, si je peux me permettre l’anachronisme.

La réticence de Gautier envers le développement sans précédent des techniques qui viennent transformer les relations de l’homme à l’espace est principalement le fait du poète qui voit dans ces métamorphoses une atteinte à un idéal de Beauté, à la couleur locale, à la lenteur des dépla-cements nécessaires à l’épanouissement de la rêverie, à la diversité des moeurs et des coutumes, riches de leurs traditions et de leurs beautés par-ticulières. On voit que cette crainte subsiste, deux siècles après, devant l’image d’une Europe centralisatrice qui fait planer la menace d’une uni-formisation destructrice des identités régionales. Mais ceci est une autre histoire!

Références1 Théophile Gautier, Caprices et Zigzags, Paris, Victor Lecou, 1852, 61–62.2 Claude Pichois, Vitesse et vision du monde, Neuchatel, 1973.3 Claude Pichois remarque qu’Alexandre, Jules César, Charlemagne, Louis XIVClaude Pichois remarque qu’Alexandre, Jules César, Charlemagne, Louis XIV

voyageaient à peu près à la même vitesse.4 Craig Koslofsky, “Princes Of Darkness: The Night At Court, 1650-1750”, in

Journal of Modern History, 2007, 79(2), 235–273.5 Corinne Walker, «Esquisse pour une histoire de la vie nocturne. Genève au

XVIIIe siècle», in revue du Vieux-Genève, 19, 1989, 77. Voir également «Du plaisir à la nécessité. L’apparition de la lumière dans les rues de Genève à la fin du XVIIIe siècle», in Vivre et imaginer la ville (XViiie-XiXe siècles), sous la direction de F. Walter, Genève, 1988, 97–124.

6 “Das Gaslicht ist zu rein für das menschliche Auge, und unsere Enkel werden“Das Gaslicht ist zu rein für das menschliche Auge, und unsere Enkel werden blind werden”. L’éclairage au gaz fut introduit dès 1813 à Londres, en 1819 àL’éclairage au gaz fut introduit dès 1813 à Londres, en 1819 à Paris et Vienne, en 1826 à Berlin, en 1846 en Suède.

7 Craig Koslofsky, “The Establishment of Street Lighting in Eighteenth-Cen-tury Leipzig” in Zeitsprünge, 4, 2000, 378–387.

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8 Ce clair de lune allemand, comme le dira plus tard avec ironie Théophile Gau-tier – car celui-ci semble être devenu une spécialité nationale – se trouve dans la prose et les vers de nombreux auteurs. La promenade au clair de lune a ses lois sentimentales: elle doit unir des couples, amis ou fiancés et sa solennelle mélancolie contribue au sentiment mêlé de tristesse et de consolation à la fois.

9 VoirVoir Heinrich Heine, Die romantische Schule (III,2), in Heine, Sämtliche Schriften, Hanser Verlag, München, 1971, 463–465.

10 Auguste Vitu, Les Bals d’hiver. Paris masqué, Paris, 1848.11 ibid.12 ibid.13 Julien Lemer, Paris au gaz, 1861, 72–73. 14 VoirVoir Alain Montandon, «Des rayons et des ombres de l’éclairage au gaz», in

Links. rivista di letteratura e cultura tedesca. Pisa, Roma, VII, 2007 (2008), 37–47.

15 Simone Delattre, Les douze heures noires. La nuit à paris au XiXe siècle, Al-bin Michel, 2003, 97.

16 Julien Lemer, Paris au gaz, 1861, 15.17 Lautréamont, Chants de Maldoror, Le Livre de poche Classique, 2001, 31318 Caprices et Zigzags, 58.19 ibid, 59.20 ibid, 66.21 Caprices et Zigzags, 80.22 Benjamin Gastineau, Histoire des chemins de fer, 1863.23 Heinrich, Lutèce, Michel Lévy frères, 1855, 327 (5 mai 1843).24 Voir à ce sujet Jean-Christophe Valtat, La littérature hallucinée, qui cite Nerval:

«le réseau de fer jeté sur ces contrées, et qui relie étroitement quatre ou cinq provinces, différentes de mœurs, de langage et même de climat, réalise la mise en scène de ce vieil opéra que Quinault, où l’on visite tout à tour dans un seul acte les peuples des quatre parties du monde: les uns grelottant sous les pôles, d’autres haletant sous les tropiques, d’autres à demi submergés sous l’océan, d’autres cherchant leur vie dans les entrailles de la terre, tous maudissant les éléments ennemis de l’homme et chantant en cœur leur misère sur des airs plaintifs de Lulli.»

25 Caprices et Zigzags, 233.26 «Avec la manie de la civilisation qui abrutit les hommes, les voyages devien-

dront bientôt inutiles. Tout est à l’instar de paris et la rue de Rivoli prolonge jusqu’au bout du monde ses fastidieuses arcades, à la grande admiration des imbéciles.» (Lettre à Zoé Gautier, 5 septembre 1861).

27 Maxime Du Camp, Théophile Gautier, Paris, Hachette, 1895, p. 111.28 Quand on voyage, 276–277.29 S’il se plaît à jouer l’indigène adoptant leur habit, il n’hésite pas à revêtir ceS’il se plaît à jouer l’indigène adoptant leur habit, il n’hésite pas à revêtir ce

qui apparaît à Paris comme un déguisement et une manière de sortir de soi pour être un autre. Dans la Presse du 18 mars 1837, il relate combien les dames le trouvent beau dans le costume égyptien qu’il exhibe (alors que l’on aurait pas remarqué de le faire s’il était habillé comme tout le monde). D’Algérie il rap-

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porte un burnous arabe dont il aime se draper pour circuler dans les boulevards parisiens et de Russie un bonnet fourré qui lui descendaient jusque sur les yeux, des bottes fourrées, une longue pelisse fourrée…

30 Joseph Méry, Constantinople et la mer noire, Paris, 1855, 479.31 ibid, 90.32 italia, 325.

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Un projet de l’Europe dans l’oeuvre d’Oscar Milosz

Europos projektas Oscaro Miloszo kūryboje

Genovaitė DruČKuTėuniversité de Vilniusrue universiteto 3, LT-01513 [email protected]

SantraukaStraipsnyje analizuojama Oscaro Miloszo politinė publicistika ir eseistika bei ra-

šiniai apie lietuvių liaudies meną. Prancūziškai rašęs lietuvių kilmės rašytojas šioje savo kūrybos dalyje siekia nustatyti ir apibrėžti Lietuvos vietą ir vaidmenį, atsižvelg-damas į pokyčius Europoje po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo. Nagrinėjamuose rašiniuose siūlomas būsimos Europos projektas, kuriame Lietuvai, išsaugojusiai Vakaruose jau prarastas amžinąsias vertybes, tenka idėjinės generatorės vaidmuo. Praktinė naujo-sios Europos projekto pusė siejama su Baltijos valstybių sąjunga, prie kurios turėtų prisijungti Vakarų Europos šalys. Straipsnyje daroma išvada, kad Milašiaus išplė-totas naujosios pokarinės Europos projektas lieka įspūdinga pranašiška vizija, kuri buvo nesuprasta ir neturėjo jokių realių pasekmių. Rašytojo pasiūlyta Europos poli-tinio žemėlapio transformacija neperžengė pačių tekstų nubrėžtų ribų.

Esminiai žodžiai: politinio žemėlapio pokyčiai, politinis projektas, metafizinis projektas.

résuméDans l’article on se concentre sur les essais politiques et les écrits sur l’art

lituanien d’Oscar Milosz. L’écrivain français d’origine lituanienne avait essayé de trouver la place de Lituanie et de définir son rôle en tenant compte de chan-gements qui avaient lieu en Europe après la Première guerre mondiale. Dans les essais et les écrits analysés, il propose un projet d’Europe nouvelle où la Lituanie qui avait su garder les valeurs éternelles déjà perdues en Europe Occidentale de-vrait jouer un rôle de génératrice idéologique. Le côté pratique du projet de Mi-losz est lié avec l’alliance des pays Baltiques que rejoindrait l’Europe Occiden-tale. L’analyse effectuée nous permet de constater que le projet d’une Europe de l’après-guerre, élaboré par Milosz, est une impressionnante vision prophétique qui reste sans conséquences réelles. La transformation de la carte politique de l’Eu-rope ne dépasse pas l’espace textuel tracé par l’écrivain.

Mots-clés: transformations de la carte politique, projet politique, projet méta-physique.

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La Lituanie et ses destinées au cours des siècles est une des préoccu-pations majeures d’Oscar Milosz (1877–1939). Dans cette étude, nous nous attachons à un aspect de l’œuvre de Milosz, notamment à une série d’articles et d’études politiques, publicitaires et philosophiques où il traite la question de Lituanie. La plus grande partie de ces textes constituent le treizième volume des œuvres de Milosz, publiées chez André Silvaire.1 Dans ces écrits, l’écrivain essaie de définir la place et le rôle de Lituanie dans l’Europe en train de mutation. Il propose aussi certaines modifica-tions de la carte du vieux continent. Nous soutenons l’idée que Milosz élabore un projet d’Europe nouvelle où la Lituanie devrait avoir sa part. Dans notre étude, nous analysons ses visions en suivant ses réflexions po-litiques et métaphysiques et en tenant compte du développement politique de l’Europe de l’époque2.

La majorité des textes qui constituent l’objet de notre analyse ont été publiés dans les années 1918-1921 donc, dans les années décisives pour la Lituanie et aussi au moment où Milosz déployait une intense activité diplomatique. Ces écrits apparaissent d’ailleurs comme des arguments supplémentaires destinés à soutenir ses efforts politiques. Il est à rappeler qu’à la fin de la Première guerre mondiale Milosz est entré tout d’abord comme rédacteur diplomatique à la Conférence de la Paix, puis il a exercé la fonction de Délégué de Lituanie auprès du Gouvernement français. En 1920, après la reconnaissance de fait de la Lituanie par la France, il a été nommé officiellement Chargé d’affaires et pendant cinq ans il représentait les intérêts de la Lituanie en France. En 1921, il participait activement à la résolution de la question de Vilnius à Bruxelles3.

Le 29 mars 1919, Milosz donnait une conférence à la Salle de la So-ciété de Géographie de Paris, sa première conférence sur la Lituanie, en s’adressant ainsi à son auditoire:

J’ai longtemps recherché l’origine de l’émotion profonde qui m’agite au sou-venir de ce pays si lointain et si longtemps ignoré de l’Occident, la Lithuanie.Mon aveu, certes, a de quoi surprendre; cependant, je n’hésite pas un instant à vous ouvrir toute ma pensée. Quoique pénétré de tendresse pour la terre mélancolique et généreuse qui m’a donné la vie et le pouvoir de la chanter, je n’aurais sans doute jamais consenti à vous parler de cet amour si le lien qui m’unit à cette terre n’était que celui du sang et des souvenirs personnels. […] Si donc je quitte ma haute solitude pour vous entretenir de la Lithuanie, c’est que la contrée merveilleuse qui m’a donné toute son âme n’est pas seulement ma patrie à moi, mais aussi votre patrie à vous.

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Oui, femmes et hommes d’Occident, je vous parle de votre antique patrie. Oui, filles et fils de la race indo-européenne, je vous parle de votre berceau.4

Nous n’avons pas de témoignages écrits pour apprécier la réaction du public envers ces paroles de Milosz, surtout telles que: «votre patrie à vous», «votre antique patrie», «votre berceau». Nous pouvons supposer que l’étonnement devait être grand. Pour cette simple raison qu’au début du XXme siècle, la Lituanie était un pays presque inconnu d’Occidentaux, de Français dans ce cas, et encore moins leur patrie. A la fin de la Premiè-re guerre mondiale, une des conséquences était un changement de la carte politique de l’Europe. Un nombre de pays comme entités indépendantes dont la Lituanie surgissaient devant les Occidentaux stupéfaits.

Milosz se présente tout d’abord comme un inventeur de la Lituanie, un nouveau pays de l’Europe. Il découvre la Lituanie, lui aussi, tout comme les autres Occidentaux quelle que paradoxale paraisse cette constatation. D’après une définition largement utilisée, Milosz est un «poète français d’origine lithuanienne», alors pouvait-il ne pas connaître la Lituanie? Bien sûr que non. Mais le pays qu’il connaissait était celui du passé: luttes avec les chevaliers Teutoniques, fidélité aux croyances des ancêtres, fondation du Grand-Duché, union avec la Pologne. Les récits du passé – où les vic-toires glorieuses et les défaites se succèdent et dont la logique rappelle plutôt celle des contes – formaient pour Milosz l’image de Lituanie. Le passé historique du pays des ancêtres, pour Milosz comme pour les gens de son milieu, s’était transformé depuis longtemps en mythe. Une des particularités de cette vision mythique était un certain rapport à la réalité passée où la fierté d’appartenir à un peuple si grand se mêlait à l’amer-tume du passé.

En 1918, la proclamation de l’indépendance du pays paraissait un mi-racle. Le plus étonnant étant que cette nouvelle Lituanie ait été conçue et réalisée par ceux qui étaient «d’origine et de nation lituanienne», et la différence de Milosz, comme celle de la majorité écrasante de la classe sociale dont l’écrivain faisait partie est qu’ils se disaient «d’origine litua-nienne et de nation polonaise».

Nous savons comment Milosz est entré au service de la cause litua-nienne. C’était pendant les années de la Première guerre; Milosz avait un poste au Bureau de la presse auprès du Ministère des Affaires étrangères. Il relate son choix dans une lettre:

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C’est là, à la maison de la presse que j’ai appris l’existence d’un mouvement nationaliste et séparatiste lithuanien. J’appartiens, comme Vous le savez, à une très ancienne famille lithuanienne, polonisée comme le sont toutes les familles nobles de notre pays. Devant la politique agressive que la Pologne, […], ose, à la face du monde civilisé, faire à l’égard de notre pacifique dé-mocratie paysanne, je sentis se réveiller en moi toutes les rébellions de ma jeunesse. Je n’hésitai pas un instant, […], à prendre publiquement la défense des intérêts de ma patrie immédiate menacée dans son évolution par ceux-là même qui, logiquement, auraient dû se faire le premier jour les défenseurs de ses légitimes aspirations. […] Un beau jour, je vis apparaître dans mon bureau un Lithuanien qui venait m’inviter à travailler plus directement pour le pays.5

Ce récit montre bien que Milosz était persuadé d’avoir fait un bon choix, et dans tous les articles politiques qu’il publiera par la suite il ex-hortait ardemment ses compatriotes «lituano-polonais» à suivre son exem-ple. Aussi voit-on que la structure de l’extrait cité rappelle celle d’un conte populaire ou d’un roman chevaleresque. Il y a un Lituanien qui, animé par une flamme patriotique, invite le héros, c’est-à-dire Milosz, à exécuter un haut fait. Celui-ci accepte et s’en va à l’aventure. Cependant la position choisie par Milosz était un cas à part, une exception choquante aux yeux des gens de son entourage. Czeslaw Milosz, un neveu lointain de l’écri-vain, attribue ce choix à la nostalgie d’un «lieu», dans un sens à la fois métaphysique et géographique. Nous pouvons ajouter que la recherche d’un «lieu de Manifestation» domine la vie et l’œuvre de Milosz. C’est un profond désir d’enracinement qui a incité l’écrivain à «œuvrer en faveur de la Lithuanie sur la scène internationale».6

En ce qui concerne la structure d’Europe nouvelle imaginée par Mi-losz, il est à constater que des changements importants s’opèrent pendant les deux premières décennies du XXme siècle. De nouveaux pays qui n’existaient pas avant la guerre apparaissent sur la scène politique, la Li-tuanie parmi eux. C’est un fait indépendant de l’écrivain mais nous avons vu qu’il s’était fait toute de suite un devoir passionné de travailler pour ce pays, de le faire partout connaître et de donner une âme à ce nouveau corps politique. Parce que pour Milosz, le futur de Lituanie et en même temps celui de toute l’Europe est non seulement un effort politique mais aussi un projet spirituel où la Lituanie a son mot à dire. L’écrivain se don-ne pour but d’imaginer et de créer l’identité du pays qui vient de naître. Originaire de la Lituanie historique et non ethnographique, ne parlant pas le lituanien mais lisant en cette langue, il s’adresse aux sources écrites, en lituanien et aussi en d’autres langues – en allemand, en polonais, en

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russe – pour y puiser abondamment des connaissances. En se basant sur des recueils de folklore, sur des études de l’art et de traditions populai-res, il a publié dans la presse de son temps une autre série d’articles, sans compter les traductions7. Les contes, les chansons, les objets d’art ont pour Milosz une valeur esthétique et psychologique, et les deux aspects se révèlent d’égale importance. Tout l’art du peuple, les traditions et les cou-tumes témoignent de l’aspiration des générations successives vers le beau. Ce sont en même temps des documents psychologiques qui permettent de comprendre l’âme lituanienne.

Dans ses écrits sur l’art lituanien et dans ses articles politiques Mi-losz développe l’idée sur le conservatisme et le traditionnalisme des Lituaniens. D’après l’écrivain, ce peuple modeste et travailleur, enclin à la méditation avait su garder, à travers des siècles, de grandes qualités morales et spirituelles, grâce, en partie, aux conditions historiques par-ticulières. Face à la noblesse polonisée, face à l’occupation tsariste qui interdisait la presse en caractères latins, le peuple des campagnes avait vécu sur sa terre comme sur une île isolée, préservant sa langue et la mémoire de son passé séculaire. Mentalités, traditions, coutumes avaient tracé un lien harmonieux entre le passé païen et le présent chrétien. Ce côté exceptionnel du peuple lituanien est sa raison et son droit d’être, de proclamer son indépendance, de créer son État et de fonder un ave-nir meilleur. La Lituanie possède aussi les fondements spirituels d’une future Europe. C’est pourquoi le nouveau pays de l’Europe, si jeune et si vieux, est une patrie de toute l’Europe, une patrie non physique mais spirituelle. Dans la conférence mentionnée au début de cet article, Milosz a dit: «Comme Rome, comme l’Hellade et la France surtout, la Lituanie est plus qu’une patrie: c’est une idée, un des foyers ardents de l’évolution humaine.»8

Dans l’histoire du continent européen, Milosz voit trois grandes pha-ses: antique (Rome, l’Hellade), postérieure (représentée par la France) et nouvelle phase qui commence au début du XXme siècle et où le rôle de Lituanie sera déterminant:

Une ère nouvelle commence pour nous tous! Le vieux monde est ébranlé dans ses assises ; un temps est venu qui est comme un coup de grâce pour les valeurs vieillies, pour les doctrines épuisées, pour les régimes stériles. […], et déjà, affirmateur de l’éternelle résurrection, un pays se lève des ruines, tout prêt pour l’œuvre de reconstruction, le plus vieux des pays d’Europe, l’ancê-tre aryen.9

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C’est l’expression de tout un programme messianique qui se dresse devant la Lituanie. Dans l’article intitulé Au seuil d’un monde nouveau l’écrivain brosse une esquisse du messianisme lituanien, vision qu’il re-prend dans les écrits suivants, surtout dans le plus grand essai Deux mes-sianismes politiques.

Pour Milosz, le point de départ de réflexion est une présentation et une critique du messianisme polonais qu’il connaît bien, dans l’esprit duquel il avait grandi et qui était partagé par les anciennes familles lituaniennes polonisées. Milosz considère ce messianisme usé, vieilli et même dan-geureux et il le confronte au «vrai», au «bon» messianisme lituanien. La Lituanie avait conservé ses origines aryennes; ses qualités de résistance au mal, de persévérance sont les prémices d’une renaissance possible pour l’Europe. En 1920 Milosz écrivait:

Quand l’ordre social et économique sera rétabli dans notre république hiérar-chique récemment ressuscitée, nous inviterons les artistes, les poètes, les pen-seurs – tous les héros meurtris de notre sotte et laide époque, tous les parias intellectuels de l’Occident ploutocratique et matérialiste, à venir goûter un long repos d’esprit et de corps sur les collines où nos ancêtres entretenaient le feu pur, et qui portent, aujourd’hui encore, des noms du monde spirituel: Rambynas, Aleksota. Là, dans la solitude immense de Nemunas, ils rafraîchi-ront leur cœur et leur esprit au souffle des temps druidiques effaçant de leur mémoire le hideux souvenir des modernes concepts de l’amour.10

Dans la vision de Milosz, la Lituanie avec ses valeurs éternelles aidera les pays européens à retrouver ce qu’ils avaient perdu depuis longtemps.

De pareilles réflexions de l’écrivain se révèlent purement théoriques, sans dire utopiques. Cependant dans l’article L’Alliance des pays balti-ques il propose un projet pratique pour jeter les bases de la société future. La Lituanie, après avoir retrouvé et affirmé sa place incontestable sur la carte de l’Europe, fera une alliance baltique avec la Lettonie et l’Estonie. Une fois amorcé, le processus d’alliances ne s’arrêtera plus. Voilà ce que propose Milosz:

Une solide confédération appuyée par l’Entente et formée par la Letto-Li-tuanie alliée à l’Estonie et reliée par cette dernière à la Finlande; probabilité de rapprochement entre ce groupe et l’Union scandinave; […] contrôle de la Baltique; telles sont les garanties de sécurité qu’une solution lituano-finoise du problème oriental apporte à l’Europe et au monde.11

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Il s’agit, pour Milosz, de regrouper autrement les forces politiques tra-ditionnelles et de rapporter plus à l’est le centre de l’Europe. Mais il faut remarquer que la réalité géopolitique tranchait avec les réflexions et les projets de Milosz. Ces projets n’ont été ni compris ni approuvés. L’idée d’alliance des États baltiques s’est évanouie, à peine évoquée.

Il faut dire aussi qu’étant diplomate, Milosz possédait une connais-sance précise de la situation de son pays et du contexte européen. Les lec-teurs de ses articles pouvaient lui faire confiance et se montrer sensibles à ses arguments. Quant à l’écrivain, il ne se fait pas beaucoup d’illusions pour la réception et un accueil favorable de ses idées et de ses visions. Il le dit explicitement dans une lettre à son ami le comte Maurice Prozor:

En me rattachant à ma race, à ma nation si ancienne, Vous avez éclairé d’une manière frappante ma personnalité même et comblé une lacune que moi-même je ne parvenais à remplir que difficilement. Ce besoin d’une patrie réel-le, qui est un stimulant si puissant pour mon activité, Vous seul Vous l’avez compris en moi et, en m’assignant une place précise sur la terre, avez donné une base physique à mon art et à mon action.12

L’extrait cité nous révèle le point de vue de Milosz: seulement ceux qui ont vécu la même expérience sont capables de comprendre sa situati-on paradoxale13.

L’entourage immédiat de Milosz qui était peu nombreux acceptait avec une réticence l’image d’une Lituanie idéalisée et le projet d’une res-tructuration politique et spirituelle de la carte de l’Europe. Ses amis et ses connaissances faisaient la part du réel et de la fiction. C’est-à-dire, on acceptait la personnalité de Milosz dont la partie intégrante étaient ses visions et ses projets plutôt fantastiques. L’écrivain venait lui-même de ce pays inconnu, la Lituanie; lui, représentant de ce peuple mystérieux, était presque un personnage de contes. En voilà un des témoignages:

Il nous est venu de l’extrême nord et de l’indécise frontière des songes, capa-ble à la fois des plus sombres rapports historiques ou politiques et des confes-sions les plus échevelées d’un autre monde, le frère terrestre des auréoles boréales: écrivain, diplomate [...], essence de ce pays pensif et fabuleux „où toutes les choses ont la couleur éteinte du souvenir“, un Don Quichotte de l’absolu réconciliant le rêve et la connaissance, un pont entre la nostalgie et l’éternel, tel il nous apparaît.14

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Le projet d’Europe nouvelle de Milosz est une inspiration prophé-tique qui impressionne et fait réfléchir. Grâce à ses écrits, ce pays de rêve qu’était pour lui la Lituanie a reçu une âme, et l’activité diplo-matique de l’écrivain a fait constituer un corps à ce pays, notamment un nom et une place sur la carte de l’Europe. Fruit de la nostalgie, des rêves et de l’activité concrète du diplomate, la Lituanie ainsi créée se révèle, d’une part comme un lieu de beauté et de valeurs éternelles. Elle établit un pont entre un passé idéal, un présent mouvementé et un avenir radieux pour elle et pour l’Europe. De l’autre part, ce projet n’existait en fait que sur du papier et dans l’espace dont Milosz lui-même avait tracé les contours.

Références1 O.V. de L. Milosz, Œuvres complètes. Tome Xiii. Deux messianismes politi-

ques, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1990.2 Nous avons abordé le problème en question dans quelques articles publiés en

lituanien et en français: «Oscar Milosz, ou la Lituanie au cœur de l’Europe», in: Coulisses, Nº7, L’Université de Besançon, la Faculté des Lettres, avril 1993; „La France dans l’oeuvre de Milosz, in Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Milosz, Nº40-41-42, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 2003; „Prasmės kūrimo galimybės (pagal Oskarą Milašių)“, in: Tekstas ir kontekstas: prasmės formavi-masis, mokslinių straipsnių rinkinys, Kaunas: VU KHF, 2004; «L’invention de la Lituanie par Milosz», in Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Milosz, Nº45, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 2006; „Lietuvos įvaizdis Oskaro Milašiaus pu-blicistikoje“, in Literatūra, Nº49(4), Vilnius: VU, 2007.

3 Sur l’activité diplomatique de Milosz nous proposons de lire, en français: Geneviève-Irène Židonis, O.V. de L. Milosz. Sa vie, son œuvre, son rayonne-ment, Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1951; S. Backis, «Quelques propos sur les activités diplomatiques et les idées politiques de Milosz», in: O.V. de L. Milosz (1877-1939), Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1959; Jacques Bouge, Milosz en quête du divin, Paris: Librairie Nizet, 1963; des documents, des lettres, des souvenirs, des communications inserrés dans les Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Mi-losz, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire; en lituanien: Vytautas Kubilius, „Lietuva Oskaro Milašiaus kūryboje“, in Vytautas Kubilius, Lietuvių literatūra ir pa-saulinis literatūros procesas, Vilnius: Vaga, 1983; Bronius Genzelis, „O. Mila-šius lietuvių kultūroje“, in: Bronius Genzelis, Kultūrų sąveika, Vilnius: Mintis, 1989; Laimonas Tapinas, Septynios vienatvės Paryžiuje, Kaunas: Spindulys, 1993.

4 Oscar Milosz, «Conférence du 29 mars 1919», in: O.V. de L. Milosz, 1990, 27.

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5 O.V. de L. Milosz, Lettres inédites à Christian Gauss, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1976, 77–78.

6 Czeslaw Milosz, L’immoralité de l’art, traduit du polonais par Marie Bouvard, Paris: Fayard, 1988, 259.

7 Voir à ce sujet les écrits de Milosz dans La revue baltique et La revue parle-mentaire; pour ses traductions de contes et de chansons lituaniens, consulter: O.V. de L. Milosz, Œuvres complètes. Tome Vi. Contes et fabliaux de la vieille Lithuanie, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1972; Tome iX. Contes lithuaniens de ma Mère l’Oye. Daïnos, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1963; Tome Xi. Daïnos, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 1970.

8 Milosz, 1990, 28.9 ibid., 32.10 L. de Labunovas [Oscar Milosz], «Les Daïnos», in: La revue baltique, Paris,

15.2.1920 et 1.3.1920.11 Milosz, 1990, 125.12 Cit.in: Jacques Buge, Connaissez-vous Milosz, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire,

1965, 113.13 Sur le problème d’identité nationale et culturelle de Milosz, à voir aussi: Nijolė

Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė, «Des identités nationales difficilles, Oscar Mi-losz, Adam Mickiewicz et Czeslaw Milosz», in: Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Milosz, Nº47, Paris: Éditions André Silvaire, 2008.

14 Paul Séramy, «Discours du trentième anniversaire de la mort de Milosz», in Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Milosz, Nº4, Paris: Éditions André Sil-vaire, 1970, 24.

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Hans-Magnus Enzensberger

Nuo humanizmo iki post-humanizmo: Europos samprata Thomo Manno, André Gide’o ir Hanso Magnuso Enzensbergerio diskursuose

Manfred SCHMeLiNGSaarland university, GermanyFr 4.5 Allgemeine und Vergleichende LiteraturwissenschaftPostfach 15115066041 Saarbrü[email protected]

SummaryThomas Mann dealt with the topic of Europe on several levels: literary, theo-

retically and in the course of time. In his novel The Magic Mountain, the – sym-bolically speaking – “sick Europe” is meeting in a Swiss sanatorium. André Gide, who is like Thomas Mann a European in spirit, commented on Mann’s essay “Achtung, Europa!” (1936) with these words: “Mann reste […] un humaniste dans le sens le plus plein du mot.” Hans-Magnus Enzensberger – poet and criti-cal observer of European developments – counters this humanistic idea of Europe with a new concept in, among other texts, “Eurozentrismus wider Willen” and Ach europa (europe, europe: Forays into a Continent), which can be considered a mixture of essay and literary travelogue. Enzensberger opposes the political and economic attempts at harmonization imposed from Brussels and emphasizes the cultural distinctions of each individual European country. Linked to this commit-ment to alterity is a postmodern concept, which at the same time questions the grown humanistic discourse on Europe.

Key words: european conscience, “Weltliteratur” (world literature), national literatures, Thomas Mann, André Gide, Hans-Magnus enzensberger.

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Thomas Mann et André Gide appartiennent à une génération d’écri-vains pour qui l’Europe ne fut pas chose acquise. Leur discours sur l’Eu-rope était déterminé par des visions utopiques, mais également des a priori nationaux et un scepticisme politique. Cette incertitude sur l’avenir euro-péen a en partie des raisons historiques: les conflits armés entre 1870–71 et la deuxième guerre mondiale ont causé de fortes fluctuations au niveau de la compréhension politique entre les peuples européens et les discours correspondants sur l’Europe. En outre, les réflexions sur l’Europe ont pro-voqué de tout temps une discussion spirituelle entre les cultures. Car elles font justement office d’une sorte de métonymie pour l’héritage humaniste en général, pour des traditions et des idées élevées, par exemple pour ce qui est d’acquis tels que les Lumières, la démocratie, le cosmopolitisme, etc.

Thomas Mann s’est penché sur le thème de l’Europe sur un plan lit-téraire et théorique ainsi que du point de vue de sa mutation au cours du temps. Dans son roman La Montagne magique (Der Zauberberg,1924), c’est toute l’«Europe malade» qui – symboliquement parlant – se retrouve dans un sanatorium suisse. André Gide, Européen dans l’âme tout comme Thomas Mann, commente l’édition française de l’essai de Thomas Mann, Avertissement à l’europe (Achtung europa (1936),1 avec ces mots: «Mann reste […] un humaniste dans le sens le plus plein du mot». L’humanisme, selon l’écrivain allemand, «n’est en rien scolaire et n’a, directement, rien à voir avec l’érudition. L’humanisme est plutôt un esprit, une disposi-tion intellectuelle, un état d’âme humaine qui implique justice, liberté, connaissance et tolérance, aménité et sérénité»2 Thomas Mann exige un humanisme européen «militant» qui serait capable d’une résurrection contre le fanatisme3. Il s’agit donc d’une conception humaniste qui est déterminée en partie par les circonstances historiques en Allemagne et en Europe: par la barbarie, la guerre, la catastrophe humaine.

Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, poète et observateur critique des évolu-tions européennes, oppose à cette idée humaniste de l’Europe un nouveau concept, entre autres avec des textes comme eurozentrismus wider Willen (eurocentrisme à contre-coeur)4 ou Ach europa! (europe, europe!), un mélange entre essai et récit de voyage5. Enzensberger s’oppose aux ambi-tions d’harmonisation politique et économique auxquelles tend Bruxelles et souligne les particularités culturelles de chacun des pays européens. Nous allons constater que le côté spirituelle de la conception humanis-te – bien qu’il existe toujours en principe – sera supplanté par une critique

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concrète des réalités européennnes. Enzensberger est né en 1929 et oc-cupe aujourd’hui encore une place importante dans la vie intellectuelle de l’Allemagne.

Mais commençons par le début.Les racines d’une conscience européenne par des écrivains comme

Thomas Mann ou André Gide viennent en fait de l’éducation humaniste bourgeoise dont ils ont bénéficié. Parmi leurs influences les plus impor-tantes, on trouve principalement l’Antiquité et les Lumières, mais éga-lement le poète allemand Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Pourquoi précisé-ment Goethe? Dans l’optique du potentiel transfrontalier de la littérature, Goethe a été un précurseur non seulement pour beaucoup d’Européens, mais également au niveau international. Thomas Mann et André Gide quant à eux, se sont tous deux fréquemment inspirés du terme de «Welt-literatur» (littérature mondiale) de Goethe dans leurs discours et leurs es-sais, lorsqu’il s’agissait de la question des relations entre les littératures nationales. A côté de Goethe, l’influence de Dostojewski et de Nietzsche a également été révélatrice pour la pensée culturelle de Gide et de Mann. On retrouve très concrètement les allusions de cet intérêt pour Goethe dans les oeuvres littéraires des deux auteurs, comme par exemple dans Lotte in Weimar, de Mann ou dans Les Cahiers d’André Walter, de Gide.

En conséquent, d’un point de vue méthodique, je pense que la ques-tion de l’Europe prise dans le sens de ce colloque doit logiquement être présentée tout d’abord comme une discussion sur l’altérité culturelle en général, ensuite dans la perspective de l’idée de la littérature mondiale, et, enfin, dans le contexte des relations franco-allemandes au sein de l’espace européen.

Il est intéressant de constater que Goethe s’était déjà battu pour un ter-me d’altérité qui allait bien au-delà des relations au sein de l’Europe, avec son oeuvre West-östlicher Divan (Le divan occidental-oriental). Plutôt que de parler d’humanisme de façon abstraite, je préfère présenter rapide-ment cet exemple de sincérité spirituelle et littéraire.

Non seulement ce cycle de poèmes de Goethe6 nous présente un voya-ge fictif en Orient, mais en plus le poète fait ici un voyage allégorique, au pays de la poésie. Le Divan de Goethe est en fait une transformation litté-raire, une sorte d’ hypertexte au deuxième degrée par rapport au texte de Hafis et de sa traduction en allemand par un spécialiste de l’époque (Ham-mer). La rencontre avec le poète persan Hafis est l’occasion de dépasser les frontières esthétiques, ce qui finit par déboucher sur un programme hu-

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maniste conforme à l’esprit du temps. Goethe connaissait l’Orient de ma-nière aussi livresque que la Grèce où il ne s’était jamais rendu. Chez lui, l’altérité concrète se perd encore dans une sorte de construction idéaliste et universaliste. Par endroits, les commentaires ajoutés au Divan (Pour une meilleure compréhension du divan occidental-oriental) prennent vrai-ment l’allure de la préface didactique d’un guide pour voyageurs: loué soit «celui qui s’accommode des usages du pays étranger et s’y intéresse, qui s’efforce de s’approprier sa langue, de partager ses convictions, d’adopter ses moeurs»7. Le contre-programme de cette attitude serait l’ethnocen-trisme de celui qui tantôt efface l’étranger de son horizon, tantôt ne cher-che la comparaison avec l’étranger que pour affirmer sa propre identité (nationale). Le moi lyrique de Goethe s’oriente certainement en fonction d’un tertium comparationis différent, absolu en quelque sorte. Car au-des-sus de toutes les différences culturelles, trône dans le Divan une instance commune et divine: la participation commune à un ordre universel qui transcende la distance culturelle et historique.

Gottes ist der Orient!Gottes ist der Occident!8

(«L’Orient appartient à Dieu!L’Occident appartient à Dieu!»)

La notion goethéenne d’une «Weltliteratur» (littérature mondiale) en pleine expansion peut être considérée d’un côté comme appartenant au même horizon idéaliste, mais elle est de l’autre une réaction à ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui le procès de la modernisation ; concrètement, elle est un reflet des nouveaux moyens de communication qui ont rendu possi-ble l’échange entre les cultures.

Goethe a bel et bien reconnu que la mobilité des personnes par le cour-rier postal, les bateaux à vapeur, les œuvres écrites, etc. représentait une condition sine qua non de l’échange culturel. Mais il faut ici reconnaître les limites du cosmopolitisme. S’il condamne l’étroitesse d’esprit, c’est aussi à partir d’un enracinement national. Il «justifie en même temps […] l’élément national comme la condition nécessaire à un dialogue cultu-rel productif»9. La célèbre phrase de Goethe «la littérature nationale ne veut pas dire grand-chose aujourd’hui; c’est la littérature mondiale qui est dans l’air du temps [...]»10 nous montre que la connaissance moderne

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(«aujourd’hui») et la conscience de l’internationalité interagissent de fa-çon prévisible.

Il a été beaucoup écrit sur le concept de littérature mondiale, y com-pris à travers la perspective postcoloniale contemporaine. J’aimerais juste l’évoquer rapidement comme élément d’une «poétique de la relation». Si l’on met de côté les remarques éparses de Goethe à ce sujet, il devient évident qu’il prend explicitement pour base au concept d’une littérature mondiale le processus de la modernisation accélérée, auquel appartien-nent également l’industrialisation et l’amélioration des moyens de com-munication. Une littérature mondiale qu’il considère comme un projet permanent, non comme une règle établie. Il faut dire qu’à son époque, l’eurocentrisme ne prêtait pas encore à polémique (les conditions histo-riques et politiques étaient évidemment tout autres – il n’y avait pas de post-colonialisme). Littérature mondiale et littérature européenne faisaient partie du concept de Goethe de façon presque interchangeable, encore que le national voulait conserver sa position centrale car comme le disait Goethe dans un aphorisme: «Tout bien examiné, c’est au moment où une littérature mondiale se met en place que l’Allemand a le plus à perdre.»11 On observe donc dans ce contexte une dialectique véritablement comple-xe – à moins qu’il ne s’agisse de contradictions, voire de paradoxes? – en ce qui concerne l’évaluation du transfrontalisme culturel.

La pensée universaliste de marque goethéenne a été particulièrement bien accueillie à la fois par les intellectuels français et allemands du 20e siècle, notamment entre les deux guerres mondiales. Songeons notam-ment à Thomas Mann, à son dialogue avec Goethe, avec l’Allemagne et le terme allemand de «Kultur», avec la France et le terme français de ci-vilisation, avec l’idée immédiatement reprise par Goethe d’une littérature mondiale, etc. Entre d’un côté Rolland, Gide, les germanistes Lichtenber-ger et Bertaux, le philosophe et critique André Suarès, etc. et, de l’autre, les frères Mann ainsi que Stefan Zweig, Hermann Hesse, Ernst Robert Curtius, etc., est apparu un dialogue franco-allemand parfois mené de façon très controversée. On peut qualifier celui-ci des mots du titre d’un recueil d’essais de Romain Rolland en disant qu’il s’agissait d’un dialo-gue Au-dessus de la mêlée (1915) – recueil qui a pour sujet les confusions de la première guerre mondiale. Le roman Jean-Christophe de Romain Rolland sur la vie d’un musicien, terminé en 1912 et considéré comme un roman d’apprentissage dans la lignée de Wilhelm Meister, se consacre aux rapports franco-allemands aux niveaux politique et culturel. La vie de

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Johann Christoph Krafft – nomen est omen –, compositeur de Lieder alle-mand et émigré en France, est marquée par des phases de manifestations de révolte, de scepticisme et de déchirement interne. Mais l’ideal est sou-sentendu: son processus musical de maturité correspond à l’exigence d’un ensemble harmonieux des nations.

Les relations franco-allemandes étaient également un leitmotiv dans les exposés d’André Gide sur la littérature européenne. Directeur de la Nouvelle revue Française, il cherchait fréquemment le contact avec des intellectuels allemands, y compris avec Thomas Mann. Dans ce contexte, son article «Les rapports intellectuels entre la France et l’Allemagne» (1921)12 est paradigmatique. Il ne fait aucun doute que les rapports entre Gide et Thomas Mann étaient davantage déterminés par leur approche cosmopolite comparable (surtout après 1920) que par des affinités person-nelles ou littéraires. Au niveau littéraire, ils avaient certes, comme je l’ai souligné au début, des modèles communs comme Goethe, Nietzsche ou Dostojewski, mais l’un comme l’autre ont développé un style «national» non interchangeable. Ce n’est pas sans raison que Gide un jour a qualifié le roman de Joseph d’ «indigestion germanique». Mais comme Thomas Mann il se dresse contre des tendances d’harmonisation europénne en ce qui concerne la littérature: «C’est une profonde erreur de croire que l’on travaille à la culture européenne avec des oeuvres dénationalisées […] une confusion tend à s’établir entre culture européenne et dénationalisation.» («Réflexions sur l’Allemagne», 1919)13

Dès 1909, Gide avait, dans la Nouvelle revue Française, défendu l’idée selon laquelle «aucune œuvre d’art n’a de signification universelle qui n’a d’abord une signification nationale, n’a de signification nationale qui n’a d’abord une signification individuelle.»14 Toutefois, les idéaux maîtres s’ap-pliquent toujours. Universalisme, humanisme, telles sont des catégories idéologiques qui revêtent une importance particulière pour une exigence éthique dans le milieu politique des années 1920 et 1930. A cette époque, Goethe incarnait pour les intellectuels français le bon Allemand, un échan-tillon de la République des Lettres supranationale. «S’il nous apparaît à nous Français», écrit Gide en 1932, «moins allemand que les autres auteurs d’Outre-Rhin, c’est ainsi qu’il est plus généralement et universellement hu-main…»15 En conséquent, ce serait «une grave erreur de penser que les per-formances d’un grand auteur s’arrêtent aux frontières de son pays. » 16

De même Thomas Mann – tout à fait dans la ligne de la conception goethéenne d’une littérature mondiale – considère le progrès culturel com-

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me un processus dialectique, comme une combinaison de composantes in-dividuelles, nationales et internationales. Dans un discours prononcés en 1926 devant le PEN-Club il déclare:

L’Europe cela signifie l’ordre libre des peuples, cela signifie la citoyenneté internationale, la haine de l’idolâtrie nationale et de l’imperialisme culturel. Notre époque s’ouvre largement au monde; elle ne privilège pas l’idylle pro-vinciale et qui ne s’adresserait qu’à son propre peuple ne compterait guère (..) Car aucun peuple ne se sent bien tout seul; chaque peuple a besoin, pour ne pas stagner, pour ne pas se désécher, d’être complété et fécondé par un autre; […].17

Comme je voulais surtout parler de conceptions et de modèles je dois renoncer à vous montrer les reflets littéraires de cette image de l’Europe. Les romans des Thomas Mann et d’André Gide baignent en quelque sorte dans la tradition littéraire europénne. Les Caves du Vaticans, L’immo-raliste et d’autres écrits de Gide seraient impensables sans Goethe, sans Nietzsche, sans Dostojewski. De même Les Buddenbrooks ou le Doktor Faustus de Thomas Mann n’existeraient pas sans l’arrière-plan européen. Leur mémoire interculturelle se manifeste par une intertextualité particu-lièrement complexe qui démontre précisement l’enracinement des deux romanciers dans une littérature mondiale eurocentriste.

Et maintenant la dernière étape de mon parcours: L’Europe de Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

Enzensberger appartient depuis toujours, et c’était surtout le cas dans les années 1960 et 1970, aux intellectuels critiques d’Allemagne. Son œu-vre comprend une grande diversité de genres, essais, poèmes, biographies de fiction, reportages, traductions littéraires, etc. Il fait partie de cette ca-tégorie d’écrivains qui allient esthétique et engagement critique d’une ma-nière remarquablement productive. D’un côté, il s’exprime, parfois aussi de façon polémique, sur l’Allemagne politique; de l’autre, il fait figure d’homme de lettres particulièrement sensible au niveau de la langue et de la forme. Ce n’est pas pour rien qu’on le considère dans la tradition de la critique rhétorique de Heinrich Heine, un frontalier entre la France et l’Allemagne qui a pour sa part beaucoup réfléchi et écrit sur le thème de l’Europe. Mais bien sûr, les temps ont changé, et non pas seulement depuis Heine, mais aussi depuis les écritures correspondantes de Thomas Mann. Dans le temps qui m’est imparti, je ne peux piocher que quelques rares exemples dans l’atelier littéraire de l’Europe d’Enzensberger.

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Un texte central emboîte le pas, de manière pour ainsi dire intertex-tuelle, à la mise en garde Achtung europa! (voir note 5) que Thomas Mann avait lancée de son exil en Suisse avant l’éclatement de la deuxième guerre mondiale. Le petit mot «Achtung» peut renvoyer à de nombreuses connotations, dont certaines désagréables. Le titre allemand du compte rendu d’Enzensberger sur des expériences de voyages européens s’intitule Ach europa!. Ce «Ach» sonne quelque peu résigné, quelque peu sarcas-tique aussi. Cette balade à travers les capitales de l’Europe, écrite sous la forme d’un reportage, date de 1987, mais reste aujourd’hui, plus de 20 ans après, parfaitement d’actualité. Alors qu’André Gide et Thomas Mann défendaient l’idée d’une unité européenne, pour le moins sur le plan in-tellectuel, Enzensberger est à la recherche d’une Europe perdue, d’une «vieille Europe», comme dans un poème du même titre, une Europe de la diversité, de la mixité, des cultures et des traditions. Les formatages po-litiques et administratifs de cette diversité le rebutent. Il formule comme suit ce qu’il pense de la politique de l’Europe de Bruxelles dans l’article «Brüssel oder Europa – eins von beiden», paru en 1989: «Trente ans après l’euphorie humaniste d’après-guerre», écrit Enzensberger, «les propagan-distes du marché commun se sont démaquillés de toutes leurs prétentions occitendales. Les intérêts ont remplacé les idéaux.»18

Les descriptions de voyages de Ach europa! sont également ponctuées de remarques euro-sceptiques. Lorsqu’il emploie le «Je», Enzensberger ne raconte et ne décrit pas lui-même, mais fait voyager à travers l’Europe un journaliste américain, dont il se sert comme d’un observateur critique. Il choisit ainsi une perspective extérieure et étrangère pour un meilleur profilage de ce que l’Europe représente aujourd’hui. Au sein de chacune des «Perceptions de sept pays» (par ex. de la Suède, l’Italie, la Hongrie, le Portugal, etc.), on trouve des dialogues avec des autochtones, des inter-views, de petites scènes et épisodes. L’auteur se nourrit ainsi de l’autre et de l’étranger (l’Europe) en utilisant une forme dialoguée rompant avec la perspective, dans le but de faire ainsi ressortir les différences, les «ryth-mes de vie de chacun», la «diversité», le «micmac», le «chaos», termes qu’il emploie tels quels. Pour Enzensberger, il s’agit ici d’une confusion productive, qu’il oppose à l’idée d’ «unité». Un des interlocuteurs du journaliste l’exprime de cette façon: «Chaque tendance au nivellement, qu’elle soit politique, religieuse ou sociale, met notre continent en danger de mort. Ce qui nous menace, c’est l’unité forcée, l’homogénéisation; ce qui nous sauve, c’est notre diversité.»19 Il croit en l’altérité à l’intérieur de

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l’Europe: «Ce que vous qualifiez de chaos est notre plus importante res-source. Nous vivons de la différence.»20

Cette discussion se poursuit dans un autre long texte, un essai sur le thème de La grande migration (Die Grosse Wanderung,1992)21. Ses ob-servations sur la migration vont de la nuit des temps jusqu’à l’époque post-coloniale. Ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui «mobilité globale» re-monte pour lui à la différence anthropologique entre les peuples sédentai-res et les nomades: «La sédentarité n’est pas inscrite dans les gênes de no-tre espèce; […] Notre existence primaire est celle des chasseurs-cueilleurs et des bergers.»22. L’existence des cueilleurs apparaît donc comme une métonymie pour désigner l’évolution continue de l’humanité à différents niveaux historiques: biblique/mythologique, inter-européen et planétaire. Dans cet essai, nous pouvons étudier un article théorico-critique, qui porte moins d’intérêt aux préoccupations concrètes des immigrés, qui viennent par exemple de ce qu’on appelle le tiers monde, qu’aux questions fonda-mentales telles que la relativisation culturelle, («L’interaction entre les descriptions de soi et des autres est très confuse»)23, la société multicultu-relle, la xénophobie, la globalisation. Si la perspective d’Enzensberger est aussi celle des habitants de la «bonne vieille Europe», il ne s’exprime en fait toujours que de manière très générale sur les questions de la migration et de la compréhension européenne. De plus, il considère que l’eurocen-trisme est en fin de compte inévitable, attribuant des traits eurocentristes à bien des théoriciens défendant une perspective post-coloniale.24

Mais sa critique s’adresse essentiellement aux excroissances de la so-ciété post-industrielle, qui instrumentalise les migrants, qui préfère perpé-tuer la différence entre pauvre et riche. Là où «la fortune a valeur sacrée, l’attirance, la solidarité pour les étrangers est plutôt faible.»25. Enzens-berger projette sur les victimes des mouvements migratoires le mobile de Turgenev dans «Les hommes superflus»: les responsables de la misère seraient des instigateurs anonymes: le colonialisme, l’industrialisation, le progrès technique, la collectivisation, le marché mondial, la croissance économique etc.26

J’avais souligné qu’Enzensberger associait facilement esthétique et essai critique. Ses démêlés assez polémiques sur la politique de Bruxelles et son idéal d’harmonisation européenne se font parallèlement à son acti-vité de critique littéraire, poète et traducteur. Dès 1960, l’auteur publiait le Musée de la poésie moderne, une anthologie de poèmes européens de la modernité classique (1919–1940)27. Dans notre contexte, la postface qui

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présente les poèmes choisis comme échantillons de «littérature mondiale» est particulièrement intéressante. En 1960, il y avait manifestement tou-jours un desiderata qui va davantage de soi aujourd’hui: le dépassement des frontières de la littérature nationale. Ce sont précisément les poètes modernes de la première moitié du siècle qui auraient «procuré à la lit-térature mondiale une puissance lumineuse, qui n’était pas imaginable en d’autres temps [...] Si la science était moins liée à la littérature par les frontières des langues nationales, on aurait ici un terrain de jeu idéal pour la recherche.»28 Il est étonnant de constater à quel point Enzensberger est proche du terme de «naissance d’une littérature mondiale» employé par Goethe lorsqu’il souligne que le processus de la poésie moderne «mène à la naissance d’une langue universelle poétique»29.

Près de trente ans plus tard, dans le cadre de la réédition du Musée de la poésie moderne en 2002, il corrige son concept de littérature mon-diale et lui attribue un «eurocentrisme naïf». «C’est pourquoi il n’y a dans ce livre aucun Chinois, Arabe, Indien, Japonais, [...]. L’idée d’une litté-rature mondiale a ainsi souffert d’un raccourci que l’on trouve étrange aujourd’hui, à une époque postcoloniale.»30 Cette autocritique peut sem-bler contradictoire avec la thèse discutée auparavant. A croire qu’en fin de compte, un auteur européen ne peut échapper à l’eurocentrisme.

Mais Enzensberger s’est ainsi également émancipé du concept idéa-liste-humaniste de Thomas Mann et d’André Gide. Comme il l’avait déjà fait dans ses essais sur l’Europe, il invoque les dangers de la globalisa-tion, des abstractions du marché mondial et de la technique. Selon lui, la bureaucratie de Bruxelles a perverti l’idée de l’Europe: «rien de pire que Big Science, High Tech, l’astronautique, le plutonium, toutes ces mauvai-ses blagues»31. Pour lui, Bruxelles serait une «gigantesque hydrocéphalie supranationale» sans légitimation démocratique: dans ce processus de dés-humanisation des décisions, les habitants de notre belle péninsule (l’Eu-rope) n’auraient plus rien à dire. Seule la poésie conserverait sa spécifi-cité. «Son repli dans la périphérie médiumnique est une exception presque programmée»32.(J’ajoute: à l’époque d’une interconnexion totale.)

En arrière-plan de cette pensée, on comprend mieux le compte rendu hautement ironique que fait le journaliste américain Taylor à la fin de la dernière étape (Prague) de son voyage en Europe. Dans une pièce radio-phonique de 1989, «Böhmen am Meer», texte publié d’abord dans Ach europa! (1987), Enzensberger nous livre une version plus élargie de cette Ironie. Taylor veut rentrer; «J’en ai profondément marre de l’Europe», dit-

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il33. Il prend le taxi pour l’aéroport, le chauffeur est un «éternel étudiant» de quarante-cinq ans, originaire d’Autriche. Taylor constate: «Une pile de livres se trouvait sur le siège avant inoccupé. C’est une manie typique-ment européenne. Ils lisent encore des livres.»34. Un dialogue s’instaure entre les deux personnes:

Taylor: Vous êtes écrivain ou quoi ? Chauffeur de taxi : Etudiant. En littérature générale et comparée.Talyor: Comment ? Ça existe toujours ça ? Chauffeur de taxi: A Prague oui. J’étudie dans le taxi, pendant les temps d’at-tente. Je suis Autrichien mais cela fait déjà dix ans que je vis à Prague. J’ai tendance à faire de l’asthme. L’air de la mer me fait du bien. Taylor: L’air de la mer?Chauffeur de taxi: Eh bien, vous savez, Bohemia, sur la côte. Taylor: Je n’y comprends rien.

Chacun sait que Bohemia n’est pas sur la côte. Pour comprendre En-zensberger, je dois vous expliquer ce non-sens apparent. Bohemia est un lieu d’action fictif dans la pièce «Le conte d’hiver» de Shakespeare. Dans la littérature allemande, Bohemia est utilisée pour décrire la surface de projection d’un état utopique idéal (Enzensberger situe le voyage du jour-naliste en 2006 – donc vingt ans après publication de son texte!). Notre chauffeur de taxi offre au journaliste américain une feuille, sur laquelle est écrit un poème de l’une des plus célèbres écrivaines germanophones, Ingeborg Bachmann. Le titre de ce poème est Bohemia est sur la côte, qui est aussi le titre du dernier chapitre de Ach europa! d’Enzensberger.

Le jeu intertextuel sert ici de contraste symbolique de la «bonne vieille Europe» et de sa variété culturelle avec la marque de l’idéal d’unité de Bruxelles. Je ne sais pas si Enzensberger a jamais étudié la littérature comparée, mais la rencontre fortuite avec cet étudiant n’est évidemment pas un hasard; elle apparaît au contraire largement construite. La littéra-ture comparée s’applique parfaitement ici. Elle vit justement de la dif-férence. L’hélice de l’uniformisation et de l’harmonisation européenne apparaît au contraire comme une utopie négative. La marasme règne là où il n’y a plus rien à comparer si les différences ont été abolies.

En ce sens, la vision d’Enzensberger me semble nettement diverger des visions humanistes de Thomas Mann et d’André Gide. Les descrip-tions négatives d’Enzensberger sont les excroissances actuelles de la tech-nologisation, la dérive scientifique et la commercialisation «au-dessus de la tête des hommes» au sens propre. Son image de l’Europe est ainsi en

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même temps l’expression d’un scepticisme philosophique global: « La posthumanisation à la fois technologique/économique et culturelle/philo-sophique provoque donc une dissolution des limitations et des démarca-tions traditionnelles de l’humain.»35

Références1 Thomas Mann, Avertissement à l’europe. Préface d’André Gide, Paris: Galli-

mard, 1937.2 Op.cit. Préface, 9–10.3 Avertissement à l’europe, 44.4 Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “eurozentrismus wider Willen”. In: Enzens-

berger: Politische Brosamen, Frankfurt am Main, 1982, 31–52.5 Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Ach europa! Wahrnehmungen aus sieben Län-

dern, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987. Éd. française: europe! europe! Paris: Gallimard, 1988.6 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-östlicher Divan, Sämtliche Werke, Vol.

11.1.2, éd. Hans Richter, München: Hanser, 1998. (Textes de Goethe trad. par l’auteur)

7 Goethe, West-östlicher Divan: Zu besserem Verständnis, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 11.1.2, 130.

8 Goethe, West-östlicher Divan, 12.9 Op. cit., “Einführung”, 336.Op. cit., “Einführung”, 336.10 Goethe, Gespräche mit eckermann, Sämtliche Werke, 19, S.206.11 Cit.Cit. Hendrik Birus: “Goethes Idee der Weltliteratur. Eine historische Verge-

genwärtigung”, in: Manfred Schmeling (Hg.): Weltliteratur heute. KonzepteKonzepte und Perspektiven, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1995, 5–28; 13

12 André Gide, «Les rapports intellectuels entre la France et l’Allemagne», Nou-velle revue Française, no. 98, 1921, 513–521.

13 Gide, «Réflexions sur l’Allemagne», Nouvelles revue Française, no. 69, 1919, 46.

14 Gide, «Nationalisme et littérature», Nouvelle revue Française, 1909, no 5, 430.

15 Op. cit., 368–69.Op. cit., 368–69.16 Op. cit., 369.17 Thomas Mann: Autobiographisches, Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1968, 176

(Trad. par l’auteur)18 Enzensberger, “Brüssel oder Europa – eins von beiden”, in Enzensberger, Der

fliegende robert, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989, 117–125, 118. Voir le commen-taire de Paul Michael Lützeler, Die Schriftsteller und europa. Von der ro-mantik bis zur Gegenwart. München: Piper, 1992, 470.

19 Ach europa!, 482.20 Op.cit., 484.Op.cit., 484.

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21 Enzensberger, Die große Wanderung, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992.22 Op. cit., 10.Op. cit., 10.23 Op. cit., 18.Op. cit., 18.24 “Eurozentrismus wider Willen”, op. cit. note 4.“Eurozentrismus wider Willen”, op. cit. note 4.25 Enzensberger, Die Grosse Wanderung, 57.26 Op. cit., 28.Op. cit., 28.27 Enzensberger, Museum der modernen Poesie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1960;

nouv. éd. 2002.28 Museum, éd. 2002, 773.29 Op. cit., 773.Op. cit., 773.30 Op. cit., 786–787.Op. cit., 786–787.31 Ach europa!, 481.32 Museum, 787.33 Enzensberger, Böhmen am Meer. ein Hörspiel aus dem Jahr 2006. in: Der

Fliegende robert, op. cit. note 18, 126-170, voir 167.34 Op. cit. 167.Op. cit. 167.35 Stefan Herbrechter, Posthumanismus, Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft,

2009, 155.

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Western Humanism and the “Other”

Vakarų humanizmas ir „Kitas“

Jüri TALVeTuniversity of TartuÜlikooli 17-40351014 Tartu, [email protected]

SummaryIn the background of some significant postmodern misreading / non-reading

of European historical humanism I will try to discuss the possible germs of the simplifications from which the treatment of humanism has suffered in the last decades of the 20th century. The question of the “other” is of key importance in understanding the contribution of humanism to Western and world culture. From the very early days of the emergence of humanistic activity in 14th-century Italy, a contradiction can be observed in its basic world-view. Petrarch’s Secretum re-veals a divergence in embryo. Humanist scholars of the ancient philosophy and literature formed the rationally minded mainstream of humanism, which, espe-cially in 18th-century Enlightenment, converged with science. It consolidated the image of the Western “self” based on the creed of universal reason as a supreme source of Truth. The other wing of humanism was formed by writers and artists. Since Petrarch himself and, especially, Boccaccio, it opposed any flat rationality as well as rationally-rooted idealism. It constantly transgressed the boundaries of the „self”and propagated openness to nature. In the same contradictory paradigm humanistic writers, despite fierce ideological opposition by “men of reason and power”, pioneered in revealing the human “other”, i.e. woman as a personality. Artistic playfulness, subtle ironies and ambiguity of imagery were the basic means of humanistic philosophy of tolerance, relativity of meanings and openness to na-ture as well as to the natural and social “other” in the work of Erasmus and Tho-mas More, to be followed by an ever-bolder penetration into the world of the “oth-er” and an ever more intense dialogue with the “other” in Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón and other great humanist writers of the fertile intersection area of the Renaissance and Baroque. This had its direct follow-up in the philosophy of Romanticism (Herder, the Schlegels, Novalis, Goethe), which was to become the great start of the dis-covery of the „other“ in literature. In our times of the late (if not subsiding) theo-retical postmodernism, the work of Yuri M. Lotman, since his conception of the „semiosphere“, can best epitomize the continuing vitality of humanistic creation in its ever-deepening dialogue with the “other”.

Key words: humanism, the “other”, woman, postmodern discourse, romanti-cism, feminism

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The question of the “other” has taken a new turn in the background of postmodern theory. There is an evident insufficiency in identifying hu-manism, as a phenomenon, with philosophical rationalism and with the establishment of “definite truths” or “grand narratives”, fiercely attacked by some postmodern scholars. Indeed, as I have tried to show in my ear-lier observations on the subject1, postmodern theory has quite strangely tried to usurp the achievements of European historical humanism, espe-cially as far as the “conquest” of the “other” is concerned, at the cost of presenting a disfigured image of its supposed opponent.

It is far from being a question of the past, something that by the start of the 21st century has been “overcome” once and for ever. In the spiritual and intellectual-humanistic field, the idea of progress and gradual perfec-tion are hardly applicable. It would be highly misleading to imagine that ultimate wisdom has been achieved in the mainstream of postmodern dis-courses and that the only task left to our posterity is just to elaborate these discourses, in ever more subtle rewriting. On the contrary, I suggest that a new turn in the humanities is urgently needed. It should take into account the historical experience of Western humanism. The same dilemmas that the humanities face today were very much present in the early Renais-sance, as Dante Alighieri, Petrarch and Boccaccio laid the path for a new type of conscience of literary creation. They were present at the peak of the European Renaissance, when Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More wrote their essays, boldly defying hate and enmity dominating the po-litical and religious scene of Europe at the start of the 16th century. They were even more acutely present, when the heyday of the Renaissance was coming to its close, in the work of Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Calderón and other great writers and philosophers who followed in the path of creative humanism till the second part of the 17th century.

The application of the term “creative humanism” is not anything casual in my treatment of the phenomenon. The nature of creation as such has become a key issue in postmodern theories. Since Roland Barthes launched the idea and the image of the “death of the author”, postmodern theories have tried to diminish the role of originality in the creative act, asserting, instead, that creation is rather a chain of intertex-tualities and rewriting, a kind of immanent action, not having much to do with “outward” reality, especially reality outside the realm of culture. According to these theories, discourses and, especially, written discours-es have their own sufficiency; beyond discourses, life does not exist, or

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at least such life that could have a role in the interpretation of basic val-ues of human existence.

Such arguing follows deeply in the pattern that emerged in the first part of the 17th century with the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. According to him, reality beyond thinking and reason was meaningless or at least it could not provide any ground for approaching truth. God is identified in Descartes with Supreme Reason or Highest In-tellect. In an older edition of Petit Larousse illustré I found an intriguing definition of humanism, in which Cartesianism is identified with human-ism2. If Cartesianism is humanism, then, paradoxically, the postmodern theories attacking humanism seem to have launched a war against their own origins. One can find interesting short descriptions of the notion of humanism in other dictionaries. Thus, encyclopedia Americana includes among the representatives of “Northern humanists” the political-religious leader of the French protestants, Jean Calvin. It qualifies Erasmus as “the Prince of Christian Humanists”, while admitting that “scientific humanism aims to supplant religion and make scientific knowledge the instrument of freeing man and enhancing life” 3. It also observes that the term “human-ism” has been claimed by pragmatists, existentialists and Marxists.

An important remark about humanism in Большая советская энциклопедия claims that in the French Enlightenment humanism became linked with materialism and atheism4. The mainstream of postmodern-ist discourse has shown a strong defiance of any “godly truths”, having among its main spiritual fathers the Western anti-Christian champion Frie-drich Nietzsche.

A very well known fact not to be ignored is that since the 14th cen-tury early Italian Renaissance humanists were identified with those schol-ars – in opposition to clergymen and theologians – who started to spread (research and comment on) ancient philosophy and literature. Yet there is no denying that these hard-working men, who published the results of their learning mainly in Latin – as they considered vernacular languages inadequate for scholarly and philosophical expression – are given little mention in modern dictionaries. Instead, the foreground is firmly occupied by those men of letters and science who managed to launch some deeper original work, not just commentaries on the ancients.

For that reason, the term “creative humanism” seems to have its rai-son d’être. In the (post)modern discussion about humanism we should try to centre on the originating impulse and current use about which our

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contemporary dictionaries manifest little disagreement. Articles about hu-manism seldom fail to mention Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus, Thomas More, Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes. They form the core of historical humanism.

Now the question is: is postmodern theory, while declaring its anti-hu-manist essence5, really opposing and attacking these writers, which I have just mentioned?

If yes, on what grounds? In her recent doctoral dissertation, the Span-ish scholar Yolanda Caballero Aceituno has well observed surprising sim-ilarities between Laurence Sterne’s “humanistic project” and postmodern ideas6. Sterne, a late humanist writer, was a direct offspring of Cervantes, both in his ludic-metatextual narrative art and his philosophical under-standing of the “other”. Is postmodern theory continuing the “humanistic project”, while denying its origins and sources? Maybe, ironically speak-ing, it is a “simulacrum” of the denying of the existence of the object or essence, of which it is a semblance? To be honest, I cannot find any ex-planation for this paradox beyond an exaggerated fear, on the part of the postmodernists, of God as the original Author or Creator. In some post-modern translation theories, which insist on translation as creative rewrit-ing, the defiance of God is even translated into the ground of the battle of the sexes, with linguistic gender as its substantial contributor7.

The gender question is undeniably important. It is not at all a mere coincidence that in parallel with postmodern ideology a strong feminist current has emerged since the last quarter of the 20th century. It is also a fact that all best-known historical humanist writers were men, with-out exception. The fact however, should not lead us to simplifications. We cannot expect a wider emergence of women’s creativity in the cen-turies when Western societies were dominated exclusively by crude and autocratic male power. Its gradual emergence could not be earlier than the slow transition to democratic social systems along the 19th century. At the same time, in the vanguard of those Europeans who pioneered in creat-ing the premises for democratic and liberal tendencies in Western ideol-ogy, including a call for understanding the “other” – woman, the socially and ethnically exploited and humiliated Europeans, indigenous people of other continents – were always humanist writers. They were the boldest in defying the abuses of Western male power, as well as in including woman and nature in the philosophical discourse which supported and provoked social changes.

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Once again I would like to stress the importance of literature. It runs parallel to philosophy and science, but its great advantage over the latter is that it presents its ideas in images, which cannot be grasped by other means than the senses. Descartes’s famous cogito, ergo sum, stops to work in literature. On the contrary, literature works by the principle: sentio, ergo sum. Literature does not separate intellect or reason from the senses, that is why in literature our intellectual dimension is deeply intertwined with nature of which the sensual and the sexual is an inseparable part, in fact, its essence. Thus literature, not excluding philosophy, includes by its very nature the “other” in its discourse to a much greater extent than philosophy or science. Literature is a symbiotic philosophy: ideas lose their abstract and artificial tendency, thus, they can represent and interpret the world more fully, while the sensual and the sexual, in contact with the intellect, can produce surprising epiphanies of human spirituality.

In the following I will briefly exemplify the symbiotic character of the work of early creative humanists. It is inalienable from the emergence of the “other” in Western philosophical discourse. Without the humanistic background, the radical breakthrough in the dialogue with the “other” in the philosophy of Romanticism or the emergence of the “other”, as a subject, in the feminist discourse of the last quarter of the 20th century can hardly be understood.

Dante Alighieri: germinal symbiosis of the female and the male Dante Alighieri is seldom included in the list of humanists, but in fact

he was the greatest pioneering creator at the dawn of the Renaissance. The reason why Dante is not mentioned among humanists may possibly be that he was a deeply religious man. “Paradiso”, the last part of his Commedia, resembles very much a theological treatise. Dante’s Comme-dia is “divine” in the sense that as an artistic creation, it has no parallels in the past; thus, it cannot exhaustively be explained on the grounds of in-tertextuality. It is a genuine “explosion”, of which we do not possess any simulacra or imitations in the following centuries that could equal or rival its “grand narrative”.

The supreme goal of Dante’s journey and narrative was God. How-ever, the greatest difference from all other preceding work is that Dan-te turned a woman, as an incarnation and symbol of love, into the main guide to God. His theology is not governed by intellect, but it is a mixture of love and intellect, their symbiosis. While Dante’s first guide is Virgil,

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a poet from the past (symbolizing ancient culture as providing the liber-ating original impulse to the Renaissance), Beatrice, the final guide, is a young Italian lady with whom Dante was in love. Woman (Beatrice) manifestly occupies the final and decisive role of guiding Dante to God, while man (Virgil), even though he, too, is a great poet, like Dante him-self, must return to the first circle of the Inferno. In the final two Cantos of “Paradiso”, Virgin Mary is praised. Beatrice, together with other saints, clasps her hands to Virgin Mary. (XXXIII, 38–39). In the final epiphany of God (107–108), Dante once again recalls the divine infant “che d’un fante / che bagni ancor la lingua a la mammella”, but then, in the transi-tion to the supreme contemplation of God, any indication of a determined gender is suppressed. Not for a single instance does Dante speak of God as man / male, nor describes God’s physiognomy. God thus transcends genders and sexes. Dante speaks of God in the exclusive terms of “som-ma luce”, “luce etterna”, “l’alto lume” and “l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle”.

The female germ is “luce” (light), the male germ “amore” (love). They are equal and one in God, in a symbiotic union, whose final essence can-not be determined or uttered by the mortals. God is present only meta-phorically. It is the human dream, whose logic can never be captured by science or reason. Let us not forget that Dante’s vision in his Commedia is a dream. Dream, too, is a human “other”, or at least a “semiotic window”, which opens to the “other”, as Yuri Lotman has described it8.

Petrarch: woman’s corporalization The symbiotic nature of Francesco Petrarch’s humanism has its origin

in the same fertile union of a poet and a thinker that made Dante scarcely half a century before him stand forth as a supreme creator. Petrarch de-veloped in the deep footsteps of the intellectual tradition reaching from ancient Roman literature and philosophy. It was epitomized by Latin, in which he wrote the bulkier part of his work. As Latin has been an artificial (non-spoken) language since the Middle Ages, it very much embodied a cultural vehicle parallel to the written tradition (discourses) and inter-textuality, which some postmodern theoreticians would like to see as the exclusive source for textual creativity.

Even though Petrarch revered the ancient Romans, he failed to refute creative impulses reaching him from his individual existence as a human being and a man: love for Laura and suffering for love, both in life and

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beyond life. Like Dante before him, Petrarch could not utter these inmost, most intimately existential feelings in an artificial language provided by culture and tradition, but wrote the whole lyrical cycle of his poems, the source of his fame, in his mother tongue, Italian.

Let us note that in most languages, when we speak of the language that a baby starts to speak first (as the equivalent of a vernacular language, the language of the autochthons), we use the expression “mother tongue” (and not at all “father tongue”!) Lyrical poetry is especially deeply bound to one’s mother tongue. Thus the germ of Petrarch’s symbiotic-humanist creation is female. To a much greater extent than Dante, Petrarch repre-sented the woman he adored in bodily terms. It is a commonplace to char-acterize Petrarch’s love as platonic. A closer look at his poems, however, would reveal the presence of sexual attraction and anguish. The fact does not diminish or restrain at all the significance of Petrarch’s love. On the contrary, such love could also better reach the human “other” beyond the divine “Other”, or to be more exact, reveal their intimate union.

Petrarch’s sonnet (Poem 334 of Canzoniere) demonstrates the above-said in the greatest philosophical concentration of poetic imagery. It is a substantial addendum to Petrarch’s earlier dispute with St. Augustine in Secretum. As Petrarch now claims, relying on mature existential experi-ence, Laura’s love and his love for Laura is inseparable from il mundo (the earthy world) despised by St. Augustine. Laura is not alone when she comes to meet Petrarch, once the poet leaves his earthly body: she descends from heaven with gente nostra (our people), those “others” in whose capacity for high morality (onestate, virtue), supporting the idea of Patria (fatherland), the poet never had doubts. The female germ (love for the woman that purifies the man) and mother tongue come in support of patria, a home for gente nostra, a great variety of “others”, not just select individuals capable of reaching “Paradiso”, as in Dante’s Commedia.

Boccaccio: woman who speaksIf woman in Dante is shown to incarnate high spirituality (the soul

and mind in union) and Petrarch complements that union with woman’s bodily beauty, as part of living and concrete nature, Giovanni Boccac-cio, Petrarch’s friend and contemporary, was to broaden woman’s pres-ence as the “other” in European culture even more. He was the first to show women speak. He liberated woman from her muteness, thus conferring to her the dimension – again in a perfect fusion of nature and

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culture – of a subject, the entity whose ontology is very much deter-mined by its capacity to express, speak out, establish its stand by verbal communication. Now, for the first time woman has her own standpoint, which more than often enters in a direct opposition with the hitherto reigning male viewpoint. I would argue that by far more important than the description of sexually active women in Decamerone – though the liberation of their bodily language can by no means be underrated! – is the language through which women articulate the erotic call of nature in their bodies. Without it, relying only on their bodily discourse, they would be defenseless in the world in which men have crudely appropri-ated and usurped the word.

To provide only a few examples, it is not at all a casual detail that in Decamerone’s framing narration young women are in majority – there are seven young ladies and three young men who tell the stories. Those young ladies do not only frame the human comedy. One must not forget that the majority of the stories – including often even the most daring in reveal-ing erotic and intimate details – are told by women. Thus Boccaccio lets them conquer the domain which until then had been reserved almost ex-clusively for men. They narrate erotic, bodily love and fortify its standing forth by verbal argumentation. They intrude into man’s dominion, over-turn man’s viewpoint, and show the “other” speaking. What was scandal-ous and shocking to clergymen and the whole male-dominated society was not so much erotic openness as the liberated women in Boccaccio’s work. This posed direct threat to the male establishment. One of the most eloquent examples of how women could speak and defend their point of view can be found in the first story of the fourth day of Decamerone, in which Ghismonda, a young widow punished by her father, justifies her choice and refutes the accusations.

Boccaccio went as far as to present a woman’s point of view in a much larger narrative than the stories of Decamerone. His short novel Fiam-metta was to become the first extensive female discourse in Western lit-erature, a prelude to Molly Bloom’s interior monologue in James Joyce’s ulysses. Naturally, it is very far from establishing woman as a fully inde-pendent subject. However, if ever we wish to seek the origins of women’s liberation as individuals and creative personalities, the work of this early European humanist provides us most secure guidelines.

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Celestina: woman’s voice from “below”After Boccaccio, the next extensive philosophical discourse pro-

nounced by a woman in European literature came from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a few years after Columbus had reached the New Con-tinent. We should not despise the fact that the speaker was not a lady be-longing to the noble society. It was all the more significant, from the point of view of the social “other”. Here I am referring to Celestina, the old bawd in Fernando de Rojas’ novel written in the form of a play, La tragi-comedia de Calisto y Melibea (1499, 1502). Although she appears only in the first part of the text, her monologues make her the indisputable main character of the novel. Her long monologues justifying earthly love as the supreme law of life established by God himself, who appears as identical with nature, continued the humanist discourse manifest in Boccaccio’s work. The new aspect introduced by Rojas is the social concern. Celestina does not only represent woman as the “other”, but also the lower classes of society, the “other” of the outcasts and depraved. Love in the lower part of society cannot follow its natural calls, but is crudely distorted by social conditions. In fact, it has been turned into business, a means of elemen-tary survival. The broadening of social sensibility is the great contribution of Rojas’s work. Once again, it proves that the distinguishing feature of the humanist literary creation was its symbiotic nature, the inclusion of philosophical discourse in images.

Moria: the ludic and relativising “other”We have a speaking noble-lady and a speaking bawd. The next spokes-

woman in great European literature does not belong to the “high” or the “low” social space, nor can she be restricted to any epoch or age of hu-man existence. She is the ever-young, immortal Moria in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly (1511). In fact, Moria’s witty monologue includes a lot of ludic ambiguity. Even though a number of chapters of the small book sati-rize the human follies and stupidities that are real, Moria herself, on the contrary, in Erasmus’s text is identified with life as the supreme value and the deepest basis of human existence and knowledge. Erasmus, one of the most learned and erudite Europeans, launches a vigorous attack on book-ish, pedantic and dogmatic knowledge (the real folly), or the knowledge that, torn off from the individual existential context of our lives, becomes a value in itself. Erasmus boldly defies stoics and Platonists who reject passions and consider earthly life as inferior to the life of ideas. Let us

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not forget that Moria is a woman. As a symbol of life in Erasmus’s phi-losophy, she is a window open to all possible “others”, or in Yuri Lotman’s terms, she is the semiosphere, the ever fertile ground of creation, capable of surprises and provoking shifts to new meaning and qualities. It is life in its eternal movement and change that turns into nonsense man’s claims of possessing final truths (abstract knowledge). It is also life, not bookish knowledge, that moves the deeper intimate essence of human beings in the finite frame of their earthly existence. Nature in Erasmus’s treatment does not contradict Christian values: Christian philosophy, according to Erasmus, combines love with wisdom, while the deepest source of both is nature.

Utopia: the “other” civilizationErasmus’s friend Thomas More published his utopia in 1516. After Co-

lumbus’s pioneering voyage, exciting news from the New Continent was reaching Europe daily. Raphael Hythlodaeus, the globe-trotter whom More asked to tell him about his travel impressions and experiences on the is-land called Utopia, had not long ago returned from an expedition to the New Continent led by Amerigo Vespucci. The “other” whose image More made stand forth in utopia was thus foretold above all by the discovery of America and the contact with indigenous people and their civilization. More’s utopia is a witty play between the real and the ideal, the known and the unknown, nature and reason, irony and sincerity. The book was not at all conceived as a manual of how to build up an ideal society, rather its goal was to establish a symbiotic, comparative and dialogic relationship between the “own” and the “other”. Like Erasmus, More had serious doubts about the knowledge or philosophical discourse used by European males since the Middle Ages. Despite its claims of universality, such knowledge at its best could represent only itself, the “own” formed by male reasoning, interests and instincts. It ignored both womankind and the social and natural “other”. In contrast, More sought new wisdom and knowledge that would be in har-mony with nature in the human being and beyond it. His utopia forwards a bold social project above all in search of a new type of human conscience that would be less male-centered, less anthropocentric and less logo-centric, less egoistic. It strongly criticized the hierarchy of values established by the European males and advocated the inclusion of the “other” in the social projects of the future. More did not seek an ideal (perfect, motionless) soci-ety, but such forms of human con-science and co-existence that, being the result of a long process of historical modification, would be open to change.

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Conclusion With Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus and More, the foundations

of creative-philosophical humanist discourse were laid. I will not go fur-ther here by providing examples from subsequent humanism. Its discourse was powerfully expanded by Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderón de la Barca, among others. Their philosophy made use of images to produce a radical breakthrough in the understanding of the “other”. Even though their message was largely ignored by Western power structures, it was revived by the most alert spirits of Romanticism and gradually enhanced social change. That message of total openness to the “other” - beyond discourses, texts, abstract knowledge and all human artifacts – has not lost its significance at all. Creative-human-ist discourse is strongly present in Western modernist and existentialist liter-ature. If ever postmodernism hopes to survive, I would suggest that instead of trying to “overcome” humanism it should seek its nourishing support.

References1 Cf.Cf. Jüri Talvet, “Between Dreams and Reality: the Message and the Image of

Renaissance Humanism”, in: Sederi XiV: Yearbook of the Spanish and Por-tuguese Society for The Study of english renaissance Studies, ed. Figueroa Dorrego, J. et al, Jaén: Universidad de Jaén, Servicio de publicaciones, 2004, 136-152; “The Revolt of Humanism. (Deconstruction Deconstructed: An Intro-duction)”, in: interlitteraria, 8, Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2003, 144–155.

2 Petit Larousse illustré, Paris, Librairie Larousse, 1973, 517.3 encyclopedia Americana, Vol. 14, Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated,

1995, 553–554.–554.4 Большая советская энциклопедия, Vol. 7, ��: �� -Vol. 7, ��: �� -. 7, ��: �� -

д��. 1972, 444. 5 Cf. in this context articles about Deconstruction and Michel Foucault in:Cf. in this context articles about Deconstruction and Michel Foucault in: en-

cyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, ed. I. R. Makaryk, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Their authors do not leave any doubt in postmodernism’s antihumanist stand.

6 “The Humanistic Project in Laurence Sterne’s Narrative”, a PhD thesis, defen-ded at Jaén University in 2008.

7 Cf.Cf. Assumpta Camps, “Anthropophagy, or the (Masculine) Obsession with Originals”, in: interlitteraria, 10, 2005, 92-106; Jüri Talvet, “Contemporary Translation Philosophy: Cannibalism or Symbiosis?, in interlitteraria, 12, 2007, 268–286.

8 The Chapter „Dream as a semiotic window“, in:The Chapter „Dream as a semiotic window“, in: Iuri M. Lotman, Культура и взрыв, ��: Пр�гр��, 1992.

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Aksiologinis aspektas XXI amžiaus Europos literatūroje: TesėjoTesėjo (iš Lietuvos?) beieškant

Axiological Aspect in the European Literature of the 21st Century: In Pursuit of Theseus

(from Lithuania?)

Vytautas MArTiNKuSVilnius Pedagogical university Ševčenkos str. 31, LT-03111 [email protected]

SantraukaStraipsnyje keliama vertybių ir šiuolaikinės literatūros kūrinių vertinimo prob-

lema. Postmodernizmas transformavo literatūros aksiologijos klasikinę sampratą. Sustiprėjo dėmesys pliuralistiniam vertybių aiškinimui, jų reliatyvumui ir atsitik-tinumui, estetinių literatūros kūrinio kriterijų daugiamatiškumui. Postmodernių kūrinių vertinimo paradoksas: jie arba iš viso nevertinami, arba jiems taikomi klasikinės literatūros aksiologjos principai. Sudėtingai ir simbolinei šiuolaikinio literatūros vertybių pasaulio struktūrai pažymėti siūlomas archetipinis labirinto įvaizdis. Vertinimas interpretuojamas kaip išėjimas (kelio radimas) iš labirinto. Postmodernybės sąlygomis tai – vertybių individualumo ir atsitiktinumo simbo-linės bei praktinės raiškos vieta. Remiamasi postmodernaus nacionalinio (rusų, lietuvių ir prancūzų) istorinio romano pavyzdžiais .

Esminiai žodžiai: literatūros aksiologija, postmodernizmas, vertinimas, labi-rintas, istorinis romanas.

SummaryThe article is focused on the issue of values and evaluation of contempo-

rary pieces of literature. Postmodernism transformed the classical conception of literature axiology. The regard towards pluralistic interpretation of values, their relativity and coincidence, as well as towards multidimensional aspect of aesthetic criteria of a piece of literature enhanced. The paradox of postmodernist pieces’ evaluation is as follows: they are either not evaluated at all, or the principles of the classical literature axiology are applied. To denote a complex and symbolic struc-ture of contemporary literary values an archetype image of labyrinth is offered. Evaluation is interpreted as the way out of labyrinth (finding out the path). Under the conditions of post-modernity it is the position of individuality of values and

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symbolic and practical expression of coincidence. The instances of postmodern-ist national (Russian, Lithuanian, French) historical novel are taken as the basic references.

Key words: axiology of literature, postmodernism, evaluation, historical novel.

The states of our consciousness often resemble king Minos’ palace’ palace palace with its vaults which need rebuilding over and over again. According to Carl Gustav Jung, “a labyrinth in a human being” is a metaphor of human nature: it is indecision and alternatives, hopes, victories and losses. All of this is more than psychoanalytical interpretation. The mythical image of the labyrinth consists of many practical and symbolic layers. The image of the labyrinth that emerged even before Theseus’s journey to Crete to-day still preserves individual and collective experience and goals, unity of rational and irrational thinking as well as identity of the beginning (en-trance) and end (exit). For instance, a number of authors (Jorges Luis Bor-ges and others) use the image of labyrinth to create their plots. However, the image of labyrinth is in fact an attitude of virtues that is wider than a particular plot. The latter can be regarded as a plan for creating spiritual labyrinth of a piece of art.

A universal picture of labyrinth shifts us to the world of values. First of all, it indicates the complexity of value system and symbolism of eva-luations. Evaluating is entering and leaving a labyrinth. A symbolical function of the labyrinth of values encourages comparing, changing and demonstrating. Of course, values are not merely symbolic signs of laby-rinthine truth or symptoms of state of consciousness pursuing solutions. The conception of the process of evaluation is a significant unity of cultu-ral past, present and future. Moreover, the image of labyrinth encourages generalizing each evaluation as well as expressing it individually.

How does an image of value labyrinth function in the modern literatu-re? Does it diverge in literature and criticism (literary theory)?

Initially let’s discuss general aspects and topicality of theory and prac-tice of values.

Any evaluation is thinking, its perception, the account of the thinker to himself / herself. Thinking as the form of evaluation is a universal condi-tion of creation. The evaluation is performed by the author of the work as well as by its critic. Therefore, the issue about the place and role of values is not purely theoretical. On the one hand, perhaps due to the abundance of practical aspects of evaluation, politicians, specialists of culture and li-

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terature use the concept of value as a matter of course. On the other hand, axiology emerged only in the works of neo-Kantianists, i. e., during the years of classical philosophy.

Unfortunately, today the ideas of Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Windel-band and other pioneers of axiology are not coherently developed. Barbar Herstein Smith, professor of Comparative Literature and English at Duke University, for example, writes:

It is curious feather of literary studies in America that one of the most vener-able, central, theoretical significant, and practically inescapable set of prob-lems relating to literature has not been a subject of serious inquiry for the past fifty years. I refer here to the fact not merely that the study of literary evalu-ation has been, as we might say, “neglected”, but that the entire problematic of value and evaluation has been explicitly exiled by literary academy. It is clear, for example, that there has been no broad and sustained investigation of literary evaluation that could compare to the constant and recently intensified attention devoted to every aspect of literary interpretation1.

This means that axiology does not contain a topic defined by new aut-hor names or names of works. A traditional content of axiological insight is examined by the evaluations of the most recent challenges. Most of-ten – by their contingency and relativity:

The pluralisation of standards is repeated in the private sphere of the reader. The knowledge has spread that not only every section of society but also every single person has the right and even urgent need to fulfil his or her spe-cific cultural wants in quite different, popular as well as high, fields of culture simultaneously, reading with (equal) interest and pleasure both ‘’high” art novels and ‘’low” science or detective fiction, which was formerly considered ‘’kitsch”. This is a distinction that is modernist and has lost much of its cur-rency. And finally, the act of reading itself, whatever the text may be, also has mixed profile; it is indeed pluralistic: it includes unfocused claims, mixed mo-tives, differences in mood, inclination and understanding, interrelations and crossovers between meaning and pleasure. We shall come back to the problem of evaluation from another point of view, i.e., the question of what is art in the section about the aesthetic attitude.2

Uncertainty of human individuality, society consumerism, behaviour immorality, manipulating people’s feelings and emotions, technocracy, political infantilism, totalitarianism, influence of imageology and simula-tion as well as other peculiarities of today’s culture – all of these elements

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are obstacles in the quest for norms of evaluation, in grounding them, in associating them with reality or at least with the logics of visibility.

Thus, today the state of evaluating consciousness is contradictory: eva-luations require criteria, and the latter are argumentative. A moral choice and recognition of values seem unrealistic due to the fact that any reality lying beyond the field of images created by imageologists is disappearing: ostensibly there are no scientific, historical, literary and other values.

Therefore, on the one hand, confusion in the understanding of values affects literary criticism negatively. Evaluation is almost impossible when negative factors dominate. Consequently, we can see an unusual position: new works are evaluated according to classical, the so called essential cri-teria of art or they are not evaluated at all.

On the other hand, evaluation in literature continues as it seems that the state of confusion does not discourage authors of literature. Of course, writers do not undertake the work of literary philosophers (critics). Lite-rature, like literary criticism, has its own means for expressing questions of value. Both ways of thinking encompass the same questions that are of high importance in axiology. While choosing topics of value and develo-ping stylistic quests literature suggests new or updates classical axiologi-cal insights.

Positions of creators of art and assessors of art get close and assimi-late in this process because a work of literature is evaluated not only by abstract but also by particular forms of aesthetic perception. In thinking, as in evaluation, not only conceptions are present. Sight, hearing, percep-tion – all of these elements are important in this process and each of them carries a symbolic meaning.

In fact, literature always was and still remains the field in which values emerge and function, a place where individuality and coincidence of valu-es are expressed. The consciousness of an author selects the values which he / she is concerned about most, which are meaningful and so on. Lite-rature, like a seismograph, registers not only collective but also individual changes of life values. In literature “life” values coexist with aesthetic va-lues that unfold like a set of a piece of art (a poem, a novel, a drama etc.). Good literature is always good literary criticism.

On the one hand, it is unquestionably difficult, one needs to learn re-ading (perceiving) a work as a reflection. On the other hand, the value of literature, just like the value of an individual literary work, cannot be dis-cussed only on the grounds of its genesis or structure. Among other kinds

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of art, the contexts of works reveal the artistic and other values of literatu-re. Literary criticism is based on this.

Besides, professional literary criticism is based on life values as well as on literary aesthetic values. Values of both kinds have their own cri-teria. They have to be capable of being grounded. Literary critics must continue the evaluation of former literary epochs (their authors, works), revive or change it.

Let’s narrow this wide outlook of literary axiology. Challenges of ge-neral European values encourage posing a question if insights of evalua-tion that update, let’s say, based on the mentioned principle of labyrinth, function in the topic of values of national literary history.

History is also a chain of evaluations. Historical phenomena are eva-luated by their contemporaries according to their own objectives, interests and actions. Later all events, their descriptions, documents and primary evaluations are all affected by new factors. So, each generation rewrites the original historiographic material. The new generation recomposes it in its own manner as every value is the transformation of reality and a perspective according to the objectives of that generation (and its indivi-duals). Interpretation, new rewriting of historical values distances (disso-ciates) them from their original meaning.

For instance, recently we commemorated the 7070th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact: Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union that was signed on 23 August, 1939. A part of this pact consists of secret protocols that nobody knew about. They were of great significance in the modern history. In the context of those docu-ments the question “how did World War II begin?” could be answered that besides Nazi Germany the war was also arranged and initiated by So-viet Russia. This information changes many things in evaluations. Russian historians call this fact a lie, falsification of history. Lithuanian or Polish historians consider this as an objective step leading to the exit of the laby-rinth of historical truth.

Literature is an exceptionally individual interpretation of primary his-torical facts. Differently from historical facts, literary works by their na-ture make up a unity of the existent and the non-existent (the truth and its fiction). According to Linda Hutcheon, more and more often modern historical novels are just a historical metafiction3. In this case historical ideas, political interests and forms of literary narration (irony, pastiche etc.) establish an exceptionally complex and intricate field of values. His-

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torical novel “recomposes” this field according to the author and presents it as literary values.

The fact that currently literary axiology is in the state of the confusion of values is not an obstacle for authors. On the contrary, this confusion assists them in writing the previously mentioned historiographic metafic-tions. The writers are capable of seeing common historical facts different, “made extraordinary” while recomposing history as well as its literary forms. That is to say, they are able to re-evaluate the facts anew and this ability is the power of Romanticists in breaking the barrier of historical reality. This is the “eternal” reconstruction of the labyrinth of values.

Examples do not prove anything, but they can help explaining the thoughts of the speaker.

Let’s have a look at three historical novels by authors whose stylistic searches are described by critics as post-modern, overstepping the usual aesthetics of historical novel. Moreover, let these novels represent diffe-rent tendencies of styles or stylistic popularity. Let us choose the novels that are extremely popular or, on the contrary, that are elite – the ones that were awarded prestigious prizes and are recognized for their literary mastery.

The first example is from the popular Russian prose.Boris Akunin (Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, born in 1956) is

the author of the modern Russian detective novel – a story about a Detec-tive Erast Fandorin4. Today Akunin is probably the most popular writer in Russia. Critics say that he refers to the tradition of the British detective novel. It may seem that Fandorin is only a parody of Holmes, Poirot or James Bond. But it is also possible to claim that Akunin’s texts remind’s texts reminds texts remind of stylistics used by Fjodor Dostojevskij or some other classic of Russian philosophical literature of the 19th century.

In the context of values the things of great importance are not pastiche elements of Akunin’s works but rather the fact that the texts of his no-’s works but rather the fact that the texts of his no-s works but rather the fact that the texts of his no-vels resemble a labyrinth. The entrance to the labyrinth is the problem of identity of tsarist Russia. Zigzags, spirals and other forms of the labyrinth mean the possibility for Russia to become European Russia that draws po-wer from East. Having lost the connection with East, Russia is struck by a tragedy: the Bolshevik Revolution. Consequently, Detective Fandorin does not find a real exit from the labyrinth but he does not get lost in the world of values, at the end he comes up to the same values that were pre-sent at the beginning of his quest.

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It seems that in this situation there is nothing new. Interaction of Eas-tern and Western culture always was and still is one of the concerns of philosophers. Just like the historical theme of Russia’s identity. It is novel and important that the very value of identity does not disappear in the context of pastiche, irony, parody and other layers of historiographic me-tafiction.

The second example is the case of the renewal of Lithuanian historical novel. It is a cycle of 14 novels entitled “The Kingdom”5 by Petras Dir-gėla (born in 1947). It is a post-modern epic, unpopular among readers but which was honoured a National Award of the Culture and Art in Li-thuania.

It is possible to claim that, similarly to Akunin, Dirgėla writes about the identity of the country (only in this case it is Lithuania, not Russia). The novel is a narrative about the implementation of historical possibili-ties of identity.

However, according to Dirgėla, the labyrinth of the values of Lithu-anian identity starts and ends differently and in different places. The gate (door) to Lithuanian nationhood is a certain form of government. For the author it is not a republic created by ancient Greeks but rather a kingdom. Spiritual (mental) energy of Kingdom of Lithuania established in the 13th century gives food to all other historical forms of the country – the Great Duchy, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuanian Republic of 1918-1918-1940, Soviet Lithuanian anti-state and finally – (“the second”) Lithuanian Republic re-established twenty years ago. Identity of Lithuania is a con-stant “rebirth” of every citizen after each historical drama and the percep-tion that in this way the “kingdom” changes its form but never disappears. Obviously, the structure of values is created in the novel by constantly returning to Lithuania of the time when it was run by the King of Mind-augas as an entrance to the labyrinth of historical values of several centu-ries.

I searched for the third example of the historical novel in the awar-ded French novels. The novel by a diplomaed philosopher and historian Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès (born in 1954) Là où les tigres sont chez eux (“Where the Tigers Feel at Home”)6 was awarded the Medicis Literary Prize last year. It took the author more than 10 years to write this novel, similarly to the works by Akunin and Dirgėla, and its length is impressiveand its length is impressive (776 pages). The plot is spread between two centuries – 17th and 20th. Different epochs are compared and their spiritual states are considered

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to be similar. Family life of a journalist Eleazard von Wogau who arrived to Brazil is compared with the odyssey in Europe of a Jesuit Athanasius Kirser. Historical events rewritten several times allow treating this novel as a historiographic metafiction as well. The world of values presented in the work is very wide – encyclopedic: it is historical as well as philo-sophical, psychological and futurological. However, political questions are given less importance in the narrative. Above the gates to the labyrinth of values created by Blas de Roblès there is an inscriptionès there is an inscriptions there is an inscription tolerance. Cul-tural tolerance in the novel is an introductory and principal direction of all quests and of the way out from mistaken paths.

Instead of conclusionsEvaluation in modern literature has not disappeared. Writing means

evaluating (historical and all other) virtues. Reading means evaluating all evaluations done by authors. The image of mythical labyrinth still functi-ons among other forms of evaluation. It helps evaluating, encourages sear-ching (for the truth and other values), remembering, discussing, tolerating, returning to the beginning (which is actually the ending) etc.

Most importantly, it helps determining which value is more important or even significant, and which is only a meaningless question. Different European literatures are dominated by different priorities of values.

Several propositions with a (doubt?) clause “it seems”:• it seems that authors of literary works are merely responsible for

what happens with them in Knossos Palace.• it seems that philosophers (literature specialists and critics) are still

waiting for a new, another philosopher – Theseus who would come and unveil the curtain covering the reality of virtues: political, economic, reli-gious or moral phenomena.

However, philosophers will hardly live to see the hero from At-hens. Nor will they see the one from Lithuania, Russia or France. Petras Dirgela’s “Kingdom” is an example that is coming from Lithuania and only for Lihuanians.

Let’s once again remember Jung: apparently it is not only a labyrinth but also individual Theseus that is present in every person’s nature.

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References1 Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Contingencies of Value. Auernative Perspectives

for Criti-cal Theory, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1991, 17.2 Gerard Hoffmann, From modernism to Postmodernism: Concepts and Stra-

tegies of Postmodern American Fiction, Amsterdam-New York:Rodopi B.V., 2005, P. 50-51.

3 Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, Lon-don and New York: Routledge,1988.

4 Boris Akunin, Erast Fandorin series: The Winter Queen, 1998; The Turkish Gambit, 1998; Murder on the Leviathan, 1998; The Death of Achilles, 1998; Special Assignments, 1999; The State Counsellor, 2000; The Coronation, 2000; She Lover of Death, 2001; He Lover of Death, 2001; The Diamond Chariot, 2003; Jade rossary Beads

5 Petras Dirgėla, Karalystė, 1-4 t., Vilnius:Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidy-kla,1997-2003.

6 Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Là où les tigres sont chez eux, Paris: Zulma, 2008.

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La notion de “Littérature européenne” et ses problèmes identitaires inhérents. Quelques échos des zones peu explorées

The Notion of “European Literature” and Problems of

Identity Associated with it. Examples from Less Studied

Literatures

„Europos literatūros“ sąvoka ir su ja susijusios tapatybės problemos. Keletas duomenų iš mažai tyrinėtų teritorijų

roumiana L. STANTCHeVASofia university “St. Kliment Ohridski”15 Tzar Osvoboditel blvd., 1504–Sofia, [email protected]

résumé Nous allons analyser ici les difficultés d’ordre identitaire qui existent devant

les littératures européennes. En présentant brièvement un volume de littérature comparée, européenne, récemment paru, nous proposons une définition pragma-tique du terme de “littérature européenne”, comme un ensemble de lectures par-tagées. Plus loin, l’article examine deux démarches de la littérature comparée, ad-mises largement dans la pratique, comme la thématologie et le tiers espace, repris aux études culturelles. L’idée, que nous proposons, est celle de la généralisation, appliquée aux tendances littéraires. Ainsi, au moyen de la généralisation nous pou-vons nous interroger sur le caractère que l’écrivain confère à son travail artistique. Certains écrivains se proposent d’étudier le monde à la manière de l’historien, du sociologue, du physiologiste ou du biologiste. Il s’agit en d’autres termes de la «conscience du chercheur». D’autre part, l’apparition de l’idée moderniste consis-tant à «jouer avec le texte» est une deuxième pratique littéraire. La tendance de l’écrivain à prendre conscience de «soi», à envisager la place de son texte parmi les autres textes, est appelée ici «la conscience critique». Les exemples de l’ana-

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lyse concrète sont empruntés à la littérature bulgare, roumaine, française et litua-nienne. Il s’agit du poème critiquant la société, travesti en conte, chez Konstantin Pavlov, Marin Sorescu, Jacques Prévert et Marcelijus Martinaitis. Le «jeu avec le texte» et la «conscience critique» y sont fortement présents. La construction de ré-seaux thématiques, stylistiques et comportementaux aura le mérite de faire décou-vrir des littératures qui n’ont pas encore leur présence tangible dans les histoires littéraires, ni dans les programmes universitaires de «Littérature européenne».

Mots clefs: «Littérature européenne», thématologie, tiers espace, généralisa-tion des tendances littéraires, réseaux thématiques, stylistiques et comportemen-taux, Konstantin Pavlov, Marin Sorescu, Jacques Prévert, Marcelijus Martinaitis.

SummaryThe Notion of “European Literature”, which aims to cover all literatures on

the continent or at least those of the European Union, has yet to be supported by real knowledge of the composite literatures, but has been launched by a number of books on comparative literature. This paper presents some of the difficulties that arise from the usage of this term to describe literatures, which have a European identity, but are not known well enough for their national characteristics. This au-thor thinks that in order for this term to acquire its full meaning, a community of shared texts from all European literatures will have to come into being. In addition to the known methods of Comparative Literature, this paper suggests the usage of generalization. This approach, for example, allows us to study the attitude of a writer toward his own work. The work of some writers is similar to the research that a historian, sociologist, physiologist, biologist, or in other words a researcher has to perform. On the other hand, the emergence of the modernist preoccupa-tion with form is another literary tendency. Finally, the predisposition of writers to comment on their own work and to discuss its place among other texts is la-beled here as “critical self-reflection”. The concrete analyses in this paper refer to the Bulgarian, Romanian, French, and Lithuanian literatures. The genre of politi-cally-critical poem, masked as a story, unites Konstantin Pavlov, Marin Sorescu, Jacques Prevert and Marcelijus Martinaitis. “Preoccupation with form” and “criti-cal self-reflection” are evident in the works of all four. The drawing of thematic, stylistic, and behavioral networks allows literatures, still lacking a place in literary histories and in university courses in “European Literature,” to be noticed.

Key words: “european Literature”, Generalization of Literary Tendencies, Thematic, Stylistic, and Behavioral Networks, Konstantin Pavlov, Marin Sorescu, Jacques Prevert, Marcelijus Martinaitis.

Le dynamisme de notre temps a dessiné une carte politique nouvelle de l’Europe, d’après des principes bien définis, dont l’idée maîtresse est, à la fois, l’unité de tous les pays et l’individualité de chacun dans cette union. Dans le domaine littéraire cependant nous sommes encore loin du

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moment où la notion de «Littérature européenne», employée souvent au singulier acquerra des dimensions exhaustives, claires, définies. La notion de «Littérature européenne» englobe surtout les littératures occidentales, conçues comme des exemples significatifs pour les différentes époques et courants littéraires sur le continent. Les zones littéraires des périphéries demeurent toujours un peu à l’écart.

1. L’emploi du terme «Littérature européenne»Dernièrement, plusieurs ouvrages d’histoire littéraire et de littérature

comparée se proposent de présenter et de définir la notion de «Littérature européenne». J’ai étudié de plus près le volume intitulé «Précis de littéra-ture européenne», sous la direction de Béatrice Didier1. En plus de 700 pa-ges, l’ouvrage collectif examine consécutivement les méthodes, l’espace, le temps et les formes littéraires en Europe. Dès la préface, la directrice de l’édition expose les difficultés que présente la tendance à parler des litté-ratures européennes au singulier. Le titre pourtant est bel et bien formulé au singulier, subordonné à l’ambition d’envisager l’unité littéraire d’une union politique. Toujours dans la préface, un autre problème majeur est soulevé: celui des frontières de ce que l’on pourrait appeler «la littérature européenne» et des différences qui se manifestent au-delà de ces frontiè-res. Une question qui reste, logiquement, ouverte. L’étude s’étend égale-ment aux changements internes des frontières en Europe, au cours des siè-cles, aux hégémonies politiques etc. Et pourtant, l’accent est mis, presque exclusivement, sur des exemples des littératures de l’Europe Occidentale. Il arrive rarement de tenter une ouverture vers les autres zones. Ainsi nous lisons dans la préface: «L’Europe littéraire, c’est aussi l’Europe de ces langues «rares» sans quoi l’Europe ne serait pas ce qu’elle est: «Ainsi les littératures hongroise ou tchèque tiennent leur place dans le concert européen, et il ne saurait être question de les négliger, même si, pour el-les, l’étudiant français est obligé de recourir à cet intermédiaire qu’est la traduction.»2 Nous pouvons lire très peu au sujet des autres littératures de l’Europe Centrale, des pays du Sud-Est, des pays Scandinaves, des pays Baltes etc. Il ne s’agit pas d’une considération erronée, mais plutôt d’une constatation qui décrit aussi bien la réalité de la pratique universitaire, que le contenu du volume.

Les difficultés ressortant du terme de la «littérature européenne» font l’objet des réflexions de plusieurs auteurs du volume. Adrian Marino par exemple, homme de lettres européen d’origine roumaine, commente d’une

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manière plus explicite cette inégalité. D’un autre côté, examinant les dé-marches positives vers une ouverture plus large, le même auteur men-tionne la nouvelle approche au sujet de la «littérature européenne» dans le volume: «on passe du stade monographique et chronologique au stade synthétique ou diachronique; on propose des vues d’ensemble concernant les courants, les thèmes, les types et les formes littéraires européennes. L’histoire littéraire du type traditionnel finit bel et bien par être dépas-sée.»3 Marino a parfaitement raison: un pas en avant est déjà fait, mais il reste encore beaucoup à faire.

Le problème de l’unité de la/des littérature(s) européenne(s) se trouve également soulevé par les autres auteurs du volume, sans pour autant être résolu. Car cet ouvrage collectif réussit une synthèse très riche des lit-tératures occidentales surtout. Non pas des autres littératures et de leur rattachement aux grandes tendances, surtout au XIXe et au XXe siècle. La solution sentie nécessaire est trouvée: une table s’étendant à presque 200 pages, à la fin du volume et qui se propose de suppléer aux lacunes, en mentionnant les moments de force de toutes les littératures européennes. Cependant, les fautes au niveau des données, les lacunes dans les colon-nes susceptibles d’exposer les grands événements littéraires en Europe au cours des siècles, compromettent dans une certaine mesure les bonnes intentions des auteurs du volume. Je ne mentionnerai que deux omissions importantes dans les listes, concernant les littératures que je connais le mieux. La lacune évidente concernant la période contemporaine de la lit-térature bulgare et de la littérature roumaine laisse une impression dé-routante. Après 1970, période, illustrée par le roman d’Emilian Stanev L’Antéchrist, la littérature bulgare cesse pratiquement d’exister, ce qui est le cas aussi de la littérature roumaine: à l’année 1965, marquée par les Onze elégies de Nichita Stanescu, succède un vide. Quant à la Lituanie, qui a commencé à m’intéresser en relation avec l’étude actuelle, que je suis en train de présenter, le dernier événement littéraire enregistré re-monte à 1979 – le roman de Juozas Baltusis , La saga de Youza. Même si nous admettions que seules des oeuvres littéraires remarquables avaient le droit de figurer dans cette liste, il n’est guère admissible que les 20 ou 30 dernières années, n’aient donné naissance à aucun ouvrage littéraire digne d’attention.

Nous en venons donc à nous poser la question: pourrions nous accep-ter la notion générique de «littérature européenne», tant que les littératures qui la composent ne soient pas étudiées intégralement? N’est-il pas trop

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tôt de s’engager avec un terme pareil? Dans les recherches que j’ai consa-crées aux relations entre les littératures roumaine, française et bulgare, j’analyse les faits à partir de l’unité réelle qui rattache les littératures euro-péennes. Il s’agit concrètement du roman de guerre des années 1920–1930 et de la danse comme thématique unifiante pour le modernisme européen4. Mais je suis en même temps persuadée qu’il est encore trop tôt de for-muler une conclusion d’unité, avant d’analyser effectivement la connais-sance mutuelle entre toutes les composantes de cette unité. La littérature lituanienne qui n’est mentionnée que trois fois dans les tables à la fin du volume, la littérature bulgare et la littérature roumaine qui sont citées plu-sieurs fois, mais au prix de fautes et de lacunes désolantes, sont-elles des littératures européennes? Question provocatrice, visant le paradoxe, bien entendu. Mais il ne s’agit pas en fait d’une question paradoxale, car aucun exemple ne prévoit la participation d’une littérature ou d’une autre, dans les analyses «synthétique et diachronique [… et les] vues d’ensemble des courants, thèmes, types, formes littéraires européennes», énumérés par A. Marino et cités plus haut. Littérature bulgare, roumaine, lituanienne et ainsi de suite… des zones inexplorées par la Littérature comparée euro-péenne… Des espaces blancs sur la carte littéraire.

2. Les voies connues2.1. La Thématologie.La littérature comparée a eu toujours soin de trouver des critères va-

lables pour ses analyses. Les meilleures découvertes dans ce domaine, qui ne posent pas le problème de l’hiérarchisation implicite, sont la thé-matologie et la mythocritique. Grâce à ces deux instruments, quelque peu imbriqués, le comparatiste se sent libre de traiter un thème dans des lieux différents et de le transposer à des époques différentes. Or, le fait d’appro-fondir des thèmes comme par exemple la guerre ou l’épidémie ne nous place pas dans un contexte spécifiquement européen. En revanche, il n’est pas exclu d’identifier des thèmes européens par excellence, ce que pro-pose Georges Steiner dans son essai «Une certaine idée de l’Europe»5. Je tâcherai d’énumérer ces thèmes comme des exemples possibles dans le sens de l’unité: les cafés6; les composantes de la pensée et de la sensibilité qui sont basées sur des distances pédestres; les lieux de la mémoire, bien marqués par des plaques, commémorant aussi bien des victoires que des moments de détresse; «la dualité primordiale» (p. 36), qui dérive du «dou-

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ble héritage d’Athènes et de Jérusalem» (p. 36). Le cinquième critère de Steiner se réfère à «une conscience de soi eschatologique […] qui pour-rait bien […] n’exister que dans la conscience européenne» (p. 43–44). Steiner donne plusieurs exemples dans ces cinq directions, sans s’engager qu’elles seront les seules, spécifiquement européennes. Qu’est-ce qu’on va pouvoir faire avec cette Europe, ainsi que nous l’avons? – se demande Steiner. Il est d’accord qu’il existe un idéal d’unité en Europe qui est en train de se réaliser. Mais ce qui est plus important pour lui, et, j’estime que chacun le pense, c’est de garder «les détails» dans cette universalité. Steiner souligne que «le génie de l’Europe, c’est ce que William Blake aurait appelé «le caractère sacré du détail infime»». (p. 52) Il insiste de même sur la nécessité de sauvergarder les spécificités dans l’Europe unie: «L’Europe périra, assurément, si elle ne se bat pas pour ses langues, ses traditions locales et ses autonomies sociales.» (p. 53) Je n’irai pas jus-qu’à examiner en détail les conceptions de Steiner qui s’étendent à des préférences politiques ou idéologiques. Je chercherai simplement à savoir en quoi ses opinions pourraient nous être utiles pour jeter un peu plus de clarté sur la notion de «littérature européenne». Allons-nous nous fier aux similitudes ou allons-nous plutôt chercher les détails, les spécificités?

Je crois que la bonne voie doit se trouver au carrefour de la dissem-blance et de la similitude. La littérature comparée se sert d’habitude de la création d’hypothèses, vérifiées par l’ajout d’un matériel littéraire nou-veau. L’hypothèse c’est le cadre général, tandis que l’analyse des exem-ples concrets vient illustrer l’amalgamation du spécifique au commun. En matière thématique, c’est un objet ou une pratique sociale qui constituent le cadre, alors que les textes des différentes littératures représentent les preuves de l’unité. Et cette unité comporte chaque fois des éléments spé-cifiques.

En abordant par exemple un thème comme la danse, nous avons le loisir d’examiner l’unité non pas tellement des littératures européennes, mais plutôt l’unité du modernisme européen. Ainsi, l’indépendance de l’individu face à la religion, qui donne naissance, d’après Nietzsche, au surhomme, devient un facteur unifiant pour les écrivains prédisposés au modernisme. La correspondance entre les idées de Nietzsche et l’élan mo-derniste devient visible dans un de ses textes, consacré à la relation entre le philosophe et la vie, relation qui s’exprime par la danse. C’est en ces termes que Zarathoustra s’adresse à la vie, l’invitant à tourner son regard vers ses pieds, ivres de danse, un regard rieur, interrogateur et maternel:

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Tu n’as qu’à agiter deux fois ton grelot, mes jambes seront prises dans la fré-nésie de la danse.Mes talons se soulevèrent, mes orteils dressèrent l’oreille pour mieux te com-prendre: l’oreille du danseur ne se trouve-t-elle pas dans ses orteils?7

La danse de l’artiste avec la vie n’est pas présentée sous des couleurs idylliques. Bien au contraire, il s’agit d’une collision dramatique: le haut, l’au-delà, sont des directions d’un attrait irrésistible, indépendamment du fait que, après le saut et l’envol, le danseur retombera sur le sol. Cette dramatique recherche des impulsions intérieures de l’homme moderne et de l’artiste moderniste, exprimée par l’intermédiaire de la danse, peut être dépistée dans plusieurs ouvrages artistiques du modernisme européen.

En ce qui concerne les aspects sociaux, nous pouvons prendre comme exemple un écrivain autrichien bien connu, Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) avec sa célèbre pièce de théâtre La ronde (1900) et le comparer à l’écri-vain bulgare Anton Strachimirov (1872–1937) et son roman La ronde (1926)8, un roman qui continue à provoquer des analyses nouvelles, à cause de la collision dramatique entre la vie et la mort et le contexte poli-tique compliqué qui y est inclus.

La femme fatale est un autre sujet universel, qui ne laisse indifférente aucune littérature européenne moderne. Pour nous, ce thème est intéres-sant par le fait qu’il prend comme symbole les réincarnations décadentes d’un personnage biblique: Salomé, qui réclame du roi de Judée, Hérode, la tête de Jean Baptiste pour prix de sa danse. Innocence et séduction, danse exquise, monnayée contre un meurtre: un thème à peine évoqué dans la Bible, qui est repris et développé par de nombreux écrivains: Flaubert, Huysmans, Maeterlinck, Mallarmé, Oscar Wilde; dans la litté-rature bulgare il est traité par exemple dans la poésie d’Emanouil Popdi-mitrov (les poèmes Les Démons, 1909, La Femme-Dragon, 1932) et dans la littérature roumaine, il est présent à travers les personnages féminins de Matei Caragiale dans son roman Les rois mages du vieux palais (1929)9. Il s’agit de la beauté féminine fatale, camouflée parfois sous les traits d’une innocence apparente et de la danse séductrice provocante, qui por-tent malheur. Les impulsions érotiques, les dépendances sociales, forment un noeud, que chacun des auteurs de l’époque aurait aimé effleurer et dénouer à sa façon. Dans la société moderne, la danse a perdu sa signi-fication rituelle, mais elle a gardé son rôle social dans la mesure où elle facilite la communication et l’auto-expression, ce que les mots ne sont pas aussi capables de faire.

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Il importe d’indiquer aussi l’harmonie entre les littératures européen-nes, qui réagissent à des messages analogues. L’effort du modernisme d’atteindre un perfectionnement exclusivement artistique semble être éga-lement un élément unificateur. La fusion du modernisme et de la dan-se nous rend témoins non seulement de la transformation d’un art en un autre, mais aussi de la conversion de pratiques anciennes, monolithes, tra-ditionnelles et symboliques en éléments du modernisme, dans son sens et sa pratique complexes. C’est dans le mouvement unique entre le puissant courant moderniste ayant dominé les arts du XIXe et du XXe siècle et le thème de la danse que nous voyons un des points de convergence de ces tendances.

Et pour généraliser: la thématologie assure une consistance à la com-paraison et illustre les similitudes au niveau des messages et des formes; elle ne peut pourtant garantir qu’il s’agisse de thèmes exclusivement euro-péens. L’autre problème qui reste en suspens concerne la collaboration entre le particulier et le général. À quel point pourraient se coriser effecti-vement les littératures européennes?

2.2. Les études culturelles et le tiers espaceContrairement à ce que l’on pourrait penser, le conflit entre le «détail»

et la «vue d’ensemble» n’est pas sans issue. Nous trouvons une solution de cette rivalité dans le dépassement de la pensée binaire, où la seule qui présente de l’intérêt est la relation: général – particulier; universel – histo-rique. Dans l’esprit des études culturelles d’aujourd’hui je voudrais souli-gner la solution, présentée par Homi Bhabha qui parle du «tiers espace» (Third Space)10. Il s’agit d’une possibilité de dépasser la comparaison conflictuelle entre «moi» et «autrui», dans notre cas, l’opposition entre le principe local et un autre principe local. Ce «tiers espace» existe par le fait que les cultures et leurs protagonistes – les écrivains (pour la littéra-ture) forment leur identité dans le tourbillon de la migration des idées et, davantage aujourd’hui, de la migration des gens.

C’est là que je trouve l’occasion de m’opposer plus fermement à l’idée que les littératures occidentales suffisent pour concrétiser la notion de «Littérature européenne». Ce qu’on a souvent tendance à oublier, c’est que les littératures européennes ont un canon littéraire commun, basé, il est vrai, plutôt sur des exemples occidentaux, mais qui n’est pas moins unificateur. Le troisième espace de la communication exige un effort pour être créé. Pour les écrivains non occidentaux le canon repose presque tou-

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jours sur une double échelle des valeurs: locale et continentale, réunis par la contemporanéité. Les écrivains occidentaux bénéficient de plus d’es-pace dialogique, de profondeur dans le temps, en rétrospective, que dans l’espace (étant peu intéressés des autres régions littéraires). La vision ho-rizontale des premiers et la conception verticale des autres ne laisse prati-quement pas de possibilité de contacts entre eux sur un terrain commun. Par conséquent, le tiers espace implique le renoncement à soi au prix d’une fusion de «soi» et de l’étranger dans une nouvelle dimension pri-vée de territorialité, ou bien sur une territorialité de caractère abstrait, en l’occurence, l’idée de l’Europe. Dimension qui s’ouvre largement à ses composantes, dans notre cas: les littératures occidentales et les littératures européennes des autres régions, moins explorées.

3. Un pas vers la généralisationUne sorte de libération des contraintes, propres au canon occidental,

peut être retrouvée dans la généralisation. Nous proposons une définition du terme «littérature européenne», basée sur l’idée de la communication réelle entre ces littératures et non pas sur une égalité impossible dans le développement des tendances, des genres et des formes. Si nous nous pro-posons de comparer les littératures européennes sur la base des courants littéraires ayant existé en Europe Occidentale, nous n’irons pas très loin. Les échos du symbolisme et du naturalisme, par exemple, se manifestent dans les littératures non occidentales à une époque plus tardive. C’est seu-lement et surtout à l’époque des avant-gardes que l’Europe littéraire peut se sentir approximativement unifiée littérairement. Après la Deuxième guerre mondiale, le continent c’est de nouveau retrouvé divisé. Ce n’est qu’à présent qu’on peut parler d’échanges réciproques plus actifs, généra-teurs de tendances similaires, pas encore trop visibles. Sans compter que certaines littératures européennes ne forment pas de courants littéraires intégraux, mais sont représentés plutôt par des écrivains marquants, attirés par un courant littéraire occidental. On ne pourrait pas non plus s’orienter vers le commun en s’appuyant sur des termes spécifiques sur le plan his-torique et local.

Un consensus dans le sens de la généralisation des tendances littérai-res pour les composantes de la «littérature européenne», devient, par cette logique, une voie privilégiée, susceptible de faciliter la connaissance mu-tuelle et de résoudre certains problèmes de l’identité supranationale, euro-péenne. A cet égard, nous pouvons nous interroger sur le caractère que

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l’écrivain confère à son travail artistique. Certains écrivains se proposent d’étudier le monde à la manière de l’historien, du sociologue, du physio-logiste et du biologiste. Il s’agit de la «conscience du chercheur», comme c’est le cas d’un Emile Zola en France (Le roman expérimental, 1880). Une pareille tendance, «du chercheur» (réaliste ou naturaliste), connaît avec le temps des répercussions dans d’autres littératures. Le déplace-ment d’un courant littéraire dans le temps et sur d’autres territoires impli-que des déformations, sans pour autant le rendre méconnaissable. Comme les continuateurs de «conscience du chercheur» dans d’autre littératures nous pouvons citer Liviu Rebreanu (1885–1944) en Roumanie, Georgi Raïtchev (1882–1947) en Bulgarie, Grigorios Xenopulos (1867–1951) en Grèce. Dans les textes de ces derniers, écrits après la Première guer-re mondiale, la critique découvre la contamination à d’autres tendances: l’émergence de l’idée moderniste du «jeu avec le texte», l’intérêt pour la psychologique et la psychanalyse. Cela fait que les multiples facettes du naturalisme se répercutent à des époques suivantes, tout en englobant des tendances nouvelles, en l’occurence, celles du modernisme (psychologie et subconscient, manipulation du langage etc.).

Après la «conscience du chercheur» «littérature européenne», et le «jeu avec le texte» une troisième tendance vient s’annoncer, la tendance consistant à envisager la place du texte parmi les autres textes. J’aurais appelé cette tendance, orientée vers la conscience de soi de l’écrivain, la «conscience critique». Ainsi, la citation masquée ou explicite fait son en-trée en scène. En partant de la mise en abyme, réalisée par d’André Gide dans son roman expérimental les Faux Monnayeurs (1926), nous pourrons classifier les écrivains, conformément aux tendances postmodernes.

Aucune construction nouvelle, même pas le terme attrayant de «litté-rature européenne» ne donnerait de résultats si nous négligions les litté-ratures peu étudiées dans les pays occidentaux. Il faudrait chercher systé-matiquement des exemples de la littérature lituanienne, bulgare, roumaine etc., et les présenter à côté des littératures française, anglaise, allemande et ainsi de suite. La généralisation sera compensée par la mise en évi-dence que l’écrivain est plutôt le représentant de sa propre écriture/style (qui contient, sans pour autant le déclarer, son appartenance nationale ou ethnique), ce qui l’affranchit des schémas trop restreints et lui réserve une entrée plus facile dans une identité plurielle ou notion littéraire générali-sée.

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4. Le poème critique, travesti en conteNous allons illustrer notre thèse par une analyse concrète: celle d’une

des transformations du poème dans les sociétés fermées de l’Europe. Nous savons que l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est ont traversé la période la plus difficile pour la liberté de la parole sous les régimes communistes. En ce qui concerne l’Occident, les entraves devant la liberté de l’individu et, respectivement de l’artiste, se situent au temps de la Deuxième guerre mondiale. Or, dans les deux cas, la censure contrôle aussi bien le contenu que la forme de l’oeuvre littéraire.

L’écrivain ne peut pas se permettre de critiquer les dirigeants au pou-voir, pas plus que les pratiques de la vie quotidienne qui supposent une surveillance constante sur le comportement de chacun. Une atmosphère tendue de volontarisme policier règne dans les sociétés respectives. Les écrivains se sentent menacés et en souffrent. Les libres-penseurs cher-chent les moyens de se tirer de l’impasse. Les restrictions sur la forme (poétique dans notre cas) s’imposent également dans le genre du poè-me. Surtout à la fin des années 1940 et dans les années 1950, un système d’exigences dogmatiques est imposé dans le domaine artistique. Plus tard, ce système a beau être allégé, il ne disparaît pas définitivement. Dans une étude récente sur la littérature bulgare à l’époque du régime communiste, l’auteur, Mladen Entchev, trouve plusieurs écrits critiques qui, au temps le plus dogmatique, interdisent ou déconseillent le genre du conte de fées pour les enfants. D’après les prescriptions en vigueur, au lieu de chercher à divertir les enfants et les adolescents, il faut veiller à leur éducation, en mettant à leur disposition des lectures sérieuses. Le même auteur se réfère également à des articles, provenant de Pologne et de l’Union So-viétique de l’époque, qui se déclarent résolument contre toute idée de divertissement dans la poésie et la prose enfantine11. Cette étude révèle les stratégies concrètes d’un poète bulgare qui lui permettent de continuer à cultiver le genre du conte enfantin, dans un contexte qui lui est hostile. En général, chaque écrivain authentique cherche à s’exprimer et à être lu par le public pour partager ses idées et pour compenser l’absence de liberté dans une telle société.

Par un déguisement curieux, la critique sociale trouve dans certains cas la possibilité de s’exprimer sous la forme du conte (populaire ou fan-tastique), grâce au paradoxe, au jeu de mots. Les situations de déguise-ment, de jeu, de dialogues, de philosophie naïve portent en eux le code de l’anecdote et de l’anecdotique. En ce qui concerne la poésie, le dogma-

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tisme critique dénonce fermement l’elliptique moderniste. De leur côté, les écrivains contestataires font semblant d’obéir. Ainsi est né le poème qui imite le conte populaire, en y introduisant le personnage recommandé à l’époque: l’homme issu du peuple. Ce personnage, porteur de la sagesse populaire et personnification de la vie réelle (s’exprimant souvent à l’aide du dialogue), est capable d’exprimer tout à la fois la naïveté, le para-doxe, l’enseignement critique et contestataire. Il s’agit ici d’un procédé qui rattache d’une manière saisissante un poète bulgare à ses confrères roumain, français et lituanien, notamment: Konstantin Pavlov, Marin So-rescu, Jacques Prévert et Marcelijus Martinaitis. Le choix des littératures dans ce cas est arbitraire et porte à croire que le principe du poème criti-que, travesti en conte peut fonctionner un peu partout, dans des conditions similaires.

Le poète bulgare Konstantin Pavlov12 (1933–2008) dans son poème Capriccio pour Goya (1963) raconte une histoire presque allégorique où le dialogue se déroule entre l’horreur et le poète:

L’horreur de jadis n’est plus là –Férocement totale etFérocement infinie,Sans grimaces, ni esprit.

L’horreur a changé de caractère,elle me tape amicalement sur l’épaule,Me fait la cour avec condescendance et plaisante d’elle-même avec coquetterie«Nous sommes animés de la même forceToi, tu es simplement plus beau…»et elle me sourit.C’est ce sourire qui est dégoûtant,Dégoûtant et perversJusqu’à la folie.

Je sens la nausée.

C’est comme si j’étais embrassé lascivement Par des bébés barbus et moustachus.

L’écrivain roumain Marin Sorescu (1936–1996)13 use d’un procédé semblable. Dans son poème Compétition (en roumain Concurs, 1982) il énonce ironiquement les règles de la «compétition d’hibernation»:

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Pas le droit de bouger,Pas le droit de rêver,Pas le droit de penser.Celui qui sera surpris de penserSortira du jeu et sera éliminé.14

L’élément ludique, sous la forme d’un conte, y est nettement présent. Le poème reflète cependant des éléments fantasmatiques et le manque d’espoir de se débarrasser du régime en place (la résignation face au régime /hiber-nation est comparée à la patience de la momie du pharaon Chéops).

Jacques Prévert (1900–1977) est également un combattant contre toute démagogie ou manque d’indépendance et de liberté individuelle: «Dans un contexte meurtri (1946), il cultive les thèmes de la guerre, de la paix, de la liberté […]. Volontiers frondeuse et contestataire, sa poésie se cache sous le masque des mots simples, des expressions populaires, des struc-tures syntaxiques les plus faciles, de la rhétorique la plus répétitive […] pour faire émerger la poésie du quotidien […].»15 Voici un petit «conte» poétique intitulé «Le discours sur la paix» qui présente des similitudes avec les poèmes cités plus haut:

Vers la fin d’un discours extrêmement importantle grand homme d’État trébuchant sur une belle phrase creusetombe dedanset désemparé la bouche grande ouvertehaletantmontre les dentset la carie dentaire de ses pacifiques raisonnementsmet à vif le nerf de la guerrela délicate question d’argent.16

Les comparaisons ne s’arrêteront pas là. Mon intérêt pour la littérature lituanienne est très récent. J’ai lu dernièrement des auteurs lituaniens qui ont été traduits en bulgare. Et j’y ai trouvé des occasions de rapproche-ment avec la littérature roumaine, bulgare et française, auxquelles je suis liée professionnellement depuis bien plus longtemps. Chez Marcelijus Martinaitis (né en 1936), traduit en bulgare en 2008, je découvre des stra-tégies de déguisement, rappelant celles de ses autres confrères qui ont es-sayé de s’opposer à l’absence de liberté par un retour au personnage, pré-tendu simple, traditionnel, à la fable et au paradoxe. Comme chez Kons-

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tantin Pavlov, Marin Sorescu ou Jacques Prévert, nous voyons apparaître le protagoniste préféré de Martinaitis, Koukoutis (du recueil «Balades de Koukoutis», publié en 1977) qui s’oppose à admettre les fausses nouveau-tés. L’invocation au personnage est symptomatique:

Ne reconnais pas, Koukoutis,que tu voudras rester en ce monde…ils te feront vivre à leur gré:t’apparenteront à tes photos,à la taille notée dans les papiers d’identité,à la couleur des cheveux,à la grandeur de la chemise, des souliers et du masque à gaz.17

J’ai eu l’occasion de me renseigner davantage sur l’œuvre de Martinaitis grâce à l’article de Kestutis Nastopka et Heidi Toelle «Le mythe au service de l’esthesis»18. Mes premières impressions des poèmes de Martinaitis ont été pleinement confirmées après la lecture de cet article. L’analyse des deux critiques littéraires examine en profondeur certains éléments spécifiques de l’oeuvre du poète. Je ne me propose pas d’entrer dans les détails; je vou-drais seulement attirer l’attention sur la nature simple, véridique et honnête du personnage de Koukoutis, qui, justement par son caractère traditionnel et candide, gagne les sympathies du lecteur: il exprime la pensée logique et naturelle d’un homme du peuple (la sagesse populaire face à la grandi-loquence du discours officiel du régime). Les pratiques officielles entrent en opposition avec les pratiques de la vie, régies par les lois de la nature. Koukoutis saura échapper habilement à la répression omnipotente qui règne dans la société fermée. L’article consacré à l’oeuvre de Martinaitis commen-te entre autre une des ballades de Koukoutis: «La ballade se présente donc comme une critique de la vitesse, inhérente au déplacement en train et ren-due responsable du morcellement du corps, de sa désensibilisation et, par-delà, de la désagrégation du cosmos, de la société humaine et des relations interindividuelles ainsi que de la parcellisation du travail. Inversement et implicitement, la lenteur apparaît comme permettant, seule, d’assurer la co-hérence du cosmos, de la société et du corps. Derrière cette vision des cho-ses, se profile évidemment la dévalorisation du monde moderne mécanisé et l’éloge du monde rural traditionnel.»19 Nous pouvons ajouter, par ailleurs, le double sens du «monde moderne mécanisé», qui, gouverné, d’une manière inhumaine, au détriment de toute procédure démocratique, détruit la person-nalité, l’harmonie avec la nature et au sein de la société.

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En réalité, chacun des poètes mentionnés dans notre étude comparée, a une oeuvre beaucoup plus riche en messages que les simples exemples cités ici, pour mettre en évidence leur critique sociale. J’ai pourtant lieu d’espérer que ces exemples fournissent un materiel suffisant pour illustrer l’existence de réseaux de la pensée et du comportement contestataire en Europe. Enfin, en support de notre idée de la généralisation, ajoutons que chez les poètes analysés, le «jeu avec le texte» et la «conscience critique» vont main dans la main.

Conclusion L’ouverture de la littérature comparée européenne à toutes les litté-

ratures qui la composent devrait s’opérer effectivement, si nous voulons employer sans embarras le terme de «Littérature européenne» au singu-lier, sans lacunes dans la notion. La construction de réseaux thématiques, stylistiques et comportementaux peut contribuer à la connaissance des littératures qui n’ont pas encore de présence tangible dans les histoires littéraires, ni dans les programmes universitaires. Les changements dans le champ littéraire se produisent lentement. Pour obtenir un progrès dans ce domaine, il faudrait commencer par s’intéresser aux autres sur le conti-nent, par admettre effectivement la traduction comme un instrument de la littérature comparée. L’identité des écrivains européens est nationale et européenne à la fois. Chaque zone mérite d’être connue davantage. La thématologie, le «tiers espace» ainsi que la généralisation seront nos alliés quand il s’agira d’envisager la «Littérature européenne» comme une com-munauté de lectures partagées.

Références1 Précis de littérature européenne, sous la direction de Béatrice Didier, Paris :

Рresses Universitaires de France, 1998.resses Universitaires de France, 1998.2 ibidem, 7.3 Adrian Marino, «Histoire de l’idée de «littérature européenne» et des études

européennes», in: Précis de littérature européenne, Op. cit., 13–17.4 Roumiana L. Stantcheva, «Le triangle littéraire: Les relations Est – Ouest, les

relations Est – Est», in: (Multiple) europe: Multiple identity, Multiple Moder-nity, ed. by Monica Spiridon, Bucarest: University of Bucarest, 2002, 245–257; Roumiana L. Stantcheva, «Le modernisme et la danse: parallélismes entre les Balkans et l’Europe Occidentale», in: Traditionnel, identité, modernité dans les cultures du Sud-est européen: la littérature, les arts et la vie intellectuelle au XXe siècle, textes réunis par Roumiana L. Stantcheva, Alain Vuillemin. Sofia (Bulgarie), Arras (France): Ed. de l’Institut d’Études Balkaniques et d’Artois

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Presses Université, 2007, 352–367.5 Georges Steiner, une certaine idée de l’europe, Essai traduit de l’anglais par

Christine le Bœuf, Introduction par Rob Riemen, Actes sud, 2005.6 En Bulgarie ont été publiés dernièrement plusieurs volumes d’études théma-En Bulgarie ont été publiés dernièrement plusieurs volumes d’études théma-études théma-tudes théma-

tologiques. Par ex.: Café «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р�� ex.: Café «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��ex.: Café «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��.: Café «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��Café «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��é «Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��Europe», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��», �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��, �� «��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��«��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��», ��г. р�д��р Р��, ��г. р�д��р Р�� З��м��, ��: �зд. Д�м�� Я��, 2007; «La danse dans les littératures bal-La danse dans les littératures bal- danse dans les littératures bal-danse dans les littératures bal- dans les littératures bal-dans les littératures balles littératures bal-les littératures bal- littératures bal-littératures bal-ératures bal-ratures bal- bal-bal-kaniques»,», Танцът в балканските литератури, ��уд��, �ъ�� Рум��-�� Л. ��ч��, ��: Изд. Б��, 2004.

7 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ainsi dit Zarathoustra, Ed. bulgare, Фр�др�х Н��ш�, Тъй рече Заратурстра, �зд�� Ж�� Н��-Гъ�ъб��, ��: И� «Хр. Б��», 1990, 143–144.

8 Anton Strachimirov, Horo. Soura BirSoura Bir, Trad. en français par Violette Ionova, Sofia: Sofia-presse, 1969.

9 Matieu Caragiale, Les seigneurs du Vieux-Castel, Trad. du roumain par Clau-de B. Levenson, Lausane [Paris]: L’âge d’homme, 1969.

10 Homi K. Bhabha, “The Third Space”, in: identity, Community, Culture, Differ-ence, ed. J. Rutherford, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1991, 207–221.

11 Mladen Entchev, en bulgare, Младен Енчев. Лъчезар Станчев, «��м�-�р�� гр��», ��. Литературна мисъл, 2/2008, 195–211.

12 Plus de détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:Plus de détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in: de détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:de détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in: détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:détails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:étails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:tails sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in: sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:sur l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in: l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:l’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:’œuvre de K. Pavlov in:uvre de K. Pavlov in: de K. Pavlov in:de K. Pavlov in: K. Pavlov in:K. Pavlov in:. Pavlov in:Pavlov in: in:in:: Kleo Protokhristova ProtokhristovaProtokhristova, “The BookThe Book BookBook as Monument: The Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear” Monument: The Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”Monument: The Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”: The Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”The Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear” Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”Case of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear” of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”of Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear” Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”Konstantin Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear” Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”Pavlov’s “Remebrance of the Fear”’s “Remebrance of the Fear”s “Remebrance of the Fear” “Remebrance of the Fear”Remebrance of the Fear” of the Fear”of the Fear” the Fear”the Fear” Fear”Fear”” (1963)”, in:in:: L’oublié et l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-’oublié et l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-oublié et l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-é et l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-et l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien- l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-l’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-’interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-interdit. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-. Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-Littérature, résistance, dissidence et résilien-ce en europe Centrale et Orientale (1947–1989), textes réunis par Roumiana L. Stantcheva et Alain Vuillemin, Editions de l’Institut d’Etudes balkaniques, Editura Limes, Editions Rafael de Surtis, (Bulgarie, Roumanie, France), 2009, 211–216.

13 Le critique et historique littéraire roumain Nicolae Manolescu commente (la tra-duction nous appartient): «Il existe chez lui une poeticité, différente de celle de ses congénaires, plus précisément une poéticité orale, comme chez Prévert et chez Queneau (noms, mentionnés souvent, qui provoquent le mécontentement de Sorescu, sans aucune raison.)» – Nicolae Manolescu, istoria critică a literaturii române. 5 secole de lteratură,5 secole de lteratură, Piteşti: Editura Paralela 45, 2008, 1034.

14 Marin Sorescu, Drumul, Bucuresti: Editura Minerva, 1984.15 Évelyne Amon, Yves Bomati, Les Auteurs de la littérature française, Paris:

Larousse, 1994, 230–231.16 Jacques Prévert, Comment faire le portrait d’un oiseau, éd. bilingue, traduc-

tion de Vesselin Hantchev, Valeri Petrov, Ivan Borislavov, Roumiana L. Stant-cheva, Sofia: Colibri, 2000, 74.

17 Marcelijus Martinaitis MartinaitisMartinaitis, édition en bulgare,dition en bulgare, en bulgare,en bulgare, bulgare,bulgare,, Марцелиюс Мартинайтис, Не-обикновено е да си жив, �р��д �� х��, ��: �� Н��р��д �� х��, ��: �� Н� ��р�� Б��ж��, 2008, 100., 2008, 100..

18 Kestutis Nastopka et Heidi Toelle, «Le mythe au service de l’esthesis», in: Sémiotique & esthétique, sous la direction de Françoise Parouty-David et de Claude Zilberberg, Limoges: Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 2003, 39–55.

19 ibidem.

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Changing Attitudes Towards Gender in Europe – a Comparative Analysis of Fairy Tales Written by Women

Keičiant požiūrį į lytį Europoje (moterų parašytų pasakų lyginamoji

analizė)

Dearbhla McGrATHDublin City university, [email protected]

AbstractThe genre of the fairy tale has been used by women writers for centuries. The

reasons for this are many but perhaps most interesting is how the genre has been used as a subversive tool, to convey social commentaries on aspects of society, that in the past, and perhaps still, are seen as taboo to speak openly about. One such area is that of gender and sexuality. Many women writers in Europe have used this genre of literature to express views on the role that gender plays in our society. Moreover, we can see the changes in representations of gender roles in fairy tales spanning from the original tales to modern adaptations. What this paper seeks to examine is the ways in which modern European women writers represent gender roles in their works and what this says about changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality today in Europe. In order to achieve this, the paper will in-corporate a comparative analysis of modern adaptations of fairy tales consisting of works by British, French and Irish women, namely Angela Carter, Marie Dar-rieussecq and Emma Donoghue. In taking into account the authors social context we can gain insight from the subverted content in the tales, and through this gain some knowledge into the changing attitudes in Europe as regards this topic.

Key wordswords: genre of fairy tales, women writers, gender roles, representation, modernity.

Subversive Role of Women WritersThe term “fairy tale” or “conte de fée” was first introduced in 1690 by

French writer Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy. Fairy tales have been associated with the female for centuries, more specifically with a matriarchal, oral tradition. However, the literary fairy tales of 17th century France may have stemmed from an oral tradition but were originally intended for an upper class audience, and although, there were many more female fairy tale au-thors than male, most of the well known tales that have survived the years

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are those written by men. Nonetheless, even in the 17th century, male writ-ers such as Charles Perrault argued that the genre’s inherent femaleness was crucial in proving the “tales’ aboriginal status”1. One possible reason for the popularity of tales written by men is the moral values that were embedded in the tales, whereas it has been widely noted that many women fairy tale writers used the genre as a subversive tool, to satirise a society, in which they lived, but had little influence over. This is not to say that women writers of the time did not intend to civilise readers, but women who wanted education and power used subversive tales to undermine the male code and suggest a more liberal one2.

Modern women writers who tackle the fairy tale genre seem to take the approach of completely undermining social codes, rather than rein-forcing them. In this way, they are using the genre of the fairy tale to carry out the opposite of what many originally considered its purpose. Therefore we must ask ourselves the question, if our society today is an open and liberal one, why do women writers continue to choose to create ironic and subversive fairy tales?

At the end of the 17th century, between 1680 and 1715 there was a cul-tural crisis in Europe, a time which Paul Hazard names “crise de la con-science européenne”. This was a time of sceptical and rationalist thought that “was to provide the foundation for Enlightenment philosophy”3. Fairy tales were one of the symptoms of this psychology of sénsibilité. Lewis Carl Seifert contends that they represent a culture’s quest for identity4. This “fin de siècle” culture was marked by controversies concerning the proper boundaries of male and female gender roles5. I propose that we can see a similar trend in the fairy tales written by women at the end of the 20th century, with writers such as Angela Carter, Marie Darrieussecq and Emma Donoghue still tackling important issues regarding gender roles and women.

During a time of cultural crisis, fairy tales are a way of striving for identity. Furthermore, Seifert also points out, that fairy tales “should in-deed be interpreted as a form of gendered writing, that is, writing in which the gender of the author is inscribed as a distinguishing feature of textual production and meaning”6. Catherine Orenstein asserts that “fairy tales are at their core about sexuality – about the codes and manners and quali-ties and behaviours that society deems desirable, and thus which make us desirable to each other”7. In order to conduct an analysis of three tales by different writers, I will focus on the animal groom theme, or the “search

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for the lost husband” tale type8, a theme that has been particularly popular with women writers for centuries. Animals and metamorphosis are ex-tremely common in many tale types. Jack Zipes suggests a possible reason for this tales popularity with women writers is that the symbolism of the beast suggests that the male has not reached the cultural level of the hu-man or woman9. Another interpretation is that the woman author identifies with the oppressed heroine10, and also that the power to save or destroy the male character lies with the woman11. However, in recent times, many tales have come to focus more on the beast than the beauty character and as we will see in many instances it is the Beast that saves Beauty rather than the other way around.

It is worthy to note at this point the differences between animal groom tales written by men and women authors. In animal groom tales written by male authors, “it is not so much beauty and modesty that counts for the male character as brains and ambition”12 symbolising the superiority of male intelligence over female beauty13. Many women writers, in contrast, used the theme to hint that women had to obey society’s rules or face deg-radation14.

The three tales to be looked at in this paper are The Tiger’s Bride by Angela Carter from Great Britain, Truismes by Marie Darrieussecq from France and The Tale of The rose by Emma Donoghue from Ireland.

Angela CarterCarter looks at attraction and repulsion together15. She returns to the

animal groom theme many times treating it differently each time. As Ma-rina Warner points out; “her beauties choose to play with the Beast pre-cisely because his animal nature excites them and gives their desires li-cense”16. The Tiger’s Bride appears in a collection of tales based on well known fairy tales entitled The Bloody Chamber (1979).

“The Tiger’s Bride”The Tiger’s Bride begins abruptly. The Beauty character is our nar-

rator, although we never learn of her real name throughout the tale. She states “My father lost me to the Beast at cards”. We are presented here with an outspoken and cynical heroine. In this tale, the narrator’s father, a compulsive gambler, has bet and lost his daughter to the Beast. She watches with “the furious cynicism peculiar to women whom circum-stances force mutely to witness folly”17. This Beauty is alot wiser than her

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father but to her annoyance cannot make him aware of this. In this tale Beauty’s father can be seen as a beast. He has lost his own daughter to a strange creature and she comments that “it was not my flesh but, truly, my father’s soul that was in peril”18. Even the Beast who has won the girl tells his opponent; “if you are so careless of your treasures, you should expect them to be taken from you”19.

Carter presents a Beast who is somewhat of an outcast. He wears a mask and a cloak to hide his appearance and has a pungent odour of civet. Beauty ponders “what can he smell of, that needs so much camouflage?” The Beast’s animalistic nature is referenced here. He seems as if strug-gling to remain upright when he would rather be on all fours20.

As Beauty is brought to the Beasts residence, she muses on the exact nature of his beastliness. Since he wears a mask, it must hide something. Carter touches once again on our fear of the other. The narrator recalls a story she was told as a child of a tiger-man who she was told if she was naughty would come and “gobble” her up21. Here, Carter reminds us all of our instinctual fear of being eaten that feels stronger in childhood, but is, nevertheless, still present as an adult. Carter, aptly, points out that our narrator is recalling the old wives tales and superstitions of her childhood on the day her childhood ends22. To be bartered to the Beast in such a manner is as good as death for this narrator.

The Beast’s desire is to see Beauty naked once and then she will be returned to her father. This is too intimate an act for the woman to share with a beast; “That he should want so little was the reason why i could not give it; i did not need to speak for The Beast to understand me”. Here we see the first sign of a connection or affinity between the girl and the Beast, however, she finds his request humiliating23.

The Beast is constantly reminded of his otherness by a human presence. As the tale moves on, the narrator begins to see similarities between the Beast’s situation and her own. She notes how women share the same burden of otherness as would a monstrous creature: “[T]he six of us – mounts and riders, both – could boast amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things when the good Lord opened the gates of eden and let eve and her familiars tumble out”24.

This meditating on her own circumstances in life seems to bring about a change of heart in the narrator and she decides to grant the Beast his request. She, also, sees the Beast’s true form for the first time, a tiger’s

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body, “the annihilating vehemence of his eyes”25. As the deal with Beau-ty’s father has now been fulfilled, Beauty is free to return home. However, witnessing how her father valued her as a commodity, at “no more than a King’s ransom”26, she realises that beastliness can come in many forms. Carter ends the tale with Beauty deciding that she is better off as beast and she is transformed to animal: “His tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; i shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.”27

In this version of the Beauty and the Beast tale, the Beast did not need to be disenchanted; Beauty had to learn to love the Beast. Here, Beauty stands in need of the Beast who holds a mirror up to human values28.

Marie DarrieussecqMarie Darrieussecq treats the Beauty and the Beast theme, differently,

but not completely unlike The Tiger’s Bride. In Truismes, the protagonist herself is the one metamorphosing, in danger of becoming a beast.

“Truismes” Darrieussecq presents, in the short novel Truismes, many different

Beast characters. The narrator, herself, feels she is becoming a beast, due to her transformation into a sow and she is living in a world where society in general has become the Beast. Further to this, the male characters in the protagonist’s life are shown to be beastly in different manners. Dar-rieussecq uses the Beauty and the Beast theme to give us a commentary on the cruelty of modern society.

We are given a protagonist, by Darrieussecq, who is naive and allows herself be exploited. As she begins to transform, she is frightened, and be-lieves she may be pregnant. Her menstruation has ceased and she has rolls of fat around her stomach. She feels as if she is not a woman anymore, at least, how she believes a woman should be. She also notices long, thin hairs which are solid and translucent forming on her legs and back. She is disgusted by her own metamorphosis, seeing herself as hideous. She re-sists the transformation for a long time, using various beauty products and treatments and laments her former splendour: “De ma splendeur ancienne tout où presque avait disparu. La peau de mon dos était rouge, velue, et il y avait ces étranges taches grisâtres qui s’arrondissaient le long de l’échine.” 29

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Like Carter’s beasts, as the transformation happens to the protagonist, she becomes attuned to nature. Darrieussecq uses the image of the night-ingale, perhaps, referring to the bird in mythology, the tale teller: “Je ne savais pas jusque-là que j’étais capable de distinguer le chant des ros-signols”30.

As she sees herself as beastly, so do others. When she cannot resist the urge to roll in the muck, onlookers describe her actions as “monstrueux”31. Once again we see fear of otherness here and disgust at monstrosity.

Darrieussecq satirises society throughout the novel. Commenting on the beauty and cosmetic industry, she mocks at its exploitation of wom-en’s fears and insecurities. When the protagonist visits the dermatologist due to increasing worry about her advancing porcine state, she is repri-manded and the dermatologist tells her that she has never seen skin in such a state. She is punished for her transformation, for her monstrosity even though it is completely out of her control32.

This theme is further explored when the protagonist must have an abortion due to her work as a prostitute, which she politely or na-ively refers to as working as a masseuse. In a bizarre scene, the doctor performs the abortion while there is an extreme right wing protester chained to the operating table and we are presented with the shock-ing image of the police cutting his chains, which are covered in the protagonist’s blood. The protester assures the protagonist that she will be damned for eternity and when he learns of her profession, he says she has “La Marque de la Bête!”33. Here, we can see that Darrieussecq is presenting us with a dilemma; it is hard to determine, in this scene, who exactly is the Beast.

The character that represents the evils of society most in this novel is Edgar, a politician whose slogan is “Pour un monde plus sain”34. What Edgar means by “plus sain” (healthier), is eradicating difference such as the mutation of the protagonist. Edgar’s police force, the SAMU-SDF, in a humorous twist are aided by the armed forces of the SPA, the Société Protectrice des Animaux, (the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). When the transforming protagonist gives birth to six piglets, she has to protect them from the police force35. She must protect them from eradication as their difference is not acceptable. Edgar believes that what becomes of people, for example transformation, is a result of their own misdeeds. Edgar states that a promiscuous lifestyle has led to the protagonist’s transformation36.

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Further on in the tale, Edgar exploits the protagonist and keeps her locked up. Like the Beasts we have seen before, she is excluded from so-ciety due to her monstrous appearance.

Like in Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride, this Beauty character finds happi-ness with the help of another Beast character, Yvan. Ironically, he is the owner of aptly named beauty brand Loup-Y-es-Tu and he is a loup-garou, (a werewolf). Together, they do not fight their animalistic nature. She ac-cepts her beastliness, and when it is accepted it is no longer considered beastly. Darrieussecq paints a picture of a somewhat gruesome domestic bliss as the couple orders a pizza and the pig eats the pizza and the were-wolf eats the delivery man; “On ne pouvait pas distinguer le sang de la sauce tomate”37.

Finally, when the protagonist learns to accept her strange state of met-amorphosis, she decides to live her life permanently as a sow; as beast rather than beauty, seeing that the society, in which she lived, had become the true beast.

Emma DonoghueEmma Donoghue’s book of tales Kissing the Witch which was pub-

lished in 1997 is comprised of a number of tales that are all connected. At the end of each tale, a character is asked how they came to be in the form they presently are and thus they start their own tale and so on. In this way all the tales are inter-related and seem to go farther and farther back in time. The third tale “The Tale of the Rose” is based on Beauty and the Beast.

“The Tale of the Rose”The first striking remark that we come across in this tale is when

Beauty describes how she wanted none of her suitors as she “had an ap-petite for magic” and she wanted something “improbable and perfect as a red rose just opening”38. We are immediately reminded of the familiar red rose motif in many Beauty and the Beast stories and also, like Carter’s Beauty character, Donoghue would seem to suggest to us that this Beauty is no timid character either.

Beauty’s father familiarly gets trapped in a snow storm and is saved by a hooded beast. In return the father promises to the beast the first thing he sees when he returns home, hoping it will be a cat or a bird. Of course it is Beauty. In his delirium he tells Beauty “Daughter, i have sold you”39.

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The father in this case has committed a monstrous deed although we are inclined to feel sympathy for him as Donoghue paints him as a feeble character. Thus, we have the familiar motif in animal groom tales of the father gambling with his daughter’s future and thus condemning her to life with a beast.

It is worth noting here that Emma Donoghue acknowledges Andrew Lang at the start of the book as an influence and thanks her mother for reading her tales. Lang’s version of Beauty and the Beast is the best known English language version, which in turn was influenced by Mme de Beaumont’s tale from 1757.

Beauty’s fear of monstrousness is shown as she asks her father; “what does a promise mean when it is made to a monster?”40. Nevertheless, she vows to keep her father’s promise and what’s more, is excited by the pros-pect of her encounter with beastliness. She remarks: “Now, you may tell me that i should have felt betrayed, but i was shaking with excitement. i should have felt like a possession, but for the first time in my life i seemed to own myself. i went as a hostage, but it seemed as if i was riding into battle.”41 What is interesting here is that traditionally animal groom tales are filled with representations of fear of the unknown, fear of exogamy and leaving the family home but Donoghue’s Beauty is thoroughly ex-cited by this unnamed creature.

The reader is told that the young queen who lived in the castle had been either exiled, imprisoned, or devoured by the hooded beast and fur-ther more that “no one had ever seen the monster’s face and lived to de-scribe it”42, thus we are told that since the beast is disguised or a recluse, the presumption is that the creature must be something hideous.

As the masked creature asks Beauty if she comes consenting, she com-ments “i did, i was sick to my stomach, but i did”43. In analysing the animal groom cycle, Bruno Bettelheim asserts that the Beast represents a child’s view of sexuality, therefore as long as the child’s view of sex is attached to the parent, it must be seen as disgusting, ensuring that the incest taboo remains secure. When the child is detached from the parent and sexual longing is directed at a partner of a more suitable age, sexual longings no longer seem beastly, but are experienced as beautiful44. Zipes, however, describes this analysis as unhistorical and too glib, stating that “instinctual drives are conditioned and largely determined through inter-action and interplay with the social environment45.

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The girl and beast develop a relationship over time and she has eve-rything she could want. Yet she does not find a trace of the missing queen and comments “i had everything i could want except the key to the sto-ry”46. When questioned by the beast, the girl admits that she still pictured him as a monster. Often imagined monstrosity is worse than the reality as Donoghue clearly portrays in this tale.

The girl is allowed to leave the castle for eight days and promises to return to the beast. The beast tells her just as she leaves; “i must tell you before you go: i am not a man”47. On hearing this, the girl imagines trolls, ogres and goblins. The beast tries in vain to tell her that she does not understand but she leaves. On Beauty’s return, she nurses her sick father back to health and her sisters convince her to stay as leaving would surely kill their father. However thinking of the Beast the girl returns in time to save the dying creature. She notes that leaving this time she asked “no permission of anyone”48. This is the first time that she makes a decision for herself. She finds the beast “a crumpled bundle eaten by frost”49. As she removes the mask, she finds that the creature is neither beast nor man but a woman. Beauty discovers: “there was nothing monstrous about this woman who had lived alone in a castle, setting all her suitors riddles they could make no sense of, refusing to do the things queens are supposed to do, until the day when, knowing no one who could see her true face, she made a mask and from then on showed her face to no one.”50 The girl learns that beauty is “infinitely various”, and through physically and met-aphorically unmasking the beast, she understands her. The tale finishes; “And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travellers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battle-ments, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts”51.

Donoghue blurs the borderlines of sex, sexuality and the concepts of beauty and beastliness. Preconceptions can never be accurate because of their very nature. This tale requires looking beyond the obvious and the initial impression and allowing these borderlines to be blurred.

ConclusionElaine Showalter remarked that “the terminal decades of a century

suggest to many minds the death throes of a diseased society and the winding down of an exhausted culture”52. Contemplating this in regard to the final decades and years of the twentieth century, there seems to be a pattern to be looked at with regards to women’s writing, in particular

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their retelling and reinvention of fairy tales. According to Frank Kermode, the “sense of an ending” at the end of a century is a myth of the temporal that affects our thoughts about ourselves53. Moreover, fin de siècle think-ing is weighted with the symbolic meaning of death and rebirth. Perhaps in this manner, women writers are re-evaluating the way in which gender and sexuality are perceived and represented in modern society. While the conteuses at the end of the 17th century, satirised the monarchy, women’s difficulty in access to education and the cruelty of being married off at young ages, modern women writers have used the same genre to address issues of importance at the end of the 20th century, such as fear of disease, sexual threats and homophobia.

Women writers not only have demonstrated a connection with the gen-re of the fairy tale, but also a tie with fin de siècle thinking or “endism”54. Carole Pateman has noted that women have traditionally been perceived as figures of disorder, social and cultural marginality, on the border55. Per-haps this is a reason why they feel a connection with the borders of cen-turies, times of social and cultural questioning and change. Conversely, times of cultural insecurity often bring longing for strict border controls around the definition of gender and sexuality56, yet in the case of Carter, Darrieussecq and Donoghue, they seem to be blurring these very bounda-ries and reacting against this aspect of fin de siècle thinking. In remarking on the retelling of stories at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries Elaine Showalter contends that “in telling these stories we transmit our own nar-ratives, construct our own case histories, and shape our own futures”57.

Notes and references1 Marina warner, Mother Goose Tales: Female Fiction, Female Fact? Folklore

Vol. 101, No 1, 1990, 5.2 Jack Zipes, (1991) Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion; The Classical genre

for Children and the Process of Civilisation New York: Routledge, 32.3 Carl Lewis Seifert, (1996) Fairy Tales, Sexuality and Gender in France 1690-

1715, Nostalgic utopias Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 6.4 ibid, 2.5 ibid, 7.6 ibid, 10.7 Catherine Orenstein, Little red riding Hood uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and

the evolution of a Fairy Tale New York: Basic Books, 2002, 211.

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8 Anti Aarne, The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography (Trans-lated and enlarged by Stith Thompson), Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fen-nica, Aarne, 1981, 140.

9 Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion; The Classical genre for Children and the Process of Civilisation New York: Routledge, 1991, 49.

10 ibid, 51.11 ibid, 56.12 ibid, 41.13 ibid, 49.14 ibid, 53.15 Marina warner, From the Beast to the Blonde, On Fairy Tales and their Tel-

lers London: Vintage, 1994, 308.16 ibid.17 ibid, 52.18 ibid, 54.19 ibid, 55.20 ibid, 53.21 ibid, 56.22 ibid.23 ibid, 61.24 ibid, 63.25 ibid, 64.26 ibid, 54.27 ibid, 67.28 Ibd, 306. 29 Marie Darrieussecq, Truismes Paris: Folio, 1996, 55.30 ibid, 68.31 ibid, 85.32 ibidbid, 57.33 ibidbid, 31.34 ibidbid, 64.35 ibidbid, 91.36 ibidbid, 110.37 ibidbid, 129.38 Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch London: Penguin Donoghue,1997, 27.39 ibidbid, 29.40 ibidbid,30.41 ibidbid.42 ibidbid, 31.43 ibidbid.44 Bruno Bettelheim, The uses of enchantment, The Meaning and importance of

Fairy Tales London: Penguin, 1991, 278.45 Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion; The Classical genre for

Children and the Process of Civilisation New York: Routledge, 1991, 48.

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46 ibid, 32.47 ibid, 34.48 ibid, 35.49 ibid, 36.50 ibid.51 ibid.52 Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy, Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle

London: Virago, 1992, 1.53 ibid, 2.54 ibid, 2.55 ibid, 4.56 ibid.57 ibid, 18.

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The Cultural Archive and the New Media Literature

Kultūrinis archyvas ir naujųjų medijų literatūra

Aleš VAuPOTiČAcademy of Design Ljubljana, Slovenia & reeLC/eNCLSMalgajeva 15, 1000 Ljubljana, Sloveniaales@ vaupotic.com@ vaupotic.com vaupotic.com

AbstractThe new media technologies have changed the way cultural memory is pre-

served in archives. The shift can be grasped by a particular theoretical model for understanding new media objects. Such objects are according to theoretical views of Lev Manovich comprehended as databases that can be accessed only as medi-ated through interfaces, which determine the way information is presented spa-tially. The paradigmatic shift doesn’t concern only digital media. The digitization is, in fact, penetrating almost all segments of global culture, but excluding several parts on political and cultural grounds, not due to some technical obstacles only. Further, the theoretical ideas of the computer interface and the cultural interface are intertwining, i.e. the shift occurs from human-computer interfacing to human-culture interfacing by focusing cultural forms. The artistic archive as a specific medium will be discussed in views of the literary new media objects (hypertexts, textual computer installations, blog-type texts). The new media objects appear in-teractively before the user. The factor that authorises which letters, words, verses, images or archival materials will be concatenated is, of course, not just the author, but the reading act, and in fact, the text itself in the case of the algorithmic “poetry machines”. As regards the human factor in writing and reading the new media literature (also multimedia materials), a relevant issue to consider is the recently diagnosed reality of digital communities, which employ various information tech-nologies to read, comment, contribute to and to modify collaboratively the con-tents of archives, which thereby become their real substance.

Key words: new media literature, interface, archive, human-computer inter-action design, software studies, poetry automaton, digital community, Mouseion Serapeion

The new media object: interface and databaseIn his book The Language of New Media (2001) Lev Manovich

presents a very influential definition of new media object in order to pro-

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vide scholars with a functional concept that refers to electronic, interac-tive, digital, virtual, multimedia etc. art and literature. The term while choosing the neutral word “object” points beyond the domain of artistic creativity into the practices of everyday communication:

“The new media object consists of one or more interfaces to a database of multimedia material. If only one interface is constructed, the result will be si-milar to a traditional art object, but this is an exception rather than the norm.1

The databases that Manovich has in mind are digitized archives of

cultural objects and practices. The notion of “cultural interface” transfers the technical terms of art onto cultural signs beyond the limits of compu-tational manipulation of information2. A cultural interface is a human–computer–culture interface: it combines interfaces as cultural objects, the regular practices of communication between humans, with interfaces as applications that provide access to information stored on (networked) computers. By associating his approach with the theory of discourse of Michel Foucault Manovich argues for a theoretical approach focusing on cultural transcoding.

However, Manovich doesn’t assume that transcoding can be success-fully understood in isolation from the study of hardware and software, the material conditions for new media objects. In his last book Software Takes Command (2008) he argues for a new discipline: the “software studies” that focus on interaction between the operations that software provides for the user, their uses and the effects of the computational objects within the context of social communication. Manovich considers: “software as a layer that permeates all areas of contemporary societies”3.

The problems of a computational production of language Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his examination of theoretical possibil-

ities of a poetry automaton (Poesie-Automat) arrives to a conflictual rela-tionship between two planes of simulation that he attempts to resolve with a compromise: the primary linguistic structure, which gravitates towards normal language use, and the poetic secondary structure that demands the breaking of rules. However, the result should not compromise the poem’s integrity, with which it enters the dialogue of utterances in speech com-munication4.

In the monograph Poesiemaschinen/Maschinenpoesie (2007) a Ger-man new media artist and theorist David Link, whose work focuses on

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computational generation of language and texts, points to the fact that computers as e.g. conceived by Alan Turing in his theory of Turing-Ma-chine are fundamentally alien to language. Espen J. Aarseth notes that information processing and human semiosis clash, however they never-theless somehow coexist5.

David Link notes the fact that humans construe computers as anthro-pomorphous. However, since the body and senses from the human meta-phor have been successfully implemented in machines – computers can recognize patterns or move around by following sets of rules – the human spirit hasn’t been simulated yet. Link suggests that there are theoretical dilemmas that need to be considered. A general mistake of the artificial in-telligence research is the attempt to simulate the human spirit in general, not a particular person, as exists in society. The dialogic nature of exist-ence, as described by Mikhail Bakhtin, is beyond the possible scope of a computer. The reason for that lies in its design.

Anstatt Mengen zu bestimmen, bezeichnen Zahlen in seiner [Turing’s] Kons-truktion Zustände und halten Gleiches künstlich auseinander. Null und Eins setzen sich in einer Identität von Identität und Differenz ebenso entgegen wie sie in eins fallen, im Gegensatz zur herkömmlichen Mathematik, in der Null von Eins geschieden werden muß. Wer die Maschine im numerischen Feld verortet, verfehlt eine Pointe der Turing’schen Erfindung.6

(“The numbers in [Turing’s] construct describe states and hold the same artifi-cially apart, instead of determining quantities. The zero and one are in opposi-tion to each other in an identity of identity and difference and at the same time establish a unity – which contradicts the usual mathematics where zero and one need to be kept apart. If one locates the machine in the domain of numbers then the some points of Turing’s discovery are missed.” (translation – A. V.)

Link emphasizes the level of the computational information process-ing, which lies semiologically before the separation of symbols between letters and numbers (Link, “while(true): On the Fluidity of Signs in Hegel, Gödel, and Turing”). What the machine does is that it transforms symbols, however this happens only on the level of the material storage medium. It can never react to a situation on a pragmatic level.

Next, David Link examines the history of early applications that pro-duced an illusion of consciousness in language. Programmed in 1966 eliza by Joseph Weizenbaum simulates a psychoanalyst who invites the user to talk about herself. However the eliza application doesn’t contain

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a story, it merely turns all the questions around to invite the user to go on talking about herself. In 1971 Kenneth Mark Colby programmed Parry, a simulation of paranoid disorder, which by intentionally ignoring the con-text of conversation is in fact also an excuse for the system’s nonrespon-siveness. Parry just goes on about himself and gets more or less aggres-sive. In both cases, what is simulated, is the condition of language separated from its contextual use. Another instance, the textual adventure games, such as Adventure (1976) by William Crowther and Don Woods, require from the user a temporal suspension of the capacity for language for the textual machine to function, i.e. for the story to progress according to the user’s textual commands7. In his own artistic project Poetry Machine (2001) Link attempts to open the textual generator to the internet in order to bridge the gap between closed system of a computer and the human language use on the Web. However, the results are not promising, since the machine could not establish sense through generative language stream. The construction of a meaningful sentence out of a lexicon of words and through the use of grammar remains outside the machine’s reach.

Divided authorshipMikhail Bakhtin defines the boundaries of an utterance, the fundamen-

tal element of his theories, with the “change of speaking subjects”8. In this way also Vilém Flusser’s theory of techno-imagination can be construed as an approach that analytically divides the authorship into a programmer and a user of the apparatus9. The algorithms that guide the functioning of a machine and its concrete use in a socio-historical context are both the result of someone’s conscious effort.

It seems to be inappropriate to speak of “emergent properties”, even in the “weak”, epistemological meaning of the term in order to describe the unpredictable behaviour of algorithmic cultural objects. The emergentist approach entails a continuous progression of layers of reality, however the break that the artistic use of signs constitutively entails is, as noted by Enzensberger, incompatible with (nonreductive) physicalist image of the world10.

Google Web search engineAn example of technologically encoded cultural object, Flusser’s tech-

no-image, is Google search engine. Flusser wrote his theories assuming that the general audience is unable to decode techno-images appropriately.

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It is the same today, when people “google” without reflecting on how the information is obtained. It was emphasized that the computer cannot develop a capacity for language or a consciousness nor can meaningful behaviour “emerge” out of the mechanical processes. However, what the machine can do, is perform operations on data extremely fast. As a conse-quence, new phenomena come to life.

Google was the response to the unordered state of the web. The ear-lier Web search engines used the model of correspondence between the search quarry and the text on the page, however with the increasing amount of “spam” on-line these systems had great difficulties to distin-guish “worthless” webpages from the ones that merited human inter-est. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page found the solution to the problem by using the structural power imbalance inherent in the design of the World Wide Web (by Tim Berners-Lee) to obtain the information on the “Web-immanent” values of webpages. The condition of the Web is that the links point to other pages, however the page pointed to doesn’t con-tain the information that it was “cited”. In order to analyse the reversed hyperlinks Brin and Page had to analyse the whole Web. In the famous article The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search engine they explain their approach:

Academic citation literature has been applied to the web, largely by counting ci-tations or backlinks to a given page. This gives some approximation of a page’s importance or quality. PageRank extends this idea by not counting links from all pages equally, and by normalizing by the number of links on a page.11

Google therefore ranks pages according to the existence of links. A stat-ic hyperlink is a conscious product of a person and it is the only relational information within the system of the Web. When a link is programmed into a web page the space on the page is used, therefore only a strict selection of links can be put on a page, without making it unreadable12. To summarize, since the computer can not decide, whether a page is interesting or not, the human actions as interpage quotations are used as a quantifiable criterion. They are counted – which the machine can do on the semiological level before any reference to real world – whereby providing the objective hierar-chy of the webpages within the current World Wide Web.

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The digital communitiesIn 2004 the Ars Electronica festival introduced a new category called

Digital Communities. In 2007 the parallel Net Vision category (i.e. inter-net art) was abolished and the new Hybrid Art introduced instead. The Interactive Art as a constant of the festival is less telling, whereas it is important to note that the dividing of the field into not-internet and in-ternet based projects has shifted towards a divide between building of societies and hybridizing of media. The former has in fact included all the works that used the internet as a key ingredient (hybrid art in turn began to compete with the obsolete interactive art). Slogan of this programmatic change was: “the reclaiming of the internet as a social space”13.

If Google used the information that was implicitly encoded into the total structure of the Web to present its contents by means of innovative use of technology, the “digital communities” as limited projects strive to organize a community by any means possible. The authorship of a multi-user discourse14 is thus determined by its effect, the digital community as a new form of society: the initial supportive communication systems have to be developed and maintained, however, on the other hand, the critical number of users have to be persuaded to participate and the relationships between them have to be designed in a way that enables the multiuser dis-course to sustain itself. The results, such as Wikipedia, additionally point to new epistemological challenges, since the new expression of a “collec-tive intelligence”15 doesn’t correspond to the subjective and variable as-sumptions inherent in the “common sense”.

The archive as a medium: Mouseion Serapeion The collection of different theoretical approaches in the book The Ar-

chive edited by Charles Merewether in 2006 points to a new interest in the archival structures in contemporary arts and in theory. A quote from a con-tribution by Hal Foster: “If archival art differs from database art, it is also distinct from art focused on museum”16 should illustrate, on the level of terminology, the burgeoning interest in the way multifaceted relationships between archival units are reconfigured17. Moreover, the affinity between the archive and a computer is by no means taken for granted. Another point to consider is the current state of studies of discourse as archive that point to the dichotomy in the avant-garde vision of the world: e.g. Ben-jamin H. D. Buchloh quotes the work Media Scrap Book by Hannah Höch

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from 1030s that instead of fragmentation and fissure foregrounds the ar-chival order as the constitutive principle of the work18.

An example of artistic archive that was conceptualized by Narvika Bovcon and Aleš Vaupotič is Mouseion Serapeion (2004)19. Methodologi-cally it is an “artistic research” into the possibilities of new media dis-cursive practices by means of constructing a model. On the one hand the strict scientific objectivity is necessarily compromised, however on the other a deeper understanding emerges from the scholar’s hands-on experi-ence. Also David Link’s understanding of textual generators is founded on the profound understanding available to somebody that had created a clas-sical work in a still new medium.

Mouseion Serapeion is an archive that presents and critically re-views the first ten years of the artistic production of the Video Seminar at Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts (1987–1997). Mouseion Serapeion is at the same time an artistically coded smart application for Windows operating system that generates the context for individual elements of the archive according to the user’s requirements. The main search result in the centre of the “Territory” view of the application is derived by means of browsing through the metadata of particular elements of the archive; the secondary six hits are additionally defined by the user’s horizon of un-derstanding, which was recorded for a generic group of participants in the art institution as the history of browsing through this particular archive. The view “List” on the other hand assures the access to all the elements of the archive and so eases the user’s dialogue with the language of the Academy’s video production.

Mouseion Serapeion is a construction. First, it models the notion of social and historic identities as they are developed on the level of the at-oms of Power-Knowledge in the theory of discourse by Michel Foucault. Second, it models the techno version of the “visage”20 as conceptualized by Emmanuel Lévinas, which confronts the user of the application by means of dialogue; the visage is therefore unknowable in the mystically transcendental sense of the word. What the user sees is a visage, not be-cause she animistically projects it, but because the archive elements are presented through a specific communicative metaphor.

ConclusionMouseion Serapeion solves the dilemmas of a contemporary new me-

dia archive and, at the same time, the computational production of mean-

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ing with careful planing of which procedures to choose to manipulate the initial set of data. As opposed to Google, its scope is limited to a com-munity that corresponds to an existing social group. The input data is used to align the archive configuration with the existing expectations of what it consists of. The result is a sort of “mirror” image of the group of users, which is potentially questioned in its aggressive reconfiguration of the ar-chival units through the history of browsing.

References1 Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT

Press, 2001, 227.2 ibid, 70.3 Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command. 2008. 18 June 2009 <http://lab.soft-

warestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html>.4 Hans Magnus Enzensberger, einladung zu einem Poesie-Automaten. Frank-

furt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2000. 22 Oct 2008 <http://jacketmagazine.com/17/enz-robot.html>.

5 Aarseth, Espen J., Cybertext: Perspectives on ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, 29–31.

6 David Link, Poesiemaschinen/Maschinenpoesie: Zur Frühgeschichte computerisi-erter Texterzeugung und generativer Systeme. 1st ed. Fink (Wilhelm), 2007. 7 Sep 2009 http://www.alpha60.de/research/pm/DavidLink_Poesiemaschinen_2006C.pdf, 45).

7 ibid, 85. 8 Michail Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late essays. University of Texas

Press, 1986, 71. 9 Vilém Flusser, Digitalni videz. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2002, 75.10 Timothy O’Connor and Hong Yu wong. “Emergent Properties.” The Stanford

encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed.Edward N. Zalta. 18 Aug 2009 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/>.

11 Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper-textual Web Search Engine.” 1998, 21 Aug 2009 <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html>.

12 The normalizing of the value of links by the number of links on the page is an algorithmic expression of this limitation.

13 Hannes Leopoldseder and Christine Schopf, eds., Cyberarts 2004. Prixars electronica. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2004.

Hannes Leopoldseder and Gerfried Stocker, eds., CyberArts 2006. Bilingual. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006.

Leopoldseder & Schopf 196; Leopoldseder & Stocker 192).14 Aarseth, 142 ff.15 (Leopoldseder & Schopf 205).

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16 Charles Merewether, The Archive. The MIT Press, 2006, 144.17 Aleš Vaupotič, and Narvika Bovcon, eds., 11. mednarodni festival računalniških

umetnosti/11th international Festival of Computer Arts. Ljubljana & Maribor: ArtNetLab & MKC Maribor, 2005. 31 Aug 2009 <http://black.fri.uni-lj.si/riii/files/tiskovine/11mfru-katalog.pdf>.

18 Merewether, 86.19 http://black.fri.uni-lj.si/mouseionserapeion/ (1 Sept 2009). Concept, develop-

ment, editorial selection and commentaries: Narvika Bovcon, Aleš Vaupotič. Preparation, encoding and data insertion: Tomaž Bobnar, Sandi Humar, Luka Vrhovec, Jure Bratina. Database entity modeling: Tine Borovnik, Dejan Du-lar, Matej Guid, Gregor Šoško. Graphical user interface: Gregor Šoško, Sergej Panić. Search algorithm application: Matej Guid. Database interface: Tine Borovnik. Data insertion application: Rok Lenardič, Sergej Panić. Production: ArtNetLab Society for Connecting Art and Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2004

20 http://www2.arnes.si/~avaupo2/files/solaris-frame/levinas-original.htm (30 Nov 2009)

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II. rHeTorIC oF IDeNTITYTAPATYBĖS reTorIKA

The Dynamics of Cultural Identity:Persevering the Paradox of Self and Others

Kultūrinės tapatybės dinamika: „Savęs“ ir „kitų“ paradoksas kaip

galimybė

Farouk Y. SeiFAntioch university Seattle, Washington, [email protected]

AbstractThis paper uses a “wide-angle lens” to view the dynamic process of maintain-

ing cultural identity and draws attention to the paradoxical relationship of self and others. Encounters between self and others always reveal paradoxes that are root-ed in the human condition. Cultural stability and the influence of other cultures are commonly seen as a problematic dualism, rather than a paradoxical polarity. The homomorphic relationship between the polarities of self and others is a significant feature in the experience of cultural identity. The erroneous perception of self and others fades away when faced with the reality of self-in-and-through-others. While encounters between different cultures can trigger a sense of vigilance in response to the forces of homogenization, perseverance through the paradox of self and others turns away ethnocentrism and tames idiosyncratic ethnicity. Experiencing paradoxical encounters between self and others requires perseverance in the face of cultural tension. Holding this tension creatively demands strength, which can be developed through experiencing cross-cultural interactions. Developing this strength is fundamental to understanding the changing cultural map of Europe. By the creative holding of paradoxical tension, cultural encounters can be viewed as an opportunity for a beautiful juxtaposition of literature and artifacts. This paper reveals the interrelationship between the value of perseverance and the notion of design in maintaining and renewing cultural identity.

Key words: Cultural identity, paradox of self and others, design, perseverance

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TAPATYBĖS RETORIKA

IntroductionWe live in a most challenging, yet opportune, era. The dynamics be-

tween cultural identity and globalization, between one’s culture and the culture of others, have reached a crucial point that requires a major shift in our perception and understanding. The processes of homogenization of cultures and marginalization of ethnic communities have been common characteristics of modern society. In fact, in the pursuit of the so-called “global culture,” there has been a strong tendency to diffuse the whole no-tion of culture1.

On one hand, influenced by digital efficiency and mass-communica-tions, modern societies experience cultural dilution in which sameness and indifference have grown at a disturbing rate2. This indifferent posture towards the differences of others, which is attained by relinquishing other-ness –“both one’s own otherness and the otherness of others”3 – undoubt-edly leads to the mutual exclusion of self and others, and at the same time, to a reduced sense of individuality4. While a person may feel the pressure of social relationships that may prevent him or her from experiencing any individuality, excessive individualization and a self-centered attitude hamper all semiotic communication, making people feel more alienated5. As long as our thinking is “exclusively self-centered”, the world will con-tinue to be a mere fragmentation of cultures and individuals6, struggling for self-preservation and fighting each other for recognition and domina-tion. In fact, the general practices of late twentieth-century cultures have sharpened the contradiction between self and others, leading to skewed nationalism or radical provincialism.

On the other hand, scholars who are optimistic about the advantages of the digital age argue that modern society has an unprecedented op-portunity for a promising healthy multicultural human community. In some sense, their argument seems to be valid. Cultures of times past were viewed as autonomous entities, often with parochial ethnic attitudes. In a globally digital world and due to the space-time compression, however, many different cultural practices and objects are experienced within a particular culture and even on its own soil7, making provincialism and nationalism less pronounced but simultaneously intensifying the need and struggle for cultural identity.

In a technologically advanced world, no longer can a culture be per-ceived as divorced from other cultures. The long-held assumption that cultures are mainly associated with respective countries requires a criti-

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II. RHETORIC OF IDENTITY

cal examination. Since culture is a socially constructed set of practices, wherein its members define themselves and make meaning out of their existence and actions, the idea of culture extends across a large spectrum of different ethnic groups and professional organizations, even within a particular nation. This degree of complexity makes any attempt to study cultural identity an overwhelming task.

In exploring the dynamics of cultural identity, one must be aware that not only all cultures but also all individuals inevitably experience the ongo-ing struggle of preserving self-identity in the face of universality. To deal with this issue in the context of this paper, I identify “self” and one’s own culture as one pole, and “other” and the culture of others as the other pole in a paradoxical pair. I have organized the paper in five sequential but interre-lated parts: 1) observations and reflections on a cross-cultural experience in Egypt, which augments the theoretical framework of this paper; 2) a discus-sion of the paradoxical relationships between self and others in the context of cultural identity; 3) an argument that cultural identity is best maintained by perseverance through the cultural tension created by the paradox of self and others; 4) paradoxes as a phenomenon of cultural identity; and 5) an introduction of the link between the value of “perseverance” and the idea of “design” in dealing with the paradox of self and others. I then conclude by inviting the Baltic States to reflect on their own cultural identities within the current transformations of the European cultural landscape.

1. The Dynamics of Cultural Identity in a Cross-Cultural Setting

Cultural identity does not exist without the semiosphere. The proc-ess of making distinction between differences are developed and intensi-fied at the physical and social boundaries of semiospheres8. Developing and maintaining cultural identities depend on the need for self-preser-vation and the demand for the recognition of others. To develop a deep understanding of the dynamics of cultural identity, one has to engage in cross-cultural interactions. Culture, in this sense, “is like a tailwind on a bicycle path. We only notice the wind when we change direction and find it going against us. We are unaware of our culture until we meet some-thing which is different, for we have taken it for granted until then.”9 As anthropologist Edward Hall states, “the great gift that the members of the human race have for each other is not exotic experiences but opportunity to achieve awareness of the structure of their own system, which can be

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accomplished only by interacting with others who do not share that sys-tem – members of the opposite sex, different age groups, different ethnic groups, and different cultures – all suffice.”10 Experiencing the dynamics of cultural identity can be achieved by crossing the frontiers of other cul-tures, where “the hottest spots for semioticizing processes are the bounda-ries of semiosphere.”11

Not only do interactions with other cultures set off the problem of dealing with others’ cultural biases, not only do such interactions uncover ethnic idiosyncrasy and political ideologies, but also they bring to the sur-face the primordial need for self-preservation and maintenance of one’s self-identity. Empirical observation and reflection on my experience in leading a cross-cultural study program in Egypt for nearly 14 years have revealed how intense the paradoxical polarity of self and others really is. Participants in the cross-cultural study have been prepared to delve into three scenarios: a) known skills and values within an unfamiliar culture; b) unknown skills and values in a familiar culture; and c) unknown skills and values in an unfamiliar culture.

In addition to exotic and mysterious physical environments, the un-familiar cultural ethos, undifferentiated reality, and peculiar ways of life challenge sojourners’ values and skills and create a paradoxical situation. Similar to observations made by other scholars12, I have found that – influ-enced by their emphasis on material things – sojourners tend to judge the local culture by the American standard of material comfort and welfare. Members of the traveling team usually seem to feel at home with each other; however, in connecting deeply with the unfamiliar culture, they also experience a yearning for being physically back home, with all its modern conveniences. Sojourners seem to experience “double binding”13, expressed in their need to continue on with their familiar way of life back home, and their desire for the ecological ideal by engaging in the local undifferentiated reality.

The contrast between the sojourners’ values and the locals’ ethos seems to be the most explicit dynamic of cultural identity. The sojourners’ familiar values and known skills seem to be out of place and useless in dealing with the unfamiliar culture. For instance, travelers who are com-fortable with rational thinking and digital modes of communication find it odd to deal with the emotional behavior and analog thinking expressed by the locals. The locals tend to favor the analog mode of communication, where “polychromic” time-space is more desirable than “monochromic”

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time-space14. Polychromic time is illustrated in the Egyptian cultural prac-tice in which time and place for leisure and work form an undivided flow. With their preconceived idea about the local social conduct and habitual expectations for efficiency, sojourners find it extremely challenging to deal with the slow pace of local service exemplified in food establish-ments. Sojourners prefer an immediate result to a slow-process outcome; and this seems to provoke more appreciation for their own cultural pat-terns.

My experience has shown that sojourners seem to become more tol-erant in dealing with the locals and, at the same time, the locals seem to develop an appreciation for learning more efficient ways of service. Transparent and unbiased observation in cross-cultural settings proves to be essential not only in dealing with cultural conflict but also in making a mindful distinction between self and others. Understanding the opposite forces of self and others provides an opportunity for discovering high-leverage points that allows both sojourners and locals to reframe cultural challenges and reveals different ways of thinking about the paradox of self and others. When sojourners and locals share with each other moments of transparent perception, a meaningful distinction between self and others outshines the preoccupation with cultural biases and ethnocentrism. Cer-tainly, this manner of perceiving through a limpid lens assists sojourners not only in becoming aware of the differences of others but also in cul-tivating graceful ways to maintain their own cultural identities and gain experience in living creatively with paradoxical situations.

2. Cultural Reality: The Paradoxical Encounter of Self and others

Cultures emerge from a complex dynamic social network through multiple feedback loops that are not only continually modifying but also maintaining their ethos. While cultural systems maintain coherence, they must rely on both positive and negative feedback loops not only to maintain their coherence but also to adapt to new learning for renewal. Through positive feedback loops, a cultural system must maintain and de-fend its balance against chaotic, unfamiliar, and ambiguous disturbances. At the same time, however, that cultural system must rely on negative feedback loops for its own growth and transformation. These two actions constitute a paradox. This paradox is a necessity for cultures to experience an innovative change on the one hand and an uninterrupted sense of con-

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tinuity on the other. Unfortunately, social stability and cultural innovation are often seen as a problematic dualism, rather than paradoxical polarity.

Unmistakably, all cultures experience the ongoing struggle of preserv-ing self-identity in the face of universality. As I said earlier, the process of modifying and maintaining cultures is paradoxical. However, this paradox is not what leads cultures to their demise; rather, it is the insistence on the duality of self and others that leads cultures to entropy, and ultimately to their deaths. There is a fundamental need within each individual’s life – and equally within each culture’s life – to transcend the categories of knowing that are provided by existing cultural systems. Changing existing cultural systems leads to either cultural evolution or cultural regression. This dynamic process both modifies and maintains cultures. Encounters between different cultures, between self and others, always reveals para-doxes that are embedded in human nature. Ironically, when societies face the challenging difference between self and others, there is a tendency to confuse paradoxes with problems.

The attitude of self-centered interest assumes that dominance or com-promise is the way to deal with the paradox of self and others. Ever since Zeno’s paradox until the present time, philosophers have been struggling with the nature of paradoxes. Paradox can never be dissolved. Quite the opposite. If a paradox is treated as a problem, it grows and breeds in ever-increasing confusion—and “since the paradox has no solution the mind is caught in the paradox forever. Each apparent solution is found to be inadequate, and only leads on to new questions of a yet more muddled nature.”15 The search for a solution as a means of dissolving differences between self and others is a desperate attempt to camouflage the nature of paradox.

Attempts to resolve differences between conflicting cultures, between self and others, are not the answer. This is evident in almost all strategies to resolve social and cultural problems and despite massive evidence of the inadequacy of a problem-solving approach, societies seem to continue laboring under the delusion that differences can be sealed off. Although a problem-solving approach to mitigating the difference between self and others frequently arrives at an apparent solution, it substitutes for the par-adox short-lived conditions that sooner or later will trigger conflict and even violence.

Since the paradox of self and others can neither be solved nor re-solved, one can only live creatively with its tension. To be able to hold the

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creative tension of paradox, one must develop endurance and patience for differences. Holding creative tension brings out our capacity for persever-ance, which undoubtedly leads us to a fundamental shift in our perception of cultural identity. This is not to imply passivity or compliance. Holding this creative tension demands strength, not power because where power cannot tolerate the ambiguity intrinsic to the paradox of self and others, strength thrives on the creative tension of paradoxes. Human strength can-not be taken away; its nature relies on perseverance in spite of all odds. In contrast, power characterized by rhetoric clings on resistance, and, in doing so, it always attracts persistence. This means that resistance and persistence are desperate forces of power that ultimately lead to the esca-lation of conflicts between self and others and even self-destruction.

3. Persevering Through the Paradox of Self and OthersIt is not the differences between opposite cultural forces that are prob-

lematic, but rather it is the misunderstanding of the paradoxical nature of self and others – as well as the lack of imaginative ability to reframe cultural challenges and contradictions as paradoxes. Fundamentally, the interconnection between two seemingly contradictory opposite forces pro-vides a beautiful Juxtaposition of differences. This beautiful Juxtaposition can be achieved through our capacity to reframe and radically re-contex-tualize our experience; and this Juxtaposition, in turn, can generate unlim-ited beautiful alternatives for not only maintaining cultural identity but also transforming culture.

If mishandled, the dynamics between cultures often escalates, whether downward through violence into the deepest regions of the abyss where even self-destruction can qualify as a victory16, or upward into a higher level of creative encounter, breaking new ground for cultural transforma-tion. A creative integration of self and others is the source of beautiful and sustainable cultural reality. That is, by persevering through the tension created by the paradox of self and others, we can turn differences into an opportunity for a beautiful composition. Indeed, I have observed this crea-tive reframing in cross-cultural interactions in Egypt, where sojourners and locals engaged in the creation of this aesthetic experience. Certainly, the aesthetic composition of differences seems to be one of the most sig-nificant attributes of the phenomenon of cultural identity.

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4. Paradoxes and the Phenomenon of Cultural Identity All phenomena in life are paradoxical and tensional; cultures are no

exception. Cultures experience the paradox of what Jean Baudrillard calls “exponential instability” and “exponential stability”17, that is, a time with no end but only a cycle of paradoxical encounters. The intersection of exponential instability and exponential stability is the never-ending para-doxical phenomenon of cultural reality. In any social paradox there are three elements: an awareness of the presence of contradictory forces; an acknowledgement that these forces are natural and inevitably rooted in individuals and cultures; and an assertion that these contradictory forces are linked together and derived from a common source that connects them and gives meaning to their coexisting opposites18. The recognition of the three elements is essential not only for our understanding of the dynamics of cultural identity but also for our willingness to live creatively with the paradox of self and others.

According to the autopoietic systems theory19, the relationship be-tween self and others is a mutual causal process of interactions between both, and only becomes possible to the degree that self and others are homomorphic. “The other is but a reflection of the self. It is represented within the self before it ever enters the scene.”20 And since the relationship between self and others – one’s own culture and the culture of others – is homomorphic, sundering them is impossible. As Mary Parker Follett ar-gues, the notion of self and others is misleading; there is only “self-in-and-through-others”– others so deeply rooted in the self and so fruitfully growing there that separating them is impossible21.

Interestingly, according to Lotman, it does not matter whether a cul-ture sees the savage stranger as a friend bringing a healthy influence or a foe exhibiting a repulsive behavior; that culture deals with a creation made in “its own inverted image”22. It is reasonable to presume that this peculiar self-projection of a particular culture can be overcome by a ho-lographic understanding of others and by a transparent perception of cul-tural differences. This presumption, however, is not mere speculation, nor does it come on a whim; it is, as I pointed out earlier, an emergent quality of cross-cultural interactions. It also echoes Jean Gebser’s diaphanous perception of the whole in his notion of “aperspective consciousness”23, as well as the concept of “holos consciousness” initiated by Ervin Laszlo24. For a culture to live with this sensibility, Gebser reminds us, “is to over-come rationality in favor of arationality, and to break forth from mentality

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into diaphaneity”25; holography and transparency not only allow cultures to deal with the dynamics of cultural identity, but they also offer a differ-ent disposition that embraces the paradox of self and others.

When we assert that the contradictory forces ingrained in culture are derived from a common source that gives meaning to their coexistence and when we live creatively with the paradox of self and others – without backing out or getting caught by our mental models, without being too possessive of our own cultural expression – only then can we open to the chaos of discovery and reach a state of wisdom. A culture (or nation) deeply engrossed in self-expression and excessive self-identity is often alien to discovery, missing ways to its own renewal. Rather than “seeing phenomena through limpid glass, they must look through their own re-flected images”26 .

Discovering innovative ways for cultural renewal suggests at least a temporary removal of the superficial sheath that usually separates self from others. By holding creatively the paradox of self and others, humans can also go beyond cultural conflicts into the state of a profound under-standing, with good judgment and foresight, of what it means to sustain one’s cultural identity. The very nature of sustaining identity is not only to go beyond culture and, as Edward T. Hall states, “free oneself from the grip of unconscious culture”27 but, more significantly, to learn how to live creatively and to persevere through the paradox of self and others. Grant-ed that it is impossible to understand fully any other human being – and no individual will ever really understand himself or herself – the process of understanding oneself mirrors the process of understanding others28.

Judging from historical social events, when technological advance-ment reaches a critical point of intensification and saturation in society, the process invariably reaches the phase of crystallization. However, this is not to imply that an apathetic or passive reaction is the answer to sus-taining cultural identity; rather, by reframing the challenge and leading the process toward a desirable outcome, we can increase the potential for intensifying and renewing cultural identity. Only when we persevere through the paradox of self and others and, particularly when we capital-ize creatively on the characteristics of our digital age can we engage in a purposeful co-creation process that animates and leads to innovative ways for celebrating cultural differences and sustaining cultural identities.

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5. The Value of Perseverance and the Idea of DesignCultural reality is the never-ending and diaphanous process between

self and others, between exponential stability and exponential instability. A meaningful cultural identity requires an understanding that helps peo-ple recognize themselves not just as unique individuals, but also as inte-gral parts of a multicultural human community29. Our ability to persevere through the paradox of self and others is fundamental to understanding the changing cultural map of Europe. The ability and skills to persevere through this paradox can be developed through experiencing cross-cul-tural interactions not only across international boundaries but also within the national boundary; cultures can maintain their identity in the face of a globalizing world. By creatively holding paradoxical tension, individuals can view cultural encounters as an opportunity for a beautiful composition of literature and artifacts without compromising identities or differences. Literature and artifacts, as expressions and manifestations of culture, can benefit greatly from cultural encounters, sustaining their vitality through the juxtaposition of cultural differences.

An interesting observation from the cross-cultural experience in Egypt reveals a meaningful interrelationship between the value of perseverance and the notion of design. The two words, “perseverance” and “design,” are the same word – tasmeame – in the Arabic language. Design occurs only through perseverance. To be involved in designing is to persevere through paradoxes and do well despite all odds of the challenging situ-ation at hand. Since the chief principle of design is to creatively handle polarity and paradoxes – such as, change and permanence, continuity and innovation, the finite and the infinite30, attachment and nonattachment, knowing and not knowing, maturity and innocence, control and surrender, uniqueness and universality, to name but a few – design seems to be the best alternative approach to managing the everlasting paradoxical phe-nomenon of self and others, a paradox that is as old as humanity itself.

ConclusionPersevering through the creative tension of the paradox of self and oth-

ers is a promising path to transformation. This path to transformation is only possible by designing with paradoxes. At the heart of all wisdom traditions, the promises of paradox is in its seemingly opposite forces. This promise relies not only on replacing either-or with both-and31 but, in fact, depends on our capacity to design with self-in-and-through-others in mind.

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Transformations of the European cultural landscape are not just social occurrences to cope with their unintended consequence. Nor does trans-formation take place by fixing social problems and maintaining the status quo. Rather, European nations and cultures are facing the opportunity for an intentional process that can lead to genuine ways of sustaining and re-newing their cultural identities, which goes beyond the ethnocentrism and provincialism that clouded the European cultural landscape over the past centuries. Interestingly, the more European cultures persevere through the paradox of self and others the less the tendency of the state to manipu-late the nation toward extreme nationalism and radicalization of cultures. While the focus on nationalism during the nineteenth century liberated Eastern Europe from past empires, it asphyxiated local cultural identities and uprooted traditions.

A culture that uses the idea of design, persevering through the para-doxical challenge of self and others, can not only maintain its identity but also advance its capacity for renewal and vitality. That being said, Lithuanians seem to be at an interesting intersection in history. They have a great opportunity to reflect on their own cultural identity and political sovereignty in the post-Soviet era, to restore by design their place within other Baltic States and the European Union, and consequently to renew their own culture.

References1 Roland Robertson, Social Theory, Cultural relativity and the Problem of Glo-

bality, in: Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Con-ditions for the representation of identity, ed. Anthony D. King, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997; and John Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.

2 Farouk Y. Seif, At Home with Transmodernity: reconstructing Cultural iden-tity in a Globalizing World, in: Transmodernity: Managing Global Commu-nication, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the Romanian Association of Semiotic Studies (ROASS), Slanic-Moldova, Romania, October 2009.

3 Susan Petrilli, Crossing Out Boundaries with Global Communication: The Problem of the Subject, in: The American Journal of Semiotics, Semiotics and Philosophy: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives, ed. Joseph Brent, Vol-ume 20, 1-4, 193-209, Washington, DC: Semiotic Society of America, 2004, 201.

4 O.B. Jr. Hardison, Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technol-ogy in the Twentieth Century, New York, NY: Viking Penguin Group, 1989.

5 Yuri M. Lotman, The universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture,

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trans. Ann Shukman, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990.6 Jean Gebser, The ever-Present Origin, trans. from German by Noel Barstad

with Algis Mickunas, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1985, 532.7 Mark Poster, information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital

Machines, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.8 Lotman.9 Elisabeth Plum with Benedikte Achen, Inger Dræby, Iben Jensen , Cultural

intelligence: The Art of Leading Cultural Complexity, London, UK: Middlesex University Press, 2008, 67.

10 Edward T. Hall,.Beyond Culture, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1976/1981, 44.

11 Lotman, 136.12 Edward C Stewart and J. Bennett Milton, American Cultural Patterns: A

Cross-Cultural Perspective, Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1991.13 Gregory Bateson, A Sacred unity: Further Steps to an ecology of Mind, ed.

Rodney E. Donaldson, New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.14 For further discussion on the notions of “polychromic time” and “monochro-

mic time” see Hall’s Beyond Culture. 15 David Bohm, On Dialogue, ed. Lee Nichol, New York, NY: Routledge, 1996,

63, 64.16 Friedrich Glasl, Confronting Conflict: A First-Aid Kit for Handling Conflict,

Gloucestershire, England: Hawthorn Press, 1999.17 Jean Baudrillard, The illusion of the end, trans. Chris Turner, Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press, 1994.18 Smith, Kenwyn K. and David N. Berg, Paradoxes of Group Life: understand-

ing Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1987.

19 Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, The Autopoiesis and Cognition: The realization of the Living, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Com-pany, 1980. Also, Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems, Albany, NY: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 1991.

20 winfried nöth, Towards a Semiotics of the Cultural Other, in: The American Journal of Semiotics, Communication and Culture, ed. Richard L. Lanigan, Volume 17. No.2, Summer 2001, 239-251, Carbondale, IL: Semiotic Society of America, 2001, 242.

21 Mary Parker Follett, The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Pop-ular Government, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

22 Lotman, 142. 23 Gebser.24 Ervin Laszlo, Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable

World, San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2001.25 Gebser, 412.26 Robert Grudin, The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and innovation, New

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York, NY: Ticknor & Fields, 1990, 31. 27 Hall, 240.28 ibid.29 This echoes Ervin Laszlo’s articulation of the timely change needed for a sus-

tainable world in his WorldShift 2012: Making Green Business, New Politics, and Higher Consciousness Work Together, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2009.

30 Farouk Y. Seif, 2005, Social Change in The ‘Aperspectival World’: The Paradox of Social Reproduction and Cultural Innovation, in: TrANS, inter-net-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, no. 16/2005. http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/01_2/seif16.htm, retrieved 2009.

31 Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox, 3rd ed., San Francisco, CA: Jos-sey-Bass, 1980/1993/2008.

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Rattraper l’Europe dans la recherche de soi-même?

Pavyti Europą ieškant savęs?

raïa ZAÏMOVAinstitut d’etudes balkaniquesAcadémie bulgare des Sciences45, rue Moskovska, Sofia [email protected]

résuméLes processus de la modernité européenne dans les Balkans commencent à

partir du XVIIIe – XIXe s.: on cherche son identité nationale ou, en général, le côté civilisationnel de l’Europe «éclairée». Ce n’est que pendant la seconde moitié du XVIIIe s. que les écrits des hommes de lettres et, en général la pensée «euro-péenne» et étrangère trouve une réception dans le sud-est. Des individus de l’épo-que moderne – voyageurs, écrivains – deviennent souvent le miroir étranger où les habitants de «l’autre». Europe cherchant à voir leur(s) propre image(s) adaptée(s) au niveau de la «civilisation». Dans l’article sont traitées quelques interférences culturelles qui résultent des lectures sentimentales bulgares et roumaines de l’œu-vre du poète de la Pléiade Pierre de Ronsard. A partir du XIXe s. le problème des identités nationales, spécialement en Bulgarie et en Roumanie se forme d’après le miroir de l’Europe occidentale. La figure de l’illustre Ronsard, ses ancêtres et l’origine de ses interprétateurs orientaux réapparaissent périodiquement sur la scène romantique et contemporaine pour émerveiller tout lecteur qui s’interroge sur «soi-même» et fouille dans les siècles passés pour essayer de restituer la mo-saïque de races, dont certains éléments constituent le nœud du National. Le raf-fermissement de la romanité et de la «fraternité» franco-roumaine détermine la propagation de l’image ronsardienne voire à nos jours. En même temps, la petite nation bulgare du sud-est continue à rechercher la culture de l’Autre étranger pour tourner ses regards vers «soi-même» et prouver que le National est toujours en rapport avec les «grands» de l’Occident qui ne sont que le critère du niveau, plus développé en Europe. La recherche d’une telle identité coïncide avec le désir de sortir de l’ombre orientale et de rattraper le niveau européen qui s’avère le guide dans la modernité.

Mots-clefs: les Balkans, Pierre ronsard, l’identité nationale, européene.

La recherche de soi-même et de l’identité nationale préoccupe les es-prits des humanistes occidentaux pendant les siècles qui précèdent l’épo-que des Lumières. Il est notoire que cette période correspond à l’époque

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ottomane dans les Balkans où le développement socio-économique et lit-téraire suit une autre voie. À partir du XVIIIe s. la France commence à jouer le rôle de civilisatrice dans l’Empire ottoman et les principautés danubiennes, pour l’européanisation morale et matérielle de la société de l’«autre» Europe. Ce n’est que pendant la seconde moitié du XVIIIe s., que les écrits des hommes de lettres et, en général, la pensée «euro-péenne» et étrangère trouve une réception dans le sud-est. Des individus de l’époque moderne – voyageurs, hommes d’Etat, écrivains – deviennent souvent le miroir étranger où les habitants de l’«autre» Europe cherchent à voir leur(s) propre(s) image(s) adaptée(s) au niveau de la «civilisation». Cette adaptation ou plutôt ce rattrapage qui, comprend le traditionnel et le moderne à la fois, évolue au cours des années.

Ainsi le poète de la Pléiade Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585) qui n’a fait que des voyages imaginaires sur les bords du Danube a réussi (à partir du XIXe s.) à provoquer les habitants orientaux des deux rives du fleuve dans la construction de leur identité nationale et culturelle. Dans l’article seront traitées quelques interférences culturelles qui résultent des lectures bul-gares et roumaines de l’œuvre du grand poète. Une analyse comparatiste des idées nationales de Ronsard et de celles qui ont inspirées plusieurs publicistes, écrivains, voire politiciens à faire des commentaires dans la presse périodique en Roumanie et en Bulgarie montrera les interprétations identitaires qui suivent le déplacement Orient – Occident – Orient.

Le glacé Danube ronsardienÀ l’époque, les activités littéraires de Ronsard pour l’enrichissement

de la langue française sont nombreuses. À l’exemple des Italiens, on cher-che un rapport avec les anciennes cultures et l’éveil du passé sert à for-muler l’«ego» contemporain et celui de la nation. Quelques œuvres de Ronsard contiennent des éléments autobiographiques. Dans l’une de ses élégies consacrée au poète de la Pléiade Rémy Belleau, Ronsard parle poétiquement de ses ancêtres et de ses origines:

Or, quant à mon ancêtre, il a tiré sa raceD’où le glacé Danube est voisin de la Thrace.Plus bas que la Hongrie, en une froide part,est un Seigneur, nommé le Marquis de ronsart…1

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Le poète précise que son grand père – le marquis de Ronsard – était un homme riche. L’un de ses fils qui aimait la guerre était devenu capitaine et en partant de ses terres natales, avait traversé la Hongrie et l’Allema-gne, la Bourgogne et la Champagne. Il s’était rendu auprès de Philippe de Valois et avait pris part dans la guerre contre les Anglais. On disait qu’il avait bien servi la France et que le roi lui avait donné des terres au bord du Loir. Ce marquis de Ronsard s’était marié à cet endroit en France et le père du poète Ronsard était parmi ses descendants.

Le récit poétique sur la famille de Ronsard nous semblerait incroya-ble, si l’on ne connaissait pas le texte d’un document des registres de l’an-cienne Bibliothèque royale (auj. Bibliothèque Nationale de France) sur la généalogie de la dite famille2. Le grand père de l’élégie nommé Fran-çois, est mentionné ainsi: Baudoüin de ronsard, de Bulgarie, capitaine de Hongrois qu’il amena en France au roy Philippe de Valois, contre les Anglois. M. de ronsard son fils s’établit dans le Vendômois où il se maria.

Dans la dite élégie il n’est pas question expressément de la Bulgarie, mais de la région plus bas que la Hongrie. Le nom de «Bulgarie» appa-raît dans la titulature des rois de Hongrie bien avant les guerres bulgaro-hongroises des années 13603. Ce phénomène correspond aux intentions des papes d’attirer spirituellement les Bulgares orthodoxes par l’intermé-diaire des Hongrois catholiques. Cette tendance correspond aussi à leurs intérêts économiques et commerciaux. Il est notoire que Charles de Valois (1364 – 1380) devait être le chef d’une Croisade pour la libération des Lieux Saints des infidèles, dont Philippe de Valois (1328 – 1350) avait préparé le projet pendant les années 1330 – c.à.d. avant le commencement de la guerre de Cent ans (1337– 1453). L’un des descendants du marquis de Ronsard a été probablement capitaine d’un groupe de volontaires qui ont fait leur service en Hongrie. Ceci correspond entièrement à la pratique militaire d’autrefois.

Dans ses œuvres et surtout dans «La Franciade», l’épopée morte née, Ronsard fait descendre ses compatriotes de l’ancienne Troie pour faire lé-gitime la royauté capétienne – c’est une idée lancée même avant l’époque des Croisades au Moyen Age: selon Frédégaire (VIIe s.) Francion, l’ancê-tre des Francs, fils d’un frère d’Enée qui, après la prise de Troie et après avoir battu les Alains, avait fondé un royaume entre le Rhin et le Danube. C’est une histoire reprise par plusieurs auteurs au cours des siècles et dont les variantes constituent le nœud mythologique et imaginaire national4. À leur exemple, le poète cherche à glorifier son pays natal, célébrer la

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France moderne et raffermir les anciennes origines de sa nation. Fran-conyens les ayeux des Françoys est l’expression employée par Ronsard dans son «Elégie» adressée au voyageur Nicolas de Nicolay et dédiée à Charles de Valois5. Ainsi, la combinaison entre la glorieuse Antiquité et la France moderne constitue son modèle qui n’est pas un phénomène isolé à l’époque de la Renaissance. L’historiographie française du XVIe s. en est la preuve6.

L’immense œuvre de Ronsard reflète une riche culture d’un poète de talent qui chante non seulement les malheurs de sa patrie et exalte les sentiments personnels et patriotiques, mais cherche également des Mu-ses communes en se référant aux anciennes cultures de l’Orient. Dans l’épitaphe sur son tombeau au prieuré Saint Cosme on parle aussi de ses Muses qui – selon le texte – tout en se déplaçant vers l’Occident, tiraient leur origine de l’Orient. Ce déplacement des civilisations de l’Orient vers l’Occident détermine le processus de la Renaissance et l’aube de la mo-dernité européenne. J’ouvre une parenthèse pour une observation impor-tante: en faisant la comparaison entre les deux textes – latin et français sur le tombeau – on constate que les «Muses d’Orient» du texte latin sont in-terprétées en français moderne comme les muses qui naquirent en France avec Luy [ronsard]! Le commentaire s’impose de soi-même et concerne exclusivement la recherche et la défense du sentiment National.

Une telle interprétation de l’œuvre du grand poète après sa mort n’est qu’une démarche sciemment faite pour faire avancer l’importance et l’ori-ginalité de la civilisation française. Il paraît que la fuite du côté étranger et le retour vers le passé et les civilisations orientales s’estompe pour af-fermir le National et le moderne. Ainsi, le nom et l’œuvre de Ronsard de-viennent le prétexte pour la formation d’une nouvelle mythologie identi-taire. Je rappelle que les hommes illustres de l’Antiquité – en commençant par Alexandre le Grand – ressuscitent dans la pensée humaniste à partir du XVIe s. et dans les Balkans plutôt à partir du XVIIIe s.7 Chercher ses origines dans les descendants de Noé ou dans les anciennes civilisations, surtout grecques, et leurs grands représentants n’était qu’un riche canevas dans la recherche occidentale de soi-même. Ronsard avait essayé à lier sa race à l’ancienne Troie, puis dans ses vers dédiés à Scanderbeg raccom-modait l’histoire albanaise et balkanique du XVe s. pour faire croire aux Français que le héros albanais était descendant du valeureux Achille. En même temps, des poètes italiens glorifiaient le moderne héros Scanderbeg en l’identifiant avec l’ancien Alexandre le Grand8. On pourrait dire que

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les Muses de Ronsard circulaient de l’Orient en Occident, ses voyages in-tellectuels au bord du Danube ou au-delà font partie d’une continuité dans les interprétations identitaires en France et ailleurs.

Le «marquis» de la rive gaucheTout en se déplaçant sur les rives danubiennes dans le temps, on se

heurte aux stéréotypes ronsardiens provoqués par la lecture de l’élégie consacrée au poète de la Pléiade Rémy Belleau. Un français nommé Vaillant, ex-enseignant au collège «St Sava» à Bucarest, reprend le motif autobiographique de la dite élégie dans son œuvre «La Romanie», publié à Paris en 18449. La région de Munténie – située entre le Danube au sud et à l’est, les Carpates méridionales au nord, et l’Olt à l’ouest10 – qui descend vers la Hongrie est identifiée avec la Thrace, située au sud du Danube. Ainsi en établissant le trajet imaginaire de l’arrière grand-père du poète de la Pléiade, l’auteur lui donne un nom de famille en roumain – Mărăcini. C’était un ban (marquis) de Craiova qui avait été au service de Philippe de Valois dans la guerre des Français contre les Anglais. C’était un fils puîné, ardent de voir la guerre. Et, toujours, selon Vaillant, accueilli comme il devait l’être, il se fixe en France, épouse une La Tremouille, traduit son nom roman en celui de ronsard et c’est de ses descendants unis aux fa-milles les plus illustres de la noblesse française que naquit celui qui de-vait être surnommé et le prince de poètes et le poète des princes.11

J’ouvre une parenthèse pour préciser que le mot mărăcină en rou-main est une traduction de la ronce. Ainsi le ban (marquis) Mărăcină est identique avec le nom de ronsard. Le même motif légendaire ou plutôt une version roumaine est publiée par Ubicini à Paris (1855) et vulgarisée par Prosper Blanchemain toujours dans la capitale française où, à cette époque l’œuvre de Ronsard trouve un grand nombre d’adhérents et la pré-sence des émigrés roumains prenant part dans les préparatifs de la révolu-tion (1848) était évidente. Vasile Alecsandri a le mérite d’avoir recueilli une version roumaine de la dite balade connue sous le titre de «Banul Mărăcină»12 publiée dans la presse périodique de Bucarest à plusieurs reprises pendant les mêmes années qui précèdent l’union de Valachie et de Moldavie (1861)13. Le héros principal – le ban (marquis) Mărăcină – est placé dans l’actualité franco-roumaine reflétant l’atmosphère politi-que après la guerre de Crimée (1856) et les aspirations pro-roumaines de l’époque de Napoléon III (1852 – 1870). Il est notoire que ce dernier fut l’acteur principal du rapprochement entre la Valachie et la Moldavie14.

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En général, on cherchait à attirer l’attention de la «grande» nation française à ses «frères nobles» dans la lutte pour leur indépendance natio-nale. La balade suggère l’idée que le ban (marquis) imaginaire de Craio-va, identifié avec l’arrière grand-père du poète Ronsard, avait combattu les Anglais du côté français à l’époque et en rappelant ces événements en français et en roumain les habitants de la rive gauche danubienne faisaient appel à la France de leur rendre le geste au nom de la fraternité et la li-berté. Ce stéréotype ne perd pas son actualité au cours des années, voire pendant la Seconde guerre mondiale, lorsque l’héroïsme poétique du ban de Craiova se déplace verbalement en Transylvanie, dans la région de Ba-nat, toujours au bord du Danube15.

La filière bulgare sur la rive droite du DanubeEntre temps des critiques littéraires français ont lancé la thèse de l’ori-

gine hongroise du poète de la Pléiade. Mais la polémique à ce sujet se déplace sur le sol hongrois, à Budapest où en 1891 le philologue Istvan Szamota expose dans une revue de l’Académie hongroise que le royaume le plus proche du Danube et voisin de la Thrace, n’est autre que la Bul-garie. De cette façon, la capitale bulgare du Moyen Age Tărnovo aurait donnée l’origine de la famille ronsardienne. L’explication est simple: dans la région de Tărnovo il y avait beaucoup de ronces – en bulgare трън, трънаци!

Au cours de plusieurs décennies et surtout en 1924, lorsque le monde littéraire rend homage au poète Ronsard (1524–1585) à l’occasion de son 400e anniversaire, la presse roumaine ne manque pas à reprendre son iden-tité danubienne. Le stéréotype du milieu du XIXe s. s’améliore avec enco-re d’autres images ronsardiennes sur les origines du poète de Craiova, de la région d’Olténie (ou Munténie), de la région de Brăila ou d’un certain chevalier français de la quatrième Croisade. L’historien Nikolae Iorga fait une revue des images ronsardiennes et en soutenant l’origine «roumaine» du poète ne manque pas à adresser sa critique à la position en dilettante du côté hongrois16. Il en est de même pour ses contemporains littéraires et pédagogues de Roumanie qui ne cessent pas à reprendre et publier les polémiques identitaires des peuples danubiens en suggérant d’un ton pa-triotique le nœud mythique mentionné. La propagation de ce stéréotype se fait toujours au détriment de l’Autre voisin territorial – hongrois, tchèque, bulgare17. D’une part, la pluralité de peuples habitants les rives danubien-nes les désunit mentalement dans leurs objectifs idéologiques et d’autre

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part, les unit par le sentiment d’appartenance à une région mixte et com-posite18.

À partir de ces mêmes années l’homme illustre venant du côté occi-dental de l’Europe trouve sa réception en Bulgarie. Des publicistes et des politiciens de nos jours continuent à interpréter l’origine danubienne de Ronsard. Son nom proviendrait, par exemple, de korsat = Cœur vaillant d’un chevalier et, ceci sans préciser de quelle langue il s’agit. Ainsi, les ancêtres de Ronsard deviennent d’origine bulgare de la région de Banat19. On mentionne également la thèse que la famille de Ronsard provenait d’une vieille maison bulgare qui avait trouvé son refuge en Hongrie et puis, en France après les invasions ottomanes (D. B. Mitov). Dans la nou-velle historique de Lioubomir Kostov intitulée «La plume brûlée» (1967) et dans d’autres textes contemporains (Lioubomir Yordanov) le nom de Ronsard est interprété d’une autre manière: le mot ronce (avec «c») qui, selon les dictionnaires, signifie mûrier sauvage, est traduit en bulgare comme трън – c.à.d. épine. Ainsi, en reprenant le stéréotype hongrois de la fin du XIXe s. on fait provenir le poète de la ville de Tărnovo – la ca-pitale du deuxième royaume bulgare au Moyen Age! Le remodelage peut être expliqué par le désir de se rattacher à un «grand». L’argumentation des auteurs porte sur le fait que dans le sud de la France il y avait autre-fois des hérétiques venant de Bulgarie et connus comme «Bogomiles, Bougres» – identiques aux «Bulgares». En plus, Sainte-Beuve attribuait à Ronsard une origine hongroise, encore d’autres écrivains français ré-fléchissaient sur son origine tchèque ou roumaine et dans ce cadre da-nubien ne manquaient que les Bulgares!20. Les passions pour l’origine tărnovienne de Ronsard aboutissent à l’aménagement actuel d’un petit musée Ronsard dans les locaux de l’Université «Saints Cyrille et Mé-thode» de la dite ville21.

Sur les sites d’Internet on trouve des citations “ronsardiennes” qui déterminent les territoires de son aïeul: l’endroit où le Danube est près du Balkan et des rhodopes, le pays aussi de l’ancien Orphée. Et ceci pour raffermir les relations culturelles franco-bulgares au cours des siècles. Dans le même sens, au niveau populaire on souligne indubitablement les origines de boyard de Ronsard en posant la question: Alors, pourquoi les Français sont-ils autant fiers?22 Dans ce cas, il ne s’agit pas de rattrapage, mais de placer les deux parties opposées de l’Europe à un seul niveau identitaire.

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Dernièrement la ville de Svichtov située tout au sud de la courbe du Danube a attiré l’attention des intellectuels de provenance de cette ville. Les quelques articles de presse de 2004 – 2008 et surtout la grande fête organisée en avril dernier sous le patronage de l’Institut français de Sofia et du maire de la dite ville ont montré un niveau identitaire différent des précédents. En écartant la provenance boyarde de Tărnovo des poètes et des chanteurs bulgares ont célébré au cours de deux jours le fameux Ron-sard, dont les «descendants» de la ville de Svichtov ont donné l’origine d’un grand nombre d’éminentes personnes de l’époque du réveil natio-nal bulgare23. Les quelques blogues disponibles sur l’Internet reflètent une grande émotion provoquée par ses sonnets interprétés en bulgare en plusieurs occasions hors du festival organisé au bord du Danube24. En général, la version de Svichtov – proclamée sensationnelle – ne sert qu’à joindre mentalement les deux parties de l’Europe (Orient–Occident). La figure de l’éminent poète de la Pléiade devrait construire l’orgueil imagi-naire des Français et des Bulgares à la fois.

Il est notoire que l’œuvre de Ronsard a inspiré plusieurs publicistes, écrivains, voire politiciens à chercher d’une part une parenté avec la fa-mille du poète et ainsi confirmer une filiation avec le plus grand poète de la renaissance qui avait brisé les chaînes du Moyen Âge. La recherche d’une telle identité coïncide avec le désir de sortir de l’ “ombre” orientale et de rattraper le niveau européen qui s’avère le guide dans la modernité.

En guise de conclusion Ce bref aperçu des exemples tirés de la presse roumaine et bulgare

montre le degré civilisationnel d’interférences d’une grande nation et d’une(des) petite(s) nation(s). Les «Muses» d’Orient qui à l’époque ont inspiré Ronsard, ont fait un voyage imaginaire sur les bords du Danube en se déplaçant de l’Orient en Occident. On pourrait dire qu’elles jouent le rôle de transmetteur d’une ancienne culture qui détermine l’esprit nova-teur de la Renaissance au moment où le développement spirituel de l’Oc-cident n’était pas encore connu dans les principautés danubiennes et par les Bulgares alors soumis au pouvoir ottoman. Il fallait attendre quelques siècles pour que l’écho dix-huitiémiste des idées nationales et modernes trouve sa réception et son développement sur le sol sud-est européen. En-tre temps, en France l’évolution du National est dépassé et petit à petit le canevas étranger et le remodelage civilisationnel des siècles précédents sont oubliés. Il est évident qu’à partir du XIXe s. le problème des identités

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nationales, spécialement en Bulgarie et en Roumanie se forme d’après le miroir de l’Europe occidentale. Dans notre cas le Danube joue le rôle d’une frontière composite où l’appartenance territoriale commune crée des discordes et une spécificité conflictuelle et identitaire. Selon Cl. Ma-gris, suivre le fleuve en direction de son embouchure signifie également entrer dans la brume cimmérienne des origines, se perdre dans une fin qui est aussi un retour aux sources25. La figure de l’illustre Ronsard, ses ancê-tres et l’origine de ses interprétateurs orientaux réapparaissent périodique-ment sur la scène romantique et contemporaine pour émerveiller tout lec-teur qui s’interroge de “soi-même” et fouille dans les siècles passés pour essayer, non sans émotions, à restituer la mosaïque de races, dont certains éléments constituent le nœud du National.

Le raffermissement de la romanité et de la «fraternité» franco-rou-maine détermine la propagation de l’image ronsardienne voire à nos jours. Celui-ci n’a pas perdu son actualité non seulement parmi les lecteurs adultes de la presse littéraire, mais également parmi les mineurs. La pe-tite nation bulgare du sud-est continue, sciemment ou pas, à rechercher la culture de l’Autre pour tourner ses regards vers “soi-même” et prouver que le National est toujours en rapport avec les «grands» de l’Occident qui ne sont que le critère du niveau, le plus développé en Europe. C’est un processus qui ne peut être dirigé, ni arrêté, seuls les témoignages reflètent les sources réelles et mentales, la complexité des identités imaginaires et le multiculturalisme en Europe actuelle.

Références1 Pierre de Ronsard, Œuvres complètes. Texte établi et annoté par Gustave Co-

hen. Paris, Gallimard, t. 2, 79. (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 46)2 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, pièces origina-

les 2540, dossier 56832, fol 30.3 Vassil Gjuselev, La guerre bulgaro-hongroise du printemps de 1365 et des do-

cuments nouveaux sur la domination hongroise du Royaume de Vidin (1365–1369). – Byzantinobulgarica (Sofia), 1980, N 6, 153–172.

4 André Burguière, L’historiographie des origines de la France. Genèse d’un imaginaire national, in : Annales, N 1, janvier-fevrier 2003, 41–62; Jacques Poucet, Le mythe de l’origine troyenne au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance: un exemple d’idéologie politique: http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/fe/05/anthenor2.html [27.11.09].

5 L’Elégie fait partie de l’édition de 1576 de la fameuse relation de voyage de Ni-colas de Nicolay en Turquie: Les navigations peregrinations et voyages, faicts en la Turquie par Nicolas de Nicolay Dauphinoys, seigneur d’Arfeville, Valet

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de chambre et Geographe ordinaire du Roy de France, contenants plusieurs singularitez que l’Auther y a veu et observé. En.Anvers, 1576.

6 Jean Abelard, Les «Illustrations de Gaule» de Jean Lemaire de Belges. Quelle Gaule? Quelle France? Quelle Nation? in: Nouvelle revue du Seizième Siècle, 13/1, 1995, 7–27; Raïa Zaïmova, Voyager vers l’«autre» Europe (Images fran-çaises des Balkans ottomans, XVIe – XVIIIe s.). Istanbul, Isis, 2007, 24–28 (Cahiers du Bosphore XLVI).

7 Николай Аретов, Н. Н�� м��г�� р��ур�, ��: �р�� б, 2006, 125-129.

8 Novo Alessandro, à cui non l’Oriente, Ma il regnator dell’Oriente altero Chiari di se trionfi, e vanto vero D’un’invito valor diede souvente. (Luigi Groto, in: Gli illustri gesti et vittorio-

se imprese fatte contra turchi, dal sign. D. Giorgio Castriotto, detto Scanderbeg, precipe d’Epirro. Vinegia, 1584).

9 Le professeur J. A. Vaillant – fondateur de l’école «Stavropoleos» à Bucarest (1830). C’était l’une des premières institutions laïques où, à côté du lycée fran-çais dirigé par M. Monti, on enseignait le français: Ştefania Viorica Rujan, images, portraits et paysages de France par des écrivains roumains d’ex-pression française. Études d’imagologie comparée. Iaşi: éd. Junimea, 2008, 10–11.

10 Dès le XVIe s. a apparu le nom d’Olténie pour désigner la partie ouest de l’autre côté d’Olt. Les villes les plus importantes dans cette région sont Buca-rest, Brăila, Tărgovişte, Buzău, Piteşti, Ploeşti.

11 Vasile Alecsandri, Opere, t. 1. Poezii. Doine, Lâcrimioare. Suvenire, Mărgăritărele. Text stabilit şi variante de G.C. Nicolescu şi G. Rădulecu-Dul-gheru. Studiu intr. note şi comentarii de G.C. Nicolescu, Bucureşti, Ed. Acad. Rep. Soc. Pop. Române, 1965, 490.

12 Vasile Alecsandri, 491–496.13 V. les commentaires du critique littéraire Charles Drouhet qui a étudié l’in-

fluence de la littérature française en Roumanie: Charles Drouhet, Ronsard şi România, in: Convorbiri literare, anul al 56-lea, Iulie-August 1924, 521–524.

14 Abel Douay, Gérard Hertault, Napoléon III et la Roumanie. Influence de la franc-maçonnerie, Paris: Nouveau monde, 2009.

15 Emil Grigoraş, Enigma Ronsard, in: Vestul, X, N 2323, 6.08. 1939, 4; Résumé de la conférence du prof. Viorica Dumitrescu à l’Institut français de Timişoara, in: Dacia, N 284, 20.12.1943, 2; Octav Minar, Eroism şi poezie (Soldatul Mărăcină şi poetul Ronsard), in: universul, N 80, 21.03.1944.

16 Nicolae Iorga, Ronsard şi România. Asupra originei lui Ronsard, in: Neamul românesc, XIX, 11.06. 1924, N 127, 1–2.

17 I. M. Raşku, Intre Barbey d’Aurevilly şi Gregory Ganesco. O polemică, din 1867, asupra originei lui Ronsard, in: Capricorn, decembrie 1930, N 1, 9–12.

18 Claudio Magris, Danube, trad. de l’italien par Jean et Marie-Noölle Pastureau, Paris: Gallimard, 1988, p. 434 sq.

19 Gaston Sergheraert, De Pantagruel à Candide. T. 2. Paris, 1963, 60–61.

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20 Любомир Костов, Обгореното перо, ��, �Ф, 1967, 198–199. Pour la référence de Mitov, voir: Любомир Йорданов, З� бъ�г�р�� р��зх�д �� р�� П��р дь� Р��р, in: Отечество, 3, 1976, 19.

21 Une Association France-Bulgarie et la première école primaire privée avec l’enseignement du français (après 1990) portaient le nom de Ronsard.

22 http://forum.boinaslava.net [10.07.07]; http://photoalbum [10.07.07] Dans les commentaires bulgares l’image de Ronsard va de pair avec encore d’autres «grands», notamment Voltaire et Napoléon.

23 Лилия Панова, ��р�� «Р��р», in: Про-анти, N 31 (659), 5–11.08.2004; Лъчезар Тошев, З� бъ�г�р�� р��зх�д �� Р��р, in: Детонация, № 3 (19), м�р� 2004; Лъчезар Тошев, Бъ�г�р�� -�� Р��? , in: Българе, № 10, ��м�р�-��м�р� 2008, 24–26.

24 http://www.sibir.bg/blog/A_5607/?blogPage=blogPreviewArticle&artID=114357 [27.11.09]; http://calendar.dir.bg/inner.php?d=4&month=5&year=2009&cid=&sid=&eid=54067 [27.11.09]

25 Claudio Magris, 503.

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Myths in National Epics, Myths in Society: Some Chronotopes in European Epics

Mitai tautiniuose epuose ir visuomenėje: keletas europinės

epikos chronotopų

Anneli MiHKeLeVunder and Tuglas Literature Centre of the estonian Academy of Sciences Tallinn universityPärnu St. 13–24, 72712 Paide, [email protected]

SummaryThe Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin uses the term “chronotope”, which re-

fers to particular combinations of time and space. A chronotope is actually a com-pressed world, and one literary work (novel, epic etc.) contains several chronoto-pes, including mythological chronotopes. In other words, an art work is constituted by several moments where we can see different combinations of time and space; a novel or an epic or any art work is a concentration, and its narrative is compact and thick, or compressed. In terms of epics, the mythological chronotope is most frequent. Myths and national identity work in similar ways and sometimes they are intertwined: the purpose of national identity is also to create a specific world, a national space where we can find the unique spirit and character of the nation. Our national epics, in written form, include both national myth and national identity or, in other words, these texts include the chronotope of nationality. At the same time, we can see the dialogues between several other chronotopes and different mean-ings which are created from these dialogues. The article analyses three European epics Anglo-Saxon “Beowulf”, Estonian “Kalevipoeg” and Latvian “Lāčplēsis” in which the main protagonists are great heroes.

Key words: epics, myths, chronotopes, national identity.

1. Introduction. Time and space in mythsThe Estonian researcher Jaan Puhvel, a professor at the University of

California, has written that a myth is not just a story, but through myth a society creates its own self-awareness and self-realization, as well as explaining the essence of itself and its surroundings1. There has been no culture which has not generated a set of its own unique myths. Usually

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these myths and stories are connected with national epics. These narra-tives play an important role in the formation of national identity: national or traditional epics are part of the oral tradition of a nation, and involve myths and legends of nationhood2.

The Finnish researcher Lauri Honko explains: “Each epic is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of its own cultural ambience even though the textualisation process varies greatly from case to case. […] They consti-tute “songs of truth” or national myths for the communities and groups which regard them as representations of their history and heritage.”3 Al-though these myths usually originate and appear in the oral stage of hu-man culture, oral myths and literary myths are mixed, especially in con-temporary times.

Lauri Honko is of the opinion that the epics of Homer (the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”), “Beowulf”, “Das Nibelungenlied” and “Kalevala” are problematic, because “they cannot be characterised as “purely oral” but they are not literary epics either. Their dependence on oral epic traditions is obvious, which would not be the case were they literary epics.”4 Honko calls such epics “tradition-oriented epics”5.

According to Honko “The oral epic has no fixed and permanent form. Each new performance changes it; some changes remain in the following performance but most do not. In a way, each new performance annuls the previous one. […] Since there is no permanence of form, the oral epic will forever remain “unfinished”. By contrast, the literary epic has a fixed form, created once by an author and not to be touched thereafter. […] Tra-ditional epics will be placed somewhere on the line joining the two poles, sometimes closer to the literary epic, at other times nearer the oral epic.”6

This means that there are not very many purely oral epics in contem-porary times, because most of them are already written, and they also have fixed and permanent forms. Some of them are written earlier, some later. In my opinion, although these texts are written in fixed forms they still change, because readers change and contexts change, and the other reason is the specific structure of the epic: usually epics contain several myths and stories which are intertwined and there are dialogical relationships between differ-ent myths and stories. Every myth has its own world. Juri Lotman has pre-cisely stated the idea of myth: the mythological space is small and closed, but, at the same time, the story itself is about cosmic proportions, about the whole universe7. A myth creates its own world, its own universe, sacred and whole, which contains its own time, space and narratives.

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Concerning narratives, the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin uses the term “chronotope”, which refers to particular combinations of time and space. A chronotope is “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spa-tial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature”8, and it is also our understanding of narrative: “The chronotope is the place where the knots of narrative are tied and united”9. According to Bakhtin, the term chronotope is useful if we analyse different stories: novels, short sto-ries and myths which are written. A chronotope is actually a compressed world, and one literary work (novel, epic etc.) contains several chronoto-pes, including mythological chronotopes. In other words, an art work is constituted by several moments where we can see different combinations of time and space; a novel or an epic or any art work is a concentration, and its narrative is compact and thick, or compressed. The author of the art work has his/her own intention, which he/she wants to express through a chronotope. The chronotope takes part in the process of the creation of meaning10.

Bakhtin believes that time is the dominant component in the literary chronotope, in that there are some moments or icons (literature uses icon-ic signs in the representation process) of time which give us the meaning of the literary work. And it is possible that these moments of time have several meanings. Both the author and the reader have the possibility of moving in several directions in a literary work: we can fly into the past or future; we are not limited to the present time11. Michael Holquist is of the opinion that a chronotope is the space where life and art are connected12. Dialogism characterizes chronotope, not only between reality and art but dialogical relations also exist between different represented worlds in the literary work. At the same time, usually that dialogue is not between equal chronotopes: one dominant chronotope exists, and it is the chronotope of the author and/or the reader, who create the meaning13.

In terms of epics, the mythological chronotope is most frequent. Myths and national identity work in similar ways and sometimes they are inter-twined: the purpose of national identity is also to create a specific world, a national space where we can find the unique spirit and character of the nation, or Volksgeist, according to Herder. The national specific world is closed and sometimes also small, and the story of the nation extends far back into history. We could say that it is the universe of the nation. Our national epics, in written form, include both national myth and national identity or, in other words, these texts include the chronotope of nationali-

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ty. At the same time, we can see the dialogues between several other chro-notopes and different meanings which are created from these dialogues.

2. “Beowulf”, “Kalevipoeg” and “Lāčplēsis” – epic poems in which the main protagonists are great heroes

“Beowulf” is the oldest Anglo-Saxon long poem, and has survived in only one version, in a manuscript in the British Museum. This copy was probably made by scribes in about the year 1000, in the “classical” late West-Saxon of Wessex. The poem, first called Beowulf in 1805, was printed in 1815. Beowulf probably first assumed its present shape in the eighth century, not in Wessex but north of the Thames in Mercia or North-umbria, since the traditional composition language in which it lives seems to be more Anglian than Saxon. The first translation of the poem was not into English but into Danish, in 1820 (Gruntvig’s “Bjowulfs Drape”); it was translated into English in 1837. The poem itself is set in southern Scandinavia in the fifth and sixth centuries. “Beowulf” was commonly known to northern Germanic peoples, and among the Anglian settlers the story of the poem circulated and developed orally for a long time before it was set down in its present arrangement and ultimate literary form14.

The main story of Beowulf is the story of the youth and old age of the hero. In his youth, Beowulf achieves glory in a foreign land by fighting and killing first the monster Grendel, in King Hrothgar’s hall, and then Grendel’s mother, in an underwater cave. In his old age, having ruled his country well for fifty years, Beowulf goes single-handed to fight a dragon who is destroying his people. At the end of the fight, both Beowulf and the dragon die, and the poem ends with his funeral and a prophecy of disaster for his people, the Geats15.

“Beowulf” begins with the representation of the Danish royal house and the old members of the royal family, the Scylding dynasty. The his-torical time is not determined very exactly; it is mythical time, which is similar to the fairy-tale beginning “once upon a time”. The beginning of the epic flows peacefully: people live and develop their country, kings reign in the country and, after the old king, his son continues that work. This is the chronotope of old Denmark.

The situation changes when the monster Grendel comes. According to the text, he “began to encompass evil, an enemy from hell”. This means that, besides the chronotope of the old Danish royal house and family, there is another mythical chronotope, which represents the Bible. The

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text includes the motifs of Cain and Abel, and Grendel is a descendant of Cain. So, the main idea of the epic is the fight between good and evil.

The next important chronotope is Beowulf’s chronotope, which rep-resents the great hero, Beowulf the Great, who fights against evil and be-comes the new king. Beowulf is not Danish, but a Geat, although he has very good contacts with the Danish. The chronotope of Beowulf brings into the epic several battles, some of which are historical, and some of which are fantasy. Each has its own chronotope, and all of these chronoto-pes are compressed into the epic and make the proportions of the world of the epic very large.

The destiny of Beowulf is interesting and meaningful. He fights against the dragon, kills the dragon and also dies, but the country is free, although the future will be bitter.

The author, or more precisely the man who wrote down “Beowulf”, is unknown, but there is a very strong influence of Christianity in this epic which also demonstrates the two dominant chronotopes mentioned above. At the same time, we can find several similarities with “Beowulf” in epics which were written later.

3. “Kalevipoeg” and “Lāčplēsis”There are three well-known traditional epics in the eastern Baltic Sea

region: in Finnish–Karelian, “Kalevala” (five versions 1833 – 1862), in Estonian, “Kalevipoeg” (1857 - 1861), and in Latvian, “Lāčplēsis” (“Bear Slayer”, 1888). The Finnish “Kalevala” is different in that there is not one great hero, but “Kalevipoeg” and “Lāčplēsis” have great heroes like Beowulf. Oral myths and literary myths are mixed in these epics: folk tales about Kalevipoeg were collected in the early 19th century and then formed the basis of the Estonian epic by Freidrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (c.f. Latvian epic “Lāčplēsis”). If we speak of Estonian and Latvian epics, we are actually speaking of literary works which expressed the authors’, Kreutzwald’s and Pumpurs’, intentions and their time: “a literary work of art, which combines a multitude of folklore elements”16, as well as the signs of the time when they were written: “Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald composed the epic Kalevipoeg in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the romanticism of Herd-erian ideas were blended by the leading thinkers of Estonia into the ideol-ogy of the National Awakening. Kalevipoeg is a written epic, created in the period of the spread of literacy, of Western-style education, of growing

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social stratification among the peasants, who had acquired the right to buy land and thus establish their economic freedom from their German mas-ters.”17 According to Ülo Valk, “Kreutzwald modified folklore sources to compose a work comparable with other European epics, such as Homeric poems and the Niebelungenlied”18, and similar to an epic about a great hero, as in “Beowulf”.

The Estonian epic Kalevipoeg begins with an episode in which the old king Kalev arrives in a country by the Baltic Sea:

The son who rode the eagle’s back,The wings of the north-eagle, […] He rode across the Gulf of Bothnia, sailed across the Baltic Sea,flew across the Gulf of Finland until under luck’s guidance, the divinities’ intervention, the eagle cast him on the coast onto a high rock in Viru The man who thus came to our countrySwiftly established a state, He founded broad dominionsAnd built a comely hall Whence his strong and weighty hand19

The symbol of the eagle is royal and majestic. Kalev’s chronotope is

old, and it gives the impression of very ancient times. It is remarkable that the kingdom is not already established, but the king begins with that work. Ancient gods exist somewhere far away, and they do nothing for that kingdom; they only tell the story or, more exactly, they help the au-thor to tell the story:

Vanemuine, lend me your lyre.A sweet song is stirring my sense and i long to unfold in song the legacy of ancient ages20

About the differences between “Kalevipoeg” and “Lāčplēsis”, Sergei Kruks has written: “The Estonian epic constructs a completely different concept of individual freedom. Kalevipoeg has not been nominated the hero but has won this status himself. The epic models a socially active

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individual. Kalevipoeg manifests a rather pragmatic and socially respon-sible behaviour”21. Beside the Kalev chronotope, we can see other mythic chronotopes in this epic, because the hero Kalevipoeg travels through different places in different times. At the same time, it seems that spaces (Hell, northern countries and islands, and the end of the world) change more quickly than does time in this epic.

Most epics begin with the creation of the world. The Latvian epic Lāčplēsis starts with gods arriving at the palace of Pērkon, the god of thunder. There is a meeting of gods which is very similar to what oc-curs in the ancient Greek epics the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. These worlds are similar or, in other words, it seems that the Latvian epic tries to find connections with old ancient nations. It’s notable that the world where the gods live is already created and it needs protection against enemies. Pērkon’s chronotope compresses different times together: ancient times with ancient gods, the time of the 13th century, when enemies threatened Latvia, and the 19th century, when Pumpurs wrote his romantic epic, as did Kreutzwald in Estonia.

ConclusionIt seems that chronotopes in literature and art make it possible to select

the most important events from history: the most heroic wars or events, or the most tragic events from the history of nations, such as the loss of freedom in the 13th century. This type of selection helps to create national identity. So, we can see that Estonian and Latvian epics stress tragic his-tory, and time and space are quite concretely determined. The end of the epic “Beowulf” is more ambivalent: nobody knows what will happen in the future, and the fight between good and evil never ends.

References1 Jaan Puhvel, Võrdlev mütoloogia, Tallinn: Ilmamaa, 1996, 10.2 Martin Gray, A Dictionary of Literary Terms, Second Edition, Essex: Lon-

gman York Press, 1996, 103. 3 Lauri Honko, “Comparing traditional epics in the eastern Baltic Sea region,

in: ed., Lauri Honko, The Kalevala and the World’s Traditional Epics”, in: Stu-dia Fennica Folkloristica 12, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002, 327.

4 ibid., 332.5 ibid., 332.

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6 ibid., 333. Michael Holquist, Dialogism. Bakhtin and his world. London and New York: Routledge, 1990, 109.

7 Juri Lotman, Semiosfäärist, Tallinn: Vagabund, 1999, 196.8 Michael Holquist, 1990, 109.9 ibid., 109.10 Mihhail Bahtin, Valitud töid, Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1987, 183.11 ibid., 181.12 Michael Holquist, 1990, 111.13 Mihhail Bahtin, 1987, 179.14 Michael Alexander, Beowulf, London: Penguin Books, 1988, 11–12.15 ibid., 12. 16 Ülo Valk, “Authorship and textuality. The Kalevipoeg as epic landscape”, in:

ed. Lauri Honko, The Kalevala and the World’s Traditional Epics, Studia Fen-nica Folkloristica 12, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002, 408.

17 ibid., 407.18 ibid, 408.19 Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, Kalevipoeg. An ancient estonian tale, trans.

by Jüri Kurman, Käina: Üle Õla, 2007, 22.20 ibid., 13.21 Sergei Kruks, “Kalevipoeg and Lāčplēsis: The Ways We Imagine Our Com-

munities: A Sociological Reading of Estonian and Latvian epics”, in: Interlitte-raria, 2003, No. 8, 231.

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National History, Folklore and the Bible as Sources of the Baltic Modernist Drama

Tautinė istorija, folkloras ir Biblija kaip moderniosios Baltijos šalių

dramos šaltiniai

Benedikts KALNAČSinstitute of Literature, Folklore and Artuniversity of LatviaAkadēmijas laukums 1, rīga, [email protected]

SummaryThe article discusses manifestations on the subjects of national history, folk-

lore and the Bible in Latvian and Estonian drama of the early 20th century. Two plays, Joseph and his brothers by Rainis, and Judith by Anton Hansen Tammsaare based on the Bible motives serve as case studies. The two works under discus-sion reveal a bitter experience of individual persons but at the same time they also point towards the difficulties of the social experience of the nations during the war. The way towards the national independence has been successful but prickly. The revaluation of this experience points out that to claim one’s own identity it is not enough to ensure one’s social status and situation. The search must go further towards the deepest essence of the individual, the discovery of his or her inner self. Therefore, the greatest importance in the course of the actions is devoted to inner self-evaluation of the heroes. There is an omnipresent tension between two positions, two moralities – one, which is condoned by society and is based on hundreds of years of inherited propriety; the other, which each individual can ar-rive only through serious internal struggle and merciless self-analysis.

Key words: comparative literature, drama, national history, folklore, the Bible.

Background informationIn the Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – drama as a

form of literature emerged relatively late, in the latter part of the 19th century; however, by the beginning of the 20th century parallels with the artistic tendencies in other European literatures can be observed.

Baltic drama took its shape as a synthesis of different sources of in-spiration –folklore motives (especially in Estonia and Latvia), national

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history (especially in Lithuania and Latvia), and various influences from European culture.

Among these, an important part is provided by the texts based on Bib-lical motives. The focus in this article is on the works of two distinguished writers, the Latvian Rainis, and the Estonian Tammsaare.

rainis (1865–1929) started his career as a journalist and translator (the most important being his translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust published in 1898), and mainly worked in the fields of poetry and drama. The text under discussion will be Jāzeps un viņa brāļi (completed in 1914 but unpublished until 1919), the play which has been translated and published in several other languages (in English in 1924 and 1965, in the latter case with the revised title Joseph and his brothers). Apart from the Latvian theatre productions, this five act tragedy has also been staged in the UK, Estonia, and recently, in 2001, in Orion theatre in Stockholm, this production directed by Lars Rudolfsson.

Anton Hansen Tammsaare (1878–1940) wrote mainly prose. Among his most distinguished achievements is the five novel cycle Tõde ja õi-gus (Truth and Justice, 1926–1933), translated into several languages. Tammsaare also wrote two plays, the first of those being Juudit (Judith), completed in 1917 but published only in 1920, and produced in Estonia the following year.

Both plays belong to the second decade of the 20th century which also experienced the events of the First World War (1914–1918), as well as the establishment of the national states of Latvia and Estonia (also Lithuania) in 1918.

Both plays are also linked by the fact that they are based on Biblical motives, the Bible story serving as an important starting point to over-come local perspective and to delve into more generally shared human experience.

Theoretical backgroundThe theoretical background for this research was provided by studies

of modernist literature which has experienced a new development in the early years of the 21st century as well as by recent approaches to the lit-erature of the Baltic countries.

Inspiration for this article was specifically provided by two scholarly works examining aspects of modernism in literature and art.

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Firstly, the study by Toril Moi, Henrik ibsen and the Birth of Modern-ism: Art, Theater, Philosophy (2006) was an inspiration in juxtaposing idealism to modernism in the 19th century culture as the basic field of tension which exemplifies the most important shifts in cultural paradigm. Moi describes the general pattern of this process as follows: “The move-ment away from idealism was a long, slow, piecemeal process, which is why the period from 1870 to 1914 produced such a profusion of widely different protomodernist (because anti-idealist) writing alongside the con-tinuing stream of idealist works.”1

Secondly, the book by Richard Brettell, Modern Art 1851–1929 (1999), provided a useful definition of image modernism (as opposed to unmediated modernism) which is seen as the encounter “between the art-ist and the world of images they cannibalize”2. Brettell persuasively ar-gues that opportunities for creating a personal image bank were extremely widened at the turn of the 20th century, and this notion can be well applied also to changing perception of the world in the emerging cultures of the Baltic nations.

In this article, I argue that (1) both tragedies under discussion, Joseph and his Brothers and Judith, which chronologically belong to the end of the period singled out by Moi, show signs of similar tension between idealism and modernism; these signs can also be read in the context of the change of cultural pattern within which the earlier influence of the (idealist) Enlight-enment culture (important at the early nationalist stage of the Baltic cultures in the 19th century) is gradually being confronted with and to some extent replaced by modernist approaches to literature and life; (2) the Bible text is in both cases being used as a storage of European images freely adopted by the authors to suit their artistic purposes simultaneously feeling themselves involved in the process of creation of world literature. The use of the Bible also signifies a shift away from the previous colonial experience towards the appropriation of the European cultural values, a move which coincides with the process of self-affirmation of the raising national cultures.

Aspects of analysisThere are four main aspects of analysis, namely, (1) the tension be-

tween main characters and their environment, (2) solutions/suggestions provided by the spatial structures of the plays, (3) solutions/suggestions provided by the temporal structures of the plays, (4) evaluation of the out-come of conflicts.

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The tension between characters and their environmentIn both cases the authors deal with the tension between the Self and

the “Other”; both plays start with a crisis situation. In Rainis’ tragedy it is the anger of Joseph’s brothers over his loss of

the sheep in the pasture; but the long ripened psychological conflict im-mediately gains a broader perspective. Brothers are willing to transgress ancient family rules, to turn against the order proscribed by their father. Symbolic restitution between Joseph and his brothers is achieved only in the play’s finale, but the price is Joseph’s personal sacrifice – taking leave of society in search of other, higher truths.

Tammsaare’s play begins of a note of lingering social crisis – drinking water is becoming scarce in the city of Bethulia, blockaded by the Assyr-ian army on its way to Palestine, and the people are no longer willing to obey the decisions of Ozias and the other elders of the city. Against this backdrop, the actions of the widow Judith –going to the enemy camp to their leader, Holofernes, on order to get the troops to leave the city – seem to be socially motivated; Judith’s deeper motivation, rooted in the past and hidden in her subconscious, comes to light only gradually.

The broader social events in which the action of the plays is couched serve as a basis for complicated psychology of the central figures illumi-nating the impulses hidden in their subconscious.

Solutions/suggestions provided by the spatial structures of the plays

In both plays, there is a juxtaposition of two important locations. The action of Rainis’ tragedy (five acts but initially planned four pre-

serving the inner symmetry) is divided between Canaan (acts 1 and 2) and Egypt (Acts 3, 4, and 5).

In Tammsaare’s play, there is a contrast between the besieged city of Bethulia (acts 1 and 4) and the camp of Holofernes (acts 2 and 3).

The contrast can be summarized as a tension between one’s own and a different, estranged space within which crucial transformations of charac-ters take place.

Solutions/suggestions provided by the temporal structures of the plays

Rainis’ play contrasts two different time periods separated by a gap of seventeen years. In the first two acts, we see Joseph as a seventeen years

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old teenager; Joseph’s emotions at the beginning of the play, as well as his dreams, are turned towards the future. In the harsh world of the Old Tes-tament, where the dominating might is male work and the daily rhythm subordinated to it, the sensitive Joseph lacks humanity and warmth in re-lationships. His dreams focus upon alternative farming practice, as well as his desire to be loved and understood.

However, these hopes are being crushed. At the end of the Act 2, Joseph is thrown into a ditch, betrayed by his kin, and shortly afterwards sold in exchange for the Egyptian commodities.

Rainis omits all the details leading to Joseph’s prosperity in Egypt. From the third act, the action of the play resumes after a long break; Joseph has already overcome initial difficulties and has become a man of high standing in the social hierarchy, he is honoured as a ruler and the pontiff has given Joseph his daughter in marriage. But even this degree of social recognition is not able to quell Joseph’s personal unrest, nor answer the questions he unrelentingly poses to himself. The arrival of Joseph’s brothers as supplicants exacerbates this tension to the extreme. The broth-ers come to ask only for the bread they need to survive, but Joseph’s long-nurtured desire for revenge arises.

In Tammsaare’s play, there is the heroine, Judith, who takes a deliber-ate decision to go to the enemy camp. What motivation does the author provide for this step, what encourages Judith and also gives her the im-pulse to behead the fierce warrior, Holofernes, in his own encampment?

Here, we discover temporal tension between the unfortunate past and the current attempt to restage her destiny.

The internal motivation of the heroine is gradually revealed during the course of the play, and the true reasons for her actions are to be found in Judith’s earlier unhappy, childless marriage lacking both physical and spiritual love. This emptiness keeps her from fulfilling her feminine mis-sion and in a state of tragically agitated emotion Judith sins against her own conscience by praying for the death of her husband Manase. He dies; attempting to overcome her deep internal anguish, Judith becomes widely known as a defender of the common person. But this is not enough for her to regain harmony with herself. Judith’s internal conflict and her un-fulfilled femininity give rise to dramatic and unexpected action when the enemy threatens to destroy her city.

In public she explains her step as motivated by the desire to change Holofernes’ mind about the blockade of Bethulia, but what actually hap-

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pens in the warrior’s camp prove that her real motivation lies somewhere else. The first act ends with Judith bathing when the city is badly in need of water and anointing herself with perfumed oil, while her servant ob-serves incomprehension. This is already a sign that in her mind Judith has already been preparing for an erotic liaison never fulfilled in her previous life. It is possible that she is preparing for battle with Holofernes by mak-ing use of all the resources available to her as a woman, and so entering into the kind of duel that historically often enough decides the fates of battles and nations. We can presume that this blossoming of psychologi-cal, emotional and social ambition is also the path to her self-realization.

However, the balance between these various powers is lost when Ju-dith–just like Salome in the Old Testament – is overtaken by uncontrolled and uncontrollable desire. And just like Oscar Wilde’s Salome chose John the Baptist, Tammsaare’s Judith chooses the best of available men. Judith wants to become not only Holofernes’ lover, but also to help him to fur-ther greatness, to become Emperor and to give birth to his children, who would become the future world leaders.

This intensification of emotion comes into conflict with Holofernes’ emotional exhaustion, his resignation about his past youth and refusal to spend the rest of his life pursuing power and influence. Holofernes rejects Judith, but the very same night becomes the victim of her exaggerated ideas and uncontrollable lust.

The relation of Judith towards Holofernes shows attempts of the writer to reveal the self-theatricalization of the heroine. In a similar sense, the festivities devoted to the harvest in Egypt that lead to the encounter be-tween Joseph and his brothers in Egypt provide a match emphasizing the importance of the motive.

Evaluation of the outcome of conflictsIn contrast to the external motives of the conflicts, the greatest impor-

tance in the course of the actions is devoted to inner self-evaluation of the heroes. There is an omnipresent tension between two positions, two moralities – one, that is condoned by society and is based on hundreds of years of inherited propriety; the other, that each individual can arrive only through serious internal struggle and merciless self-analysis.

In Canaan, Joseph’s greatest authority is his father, Jacob; the emo-tional ties are mutual, because of Jacob’s love for Joseph, he reacts with understanding to his son’s apparent impracticality and dreaminess. But

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in Jacob’s eyes, tending the land is women’s work. A man must do the demanding work of a wandering shepherd; for this reason Jacob sees his wife and Joseph’s mother Raele’s ability to soften the hearts of Joseph’s brothers as a sign of passing and perishable happiness.

After a long and torturous period of doubt, Joseph comes to the con-clusion that the satisfaction cannot come solely from social achievement and position; neither can contentment be derived from revenge. Betrayed by his brothers, Joseph has lost the ability to achieve his greatest desire – to be loved by them; Rainis’ play ends with Joseph leaving civilization in order to search for greater, truer harmony with himself. But his initial perception of the reality – the position of a lonely idealist – has been shat-tered. The play draws to a close on a note of deep suffering and raw expe-rience that needs to be re-estimated.

The desire of a woman to understand herself is just as important in Tammsaare’s tragedy, where in the end, after all the social upheaval, the heroine, Judith, decides to stay with the old and wise Simeon. In one corner of the room sleeps Simeon, in another there is a similar straw matt for the dog, but two corners are still empty. Maybe this is the only place where Judith can regain her almost hopelessly lost belief in love and order in the world.

ConclusionThe two plays under discussion reveal a bitter experience of individual

persons but at the same time they also point towards the difficulties of the social experience of the nations during the war. The way towards the national independence has been successful but prickly. The revaluation of this experience points out that claiming one’s own identity it is not enough to ensure one’s social status and situation. The search must go further towards the deepest essence of the individual, the discovery of his or her inner self.

References1 Toril Moi, Henrik ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy.

Oxford: University Press, 2006, 67.2 Richard R. Brettell, Modern Art 1851 – 1929. Oxford: University Press, 1999,

107.

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Lietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradicija: Strazdas, Baranauskas, Geda (archetipai ir universalijos)

The Tradition of Lihuanian Poetical Landscape: Strazdas, Baranauskas,

Geda (Archetypes and Universalities)

Viktorija DAuJOTYTėVilniaus universitetasuniversiteto g. 5, LT-01513 [email protected]

SantraukaStraipsnyje analizuojama lietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradicija. Į ją žvel-

giama tarsi iš modernaus poeto Sigito Gedos (1943–2008) taško, kas jo poezijai buvo svarbu, kuo ji rėmėsi, ką keitė, transformavo. Atraminiais tradicijos vardais laikomi XIX a. poetai Antanas Strazdas ir Antanas Baranauskas. Antano Strazdo reikšmė itin akivaizdi, Sigito Gedos ne kartą pabrėžta, įtvirtinta poema „Straz-das“. Antano Baranausko gamtovaizdžiuose išskiriamas šventumo jausmas, kal-bos metaforomis išreikštos dvasinės būsenos. Teigiama, kad Strazdo gamtovaiz-džio dominantė yra laukas, Baranausko – miškas. Sigito Gedos gamtos vaizduose išskirtinę vietą užima vanduo; pats vadino save vandenžmogiu. Lietuvių poetinio gamtovaizdžio tradicijoje veikia skirtingi archetipų ir universalijų deriniai, pri-klausomi nuo pasaulėjautos ir poetinės kalbos principų.

Kertiniai žodžiai: lietuvių poezija, poetinis gamtovaizdis, archetipai, univer-salijos.

SummaryIn this article the tradition of Lithuanian poetical landscape is analyzed by in-

vestigating it as if from the point of view of a modern poet – Sigitas Geda (1943–2008). The analysis aims at revealing the aspects of importance in his poetry, its sources and the transformations they underwent. Antanas Srazdas and Antanas Baranauskas are considered to be the figures that established the 19th century poet-ic tradition. The significance of Antanas Strazdas is quite evident, conveyed in the poem “Strazdas” and emphasized by Sigitas Geda himself. The feeling of holiness and spiritual states expressed by metaphors are a prominent feature of landscapes in Antanas Baranauskas poetry. Field is the dominant element in Strazdas land-scapes, while Baranauskas tends to concentrate on depicting the forest. In Sigitas Geda landscapes water has a special place; he event called himself the aquaman. The tradition of Lithuanian poetical landscapes features different combinations of

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archetypes and universalities which are subject to one’s world-view and principles of poetic language.

Key words: Lithuanian poetry, poetical landscape, archetypes, universalities

Tai žiūrėjo tartum magas

Į gamtos akis žalias(„Strazdas“)

Gamtovaizdis – visa, kas apima gamtą, jos vaizdus, esančius ar galin-

čius būti, iškilti sąmonėje. Sąmonė keliauja, patiria kelią per gamtą, visa-tą. Poetinė geografija, šiuolaikinėje humanistikoje pavadinama ir metage-ografija. Geo raštą sąmonė perrašo–perrašinėja, įprasmina pagal mentali-nių procesų atitikimus. Matau žibuoklę, matydamas patiriu (galiu patirti) „didžiulį, kosminį žibuoklės džiaugsmą“ (Sigito Gedos ankstyvasis eilė-raštis „Arkliai siūbuoja žalią horizontą“). Kosminė galia slypi žibuoklėje, pavasarinio Lietuvos gamtovaizdžio ženkle, jei sąmonė pajėgia jį suvokti. Ką pajėgiame suvokti pasaulyje, priklauso nuo to, ką pajėgiame suvokti savyje – ir kaip universalijų atspindžius. Kūrybingo žmogaus gyvenamas pasaulis yra tarsi pripildytas reikšmių ir prasmių. Gyventi – tai atpažinti; tai yra ir manyje. „Esu senas kaip „Anykščių šilelis“, – ištaria Sigitas Geda1 ir ištaria seną, o kartais ir labai seną patiriančios sąmonės laiką.

Kraštovaizdis – krašto vaizdas, vietovaizdis – vietos. Slinktis nuo pla-taus prie siaurėjančio, konkretėjančio, viena plotmė pasirodo kita; ir vie-tovaizdis yra gamtovaizdis. Arba nuo konkretaus prie visuminio. Dangus, ištariamas nuo savo trobos slenksčio, yra ir dangus bendriausia šio žodžio reikšme. Visada susitinkame su vieta, esame vietiniai. Ir pagal prigimtį, ir pagal jauseną, kurią įgyjame įsibūdami. Bet kiekviena konkretizacija, jei gyva ir gyvybinga, siejasi su didžiąja visuma. Vietos ir erdvės (baltrušai-tiškosios ertovės) santykio problema; erdvėje, pačioje žodžio substanci-joje slypi erdvumas, keliagubumas, trimatiškumas. „Senas laikas, senos erdvės“, – ištarta Sigito Gedos jaunystės eilėraštyje „Prie namų vaikai moliniai...“ Senoj (pirmapradėj) erdvėj susitinkame su senu laiku; laikas yra įerdvintas, erdvė įlaikinta. Kai žmogus suvokia save esantį, suvokia ervėlaikyje; net labiausiai urbanizuota erdvė negali atsiskirti nuo gamtos, yra gamtoje, net jei akis nebegali sutelkti jos visuminio vaizdo. Kiekvie-nos kalbos poezija prasideda kalboje, gamtos kūnų ir žmogaus kūno dalių pavadinimai tikriausiai vienodo senumo. Akys, matančios medį, saulę, vandenį, žolę, akmenį. Ėjimas, keičiantis tam, kas matoma. Senosios dai-

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nos – tautosaka – kaip esu su tuo, kas yra, kaip matau, kaip tai yra man. Gamtos poezija – jei ir neišskirsime tokio tipo, tai negalėsime nuo jo ir vi-sai atsiskirti. Poezijos raida, kitimas yra ir gamtos vaizdo kitimas. Poezi-jos raida reiškia ir kalbinės savimonės kitimą, priklausomą nuo įvykių są-monėje, nuo regiu, girdžiu, jaučiu. Trys ypatingi lietuvių poezijos taškai, kuriuose įžvelgiamas aukščiausias dvasinės patirties laipsnis – ekstazė, atsiveria ekstatiniai pojūčiai ir pokyčiai. Sąmonės įvykis Antano Straz-do „Sieliankoj Aušroj“, Antano Baranausko „Anykščių šilelyje“: Sigito Gedos sąmonės įvykių keli – kelias nuo pėdų iki giesmių. Nuo didžiulio, kosminio žibuoklės džiaugsmo iki vėlyvosios „Fugos XXI amžiaus gam-tovaizdžiui, II“: „[...] o pačiam laukų vidury / žydi balzganas grikis, mano širdies švilpynėlė!“.

Per šiuos tris poetus pereina ir pagrindinių lietuvių poezijos gamtos vaizdo perspektyvų kaita, jei regėsime ją apibendrintai. Konkretinant vaizdas tankėja, daugėja reikšminių vardų. Strazdas atveria lauką; Bara-nauskas – miško paslaptį. Sigito Gedos kūryboje, pačioje jos pradžioje, įvyksta gamtovaizdžio absorbcija (sugėrimas išspinduliuojant), perkeiti-mas, kažkas ima kilti iš vandenų, žemės gilmenų, nepaprastų intensyvu-mu jungiasi apačia ir viršus, kasdieniškumas ir šventumas. Sigitas Geda yra sakęs, kad tik per Baranauską, Maironį lietuvių kultūra įtikėjo savo kūrybinėm galiom. Ir dėl to, kad šie poetai „suteikė ir mums patiems, ir mūsų istorijai, mūsų gamtovaizdžiui idealybės projekcijas“2. Ką reiškia šiuo atveju mūsų, mūsų istorijos ir mūsų gamtovaizdžio idealybės projek-cijos? Sakytume, kad savotiškus sąmonės pasimatavimus, prisimatavimus, sutikimus su vieta, jos gamta ir istorija, kaip savo savastim. Ne tik aušra, šilelis, ne tik Baltijos jūra, bet ir dvasiniai sąmonės įvykiai, kurie leidžiasi suvokiami savo gamtinėse projekcijose. idealybės projekcija, mąstant apie gamtovaizdį-kraštovaizdį, jų linijų (tiesių, laužtų, išgaubtų, kampuotų ir elipsinių) prasitęsimai sąmonėje, sąmonės būties įgijimas.

Krašto vaizdas, kraštovaizdis – tai, kas pasirodo vaizdu, matoma. Re-alieji krašto žemėlapiai, žemėlapių materializacijos. Pažiūri į Lietuvos žemėlapį – teka Nemunas, Neris – didžiosios, bet mažos upės, rymo kal-nai – Šatrija, Medvėgalis, Girgždūtė – didieji, bet maži, tik kalvos pagal geografinę klasifikaciją. Vilnius – senas Europos miestas, bet koks mažas palyginus su pasaulio didmiesčiais. Dvigubas žvilgsnis, kitoks matymas. Maži, mažas kitų akims, matuojančioms, lyginančioms. Savųjų, vietinių, tų, kurie yra savo vietoje, dydžiai yra absoliutūs, nelygintini. Sąmonės kraštovaizdžiai, realius vaizdinius sufokusuojantys unikaliu, proporcijas

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perkeičiančiu būdu. „Kalnai ant kalnų, ė ant tų kalnų / Kalnai ir maži kal-neliai“, – tai Antano Baranausko „Dainų dainelę“ poetinio kraštovaizdžio fragmentas – lyg Lietuvoje mažiausiai būtų Karpatų kalnynai: kalnai ant kalnų, o ant tų kalnų dar kalnai ir maži kalneliai. Daugiapakopiai kal-nai – kilimo, aukštėjimo vaizdinys. Poetinė architektūra, statinys, kuris bus svarbus ir „Anykščių šileliui“, svarbiausiam Baranausko kūriniui, pa-rašytam bendruoju romantizmo kodu, bet atskiruoju egzistenciniu stiliumi. Egzistencinis stilius apima ir kalbos bei gamtos sąlyčius, formuojančius kraštovaizdžio poetiką. Egzistencijos šaknys žmonių bendrumuose, taip pat ir tautiniuose, sinergetiniuose veikimuose, gestuose. Kraštovaizdžio jausmui susidaryti reikia savumo pamato, iš kurio kyla buvimo grožis, paslaptis, baugumas, – tai, kas jau peržengia krašto ribas. Gamtovaizdis pirmiausia žemėvaizdis, tai, kas yra žmogaus regratyje, akių horizonte. Akių pakėlimas – atskiras veiksmas; būtinas žemės ir dangaus vienio pajutimui, kosminei jausenai. Egzistencinio stiliaus energija stiprėja už-čiuopdama mirties ir gyvybės ribas, šventumo sankirtas; kalbu ne vien savo patirtimi, ne vien iš savęs ir ne vien sau. Yra bendrumo, bendrųjų prasmių horizontas, skirtingai matomas, apsibrėžiamas, priartėjantis ir tolstantis. Žmogaus prasmių horizonto provaizdis yra gamtos regratis, pirminiai gamtos daiktai, su kuriais susitinka sąmonė, iš tų susitikimų formuodama pirminius kalbinius ir kultūrinius darinius – mitus, tauto-saką. Individualūs kraštovaizdžiai – ir vizualiniai (piešinių, tapybos), ir kalbiniai – yra individo veiksmai, individualūs matymo-mąstymo apsi-brėžimai, ištrūkimai iš bendrojo lauko, paliekantys jame tam tikrus įtrū-kius. Kalbinis-ritminis-intonacinis sąmonės įžengimas į gamtą žymi są-monės išsiskyrimą: gamta jau yra kita, ji, tu; galima ne tik matyti, bet ir kreiptis, surasti atitikimų bei atitikmenų, svarbių metaforai ir simboliui. Atskirumo ir bendrumo, gelmės ir paviršiaus, archetipo ir universalijos sąlyčiai bei sąskambiai.

Lyrikos atskirumas yra tik atskirumas labai bendrame lauke. Tik ben-drumas įgalina atskirus apsisprendimus, apsiribojimus, pasirinkimus. An-tanas Strazdas savo vieninteliu rinkiniu „Giesmės svietiškos ir šventos“, išleistos 1814 metais Vilniuje, pasirodo kaip unikalus archetipų ir univer-salijų sąskambis. Kaip archetipinis kūrybos atvejis ši knyga po pusantro šimto metų iš esmės nulemia Sigito Gedos galimybę. Strazdo poetiniame gamtovaizdyje slypi grįžimo-pasikartojimo energija. Pasaulėvaizdžio ir kraštovaizdžio sąsaja – abipusė: pasaulio vaizdą kaip sąmonės turinį įtako-ja prigimto krašto gamtos būdas; kita vertus, kas iš to būdo perimama, pri-

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klauso nuo akių, ausų, bendresne prasme – nuo prigimties. Ką, kaip mato, girdi Strazdas? Daugiausia, giliausiai tuo momentu, kai jaučiasi esąs ir žmogus, ir paukštis: strazdas, gegužėlė. Strazdas pajunta judesį-junglumą; daukantiškąją kergę – visa, kas yra, yra iš gyvybės judesio, susijungimo, sueities. Gyvas patiria buvimą – kur ir kaip. Su žeme ir dangum. Gegužė-lės balsas: „Einu žeme, skrendu vėju, / Ponia esmu viso svieto, / Linksma, soti, nors nesėju; / Kur nulekiu, ten man vieta“ („Gegužėlė“). Panaši ir strazdo byla – tik dar ekspresyvesnė: „Skrisdamas viršum medžių, / Pačioj viršūnėj sėdžiu, / Leidžiu balsą per tamsias girias“ („Strazdas“). Žmogaus žvilgsnis į kitus, į tos pačios būties dalyvius, suteikiant jiems balsą, kaip bandymą suvokti, kaip kiti yra, kuo tas buvimas pasireiškia, kuo gražus ar net gražesnis negu žmogaus. Neabejotinai tuo, kad laisvesnis. Ir ne tik so-cialine prasme, bet ir egzistencine – gegutėlė kukuoja „sėdėdama aukštam medy“, strazdas skrenda viršum medžių. Mato kraštą iš aukščiau; krašto vaizdą taupiai, vienu kitu štrichu tenubrėžiamą: aukšti medžiai, tamsios girios, kalnai, upelės, berželiai, karklynai, lazdynai, ariamos dirvos, pjau-namos pievos; keičiasi metų laikai, ateina rudenėlis, „brudna“ žiema, pas-kui pavasaris – gyvybės, džiaugsmo laikas:

Žiedai iš žemės pinas,Pilnas paukščių karklynas,Siaudžia, griaudžia lizdus pindami.Pučia saldus vėjelis,Krenta lengvas lietelis,Visa žemė linksmai pradžiugo.

Nuo Kristijono Donelaičio „Metų“ lietuvių kraštovaizdis konkretina-mas metų laikais; gamtos erdvė–vaizdas yra ir gamtos laikas. Metų laikų linija jaučiama ir Strazdo poezijoje. Šiltojo metų laiko kraštovaizdis pilnas paukščių, naminių gyvulių, jaučių, gėrelių, ožkelių, karvių. „Pasterkoj, arba piemenų giesmėj“ – karvelės, karvytės, karvytėlės. Kraštovaizdžio garsumą didina piemenėliai: „Piemenėliai, ant triūbelių / Ir ant karklinių umždelių / Pagrajykit linksmai, gražiai / Prie tam krūmui, prie tai rožei“. Strazdo poetinio kraštovaizdžio punktyrai tarsi klojami ant tautosakinių li-nijų. Bet su jomis nesutampa – atskiria žvilgsnis ir kalba: netikėtas žvilgs-nis perimamas individualios, ekspresyvios kalbos, tarsi įtemptos tarp že-mojo ir aukštojo stiliaus, susiduriančio tame pat tekste – kad ir „Pasterko-je, arba piemenų giesmėje“:

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Aušros žvaigždė jau pasvydo,Visi paukšteliai pragydo.

Strazdas čilba visa burna,Aplenkęs pelėdą durną.

Strazdo pažemiai neatskiriami nuo aukščio, aukštybių. Visa persmelk-ta gyvybės grožio, maitinamo šviesos. Ant Strazdo žemės krenta begalinė, ištinkanti šviesa. Krašto vaizdas – šviesos ir gyvybės misterija. Branduo-lys, iš kurio išsirutulioja, išsikeroja lyrinės lietuvių poezijos kraštovaiz-dis – „Sielianka Aušra“, pirmoji dalis:

Pasvydo, pasvydo,Aušra žvaigždė pasvydo, pasvydo,ir gaidelis pragydo, pragydo.

Vieversys, vieversys,Vieversėlis siausdamasŠoka, vėju plakdamas, plakdamas,

Padangėm,Siaudžia, griaudžia padangėm...Vištos karkia palangėm.Jautelis,Jaučias, laukan eidamas,Kasa žemę baubdamas.Gėreliai su ožkeliais –Kazokėlį šokdami,Štukeles rodydami.Kas gi ten?Kas gi tenai už miškoŽiba, tvaska, ištiško?Saulelė,Saulelė ten tekėjo,Aukso žiedais mirgėjo.

Įvyksta tai, kas prasideda aukštai, – švinta, teka saulė – ir kas pamato-ma, išvystama. Vaizdas atsiranda, susidaro iš to, kas išvystama, kas vienu metu skleidžiasi ir sąmonėje, sieloje. Kraštovaizdis yra žmogaus išvystas vaizdas, konkretus, tos vietos, bet persmelktas bendros gamtos ontologi-jos. Strazdas įprasmina žvilgsnio įvykį – pasvydo, pasvydo. Ir tarsi tą pa-čią akimirką prasideda pasaulis, jo gyvybė, siausmas tam tikroje vietoje,

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krašte, akiratyje, kur už miško teka saulė. Iš už miško tekanti saulė – yra vaizdinis archetipas; lietuvių pasaulėvokoje saulė moteriškos giminės, motiniška, dažnai mažybinės, malonybinės priesagos.

Strazdas įprasmina sąmonės įvykį – staigų išvydimą – pasikeitimą. Viskas žvilgsnyje ir kalboje, ritme, intonacijoj. Aš ir tesu matymas, galė-jimas pasakyti. Bet jei matau, tai esu ir matomas; todėl tokia stipri vaizdo ekspresija, saulės išbudintas pasaulis rodosi man; nėra aš, bet yra man. Tai ir būtų metageografinis vyksmas: vaizdo, bendro vaizdo rašto atsivėrimas sąmonėje. Žmogus pasaulio užklausiamas: „Kas gi ten?“ Ir atsakymas ateina iš žmogaus kalbos, nes pati kalba radosi klausdama ir atsakydama. Atsakymas – ne saulė, atsakymas – saulelė. Saulelėje glūdi santykis. Ne-įtikėtina ritminė-vizualinė meistrystė: Saulelė sudaro atskirą eilutę, kos-minę atskirybę, matomo pasaulio centrą, bet matomą žmogaus, jo kalbos, mažybinės-malonybinės formos: „saulelė, / Saulelė ten tekėjo, / Aukso žiedais mirgėjo“.

Lyrikoje nėra tolygaus vystymosi, perdavinėjimo; peršokama, įšoka-ma, įvyksta staigūs šuoliai, perkeitimai. Keičiantis žvilgsnio perspekty-voms, keičiasi ir kraštovaizdžio matymas.

Kas kraštovaizdžio poetikos aspektu sietina su Antanu Baranausku? Ilgai ir tegalvota, kad svarbiausias jo kūrinys – poema „Anykščių šilelis“ yra kūrinys apie gamtą, gamtovaizdžiai, kraštovaizdžiai – šilelio, jo palau-kių, Anykščių krašto:

Žali ėgliai kaip kvietkai po dirvonus keri;Terpu jų kiškiai guli, kropkos vaikus peri.Krūmai, žole barzdoti, kraštas mišką riečia,ir linijos parėjos skersai mišką šviečia.Alksniai, lepšių sodyba, palaukėm sužėlę,Šakom kekes riešučių lazdynai iškėlęatokaitoj brendina. ė karklai po slėnįTerp liulančių paversmių pamėgo pavėnę.

Nesunku pastebėti, kad vietos vaizdas susiliečia su Strazdu – miškas, lazdynai, karklai (karklynai) krūmai, riešutai, paversmiai (paversmėliai), kiškiai. Kraštovaizdžio centrai: kas auga iš žemės ir kas yra gyvas, teikia judesį, garsą. Baranausko žingsnis – kraštovaizdžio architektūros pojūtis. Krašto vieta, kuri yra ir erdvė, ne plokščia, žvilgsniui tarsi slystant pavir-šiumi, o trimatė, turinti aukštį, gylį, plotį. Atitinkanti žmogaus kūną; kū-nas susiderina su erdve, įveikinėja kolizijas, kylančias iš žmogui primeta-

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mų aplinkybių, situacijų, konfliktus, gimdančius istoriją. Architektūriškai suvokiamas kraštovaizdis darosi neatskiriamas nuo seniausių mitinių pa-gavų, kultūrinių įbrėžų, istorinių kolizijų. Kraštovaizdžio išorinės formos užpildomos vidinių. Baranauskui tai yra žmogiškosios pajautos: „Iš to, matai, ašaros ir atsidusimas, / Iš to šventos pajautos, iš to giesmės imas“. Išoriškumas ir vidujiškumas darosi neatskiriamas: žvelgiama tarsi iš vi-daus, o matoma ir išoriškai. Vaizdas prasideda nuo pajautų, išreiškiamų praradimų sujaudintu balsu:

Skujom, šakelėm ir šiškom nuklotąKepina saulė nenaudingą plotą,in kurį žiūrint teip neramu regis:Lyg tartum rūmas suiręs nudegęs,Lyg kokio miesto išgriuvus pustynė,Lyg kokio raisto apsvilus kemsynė!..

Baranauskiškoji forma – formos tako akivaizdybė: „In kurį žiūrint teip neramu regis“. Matai išorę, o regi tarsi vidinėmis akimis, regi ir savo sie-los neramumą, matymo sukeltą; iš jo kyla klausimai – kas gi įvyko, kur tie rūmai, miestai, ta labiausiai regima žmogaus pasaulio architektoni-ka? Kaip ji susijusi su šileliu, su pirmine gamta, pirminiu, pirmapradžiu Anykščių krašto vaizdu? Miškas yra lietuvio sąmonės archetipas, pirmasis prieglobstis, gynėjas, užtarėjas. „Anykščių šilelyje“ kalbama iš archetipi-nių situacijų. Iš situacijų, kuriose iškyla vertybių – ir pirmiausia šventu-mo, šventų pajautų problema. Šventumas yra svarbiausia žmogaus dvasios vertikalė, tiesiogiai atsispindinti ir žmogaus aplinkoje, gamtoje, vietoje, kur gyvenama. Tai pradėta suvokti palyginti neseniai – ta linkme pastū-mėjo ir Sigito Gedos mintys. „Sudega namai, supleška kaimo architek-tūra, nieko nelieka, bet žmogus žino, kaip statytis, kur šiaurė, kur pietūs, kur žemė, kur dangus, nes iš to susideda mūsų gyvenimo būdas. Kokios gi Čiurlionio ar Baranausko nelaimės buvo? Kad tai gamtos aprašymai, kad provincialų darbas!“3. Ne, ne aprašymai, ne tik aprašymai. „Anykščių šilelis“ liudija sielos atsivėrimą pasauliui pačiu pasauliu, labiausiai tuo, kas archetipiškiausia – mišku, medžiais, akmenimis, kuriuose slypi mitai, istorija. „Visos senos religijos per medžius jaučia ryšį su protėviais. Kuo pavirsta mūsų palaikai? Koks artimiausias įvaizdis? Medis augalas. Ta giria tada nėra tik šiaip sau giria, o visa mūsų... kaip čia pasakyt... visa mūsų gamtinė tauta, pavirtusi žiedais, kvapais...“4. Architektūros princi-pas: pamatų svarba. Kas matoma, laikosi ant nematomo. Nuojauta, vėlgi

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fiksuota Sigito Gedos, kad Baranauskas užčiuopė senos šiaurės religijos pėdsakus, perteikė jos reliktus5.

***Lietuvių poezijos mįslės, atsidengusios XIX amžiuje, XX amžiaus.

Paskutiniaisiais dešimtmečiais labiausiai tekėjo į Sigitą Gedą. Matyti tie poezijos gūbriai, kurie jam buvo svarbiausi. Bet galima sakyti, kad ne-svarbių ir nebuvo. Išžvalgė pačią lietuviškos raštijos pradžią, stabtelėjo ir ten, kur atrodė jam tolima – net prie Kleopo Jurgelionio. Matome Gedą kaip poetinių tradicijų mazgą – neatrišamą, prieštaringą. Tradicijos laikė jį, kėlė, buvo joms dėmesingas, bet sąmoningai stengėsi nuo jų atitrūkti. Žinomas ir Europoje, verstas į daugelį kalbų, išleistų ir atskiromis knygo-mis, Geda pirmiausia yra vietos poetas, Lietuvos, labiausiai išsireiškusios jam gimtąja Dzūkija, poetas, savitas, bet ir savitumu susijęs su kitais, su pasauliais, artimais ir tolimais. Bet: vietos poetas, vietos taip, kad ir vise-to. Kaip reta intensyviai susijęs su bendraisiais ir kartu pirminiais kultū-ros dariniais – su Biblija, Koranu, Dante, su senąja egiptiečių kultūra, su šumerais. Daug jo verstų ir aiškintų poetų. Bendra, tik primintina mintis: kuo intensyviau kūrybinėje sąmonėje dalyvauja kiti, atėję iš pasaulio, iš kitų erdvių, tuo labiau permąstomas, perjaučiamas ir prigimtos kultūros klodas. Iš Arvydo Šliogerio, skaityto, reflektuoto ir Sigito Gedos, minčių: Save aš visada randu su Kitu6. Pridurtina – randu erdvėje ir laike, erdvė-laikyje, didžiąja dalimi duotame mums gamtos, vietos žemėje. Ir mieste, ir didžiausiuose mūsų miestuose – Vilniuje ir Kaune – lieka kraštovaizdžio dominantės: upės, upių santakos, miškų likučiai, net virtę parkais, atskiri medžiai, įprasta augalija (pienės, peraugančios šaligatvius, skurdžios trū-kažolės, pražystančios dykvietėse, apleistose vietose, kalvos, dangus su saule, debesimis). Gimęs ir augęs mažoje trobelėje ant ežero kranto, di-džiąją gyvenimo dalį praleido Vilniuje, bet sąmonės gyvenimas liko dvi-lypis: ten ir čia. Šią transcenduojančią horizontalę papildo vertikalė, jun-gianti žemę ir dangų. Gimtąją erdvę pakeitė įsigyta sodyba Vieciūnuose, taip pat Dzūkijoje, priešais Liškiavą. To paties kraštovaizdžio apgaubtyje:

Visa problema: kraštovaizdis, kiekviena jo detalė, dalelė, dulkė... Istorija, žmonės... įstrigę giliau mūsų sąmonėje, nei atrodo.Poetai, kurie ištraukia iš giliau.Dėl šitos priežasties egzotiškas yra pasaulis, kuris „šalimais“. Kiti kraštovaiz-džiai bei tikėjimai.Tikrieji ryšiai, jungtys ir sąsajos.

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Čia skirtumas tarp žmonių, kurie naudojasi jau esamais stereotipais ir tarp tų, kurie atkasa gilesnius klodus. Netikėtai jungia – erdvėje ir laike.“7

Šias mintis galima laikyti Sigito Gedos kraštovaizdžio poetikos pama-tiniais principais. Kraštovaizdžio matomo plokštumo įveika sąmonės gilu-mu, archetipine atmintim. Kito kraštovaizdžio buvimas. Jungčių ir sąsajų galimybės. Kraštovaizdžio bei tikėjimo jungties svarbumas.

Kraštovaizdis, žvelgiant į jį iš poezijos, priklauso prigimtai kultūrai; suvokiamas ir tiesiogiai (matant, matant, jaučiant), ir iš kalbos, taip pat ir iš meno kalbos. Kraštovaizdis yra žmogui, bet ir žmoguje – neatskiriamai. Panašiu principu ištariame: gamtos kalba ir kalbos gamta; kalbos gamta yra kiekvienos kalbos darybinė dalis. Sigitas Geda gamtą ir kalbą mąsto neatskiriamai. Šiais dosniai atsiveriančiais kanalais jis susikuria prieigas prie to, kas jam atrodo reikšmingiausia lietuvių kultūroje – prie Strazdo, Baranausko, Čiurlionio, Žemaitės, nusitiesia interpretacinius takus. Itin akivaizdžiai pasirodo kultūros veikimo būdas: kūrybinė sąmonė suakty-vina, sutvirtina, pratęsia kitus, kartu ir pati prasitęsdama. Bet tam veikimo būdui reikia tarsi kokios sąmonės prisitvirtinimo vietos. Reikia būti savo vietoje, kad ją galėtum peržengti, kad sąmonė įgytų transcendavimo galią. Lietuvių poezijoje – ir tai itin ryškiai parodo Sigitas Geda – tebeveikia gamtos sąmonė. Kritiniame tekste vartoju šį pasakymą perkeltine pras-me, bet poetinėje vaizduotėje ji pasirodo tiesiogiai – realiai ir nerealiai, mistiškai. Esame paveldėję gilų gamtos jutimą, kuris retkarčiais iškyla, atsiliepia netgi sakraliniu atspalviu. Geda tai itin juto – savindamasis tai, ką pajėgė pajusti, aprėpti, prakalbinti: „Aš norėčiau kalbėti tik apie savą-ją Gamtą, savąją, galbūt širdies, religiją (apie savą, individualų tikėjimą mėgdavo šnekėti V. Krėvė-Mickevičius)“8. Sigitas Geda – bent dabar atro-do paskutinis, kuriame šis sakralinis gamtos jausmas atsiliepė taip išskir-tinai galingai, persunktas itin stiprios vaizduotės, vaizdinijos gimdytojos. Tai nėra panteizmas, uždarantis sąmonę gamtoje, tai gamtinio sakralumo jutimas – atveriantis. „Buvau tokias dvi poemas parašęs – „Ledynas baltas kaukaspenis“ ir „Delčia rudenė deivė“. Lig šiol nedaugelis gal jas skaitęs. Aš tai vadinu mistine poezija. Kas yra gamtos mistika, ar mistinė gamtos poezija? Kai žiūri į gamtą, ir ji tau yra beveik sapnas – baisus nerealumas. Tose poemose daug vizijos“9. Įprasta į kraštovaizdį žvelgti kaip į realų, esantį savo medžiais, vandenimis, keliais, kalnais, pakalnėmis, lygumo-mis. Bet tai sąmonės realumas, glūdintis ir S. Gedos klausime: „Ar medis iš mūsų vaikystės nėra gyvas, realus, augantis, nors jau seniai nukirstas?

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TAPATYBĖS RETORIKA

Tatai paslaptis“10. Mene kraštovaizdis yra žvilgsnio – akies percepcija, sąmonės ir pasąmonės, vaizduotės žaismas, akimirkos derinys. Tai, kas akimirką matyta, jau nebėra, išnykę. Tik vizija. Keleriopas persikūnijimas ir įsikūnijimas, materializavimasis kalba. Literatūroje, juolab poezijoje su-sitinkame su kalbos kraštovaizdžiu; visa, kas yra, yra pavadinta, žvilgsnis pervadina, perkeičia. Poezijos kraštovaizdis visada poetinis.

Vienas ankstyvųjų Sigito Gedos eilėraščių, įėjęs į pirmąjį rinkinį „Pė-dos“, – itin aiškiai ženklinantis ir tai, kas būdinga jo kraštovaizdžiui:

Laukinis ežeras. Pirmapradis vanduo. rudosios nendrės, Kvepiančios protėvių kūnais.

Žalios žolėtos žuvys dugne, Ančių lizdai šiltame vandeny ir keturi kiaušiniai.

Tūno vėžys, Prisidengęs skydu. Žiemą ar vasarą – Jokių pėdų.

O žalios žuvys Žaliam dugne, Jūs susapnuokit Greičiau mane!

Vandens vaizdiniai – laukinio pirmapradžio gamtos gausmo: šiurkštu-mo ir švelnumo, galios ir glaudumo jungtys. Stipri jutimiškumo kalba: ža-lios žolėtos žuvys dugne, ančių lizdai šiltame vandeny. Kiaušinys, vėžys – gyvybės formos, pavidalai. Vandenžmogis, nardytojas, – prasitars poetas apie save, nuolat prisimins pirminius gyvenimo potyrius prie Teiraus ar Sniegyno ežerų. Rinkinys „Žydinti slyva Snaigyno ežere“ (1981) prasi-dės „Pavasariu senovėje“: „ežeras / apsemia / žemę / žemė eit žolei lie-pia“. Visa išropoję, išlipę iš vandens: vėžlys, reliktinis gyvūnas, vaikystėje dar matytas, lytėtas (vėliau nusipirktas, laikytas namuose), pieštas ir per-pieštas rankraščių paraštėse, knygų puslapiuose, gyvybės ženklas, kartais senovinės svastikos pavidalų. Žinojo ką reiškia luokinti žuvis, poezijoje nuo pirmojo rinkinio iki dienoraštinių užrašų šis žodis ir su juo susijusios

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pagavos išliko. Žuvies įvaizdžio įvairumas, simbolinis neišsemiamumas, patirties ir krikščioniškojo turinio jungimas.

Danguje – paukščiai, ežere – žuvys, lauke – žmogus, dirbantis, arian-tis. Poemoje „Strazdas“ Gedos kraštovaizdis įgauna mitologinę dimensiją: „Ir ūmai pasaulis plečias – / Keliasi erdvė kaip gaubtas – / Ar ne angelas čia plazda, išvarytas iš dangaus?“. Matomas-girdimas-jaučiamas-suvokia-mas pasaulis pulsuoja atsiverdamas, virsdamas žodžiais, kalbėjimo ener-gija, metafora. Poezija veikia savo magija – liepimu būti:

Atsiverkite, žaros, Man į amžius senus, –iškėtojęs sparnus,Strazdas Lietuvą aria.

Gėriukėliai po pievas.Plaukia upės. Kalnai. Danguje dyvinaiŽydi saulė ir dievas.

Antano Strazdo atošauka, bet ir Antano Baranausko kalnų; mitinės pradžios metafora: „Žydi saulė ir dievas“.

„Pėdos“ ir „Strazdas“ įformina Gedos poetinio kraštovaizdžio kūrimo pirmąjį etapą; jo žymės – vanduo ir mitinės pradžios jausena. Antroji krašto-vaizdžio skirtis galėtų būti siejama su jotvingių tema. Ji prasideda „Pėdose“ eilėraščiu „Jotvingių žemė“, matymo, kvapų jutimo, girdėjimo eilėraštis. Pirmosios rinktinės „Varnėnas po mėnuliu“ skyrius pavadintas „Jotvingių žemėje“. Iš jo eilėraštis „Rudens vakaras“; gali būti svarbus ir tuo, kad itin akivaizdi einančiojo būsena (poetas mėgo vaikščioti, jo išvaikščiotos ir Vil-niaus apylinkės, priemiesčiai; nors anksti pradėjusios skaudėti kojos einan-čiojo džiaugsmą ir apribojo). Taigi – „Rudens vakaras“:

Pro varnalėšas vieškelin išeinant, užtemę spalvos, niaukės vakare tamsiųjų eglių eilės, o tu sakei, kad niekur nebėra gražesnio krašto...

Akių linijos, kas matoma, kokie augalai, kokios spalvos, kartu einan-čios reakcija; patirties laukas. Gražus ir baugiai temstantis; siela ieško prieglobsčio, puiki ribos ir beribiškumo sankirta, paguoda, kylanti iš gro-žio, kurį tik ir liudija kalbėjimas:

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TAPATYBĖS RETORIKA

Ten, gudobelės niūksančioj pastogėj, aprims mūs siela, bet kodėl baugu tamsių žarų, melsvųjų ėglio uogų, pasaulio tylinčiųjų progumų?... Mes einam į saulėlydį, vaikeli, mane atskirs greit prieblanda juoda, neišsigąsk, mus gaubia visagalė rudens auksinių bulvių valanda...

Gedos kraštovaizdyje išskirtinai daug medžių, krūmų, paukščių, žolių, gėlių, augmenijos; tai gyvybės kraštovaizdis. Saulėlydis yra gyvybės karš-tovaizdžio skaudžioji linija.

Ryškus kraštovaizdžio percepcijos etapas – giesmių. Ciklas „Septynių vasarų giesmės“ to paties pavadinimo knygoje (1991) sutelkia aukštąją kraštovaizdžio poetiką. Ypatingas ryšys su ankstyvąja kūryba, iki „Straz-do“ imtinai: kas rodėsi horizontalėmis („Ateina dienos didelės. Apžioja horizontus...“; „Žemyn iš šiaurės krinta traukinukas...“; „Arkliai siūbuoja žalią horizontą...“), dabar išryškėja metaforų vertikalėmis. Metafizinės po-etikos principas („Tai, ką slepia tobulos formos, yra juk dvasia. Ta šviesa, kur užlieja, įtraukia, užvaldo“ – „Akvarelė iš Nidos II“). Dvasios gyvybė, gyvybės dvasia, persmelkianti visa, kas yra ir bus, – garsais, judesiais, kuždesiais: „O žvirbliai ir šarkos čirškėdamos neša man žinią, / Kas dedas šeivamedžio žemėj, kas juodojo alksnio tėvynėj“ („Giesmė apie gyvybės rasą“). Atsiranda ir kraštovaizdžio įvaizdis: „Kraštovaizdis! Tėvikė mano, vilkolakiai, sniegas, vaikystė, / Šiaurinių tamsių ežerų amžina vientulys-tė...“ („Sūnaus palaidūno grįžimas“). Grįžtamojo ontologinio judesio pra-džia, gimtinės regėjimas iš kitų perspektyvų („Giesmė iš Japonijos jūrų“).

„Giesmės“ yra aukščiausias poetinio S. Gedos regėjimo taškas – vir-šūnė, nuo kurios imama leistis: iš naujo sutelkiamu ir dekonstruojamu poetiniu pasaulėvaizdžiu (ypač „Babilono atstatymas“) ir tiesioginės per-cepcijos užrašais, dienoraščiais, gyvavaizdžiais. Gyvavaizdžiai gali būti suvokiami ir tiesiogine prasme – kaip gyvai patiriamas, matomas, girdi-mas vaizdas, kur žmonių balsai neatskiriami nuo paukščių ir kitų gyvių, o vyšnios žydėjimas yra ir kultūros simbolis. eilėraščiai proza „Priemiesčio metų laikai“ iš knygos „Septynių vasarų giesmės“ gal ir buvo pirmą kartą užčiuopto kelio pradžia: tai, kas kyla iš dvasios, iš jos vidinio kalbingu-mo, neatskiriamai susiję su tuo, ką regi akys: su akiračiu, regračiu. Kraš-tovaizdis yra ir akivaizdis; tai, kas akivaizdu, bet kas kiekvieną akimirką kinta išlaikydamas tapatumą. eilėraščiai proza (ne vienas dienoraščio įra-

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šas gali būti šiam žanrui priskirtas) rodo labai stiprią prigimtinę regimojo pasaulio prado pagavą – spalvų, linijų, jų sankirtų, ovalų: Fragmentas iš „Priemiesčio metų laikų“: „Melvas ūkas, kursai atsiranda Šiaurės žiemą, vasario pradžioj, anksčiau jo nebūna, dangus jau su mėlynom properšom, medžiai, vėjas jau pakitėję. Didelė sniegena, raudonu, raudonu gūžiu, įsi-spyrus į šventdagį – kažkokio dievo šiaurinio, kosminio gaisro visatoje apraiška.

Kurapkos, mažais pulkeliais lakstančios kapuose, tarp paminklų, lyg bandytų skaityti išblukusias lenkiškas ir lotyniškas epitafijas.

Laikas leisti šaknis į dangaus ir žemės šaltinį“ („Žiema I“). Žvilgsnio trajektorijos: horizontu (ūkas), dangum ( jau su mėlynom properšom), žeme (kurapkos). Šaknys į dangų ir į žemę. Apie Sigitą Gedą galima sa-kyti: jo kraštovaizdį sudaro žemėvaizdis ir dangovaizdis.

Sigito Gedos poetinis kraštovaizdis ir laiko, ir vietos. Visada svarbu metų laikai – tradicija nuo Kristijono Donelaičio „Metų“. Netgi paros laiko, apšvietimo. Pagal vietoves – gimtųjų vietų, kaip grįžimo judesio, Vieciūnų (prie Nemuno), Buivydiškių, Vilniaus priemiesčio. Bet viską gaubia, viskam gyvybę teikia sąmonės kraštovaizdis. Kad virstų kalba, kraštovaizdis bent kuriuo savo kraštu turi paliesti sąmonę, į brėžti joje pir-mines, vos vos blykčiojančias rašto linijas.

Sigito Gedos poetinis gamtovaizdis jutimiškai erdvinis; savaip ir gau-biamojo pobūdžio, perrašantis tai, kas jau perimta poezijos, daugeriopos sąmonės patirties.

Vėlyvieji poezijos taškai – dvi fugos XXI amžiaus gamtovaizdžiui. 3 – 4 balsų muzika savo idealia forma suteikia galimybę matyti kelių perspektyvų gamtovaizdį: matome ir kitų matymu ir matymu, matančiu mus matančius:

realybė ima skambėt ne nuo ilgo žiūrėjimo, ne nuo mūsų sučiuptosios substancijos, o dėl to, kad vis kryžminam akį. Vietoj savojo žvilgsnio išleisdami čia akmens, čia dangaus patvarumą. Tegu žiūri ir stebisi: paukščiai, akmenys, žuvys. Tegu raižo morenose savąją šviesą. Taip, mes žiūrim visi, mūs žiūrėjimas skamba, ošia ir mirguliuoja, kaip pervis mėlynuojančios jūros. („Fuga XXI amžiaus gamtovaizdžiui, I“)

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Žvilgsnis yra sukryžmintas: matymas ir kitais, kitais, matančiais ir žiū-rintį, tą, kuris kalba. Žiūrėjimas skamba, apima ir tai, kas gamtoje yra pir-minė muzika. Žiūrėjimas yra ir spalva, pirminė gamtinė tapyba.

ApibendrinimasPoezija yra kalbinė sąmonės kelionė – prieš keliaujančio akis iškyla ir

keičiasi vaizdai, geografija, virstanti metageografija, pirminių geo raštų perrašymais. Antanas Strazdas – pirmas ryškus lietuvių lyrikos žingsnis, poetinė lauko, sodiečio gyvenamos erdvės perspektyva, pripildyta gam-tos gyvybės. Antanas Baranauskas – miško paslaptis, iš giliai kylantys šlamesiai, persmelkiantys žmogaus dvasią. Sigitas Geda – kraštovaizdžio prasmių absorbcija, perkeitimas, vandenų balso pasigirdimas. Žemėlapiai, kuriuos mes turime sąmonėje – metažemėlapiai. Visur santykis, susidaran-tis iš pokalbio su kitu, iš palyginimo. Keliagubas žvilgsnis, matymas ma-tančiais. Maži, mažas kitų akims, matuojančioms, lyginančioms. Savųjų, vietinių, tų, kurie yra savo vietoje, dydžiai yra absoliutūs, nelygintini. Tas paukštis, toks medis, ten patekanti saulė. Kraštovaizdžiai yra ir sąmonės kraštovaizdžiai, realius vaizdinius sufokusuojantys unikaliu, proporcijas perkeičiančiu būdu. Daugiapakopiai poetiniai Baranausko kalnai – kilimo, aukštėjimo vaizdinys. Poetinė kraštovaizdžio architektūra, kalbos statinys: Baranausko „Anykščių šilelis“ parašytas bendruoju romantizmo kodu, bet atskiruoju egzistenciniu stiliumi. Egzistencinis stilius apima ir kalbos bei gamtos sąlyčius, formuojančius kraštovaizdžio poetiką, suderina gamtinį universalumą ir sąmonės suvokiamo kraštovaizdžio unikalumą. Egzisten-cijos šaknys žmonių bendrumuose, taip pat ir tautiniuose, sinergetiniuose veikimuose, gestuose, keliuose, kuriuos nueina atskira, atskirumu bendru-muose įsirašanti sąmonė.

Kraštovaizdžio jutimui susidaryti reikia savumo pamato, iš kurio kyla buvimo grožis, paslaptis, baugumas. Kraštovaizdis pirmiausia žemėvaiz-dis, tai, kas yra žmogaus regratyje, akių horizonte. Akių pakėlimas – ats-kiras veiksmas; būtinas žemės ir dangaus vienio pajutimui, kosminei jau-senai, dangovaizdžiui. Egzistencinio stiliaus energija stiprėja savo pačios akiratyje užčiuopdama mirties ir gyvybės ribas, šventumo sankirtas; jos tarsi patikina, kad kalbama ne vien savo patirtimi, ne vien iš savęs ir ne vien sau. Yra bendrumo, bendrųjų prasmių (archetipų) horizontas, skirtin-gai matomas, apsibrėžiamas, priartėjantis ir tolstantis. Žmogaus prasmių horizonto provaizdis ir yra gamtos regratis, akiratis gamtos daiktai, su kuriais susitinka sąmonė, iš tų susitikimų formuodama pirminius kalbi-

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nius ir kultūrinius darinius – mitus, tautosaką. Kristijonas Donelaitis pali-ko mums daikto poetinę sampratą, svarbią ir gamtovaizdžiui: „Mes silpni daiktai, kaip švents mums praneša Dovyds, / Nei žolelės ant laukų dar augdami žydim“. Individualūs kraštovaizdžiai – ir vizualiniai (piešinių, tapybos), ir kalbiniai – yra individo veiksmai, individualūs matymo-mąs-tymo apsibrėžimai, ištrūkimai iš bendrojo lauko, paliekantys jame tam tikrus įtrūkius. Kalbinis-ritminis-intonacinis sąmonės įžengimas į gamtą žymi sąmonės išsiskyrimą: gamta jau yra kita: ji, tu; galima ne tik matyti, bet ir kreiptis, surasti atitikimų bei atitikmenų, svarbių metaforai ir simbo-liui. Atskirumo ir bendrumo, gelmės ir paviršiaus, archetipo ir universali-jos sąlyčiai bei sąskambiai.

Lyrikos atskirumas yra tik atskirumas labai bendrame lauke. Tik ben-drumas įgalina atskirus apsisprendimus, apsiribojimus, pasirinkimus. An-tanas Strazdas savo vieninteliu rinkiniu „Giesmės svietiškos ir šventos“, išleistu 1814 metais Vilniuje, pasirodo kaip unikalus archetipų ir univer-salijų sąskambių kūrėjas. Kaip archetipinis kūrybos atvejis, kuris po pu-santro šimto metų lemtingai atsiliepia Sigito Gedos kūryboje, gal net jos galimybėje, anksti pasirodžiusioje ir prasitęsinėjančioje; kai savo kelionė-je šis poetas prieidavo ką atveriančio, atsiverdavo ir Strazdas. „Babilono atstatyme“ – eilėraščio proza motyvas, vėjo, kuris yra lyg gamtos vaizdo dvasia – dvasia su Strazdu: „Nelieskite Strazdo, nejudinkit jo nė sparne-lio, leiskit vien vėjui, vienui paliest jo sparnus, užpūst kiaulpienės šviesą, vieną mažytę dulkelę“.

Stipriame sąmonės ir kraštovaizdžio sąlytyje slypi grįžimo-pasikar-tojimo energija. Pasaulėvaizdžio, gamtovaizdžio ir kraštovaizdžio sąsa-ja – keliapusė: pasaulio vaizdą kaip sąmonės turinį veikia bendrieji gam-tos principai, bet konkrečiau įtakoja prigimto krašto gamtos būdas. Kita vertus, kas iš to būdo perimama, priklauso nuo akių, ausų, bendresne prasme – nuo prigimties. Kuo ji stipresnė, tuo atviresnė. Ką, kaip mato, girdi Strazdas? Daugiausia, giliausiai iš tiesų kaip paukštis, kaip strazdas, gegužėlė. Strazdas pajunta judesį-junglumą; visa, kas yra, yra iš gyvybės judesio.

Antano Baranausko žingsnis – kraštovaizdžio architektūros pojūtis. Krašto vieta, kuri yra ir erdvė, ne plokščia, žvilgsniui tarsi slystant pa-viršiumi, o trimatė, turinti aukštį, gylį, plotį. Atitinkanti žmogaus kūną; kūnas susiderina su erdve, įveikinėja kolizijas, kylančias iš žmogui pri-metamų aplinkybių, situacijų, konfliktų, gimdančių istoriją. Architektū-riškai suvokiamas kraštovaizdis, per kurį, kuriuo keliauja akis, didžioji

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keliautoja, darosi neatskiriamas nuo seniausių mitinių pagavų, kultūrinių įbrėžų, istorinių kolizijų. Kraštovaizdžio išorinės formos užpildomos vi-dinių; Baranauskui tai yra žmogiškosios pajautos: „Iš to, matai, ašaros ir atsidusimas, / Iš to šventos pajautos, iš to giesmės imas“. Išoriškumas ir vidujiškumas darosi neatskiriamas: žvelgiama tarsi iš vidaus, o matoma ir išoriškai. Arba atvirkščiai – tik ženklas, pėdsakas, o sąmonės kelias spira-le vyniojasi gilyn. Sigitas Geda ištars būsenų virtimą į formas, virsmu tas formas ir sukuriant.

Sigito Gedos poetinio kraštovaizdžio kūrimo pirmąjį etapą įformina „Pėdos“ ir „Strazdas“. Išskirtinės pirminio kraštovaizdžio žymės – vanduo ir mitinės pradžios jausena. Antroji kraštovaizdžio skirtis galėtų būti sieja-ma su jotvingių tema. Ji prasideda „Pėdose“ eilėraščiu „Jotvingių žemė“, matymo, kvapų jutimo, girdėjimo eilėraštis. Pirmosios rinktinės „Varnė-nas po mėnuliu“ skyrius pavadintas „Jotvingių žemėje“. Darosi akivaizdi einančiojo būsena (poetas mėgo vaikščioti, jo išvaikščiotos ir Vilniaus apylinkės, priemiesčiai; nors anksti pradėjusios skaudėti kojos einančiojo džiaugsmą ir apribojo). Eilėraščiui svarbu, kas matoma, kokie augalai, ko-kios spalvos, kaip visa siejasi su patirties lauku.

Sigito Gedos poetinėje vaizdinijoje išskirtinai daug medžių, krūmų, paukščių, žolių, gėlių, augmenijos; tai gyvybės kraštovaizdis.

Ryškus kraštovaizdžio percepcijos etapas – giesmių. Ciklas „Septynių vasarų giesmės“ to paties pavadinimo knygoje (1991) sutelkia aukštąją kraštovaizdžio poetiką. Ypatingas ryšys su ankstyvąja kūryba, iki „Straz-do“ imtinai: kas rodėsi horizontalėmis, dabar ryškėja metaforų vertika-lėmis. Metafizinės poetikos principas, formos tobulumą susiejantis su dvasia. Dvasios gyvybė, gyvybės dvasia, persmelkianti visa, kas yra ir bus, – garsais, judesiais, kuždesiais. Atsiranda ir kraštovaizdžio įvaizdis: „Kraštovaizdis! Tėviškė mano, vilkolakiai, sniegas, vaikystė, / Šiaurinių tamsių ežerų amžina vientulystė...“ („Sūnaus palaidūno grįžimas“). Grįž-tamojo ontologinio judesio pradžia, gimtinės regėjimas iš kitų perspekty-vų („Giesmė iš Japonijos jūrų“).

„Giesmės“ yra aukščiausias poetinio Sigito Gedos regėjimo taškas – viršūnė, nuo kurios imama leistis: iš naujo sutelkiamu ir dekonstruojamu poetiniu pasaulėvaizdžiu (ypač rinkiniu „Babilono atstatymas“) ir tiesio-ginės percepcijos užrašais, dienoraščiais, gyvavaizdžiais. Gyvavaizdžiai gali būti suvokiami ir tiesiogine prasme – kaip gyvai patiriamas, mato-mas, girdimas vaizdas, kur žmonių balsai neatskiriami nuo paukščių ir kitų gyvių, o vyšnios žydėjimas yra ir kultūros simbolis. eilėraščiai proza

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„Priemiesčio metų laikai“ iš knygos „Septynių vasarų giesmės“: tai, kas kyla iš dvasios, iš jos vidinio kalbingumo, neatskiriamai susiję su tuo, ką regi akys: su akiračiu, regračiu. Kraštovaizdis yra ir akivaizdis; tai, kas akivaizdu, bet kas kiekvieną akimirką kinta išlaikydamas tapatumą. eilė-raščiai proza (ne vienas dienoraščio įrašas gali būti šiam žanrui priskirtas) rodo labai stiprią prigimtinę regimojo pasaulio prado pagavą – spalvų, linijų, jų sankirtų, ovalų. Sigito Gedos gamtovaizdį sudaro žemėvaizdžio ir dangovaizdžio vienybė. Kelias, kelionė patirties akiračiu tarp žemės ir dangaus, įrėminančių kraštovaizdį, patirties žemę.

Sigito Gedos poetinis gamtovaizdis nėra abstraktus – ir laiko, ir vietos. Visada svarbu metų laikai – tradicija nuo Kristijono Donelaičio „Metų“. Netgi paros laiko, apšvietimo. Susieti su vietovėmis – gimtųjų vietų, kaip grįžimo judesio, sodybos prie Nemuno, kur vasarodavo, Buivydiškių, Vil-niaus priemiesčio. Bet viską gaubia, viskam gyvybę teikia unikalus sąmo-nės kraštovaizdis, archetipų ir universalijų lydinys. Vėlyvieji eilėraščiai, pavadinti fugomis („Fuga XXI amžiaus gamtovaizdžiui, I, II“) atspindi žvilgsnio į gamtą keliagubumą, muzikinio ir spalvinio prado sublimaciją.

Pastabos, literatūra1 Sigitas Geda, Adolėlio kalendoriai. Dienoraščiai, gyvavaizdžiai, užrašai, tyri-

nėjimai, Vilnius, Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla, 2003, 666.2 Sigitas Geda , ežys ir Grigo ratai, Vilnius, Vaga, 1989, 40.3 Ten pat, 146.4 Ten pat, 152.5 Sigitas Geda, Man gražiausias klebonas – varnėnas. Pokalbiai apie poeziją ir

apie gyvenimą, Vilnius, Vyturys, 1998, 151. 6 Arvydas Šliogeris, Apie Save ir Kitą, Pašvaistė, Kultūros gyvenimo žurnalas

jaunimui, 2009, 1,1.7 Sigitas Geda, Vasarė ajero šneka, Dienoraščiai ir tyrinėjimai, Vilnius, Vaga,

2008, 501.8 Gairės: Mokytojams ir moksleivams (sud. Viktorija Daujotytė, Arvydas Šlio-

geris), Kaunas, Šviesa, 1993, 41. 9 Ten pat, 52. 10 Ten pat, 40.

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La perspective des recherches imagologiques. Image de Paris dans la littérature lituanienne

Imagologijos tyrimų perspektyva. Paryžiaus įvaizdis lietuvių

literatūroje

Nijolė VAiČiuLėNAiTė-KAŠeLiONieNėuniversité Pédagogique de Vilniusrue T. Ševčenkos 31, LT-03111 [email protected]

SantraukaStraipsnio tikslas – nubrėžti imagologijos tyrimų perspektyvą ir pritaikyti jos

metodologines nuostatas tiriant Paryžiaus įvaizdį lietuvių literatūroje. Siūloma nauja imagologijos tyrimų kryptis – KiTO įvaizdžio analizė buvusio socialistinio lagerio zonoje, ieškant sąlyčio taškų su postkolonijine kritika. Nagrinėjant pasi-rinktą objektą, išskirtos kelios svarbiausios nuostatos: keturi fundamentalūs po-žiūriai į užsienį (manija, fobija, filija ir idiokrazija) ir trys analizės lygmenys (re-ferentas, sociokultūrinė vaizduotė, kūrinio struktūros). Išanalizavus tris Paryžiaus įvaizdžio lietuvių literatūroje pavyzdžius, galima drąsiai teigti, kad imagologijos strategijos pasiteisina.

Esminiai žodžiai: imagologija, manija, fobija, filija, idiokrazija, ideologija, utopija, mimezė.

AbstractThe article “The Image of Paris in the Lithuanian literature. Perspectives of

Imagology Research” aims to reveal the perspective of the imagology and uses its methodological rules in the anlysis of the Parisian image in the Lithuanian literature. It presents a new field of imagology research- the image of „the other“ in the works of former Soviet block authors, and uses post-colonial critique for comparison. In the analysis of the subject there appear several basic principles: four fundamental approaches to a foreign culture (mania, phobia, philia, idiocra-cy) and three levels of research (referent, sociocultural imagination, structures of the literary work). Following the analysis of three literary works the author claims that the strategies of imagology research serve the purpose.

Key words: imagology, mania, phobia, philia, idiocracy, ideology, utopia, mi-mesis.

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En parlant des études imagologiques en Europe, Yves Clavaron présente les chercheurs francophones et anglophones, allemands, ita-liens, espagnols et des Pays-Bas, ce qui partage la carte de la géogra-phie littéraire de l’Europe en zone où de tels études ont déjà une assez longue tradition, et une zone où elles ne se font pas1. C’est vrai que le terme «imagologie» dans le contexte du comparatisme lituanien est nouveau, comme il l’est aussi pour les recherches comparatistes des pays postsoviétiques. Ce n’est pas étonnant ayant une expérience de vie «derrière le rideau de fer» qui divisait le monde de telle façon que l’image de l’autre était déformée servant l’idéologie du marxisme-léni-nisme. Néanmoins ça serait trop simple d’apprécier toutes les images de l’étranger des temps soviétiques comme idéologiques. On peut dire que la critique postsoviétique a des points communs avec la critique postcoloniale: on a commencé les nouvelles études de la littérature soviétique et de son contexte socioculturel, et on peut constater déjà que les réflexions dans ce domaine mènent naturellement vers les re-cherches imagologiques, surtout si on les considère comme l’étude des représentations littéraires de l’étranger métodique et objectif. C’est là qu’on peut voire une nouvelle perspective d’imagologie: appliquer ses repères méthodologiques dans l’étude de la spécificité de l’image de l’autre dans la zone des pays sortis du camp socialiste.

Mais tout d’abord il faut se persuader que la stratégie de l’analyse que l’imagologie propose est efficace pour l’étude des images de l’étranger.

En cherchant les repères méthodologiques pour l’analyse imagolo-gique, on se tourne vers la France, bien que, selon Yves Clavaron, les études imagologiques ne sont pas la spécificité française. Néanmoins ce sont les français: Yves Chevrel, Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Jean-Marc Moura, Alain Montandon et autres ont proposé la stratégie élaborée de l’analyse de l’objet. En voilà quelques unes des repères essentielles qu’il faut pren-dre en compte si on veut faire une analyse imagologique: trois attitudes fondamentales par rapport à l’étranger: la manie, la phobie, la philie (qui serait l’indice d’un véritable dialogue des cultures), et la quatrième, idio-crasie (regard individuel et particulier); trois niveaux d’analyse: le réfé-rent, l’imaginaire socioculturel, les structures d’une œuvre; (privilégier le référent, c’est insister sur le réalisme de l’image. Il s’agit alors de «l’ima-gination reproductrice», définie par Ricoeur, en oposition de «l’imagi-nation productrice», dans le cas de laquelle la question du référent passe au second plan, et la représentation littéraire est considérée comme une

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création ou une recréation.) Jean-Marc Moura, en suivant Ricoeur, pro-pose d’envisager une typologie des images de l’étranger entre un pôle idéologique et un pôle utopique2. Pour le phénomène idéologique, Ricoeur déploie trois couches de sens: marxiste (idéologie comme phénomène de distorsion/dissimulation); idéologie conçue comme légitimation de l’auto-rité; idéologie liée à la nécessité par un groupe quelconque de se donner une image de lui-même, de «se représenter», au sens théâtral du mot. En ce qui concerne les représentations utopiques, elles sont excentriques par rapport aux schèmes symboliques du groupe et constituent souvent un contre-mo-dèle servant la critique des valeurs. Insistant sur la nécessité de prendre en compte l’imaginaire social, il trouve les pronoms latins «alter» et «alius», dont ALTer est l’autre d’un couple où se définit une identité et donc son contraire et ALiuS est l’autre indéfini, mis à distance de toute association facile, l’autre utopique. Trois étapes de l’analyse: le repérage des grandes structures (le plus souvent oppositionnelles) du texte, les grandes unités thématiques, enfin le niveau lexical, en accentuant les mots grâce auxquels s’écrit l’altérité. Par là on arrive à discerner «l’organisation générale du texte» et «les principales stratégies narratives ou discursives», selon une dé-marche qui emprunte ses principes à l’anthropologie structurale de Claude Lévi-Strauss. En ce qui concerne l’image de la ville il s’agit, comme Henri Garric le souligne, de savoir quand il y a ville en littérature, quand on peut affirmer que la littérature parle de la ville3. Il convient d’étudier le répertoire qui permet, dans les œuvres littéraires, la constitution d’une représentation de la ville. La compréhension de ce qu’est «la ville en littérature» passe par la description d’un vaste ensemble de «pré-représentations» héritées et qui interviennent aussi bien dans la production du texte que dans sa réception. En l’analysant (Garic) on pourrait avoir recours au cercle de la représenta-tion du temps chez Ricoeur (dans son Temps et récit) :«mimèsis I» (pré-compréhension), «mimèsis II» (configuration de cette pré-compréhension); «mimèsis III» (réception de lecture où l’expérience humaine se trouve trans-formée). Enfin on présente le «concept de ville» (totalité délimitée extérieu-rement et organisée intérieurement; face aux représentations produites on indique l’originalité de la nouvelle conception de l’auteur)4.

Je vais essayer de me baser sur ses repères en analysant mon sujet. Comme le thème L’image de Paris dans la littérature lituanienne est vas-te, je vais passer en revue quelques images de Paris spécifiques et m’ar-rêter sur un roman d’un jeune auteur lituanien qui marque, à mon avis, le tournant dans les représentations de l’étranger en littérature lituanienne.

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L’image de Paris dans notre littérature apparait au temps de la pre-mière indépendance de Lituanie du XX siècle (3 – 4 décennie) avec l’orientation nouvelle de notre culture vers l’Occident et vers la France en particulier, surtout après l’avènement du nazisme en Allemagne. Plu-sieurs écrivains et hommes de lettres, peintres et artistes lituaniens faisait le stage ou voyageait à Paris et publiaient leurs impressions de la ville et du milieu parisien. Nous avons «Les lettres de Paris» et «Les lettres de France» de nos écrivains classiques Vienuolis et Vaižgantas, nous avons aussi le roman d’une femme-écrivain Liūnė Janušytė une faute de correc-tion (1938)5. Dans tous ces cas l’image de Paris présente l’exemple à sui-vre comme ville qui crée l’atmosphère bienveillant et particulier pour les nouveaux-venus et notamment pour les artistes qui trouvent dans la ville le trésor de l’héritage de l’art et de la culture européenne en général; la re-présentation de Paris y est réelle et magique à la fois. Le regard sur la ville dans le roman de Janušytė porte des signes d’une manie – c’est une ville des amoureux, son quartier latin – un lieu idéal pour la bohème littéraire et la bohème tout court, une ville de liberté, en comparant avec laquelle Kaunas (capitale provisoire de Lituanie) apparait comme une province culturelle, et ce provincialisme est l’objet de la moquerie. Si on consi-dère une telle représentation comme idéologique (en comprenant par là nécessité pour un groupe quelconque – ici bohème artistique lituanienne à Paris - de «se représenter», de se mettre en jeu et en scène), que penser d’une image de Paris totalement inverse, dessinée par le même auteur en 1969 où Janušytė présente le visage du quartier latin «couvert des abscès du monde bourgeois»6. Nous avons trouvé chez Ricoeur le premier ni-veau du concept «idéologique» nommé «marxiste». Il s’agit de l’idéolo-gie comme phénomène de distorsion / dissimulation, ce qui convient bien dans notre cas. Et alors l’étape suivante serait d’analyser une pré-repré-sentation, le pré-texte d’un texte, qui aurait pu découvrir les motifs d’une telle déclaration. On sait que Liūnė Janušytė était obligé de désapprouver son attitude antérieure envers l’Occident, le camp capitaliste ennemi, et manifester sa conception du monde marxiste-léniniste pour pouvoir vivre tranquillement dans son pays natal. Pour le lecteur qui sait lire les textes soviétiques, l’image trop répugnante du quartier latin (qui cache en soi une dose remarquable d’humour noir même) apparait comme une exa-gération voulue et laisse constater apparemment la manière «de dire le contraire de ce qu’on pense». Il s’agit alors du cas considéré aujourd’hui comme un des procédés de la langue d’Esope qu’il est nécessaire d’ana-

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lyser si on veut se faire une notion véritable de l’imaginaire soviétique, système complexe et compliqué.

Une autre étape dans l’histoire de l’image de Paris commence avec la deuxième indépendance de Lituanie qui a donné l’accès à des nouvelles interprétations libres de l’image de l’étranger. Nous n’avons pas le but d’étudier toutes les images contemporaines de Paris, nous en avons choisi trois qui pourrait représenter trois attitudes sur l’étranger.

La première, c’est celle de Herkus Kunčius, qui présente la position postmoderne de nos jeunes écrivains, l’œuvre anti-traditionnaliste dans le contexte de la littérature lituanienne. Le protagoniste de son roman Le moment imparfait (1998) erre dans la capitale de France possédé par l’hu-meur noir, qu’on pourrait nommer nouveau «spleen de Paris», et son re-gard sur le monde est sceptique par excellence7. C’est juste le contraire de ce qu’on pourrait attendre de l’écrivain de la nouvelle époque, devant le-quel les nouveaux horizons s’ouvrent et qui est libre de plonger dans l’uni-vers de la culture occidentale, riche en couleurs et en formes, un seul fait déjà qui peut produire l’enthousiasme. On ne peut pas dire que Kunčius manque d’intérêt pour la culture française ou la littérature européenne. Les intertextes qu’on trouve dans le roman le prouvent. Les écrivains et les œuvres citées manifestent la disposition de l’âme du conteur et aident à former l’image spécifique de Paris. Le titre du roman de Patric Suskind Les Parfums y mentionné accentue la puanteur non seulement du quartier arabe où le protagoniste habite, mais exhale sur toute la ville (on peut le flairer partout comme une partie des objets et des espaces parfumés) pour devenir enfin un élément du concept de l’étrangeté que le narrateur sou-ligne ayant recours aussi à L’etranger et au Mythe de Sisyphe d’Albert Camus. Le protagoniste se sent débarassé de l’illusion du sens de la vie; au lieu des valeurs esthétiques et étiques reconnues il déclare les valeurs hédonistes, dictées par les instincts, ce qui rappelle «l’homme naturel» de Camus. C’est logique que Paris ne peut rien donner à un personnage qui, reconnaissant la ville comme son lieu de séjour, nie son aspect spirituel. Selon Audinga Peluritytė, ce renoncement ou l’écart voulu est programmé d’avance: on s’écarte ainsi non seulement d’une hiérarchie des valeurs, mais aussi d’un complexe d’infériorité qui persécute l’homme de L’Est de l’Europe dans la capitale de France8. Il faut prendre en compte cet aspect de l’imaginaire social qui influence la pré-représentation de l’image de Paris dans le roman de Herkus Kunčius. Il est difficile de dire s’il s’agit d’une image idéologique ou utopique (plutôt ce dernier, car l’image est

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excentrique et présente un certain contre-modèle en rapport avec les re-présentations traditionnelles). Mais Paris n’a même pas de visage, et on pourrait constater alors un manque du répertoire pour la constitution d’une représentation de la ville. En parlant d’identité, dont la nature se découvre analysant le rapport entre ALTER et ALIUS, on pourrait indiquer l’exis-tence de cette dernière cathégorie comme manifestant un refus radical de la culture du groupe. Ce qui parait original dans ce roman, c’est l’étique et l’esthétique de la provocation. Le regard sur l’étranger peut être qualifié comme idiocrasie, car il est basé sur la position individuelle que l’auteur manifeste volontairement.

On devrait situer dans le pôle contraire Les Lettres de Paris de Ri-mantas Vanagas9. C’est une prose documentaire qui manifeste les valeurs traditionnelles de la culture lituanienne: l’attachement à son pays, le lien vital avec sa terre natale. L’objectif de l’écriture consiste à concevoir son identité et le destin de son peuple dans le contexte de la culture française. L’auteur vise cet objectif en ayant recours à la mémoire de la culture li-tuanienne: outre ses propres impressions, il publie les lettres de l’écrivain Antanas Vienuolis-Žukauskas, son compatriote qui les a écrites en 1937 à Paris, il cite les lettres écrites en France par un autre compatriote, un grand classique de la littérature lituanienne Vaižgantas, il mentionne les lettres de Paris par Oscar Milosz, il commente également le livre Dans la foire aux illusions par Laimonas Tapinas. L’image intertextuelle de Paris est construite à partir des textes antérieurs d’autres auteurs, tout en les mettant en parallèle et en ajoutant ses propres impressions. Ce qui inté-resse surtout le lecteur des Lettres de Paris, ce n’est pas Paris en géné-ral mais les idées qu’il fait venir à l’esprit des habitants d’Anykščiai qui ont échappé à la vie quotidienne. Le récit est manifestement dominé par l’imaginaire reproducteur, l’image transmet le programme idéologique et culturel du groupe entier. Il est intéressant et significatif, parce qu’il fait découvrir certains détails de l’ambiance parisienne, les singularités du ca-ractère des Français et de la culture française, il confirme aussi la vitalité des liens culturels. ALTER de l’énonciation est l’autre d’un couple dont l’analyse vise au dialogue interculturel à droits égaux; c’est ce que les imagologues appellent «la philie».

Le troisième exemple, c’est le roman Les émigrés d’un été de Valdas Papievis10. Nous essayerons de l’analyser selon la méthode proposée par les imagologues.

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Mais tout d’abord, de quoi s’agit-il dans ce roman? La réponse peut être brève: il s’agit des errances d’un Lituanien à Paris, un Lituanien qui est venu pour des cours d’été. En tant que l’errant se présente lui-même comme écrivain Valdas de Lituanie, on peut considérer ce roman comme les notes d’un voyageur. D’autant plus que sa composition est fragmen-taire : tout le texte est divisé en de petits segments de longueur différente; un nouveau segment ne prolonge pas nécessairement l’histoire antérieure. La position de l’énonciateur qui change sans cesse (presque toutes les per-sonnes grammaticales sont employées, le plus souvent «tu», «il», «elle», «je») traduit différents points de vue. Ayant décidé que «l’expérience vaut mieux que la science», le protagoniste du roman valorise les errances sans but à travers Paris autant que les études universitaires. Ces errances sont marquées par la communication avec les voyageurs du monde entier; deux femmes - Natalie et Mélanie qui tiennent la compagnie à notre errant, l’aident à apprivoiser une capitale européenne et à faire d’une ville étran-gère la sienne.

Le micro-univers du roman est formé des oppositions figuratives et thématiques. L’opposition «le sien – l’étranger» est à la base de l’oppo-sition entre les Polonais et tous les autres étrangers: on appelle «Polo-nais» les imigrés de l’Est ; ils se distinguent des autres étrangers par leur incapacité de se réjouir ; ils dégagent de la tristesse, ils portent en eux une souffrance qu’ils ont peur de perdre, parce qu’ils ne sauraient plus quoi faire11. La clocharde oppose elle-même aux autres vagabonds de la Seine: ils considèrent le destin comme un malheur, alors que le Vaga-bondage, la notion qui, au niveau lexical, manifeste le plus clairement l’altérité, accentue le vagabondage en tant qu’un mode de vie choisi li-brement12. Le voyage du protagoniste «à travers Paris, c’est un voyage à travers les labyrinthes d’idées et de sentiments qui reprennent le réseau de rues et de ruelles». Selon Eric Landowski13, le voyageur peut être tenté non seulement de reconstruire l’ailleurs de façon à se l’approprier, mais à se découvrir lui-même partiellement en se laissant prendre à une nouvelle forme de présence à soi, dont le lieu, peu à peu, lui fournira les points de cristallisation.

Au niveau du discours, on aperçoit plusieurs isotopies qui se complèt-tent: celle du cercle, celle du labyrinthe, de la toile d’araignée, du miroir. Le cercle divise l’espace de la ville en plusieurs parties. Le centre et le cœur de Paris, c’est l’île de la Cité avec les ponts, et à partir de là «une multitude des villes qui ne se ressemblent qu’en apparence s’étendent, tel-

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les des cercles, partent en ondulant dans tous les sens, et pour accéder de l’une à l’autre…»14. L’impression qu’on reste à chaque fois au-delà d’une limite tracée par on ne sait pas qui est liée à l’incapacité de s’ouvrir, d’être à l’écoute de l’autre. Au cours du roman, le sujet se promène en ville, seul ou à deux, jusqu’au moment où il a enfin “essayé de se distancier, de se dissocier de lui-même en traçant avec une craie un cercle ironique”15.

L’équivalent externe du labyrinthe d’idées et de sentiments, ce sont les quartiers de Paris: «[…] chaque quartier est comme un labyrinthe dont on ne sort pas, on ne peut que passer d’un labyrinthe à un autre ; où se retrou-vera-t-on, que trouvera-t-on derrière un coin?»16.

La figure de la toile d’araignée caractérise l’agent collectif. Les gens, c’est «une infinité de petites araignées tissant une immense toile». Bien que parfois, ayant perdu la patience, «l’araignée ait envie de s’échapper», l’instinct vital lui dit: «dès que tu te sépares, tu disparaîtras»17.

La figure du miroir réunit des détails séparés en une unité: «Il regardait cette ville qu’il essayait d’apprivoiser et qu’il n’arrivait pas à apprivoiser, mais il paraissait qu’il regardait dans un miroir dont la surface bombée reflétait son propre visage»18.

Le miroir reflète ce qu’on voit et, en tant qu’un objet magique, il défi-gure en même temps l’image, la clive comme on clive la personnalité en ouvrant les profondeurs effrayantes.

Le protagoniste du roman retourne sans cesse au centre géographique de Paris qu’est l’île de la Cité. C’est un espace topique du roman rem-pli d’un temps particulier, non-vide. Cet espace topique se transforme en un espace utopique, celui de réalisation. On atteint l’objet de valeur: ce qui est ETRANGER devient SIEN. Paris, refuge des vagabonds, est vu comme «un mythe qui s’ouvre par lui-même et qui est construit par un rite répété tous les soirs».

L’imagologie n’est pas limitée à l’analyse textuelle immanente. Henri Garric, l’auteur du livre Portraits de villes, souligne qu’une ville en tant qu’objet sémiotique superdéterminé peut être défini comme un espace sa-turé d’images de représentations.

Les sources construisant l’image de Paris sont des photographies, des cartes postales, des tableaux qu’on a vus, des chansons qu’on a enten-dues, des œuvres d’écrivains célèbres qu’on a lues. L’espace parisien est traversé sans cesse par les images de Vilnius et de toute la Lituanie: en marchant dans une rue de Paris, «il arrivait de jeter un coup d’œil sur une entrée et on découvrait tout à coup une petite cour de Vilnius, oubliée

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depuis longtemps […], on se sentait soudain comme si on était pénétré dans les profondeurs de son être»19; dans le marché du quai de Mégisserit, de petits poissons nagent au-dessus des «étendues surnaturelles des forêts sous-marines qui sont encore plus mystérieuses que les forêts lituaniennes de Daukantas»20; la clocharde de la Seine est comparée à l’icône de la Sainte Vierge Marie de la Porte d’Aurore de Vilnius; un bouquiniste de la Seine montre une carte, et le protagoniste se réjouit d’y avoir trouvé des noms de villes et de villages lituaniens, écrits selon une orthographie non lituanienne.

Les couches de l’imaginaire social que nous venons de mentionner pourraient être appelées, en suivant Paul Ricoeur, la première mimèsis («mimèsis I»).

Au niveau de modification de la conception antérieure, le niveau qu’on appelle la deuxième mimèsis («mimèsis II»), le protagoniste construit l’image de Paris, alors que Paris, à son tour, le crée, lui. Dans les rues de Paris, le protagoniste-sujet effectue «l’acte de dépasser lui-même» en entrant dans l’AUTRE, en pénétrant dans une âme étrangère de la ville, dans ce qui est inconnu. C’est ainsi qu’un lituanien Valdas qui est étranger à Paris, devient «émigré d’un été», et ce dernier se transforme en un vrai émigré. En participant à la transformation du sujet, la ville qui était un objet devient un sujet capable séduire, fasciner, attirer par des promesses trompeuses. A la fin du roman, le lecteur rencontre de nouveau les figu-res du cercle et de la toile d’araignée. Le roman finit par une question, de sorte que le doute concernant l’état du sujet persiste. L’analyse de la réception de l’œuvre nous amène au niveau de la troisième mimèsis («mi-mèsis III»).

Essayons de résumer les résultats de notre analyse dans le contexte théorique d’imagologie. Tout d’abord, le Paris de Papievis, une image d’étranger, est présenté comme AUTRE et DIFFERENT – mystérieux, énigmatique, équivoque, agressif, capable de se transformer et de trans-former autrui, d’intégrer sans cesse des éléments nouveaux et DIFFE-RENTS.

Deuxièmement, le Paris de Papievis est remarquable par sa tolérance, sa compréhension, son hospitalité. La plus grande valeur, c’est la liberté d’individu qu’on propage et l’ouverture culturelle, le besoin de partager son héritage culturel.

Troisièmement, le Paris de Valdas Papievis contient des éléments de la culture lituanienne. Le roman se distingue par un imaginaire poétique

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et la vision romantique du monde qu’on peut lier aux particularités de la culture lituanienne. On peut indiquer la base historique de «l’imaginaire social» : après la chute du «rideau de fer», le champ d’attraction de Paris s’est renforcé, et les vagues de migration ont fait ressortir des valeurs no-mades.

L’image de Paris dans le roman est basée sur les représentations tradi-tionnelles, en créant l’écart nécessaire de la totalité de ces représentations pour que nous puissions la considérer comme originale et novatrice. Elle est idéologique et utopique à la fois; se trouve entre ALTER et ALIUS et son cas peut être qualifié comme idiocrasie. La littérature lituanienne n’avait pas jusqu’alors de telle image de Paris dynamique et humanisée.

Trois interprétations de Paris – trois voies vers la connaissance de l’AUTRE. Dans le cas de Herkus Kunčius la représentation de la ville est destructive et pleine d’esprit de révolte, ce qui incite le refus des valeurs reconnues; Rimantas Vanagas témoigne la possibilité du dialogue équiva-lent; Valdas Papievis considère l’assimilation de l’AUTRE comme le per-pétuel devenir de la personnalité, nécessaire pour l’existence digne de soi.

Notre analyse nous a persuadé que la stratégie de recherche que l’ima-gologie propose permet d’étudier à fond les représentations de l’étranger et que sa méthode est dynamique, mobile, ce qui garantit son avenir.

Références1 Imagologie, par Yves Clavaron, La recherche en littérature générale et com-

parée en France en 2007. Bilan et perspectives : études réunies par Anne To-miche et Karl Zieger, Presses Universitaires de Valenciennes, 2007, 81-90.

2 Jean-Marc Moura, L‘europe littéraire et l’ailleurs, Paris: Presses Universitai-res de France, 1998, 48-55.

3 Henri Garric, Portraits de villes, Paris: Honoré Champion éditeur, 2007, 12-16. 4 Henri Garric, 2007, 19-30.5 Liūnė Janušytė, Korektūros klaida, Kaunas: Sakalas, 1938.6 Liūnė Janušytė, Lotynų kvartale, Atsiminimai apie Petrą Cvirką, sud. A. Mic-

kienė, Vilnius: Vaga, 1969, 427.7 Herkus Kunčius, Būtasis dažninis kartas, Vilnius: „Tyto alba“, 1998.8 Audinga Peluritytė, „Rašymo „linksmybės“ Herkaus Kunčiaus prozoje“,

Naujausioji lietuvių literatūra /1988-2002i, Vilnius: Alma littera, 2003, 220-224.

9 rimantas Vanagas, Laiškai iš Paryžiaus, Vilnius: UAB „Petro ofsetas“, 2008.

10 Valdas Papievis, Vienos vasaros emigrantai, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2003. 11 ibid, 32.

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12 ibid, 308-309.13 Éric Landowski, Présences de l’autre, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 99.14 Valdas Papievis, 2003, 45.15 ibid, 328.16 ibid, 223.17 ibid, 186-187.18 ibid, 145.19 ibid, 63.20 ibid, 14.

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“The world repeats itself in its boredom”1. Third Spaces in Lithuanian Literature

„Pasaulis nuobodžiai pasikartoja“2. Trečiosios erdvės lietuvių

literatūroje

Christina PArNeLLGutenbergstraße 09D-99423 [email protected]

SummaryIn this paper, Homi Bhabha’s notion of the “third space” will be applied to

images and topics of fluctuating identity in Marius Ivaškevičius’ novel Žali (“The Greens”, 2002) which is a fascinating example of the productive discussion of dichotomous constellations for Lithuanian and European culture. His novel de-constructs the myth of the Lithuanian partisan war against the Soviet army in the years between 1944 and 1953. The antagonism between the Reds and the Greens is being broken up by topoi of equivalence, likeness and repetition as well as continuing identity games. It represents the artistic opening-up of a ‚third space‘ where dualism and essentialism are overcome. This “third space”, the Other, is represented as an intellectual space which benefits from the knowledge of both sides of the existing antagonisms by the author. Hence it appears that Russians as well as Lithuanians are both victims and perpetrators, subjugated to totalitarian power structures. Equivalence and likeness as well as the changeability of identity are the basis to see the Other in an open and processual circle of interpretation.

Key words: colonialism, post-colonial discourse, third space, deconstruction, national myths, Lithuanian partisan war, Soviet occupation

The third-space concept, which refers to Homi Bhabha’s widely dis-cussed Location of Culture (1994)3, has emerged as the principal category of the post-colonial discourse. Bhabha derives it from the double vision of the migrant who, by using his homelessness, grows into a “produc-tive parasite” to the cultures of both his mother and his host country. This inseparable fusion will create the so-called hybrid identity of a “third space”, which is characterized by difference, heterogeneity and instability as well as by the undermining of dichotomous constellations.

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Where, how, and in which constellations in Lithuanian literature are colonial relationships described? How far can we talk about a post-colo-nial cultural situation, and, finally, does it make sense directly to apply post-colonial theory as widely used by Anglo-Saxon critics on Lithua-nian literature? Our investigation into possible “third space” in Lithuanian literature will focus on the process of cultural confrontation and fusion which creates the “third space” first of all as an intellectual realm.

If we take the relationship between Soviet Lithuania and Soviet Russia to be a complex case of colonialism, the question must be raised how the specific dependency of the colonized (that is Vilnius) from the colonizer (that is Moscow) is expressed in comparison to the respective constella-tions described by Edward Said4. In contrast to the traditional colonialism in which the imperial power was incorporated by the West or the North while the East and the South represented the colonies, the specific case of colonized Soviet Lithuania can be defined by the fact that the heart of the empire was in the East, the colony itself, which was shaped by a Western self-image, however, in the West.

Furthermore, which would support the idea of applying post-colonial theory on a colonial relationship, since the beginning of the Great Thaw in the Soviet Union, there has been a period of mutual cultural exchange between Lithuania and Russia and the other republics of the former union, so that we can state that even Lithuanian culture did have some influence on the Russian. Evidence for mutual influence and interference may be drawn, for instance, from the connection between the Lithuanian stream-of-consciousness novel (Mykolas Sluckis) and the Russian bytovaja proza (Jurij Trifonov). That the bilingualism which had been decreed upon pub-lic life had contributed to the Russification of the Lithuanian language and that the domination of Russian culture had corrupted and even impaired Lithuanian patriotism cannot be put into doubt5.

However, the comparatively long period of Soviet occupation in Lithuania had, involuntarily or not, permitted creative adoptions of Rus-sian culture and enabled the Lithuanians to move more or less freely and to express themselves in two or more cultures. This is a potential for the new Europe which can hardly be underestimated revealing at the same time the particular nature of Lithuanian colonial past. Any Lithuanian writer, who, due to the experience of the Soviet era and of contemporary neo-liberalism, is familiar both with the West and the East, will benefit from the situation in-between by drawing productive knowledge from it.

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Post-colonial theory will help to analyze the challenge to Western he-gemony arising from the growing interference of national and ethnic mi-norities. However, Lithuanian culture is neither a minority culture in its own country nor a migrant one putting West-European culture under the pressure. But with regard to the power centers in the European Union, it is located (once again) at the periphery. This is a specific threshold situ-ation which connects it with the fate of the migrants in the metropolis of the West. Thus post-colonial theory appears to be particularly promising when applied upon contemporary Lithuanian literature.

In recent Lithuanian literature, the rendering of colonial experience differs widely in its artistic strategy: as the day of reckoning with the former colonial empire of Russia and with the opportunism of the father generation in the stories of refusal or the symbolic killing of the father (Ričardas Gavelis, Jurgis Kunčinas; Sigitas Parulskis), in the pounding to pieces of national myth (Sigitas Parulskis), or in the provocative revision of national historiography (Marius Ivaškevičius).

In this paper, I am going to focus on Marius Ivaškevičius6, a narrator and playwright born in 1973. The persistent debate of the problem of na-tion and identity in Ivaškevičius’s writings, his debunking of the heroic, is concomitant with the postmodern deconstruction of Lithuanian national myth, with the specific way of re-reading national identity: Lithuanians and their geographical neighbours in the present and past, their politi-cal and military allies or enemies – Russian and German, Swedish and French, as well as the foreigners in their own country, the Jews – , have aroused an antagonism which was continuously dissolved, for their inter-dependence and equivalence would undermine any clear-cut dichotomy. Irony is shed upon sacred national topics (the Lithuanian Partisan War 1944–1953 in the novel Žali (“The Greens”); the Siberian deportation in the play Malыš (“The Small One”), as the author removes the taboos and stereotypes of Lithuanian historiography. Both the setting and the profan-ing of the mythical sufferance produce grotesque effects. The irreverence for authority can also be noticed in works of art taking up current causes for conflict, as in the play Apgaubti (“Shielded”), which is a parody of the process of transformation. As a postmodern narrator Ivaškevičius enjoys yoking together motifs that are normally incompatible and laying open the constructiveness of situations and characters. By provokingly breaking up national and ideological dichotomies and by reducing them to a common anthropological origin, his books are filled by the boundless enthusiasm in

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playfully blending the separate beyond the postmodern practice of “shift-ing”. Even if the Lithuanian society undergoing the process of transforma-tion is sometimes not immediately present to the audience, the discussion and the interpretation of personal and collective identity problems will provide an original thought-provoking impulse for the rest of present-day Europe.

The novel Žali (“The Greens”, 2002)7, which centers upon the Lithua-nian partisan war against the Soviet army (1944–1953) is narrated from the point of view of both the Lithuanian and the Russians – the Lithuanian partisan leader Jonas Žemaitis and the Russian soldiers Vasilij and Afa-nasij. This view is expanded through the letters of the Russian corporal Mar’ja Petrovna, of the Russian colonel Lebedev and the Lithuanian-So-viet secret agent Rapolas. The action is concentrated on summer 1950. Both groups are searching for the house of the farmer Žemaitis, who has been soiled with the stain of a traitor by the Russians, in order to lure into a trap the partisan leader Žemaitis, his namesake. There are no victors in this war: Žemaitis is shot in Moscow in the Ljubljanka, the Russian sol-diers Vasilij and Afanasij are liquidated on behalf of the secret agent Rap-olas, a Lithuanian, and, in the metamorphosis of a very old man, Colonel Lebedev reflects upon the same methods of oppression continuously ap-plied in whichever form of society.

1st main topic: The narrative departs from the confrontation of the par-ties involved and their critical analysis. Accordingly, the Russian soldier Vasilij takes the Lithuanians as bandits and enemies (“They were them, and we were us, which is sufficient for the war”8). But due to the events, this dichotomy is dissolved and replaced by the feeling that any kind of decidedness will be ineffectual: “In the morning I believed the war to be unambiguous: the enemy is close to us, being among us. He must be sur-rounded and destroyed. This is a demining job, but not a war.”9 Partisan warfare in the dugouts of the forest meant that this was not a fight with clear front lines, while the Lithuanian fighters were hidden under the earth and the Russians acting above, but a battle between two different par-ties which are diverse in themselves: Lithuanians (Žali / Greens) fought against Russians (raudoni / reds), among whom, as it is said, there were also Lithuanians. And among the Lithuanians “this and that Russian or German served”, while sometimes the “Yellows” (the Jews, C.P.) had to be protected from the Greens10.

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Large space is devoted to both parties recalling past life memories and to their reflections, which are similar, indeed. Their recollections merge with current events in time and space and, surprisingly, represent common features in their biographies and social experience, in their language, his-torical experience and even in personal relationships.

At the very beginning of the novel, the narrator puts himself in the po-sition of the enemy:

Common man, who cannot be blamed for being born Russian […], has fought in the greatest battle of the world, walks on his own earth, which he has re-trieved from the enemy. And suddenly, the rumor comes up that somewhere at the edge of this earth, deformed shapes appear in order to kill his brethren in arms. I, at his place (If I were Russian), without much ado, would have packed my knapsack as fast as possible and gone off to kill the villain. That’s what the Russian has done.11

2nd main topic: By neutralizing the dichotomy through figures of equivalence, a series of patterns of likeness is being advanced:

– The likeness of the physical as well as psychic situation results in a state of exhaustion which unifies both parties. Life seems to be for Žemaitis, the partisan leader, a chain of fatiguing repetitions in love and life situations, and his comrade, the milk woman (pieninė), can “hardly expect” their enemies arrival: “Because I am very tired.”12

– The likeness of worshipping (Both Rapolas, the Lithuanian, and Va-silij, the Russian, call for the Mother of God: “His lips spoke with my own words”, when the bunker is being blown up)13.

– The likeness in their relatedness to the earth (Earth draws a deep breath, is evil or not evil. So we are told by the Russian soldiers Vasilij and Afanasij. Earth represents the war-disabled motherhood for Lithua-nians and Russians as well. The destroyed earth and the war are depicted as an existential experience of the Absurd)14.

– The likeness with regard to the power struggle in their respective hierarchies.

– The likeness concerning cruelty (Punitive action taken at night by one party and by day by the other one directs the national fight against the Lithuanian people itself. That the people are not any longer able to distin-guish between friend and foe, this is said with regard to the partisan leader Žemaitis15).

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– The likeness in moving in space (Looking for Žemaitis both sides are riding through the Lithuanian forest in a circle and do not find their way).

– The likeness in recognizing the absurdity of this war, which is ex-pressed in nearly the same words by Lithuanians and Russians:

Afanasij: “Why are we here?”16; Žemaitis: “I want to know, why the hell I am fighting”,17 Vasilij: “Was it really worth while coming from the Ural to this place?”18; Kasperevičius: “I just thought, why are we here?”19

– The likeness of “own” and “foreign” (In retrospective, to his French lover in Paris in the 1930s, the former Lithuanian officer and today’s parti-san leader Žemaitis draws a picture of his country as a peaceful, non-spe-cifically European idyll which may have been equally possible in France. This is explicitly emphasized in the text by Natalie, the French woman: “This is France, Žemaitis.”20

3rd main topic: In the following, I am going to describe the playful application of the identical as a function of the work which can be un-derstood as a message according to the intellectual space as initially de-scribed21.

Patterns of likeness are usually connected with those of the doppel-ganger and of compatibility, which is relevant to the understanding of the protagonist Jonas Žemaitis (1909–1953), who is not only an authentic historical person, but being one of the most eminent characters of the Lithuanian partisan movement he has risen into the aura of the hero. So, the postmodern game played by Ivaškevičius upon historical facts and the exchangeability of persons breaks down the atmosphere of taboo. In fact one cannot deny that the great number of mistakes in persons creating a great deal of confusion regarding the partisan leader will leave in a state of utter fragility not only the category of identity, but in particular the identity of the national hero22.

Ivaškevičius raises the point of exchangeability, mutability and the processual nature of identity. The “true Žemaitis”, who is on the run, in tatters and exhausted, is taken for the false one, the false, however, being tall, for the genuine one. If he dies, it is said about Žemaitis, his dop-pelganger will be sent (“Thus I am the other one too”23). In the house of “Sir Washington”, who is the financier of the partisan war, green paint has been deposed. Just with a brush for spreading the colour ‘green’ you are made a fighter24. Thus identity is a construct that remains volatile. The

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great Žemaitis appears both repulsive and egotistical, when he amuses himself with his wife in the bed of her former lover who has become an invalid. Or when killing appears customary to him: “We are going to kill somebody. And have a swim in-between.”25

In the prologue Ivaškevičius considers the partisan war as a part of the history of all meaningless warfare and, with his remark on the “entertain-ing character” of it, destroys any possible notion of its pathos. As a variant of the absurd, the “entertaining character” is realized through a series of similar and equivalent elements and the continuously ironic voice of the narrator. Even capture and death appear profane: The Lithuanian partisan Palubeckas is torn out of the swamp by his wriggling legs, shot with bare feet, and, as a dead body, is allowed to sleep in. Fighting action is trig-gered off by personal and, in many cases banal, motives and appears to be foolish and produces comic effects26.

Even the bitter disappointment of the Lithuanian fighters for being left in the lurch by the Americans is trivialized: “[…] and all those who have not yet booked for their holidays are requested to wait until next June.”27

But where, finally, is the third, the new, which is “something else be-sides”? As soon as essentialism and dualism have been transcended, what about difference and heterogeneity? Will not the pattern of equivalence shift the pattern of equality right into the centre?

At the close of the novel, the frontlines merge in a vision of reconcili-ation and in the awareness of common existence of life and death: “Jonas, said the comrade”, who is no other one than the Russian Colonel Lebedev who was a fellow student of Žemaitis before the war in Paris, “we went through evil times. We inflicted them upon each other.”28

However Žemaitis will be shot to death. “Such is the system”, Colonel Lebedev regrets, not without offering him a glass of cognac just before the execution29 „Such were the times,“ dead Žemaitis replies from the grave to the question of the count Tyškevič30 why his double, the farmer Žemaitis, had to be shot31.

And this takes us to another structural effect enhancing the efficiency of the novel: the figure of repetition.

4th main topic: apart from the repetition of the same actions on both sides, accompanied by literally the same comments from the characters, the same situations, patterns of relationships and images are used repeat-edly. Represented as an eternal cycle, life casts doubts on any possibility of development. The concatenation of warring and fighting shows the ex-

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haustion and absurdity of any action aimed at killing32. War is like spilling a can of milk, Žemaitis says33.

Due to this figure of repetition the constancy and eternity of life are celebrated, as especially in the series of female characters like Elena (Žemaitis’ wife), Natalie (Žemaitis’ lover) and the pieninė (Žemaitis’ last female comrade), who merge in the memory of Žemaitis. They incorpo-rate the other, the repressed, the sensual and the earth itself, which is the opposite of killing. Women incorporate the other, the earth itself, which is the opposite of killing. As the war is conveyed to the reader as a male power game for influence and possessions and any pattern of identity is cast into doubt, there is a constant that comes to the fore: the metaphori-cal motif of milk and of the woman’s breast from which it pours. In this context we have to see the cattle farm owned by the partisan leader’s fa-ther, which embodies the traditions of the family and the nation. Milk and dairy products stand for Lithuania, its fertile fields and meadows. Conse-quently, Žemaitis’ last female companion is the milk woman (pieninė), so called for her large breasts which, due to her continuous pregnancies, always carry milk. But the milk woman is clubbed to death by the Ukrain-ian soldier. For with the barrenness of the breasts the source of life and the Lithuanians’ dream of freedom dry up. Without a bosom no freedom is possible, had proclaimed the sensual milk woman and assumed the role of Lithuania’s freedom statue34. Significantly, the death of the women is the author’s only instance to allow the narrative turning to tragedy.

In history the colonizer suppresses the rebellion in the colony. In the novel, however, he proves quite similar to the colonized not only with regard to the loss of his illusions, but to the fragility and vulnerability as well. The dichotomy is abandoned, as both sides are not sure any long-er about their own pursuits. Through the authoritative voice of Count Tyškevič the Lithuanians are accused of nostalgia and self-pity, whereas the Russian side is still haunted by the traumata of the last grand war35.

Any obvious distinction between good and evil is thus made impossi-ble. In this regard Ivaškevičius discusses the problem of the betrayal. The partisan leader Žemaitis wants to execute his namesake in order to pass a verdict on an act of treason the true circumstances of which would rather demand forgiveness. And, it cannot be excluded, that even Žemaitis, the leader, had faltered when interrogated in the Ljubljanka (“I admit every-thing. Agreed.”36). By foregrounding this topic Ivaškevičius underlines the relatedness of betrayal. Where betrayal appears to be the construct of

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calumny or the result of psychological coercion and blackmail no either-or assessment will be possible. The likeness of treason is persistent. So, Žemaitis adultery committed with his French lover Nathalie37 and the sup-posed treason by Žemaitis the farmer appear to be connected. If the one, who is to pass Judgment on the traitor and concentrates all military action on him, is equally liable to treason, the phenomenon of treason itself is put to the fore. Thus betrayal, which is traditionally negative, is described as a reaction beyond rational control and loses its identical structure.

The novel terminates with the question raised by the dead Žemaitis what is going to happen if one betrays all those who have never existed. This is what spatial structure and imagery are drifting to: There is no one and only truth and no easy solution, and the enthusiastic quest for the elevation of the just one and the detection of the culprit will only lead to new exclusion and enmity.

Perhaps the unifying moment in the literatures of the transformation states is the breaking up of dichotomies, the fusion of opposites and the undermining of the obvious. And here is the chance for thinking in “third spaces”, where the dualism of Self and Other is abolished in favour of both sides’ common history and destiny: Where old enemies are being overcome, new confrontations will equally become questionable. From the meeting of the equal-ranking centre and periphery raises the fusion of “something else besides”.

References1 Marius Ivaškevičius: Žali. Vilnius 2002, 25: „Pasaulis nuobodžiai pasikar-

toja.“ 2 ibid.3 Homi Bhabha: The Location of Culture. London 1994.4 This shows us the difficulty of any assignment: formally the Lithuania Soviet

republic has been a part of the Soviet Union’s national republics where the Rus-sian republic represented one among others. See Edward Said: Orientalism. London 1978 and imperialism and Colonialism. London 1993. In either book Said discusses the Orient as a projection of Western thinking.

5 See Sigitas Parulskis, Trys sekundės dangaus. Vilnius 2002. To depict his generation’s spiritual and moral emptiness Parulskis uses the metaphor of the interspace, calling it the topos of physical existence and “existential linguis-tics” where language operates on a vulgar level using a “non-Lithuanian” sign system. These “non-Lithuanian” signs, made of swear words of Russian and Turkish origin, represent the strange, the Non-European.

6 Meanwhile Ivaškevičius is well known in the Western European countries too. His Drama Malыš (“The Small one”) was performed in France and Poland,

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his Drama Apgaubti (Shielded) was produced in Düsseldorf. His novel istorija nuo debesies (Story about a cloud, 1998) was translated into Polish in 2001, the novel Žali (The Greens, 2002) was translated into Russian. Furthermore there are translations into German in manuscript by Claudia Sinnig.

7 Marius Ivaškevičius, Žali. Vilnius 2002. Quotations are translated into Eng-lish by myself. The English translation is checked against the Russian transla-tion by Georgij Efremov.

8 ibid., 117: „Jie buvo jie, o mes buvome mes, kare šito turi užtekti.“ 9 ibid., 118: „Nuo ryto šį karą įsivaizdavau vienareikšmiškai: priešas yra po mu-

mis. Jis apsupamas ir sprogdinamas. Išminavimas, o ne karas.“10 Herewith Ivaškevičius refers to the partly unfortunate structure of the Lithua-

nian partisan army, which enrolled men who had been included in the extermi-nation of the Lithuanian Jews during the Nazi occupation: “[...] people fought for the Green. That is the color of our forests. Particularly, people marched against the Red – the color of the enemy’s blood. Although it happened, that the Yellows had to be protected of the Greens. It happened.” (See Ivaškevičius, Marius: Žali. Vilnius 2002, 5: „[…] žmonės kariavo už žalią. Tokia mūsų miškų spalva. Labiausiai jie kariavo prieš raudoną – tai priešų kraujo spalva. Nors pasitaikydavo ginti ir geltoną nuo žalios. Buvo ir taip.“)

11 ibid., 8. „Eilinis žmogus, nekaltas, kad gimė rusas […], laimėjo didžiausią pasaulyje karą, jis eina per savo miestą, nes jis tą miestą apgynė. Ir staiga jį pasieka gandas, kad kažkur jo šalies pakrašty esama išsigimėlių, užsimaniusių dar pakariauti. Aš to ruso vietoje, bet jeigu tik būčiau rusas, apie nieką daugiau negalvodamas, susikraučiau kuprinę ir važiuočiau pribaigt išsigimėlių. Rusas taip ir padaro.“

12 ibid., 295: „– Jau laukiu, kada jie ateis, – prisipažino Pieninė. – Nes aš labai pavargau.“ See also p. 25: „Pasaulis nuobodžiai pasikartoja.“ (Žemaitis)

13 ibid., 33: „[…] jo lūpos tarė mano žodžius.“14 Vasilij: “In Vorošilov there is just the same, […]. Only the earth there is more

peaceful. But the rivulet, one can say, is the same. Only the earth here is evil.” (ibid., p. 35: „Vorošilove – tokia pat, buvom užtvenkę, išlūžo. Tik ten žemė ramesnė. Nors upė gal ir tokia. O čia žemė pikta.“)

15 ibid., 28: „Bet žmonės nustojo jus painioti.“16 ibid., 150: „Kodel iš tikrųjų mes čia?“17 ibid., 152: „Man irgi reikia žinoti, už ka, po galais, aš kovoju.“18 ibid., p. 204: “Tai, – nusispjoviau. – Ir dėl to reikėjo atsikraustyti čia iš Ura-

lo?“19 ibid., p. 217: „Pagalvojau, dėl ko mes čia? – sakau Kasperavičius […].“20 ibid., p. 314: „Tai vis dar Prancūzija, Žemaiti.“21 As the action progresses, somebody called Žemaitis (who is the partisan leader

and as his Doppelganger a simple peasant) is repeatedly found and kidnapped, just to disappear again. Right unto the end it is not clear in which shape the “genuine” Žemaitis will reappear or be resurrected. Žemaitis, the partisan lead-er, believes about himself that he could have been the umpteenth combination of the different men his comrade, the milk woman (pieninė), might have had.

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22 Let’s have a look at the Doppelganger: Ivaškevičius’ fictitious character of the Lithuanian peasant Žemaitis falls into the clutches of world politics, as soon as he tries to abduct from the hospital the sick wife of Žemaitis the partisan leader. But he fails. So, the Soviet secret service stages him as a traitor and uses him as a decoy to trap the partisan leader Žemaitis, who tries to take his revenge on Žemaitis the peasant.

The peasant’s torture by the Secret service is revealed by the remark that the peasant has turned grey within a day. On the cart steered by the farmer Žemaitis, the partisan leader’s mate, Kasparevičius, is again taken to the hospital. The Russians believe him to be the partisan leader and draw him into a fight in which his beloved is killed. The peasant Žemaitis seems to be responsible for it (“This Žemaitis served us perfectly.” See ibid.,. 43: „Šitas Žemaitis mums labiau nusipelno […].“). Žemaitis rides the partisan Kasperavičius into a trap (“Can she shoot?”, ibid., 87: „Šaudyti moka?“). Žemaitis, the farmer, reports Marja Petrovna, the Russian examining magistrate, the fulfilment of the job: “Lady commander, I brought you there, where you commanded me to.” (ibid., 138: „Ponia tardytoja, atvežiau ten, kur įsakėt.“)

23 ibid., 112: „Nes aš ir esu tas kitas.“24 ibid., 153: „Aš jūsų reikalų neišmanau, – staiga susierzino Seras. – Jei man

sako: dusins raudonus, aš einu ir perku žalius. Aš tų šifrų visų nesimokiai.“25 ibid., 26: „Mes užmušime vieną žmogų. Maudysimės pakeliui.“26 Žemaitis, it is said, fought this “second war” because of Elena, his wife; The

Lithuanian Bartkus leaves his machine gun in the cottage of Žemaitis the peas-ant, from where his 70 year old mother will fire on the Russians whom she takes for partisans while riding like an Amazon on the gun (See p. 217).

27 ibid., 159: „[…] ir tie, kas uždelsė su atostogomis, gaus laukti kito birželio.“28 ibid., 326: „Jonai, – sako bičiulis, –mudu išgyvenom baisų laiką. Mudu vienas

kitam jį užtaisėm.“ 29 ibid.: „Tokia visa sistema.“30 Tyškevič – a representative of the Polish speaking Lithuanian aristocracy. His

family owned many palaces and gardens in Lithuania. Tyškevič was a great patron of the arts, a Maecenas of M.K. Čiurlionis.

31 ibid., 221: „Tokie buvo, grafe, laikai.“32 Žemaitis, the partisan leader, asks himself, whether he is able to assert that

the purpose of his war “is a good one”, that it is all that they can do “for our children and grandchildren”, and that it “will create jobs for everybody”. (ibid., 151: „[…] ir kas toks būčiau, sakydamas: geras karas, dar užteks vaikams ir vaikaičiams, darbo turės visi.“)

33 ibid., 108: „Žinai, kas yra šitas karas? Mums išsprūdo pilnas stiklainis.“34 ibid.,159: „Krūtys nė vienai dar nepakenkė, – visu rimtumu kalba ji. – Statu-

los – ne išimtis. Ir jokia laisvė be jų neapsieis.“35 See Mar’ja Petrovna’s, the corporal’s, letter, where she reflects her life, de-

stroyed by war and Nazi occupation, as a woman and human being, not allow-ing her to develop any femininity or delicacy of feeling (“There are no women in my age-group”, p. 85). ibid., 143: „Kai pilnametystė sutampa su karo pradžia,

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moterys arba lieka vaikais, arba pasiverčia vyrais. Dvidešimt trečiųjų gimimo neteko sutikt nė vienos, kuri būtų tapusi moterim. Mano amžiaus moterų kaip ir nėra.“; See also ibid., 310: „Dvidešimt penktųjų gimimo moteris – visai kas kita.“).

36 ibid., 325: „Su viskuo sutinku, pripažįstu.“37 Natalija: “[…] how can you betray without changing yourself?” (ibid., 224:

„[…] kad galima šitaip išduoti ir kartu neišduoti.“).

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De Banville à Banville: le développement littéraire de la représentation picturale du mythe de Cythère

Nuo Banville‘io iki Banville‘io: mito apie Kiterą tapybinės

reprezentacijos literatūros raidoje

Brigitte Le JueZDublin City universitySALiS, DCu, Dublin 9, [email protected]

SummaryThis article examines the literary development of the pictorial representation

of the myth of Cythera. Cythera itself is not a myth; it is a real island, situated in the Ionian Sea. But it has always been associated with myth. Since Greek An-tiquity, indeed, Cythera has been known as the birthplace of Aphrodite, the god-dess of love. Over the centuries and until recently, this myth has regularly been revisited in Europe. From its Greek origins, it slowly came to represent, as it was discovered in Italy, France, Britain, Ireland and Lithuania, different aspects of a subversive utopia devoted to art, and an essential element of European cultural memory. Cythera has inspired poets, artists, composers and even film-makers. In their fables involving Aphrodite or Venus (her Latin counterpart), Hesiod, Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, all mention Cythera. Later, the popularity of Greek and Latin mythologies ensured that Cythera should continue to be mentioned in literary texts. In the seventeenth century it is found in Shakespeare’s work, in Madeleine de Scudéry’s and in La Fontaine’s. It is then either an erotic metaphor or a symbol of transcendental beauty. The most important phase of the development of the myth of Cythera began in the eighteenth century with Jean-Antoine Watteau’s three variations on the theme – The island of Cythera, Pilgrimage to Cythera and embarkation for Cythera – and continued until the end of the nineteenth century. Then, the enigmatic nature of the paintings fascinated the Parnassian poets, Théo-dore de Banville and Paul Verlaine, in particular. Banville perceived in it a lost paradise, in complete opposition to the materialistic society of his times. He was followed by others, in France (notably, Baudelaire) and throughout Europe. In the twentieth century, John Banville has proved himself to be their most remarkable heir. This article examines not only the most important stages which have marked the making of the myth of Cythera as we know it today, but puts special emphasis of John Banville’s innovative work.

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Key words: myth, Cythera, poetry, visual art, subversion, innovation, Watteau, Théodore de Banville, John Banville, european cultural heritage, museum of im-ages, memory.

Le mythe de Cythère est souvent réapparu, renouvelé, au cours des siècles en Europe. De ses origines grecques, il en est progressivement venu à représenter de l’Italie à l’Irlande en passant par la France et l’An-gleterre, non seulement divers aspects d’une utopie subversive aux ac-cents féminins et vouée à l’art, mais aussi un élément important de la mémoire culturelle européenne.

Cythère a inspiré les artistes : poètes, peintres, compositeurs et, plus récemment, les cinéastes1 et les romanciers. Parmi les premiers, Théo-dore de Banville a joué un rôle essentiel dans le développement du mythe et, parmi les derniers, John Banville, auteur irlandais contemporain, s’en avère le parfait héritier. J’aimerais revenir sur certaines des étapes qui jalonnent la création progressive d’une Cythère moderne afin d’identifier celles qui permettent à John Banville de l’aborder de façon novatrice.

Cythère est une île ionienne, située aux pieds du Péloponnèse2. Dans l’Antiquité grecque, l’île de Cythère abritait un temple dédié à Aphrodite, déesse de l’amour. Dans la Théogonie d’Hésiode, on apprend que Cronos, ayant castré son père Ouranos, lança au loin son sexe qui retomba au mi-lieu de la mer. Les vagues entourèrent le sexe du dieu et l’écume se mêla à la semence. Il en naquit Aphrodite, la déesse de l’Amour. Emportée par Zéphyr, elle toucha en premier lieu l’île de Cythère – ce qui expli-que qu’on l’appelle parfois Cythérée. Aphrodite devient parfois Vénus, son équivalent romain, dans les poèmes et les fables dédiés au thème de l’Amour et à Cythère.

Pendant bien des siècles, alors que les navires représentaient le moyen de transport le plus important, Cythère fut considérée comme un point stratégique. Depuis les temps les plus reculés et jusqu’au milieu du dix-neuvième siècle, Cythère fut le carrefour des commerçants, des marins et des conquérants. Sa culture fut influencée par différentes civilisations, ce qui se remarque encore dans son architecture (un mélange d’éléments égéens et vénitiens essentiellement). Au cours des siècles, elle connut une succession de présences politiques dominatrices, des Grecs aux Romains, Byzantins, Vénitiens, Turcs et Britanniques, tout en étant fréquemment pillée par des pirates, pour finalement, en 1864, être rattachée à la Grèce. Un reste d’indéfinition persiste pourtant, comme si Cythère ne pouvait

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appartenir à personne. Son histoire complexe participe à l’évolution du mythe qui l’entoure dans les cultures d’Europe. En effet, le voyage pour Cythère peut représenter un but inaccessible, un rêve ou une excursion périlleuse. C’est cette impénétrabilité même qui fait de Cythère, en plus d’être l’île de l’Amour, la terre d’une éternelle destination et d’une beauté idéale.

Avant les dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles, qui connurent les plus importantes vogues du mythe de Cythère, on répertorie diverses mentions à l’île de l’Amour, par le biais de Cythérée-Aphrodite-Vénus, et notam-ment des poèmes et contes reprenant le mythe d’Eros et Psyché, par ex., les vers de Moschos, ou les Métamorphoses d’Ovide ou d’Apulée. Plus tard, les poètes reviennent aux mythologies grecque et romaine. Ainsi, au seizième siècle, Cythérée apparait dans l’œuvre de Shakespeare, en par-ticulier dans «The Passionate Pilgrim», A Winter’s Tale et The Taming of the Shrew3.

C’est au dix-septième siècle que l’on remarque le premier grand re-nouveau de Cythère inspiré par un regain d’intérêt pour les auteurs anti-ques. Il y a deux courants. Le premier, populaire, utilise Cythère comme lieu d’histoires érotiques4. Helmut Börsch-Supan confirme que, à l’épo-que, Cythère constituait un euphémisme désignant l’amour libre et asso-cié au Parc de Saint-Cloud sur les rives de la Seine5 – cette tendance a en fait duré jusqu’au début du vingtième6. Le second courant, plus classique, commence en Italie avec Giambattista Marino (qui va devenir Cavalier Marin en France) dans un poème intitulé L’Adone (1623) identifiant Cy-thère au symbole éternel de la beauté transcendantale. En France, Made-leine de Scudéry y souscrit et remplit aussi son Artamène, ou Le grand Cyrus (qui date des années 1650) d’images d’amours féminines et régé-nératrices associées à l’île d’Aphrodite et à Sappho. Elle en profite éga-lement pour exprimer son refus du patriarcat absolutiste de son époque. Jean de La Fontaine, s’inspirant à son tour de Cythère, en admirateur de Marino, compose son propre Adonis (1658), et en ami de Scudéry, pour-suit le côté épicurien du mythe et crée Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupi-don en 16697. La Fontaine soutient Scudéry dans sa représentation d’un monde artistique à la sensibilité féminine, opposé au régime de Louis XIV, et annonce ainsi le mouvement parnassien – le Parnassus, domaine des arts étant opposé à l’Olympus, celui du pouvoir. Une utopie subver-sive commence ainsi à s’attacher au mythe de Cythère. L’île d’Aphrodite devient le symbole d’une résistance pacifiste et libertine.

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Ce mouvement met en place l’œuvre la plus célébrée sur Cythère, cel-le de Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère8.

Ce mouvement met en place l’œuvre la plus célébrée sur Cythère, celle de Jean-

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère8.

Watteau avait déjà réalisé sa première représentation de Cythère huit ans auparavant, en

1709, ile de Cythère9.

Il réalisa une autre version du Pèlerinage deux ans après, en 1719, qu’il intitula

embarquement pour Cythère10.

4

Watteau avait déjà réalisé sa première représentation de Cythère huit ans auparavant, en 1709, ile de Cythère9.

Ce mouvement met en place l’œuvre la plus célébrée sur Cythère, celle de Jean-

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère8.

Watteau avait déjà réalisé sa première représentation de Cythère huit ans auparavant, en

1709, ile de Cythère9.

Il réalisa une autre version du Pèlerinage deux ans après, en 1719, qu’il intitula

embarquement pour Cythère10.

4

Il réalisa une autre version du Pèlerinage deux ans après, en 1719, qu’il intitula embarquement pour Cythère10.

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En 10 ans, il commence à développer ce thème, alors que Louis XIV, en fin de règne,

pèse sur les arts, et le termine alors que Louis XV, depuis peu au pouvoir, permet une

plus grande liberté d’expression artistique que son prédécesseur. On voit nettement cette

progression entre la première version de Cythère et les deux autres tableaux dans la

posture des personnages. Pour Julie Anne Plax, les fêtes galantes de Watteau expriment

le désir qu’avait l’aristocratie de s’identifier aux formes de loisirs perçues comme

pastorales et hédonistes mais en réalité anti-absolutistes et à tendance égalitaire11. En

effet, Watteau peint des scènes qui rappellent les cantates pastorales de son époque12 et

les personnages irrévérencieux de la commedia dell’arte (Arlequin, Colombine, Pierrot).

L’exégèse du Pèlerinage à l’ile de Cythère reste jusqu’à nos jours partagée :

certains y voient un départ joyeux pour l’île d’Aphrodite, d’autres, au contraire, les

préparatifs d’un retour aux tons mélancoliques – le « à » pourrait ainsi signifier « sur »

l’île de Cythère13. L’embarquement, lui, évite l’ambiguïté, ce qui explique peut-être

pourquoi il est souvent privilégié en tant que choix de référence par rapport au

Pèlerinage. Quoi qu’il en soit, de tous temps, la Cythère de Watteau est perçue comme

un paradis éphémère, comme une invitation au plaisir au milieu de l’enchantement de la

nature, une invitation à la fête galante, autre titre du Pèlerinage. Bien des critiques y

5

En 10 ans, il commence à développer ce thème, alors que Louis XIV, en fin de règne, pèse sur les arts, et le termine alors que Louis XV, depuis peu au pouvoir, permet une plus grande liberté d’expression artistique que son prédécesseur. On voit nettement cette progression entre la première version de Cythère et les deux autres tableaux dans la posture des person-nages. Pour Julie Anne Plax, les fêtes galantes de Watteau expriment le désir qu’avait l’aristocratie de s’identifier aux formes de loisirs perçues comme pastorales et hédonistes mais en réalité anti-absolutistes et à ten-dance égalitaire11. En effet, Watteau peint des scènes qui rappellent les cantates pastorales de son époque12 et les personnages irrévérencieux de la commedia dell’arte (Arlequin, Colombine, Pierrot).

L’exégèse du Pèlerinage à l’ile de Cythère reste jusqu’à nos jours par-tagée : certains y voient un départ joyeux pour l’île d’Aphrodite, d’autres, au contraire, les préparatifs d’un retour aux tons mélancoliques – le «à» pourrait ainsi signifier «sur» l’île de Cythère13. L’embarquement, lui, évite l’ambiguïté, ce qui explique peut-être pourquoi il est souvent privilégié en tant que choix de référence par rapport au Pèlerinage. Quoi qu’il en soit, de tous temps, la Cythère de Watteau est perçue comme un paradis éphé-mère, comme une invitation au plaisir au milieu de l’enchantement de la nature, une invitation à la fête galante, autre titre du Pèlerinage. Bien des critiques y voient une forme narrative qui part de la droite et se déroule

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vers la gauche décrivant l’évolution du rapport amoureux, à la manière d’une pièce en trois actes.

Au tout début du dix-huitième siècle, Cythère était déjà à la mode dans les spectacles aussi bien de l’Opéra que des tréteaux des foires. La légèreté de leurs ballets et vaudevilles est aussi dans la peinture de Watteau. Les couleurs chaudes (or-rose) qui accompagnent ses verts ou bleus forment des contrastes et des dégradations de lumière représentant à la fois la fin d’une journée et la fin d’un voyage. Elles rappellent les décors de théâtre qui, à l’époque, illustraient le texte présenté. Le théâ-tre joue d’ailleurs un rôle prépondérant dans la réalisation des tableaux de Watteau, et il a souvent été avancé qu’un vaudeville de Dancourt14, Les Trois Cousines (1700), lui aurait donné l’idée du Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère. La pièce se termine en effet avec des villageois déguisés en pèlerins se mettant en route pour un voyage vers le Temple de l’Amour, et chantant : «Venez dans l’île de Cythère en pèlerinage avec nous. […] Jeune fille n’en revient guère ou sans amant ou sans époux»15. Cythère se référerait ainsi à la première expérience amoureuse, et les mots «pèle-rinage» et «embarquement» prendraient valeur d’euphémisme, nous ra-menant à l’érotisme que nous mentionnions plus tôt. Rappelons qu’avant de devenir célèbre, Watteau avait été l’élève de Claude Gillot, lui-même peintre et décorateur de théâtre, fasciné par les comédiens italiens. Wat-teau hérita probablement de lui son amour de l’univers théâtral, en par-ticulier de la commedia dell’arte, dans laquelle l’expression de la gaieté et des sentiments amoureux est davantage traduite par les gestes et les postures que par les paroles16.

La gaieté identifiée dans l’œuvre de Watteau est, comme dans la commedia dell’arte, parfois teintée de mélancolie, et bien que la pé-riode révolutionnaire ait mis fin temporairement au succès de ses toiles, considérées alors comme réactionnaires et frivoles, cette mélancolie de-vient l’énigme à résoudre pour bien des observateurs au dix-neuvième. Théodore de Banville fait partie des auteurs à qui l’on doit le regain d’intérêt pour l’œuvre de Watteau. Banville y vit un paradis évanoui, en totale opposition avec la société matérialiste de son époque17, peupla ses propres œuvres des personnages de la commedia, notamment de Pierrot auquel il s’identifia, et cela à travers les grands mimes que furent Jean-Gaspard Deburau et Paul Legrand, passant des heures dans le Théâtre des Funambules.

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Cythère apparaît dans la poésie de Banville, dès 1873, dans sa «Balla-de aux Enfants perdus» (Trente-six ballades joyeuses)18, et surtout dans un poème intitulé «Cythère» sur lequel je reviendrai plus loin. Mais d’abord, et très brièvement, je voudrais mentionner quelques aspects de l’évolution du thème au dix-neuvième. La réputation de Watteau relancée, on remar-que un foisonnement d’écrits s’en inspirant. Des Frères Goncourt à Mar-cel Proust, en passant par Rodin, nombreux sont ceux qui commentent sur la grandeur de Watteau, et les poètes ne sont pas en reste. Dès la fin des années 1830, Théophile Gautier fait la critique de l’œuvre de Watteau et s’inspire de Cythère (notamment dans «A Claudius Popelin, Sonnet II», qui paraîtra en 1869). Gérard de Nerval, dans Sylvie (1853), s’inspire du Pèlerinage de Watteau, dans un chapitre intitulé «Voyage à Cythère» qui amène deux personnages, ayant rejoint un groupe sur une île, à revivre de façon éphémère un amour de jeunesse, moment de bonheur mélanco-lique qui rappelle le ton du tableau de Watteau19. Dans le poème intitulé «Cythère», de son second recueil, Fêtes galantes (1869), Paul Verlaine s’inspire de Watteau20.

Gérard de Nerval avait raconté dans son Voyage en Orient comment, en abordant Cythère, il aurait vu un pendu. C’est cet épisode qui ins-pira à Charles Baudelaire21 le poème « Un voyage à Cythère » des Fleurs du mal (1857)22. Ce même voyage à Cythère inspira à Algernon Charles Swinburne, poète anglais, son hommage à Baudelaire, avec «Ave Atque Vale», de 1878. Jules Laforgue, avec «Cythère» du recueil Des Fleurs de bonne volonté (1890), rendit lui aussi hommage à Baudelaire23. Il y en eut bien d’autres encore, comme Mary Tighe, Robert Bland et Michael Field en Angleterre. Notons que cette vogue de Cythères tisse des liens entre les poètes et entre les cultures, ce qui pourrait représenter à la fois une belle étude de réception à tiroirs et un exemple de l’existence d’un paysage lit-téraire et d’un musée d’images européens.

Mais revenons à Banville et à sa «Cythère» publiée dans le recueil Dans la fournaise (publication posthume de 1892 rassemblant ses derniè-res poésies) qui contient plusieurs références à l’île ionienne.

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Cythère

Comme j’écoutais dans les flots Gémir une plainte lointaine, Avec de langoureux sanglots Qui s’éloignent, le capitaine Me dit: Si tu veux évoquer Les vieilles âmes de la terre, Ami, nous allons débarquer Dans l’ancienne île de Cythère. Mais tu n’y verras pas Cypris, La vierge guerrière et déesse, Marcher près des splendides lys Qui la frôlaient d’une caresse. Aphrodite, fermant ses yeux, Dort, aussi pâle que l’ivoire, et le voile mystérieux A couvert sa prunelle noire. […]24 Certes, je sais bien que Vénus est dans la nuit et dans le rêve. Mais c’est toi, perfide enchanteur Baisé par les rouges aurores, Musicien, rimeur, chanteur, Assembleur des verbes sonores; C’est toi, c’est ta vaillante amour, Toujours si fidèle et si forte, Qui la ramène dans le jour et qui l’empêche d’être morte !

Ecrit à la première personne par un hom-me sur un bateau, qui n’est pas sans rap-peler L’Odyssée (et Homère a aussi men-tionné la naissance d’Aphrodite dans ses écrits), le poème abonde en références mythologiques, bien que clairement situé dans le présent.Plusieurs références au rappel du passé dû à un chagrin personnel, apparemment amoureux, sont évoquées.Le capitaine propose de «débarquer à Cythère», termes qui renvoient naturelle-ment à Watteau. «Ancienne» indique que l’île n’est plus considérée comme autrefois, d’où le ton nostalgique – regret d’un temps révo-lu, de toute évidence celui de l’amour. Cypris, en effet, est un des autres noms d’Aphrodite et de Vénus, toutes deux mentionnées ici aussi. Le poème suggère que l’amour a disparu mais peut ressusciter à travers l’art et la poésie, l’artiste étant le garant de son im-mortalité.Le poète suggère ainsi la renaissance per-pétuelle de l’amour, tout comme les ta-bleaux de Watteau qui se situent dans un printemps éternel, figé dans la saison de la renaissance.

Il est intéressant que la résurrection ou l’immortalité soit au cœur du poème de Théodore de Banville car c’est le point de départ du roman de John Banville Ghosts (1993), second roman d’une trilogie qui commence avec The Book of evidence (1989) et se termine avec Athena (1995)25. Le protagoniste et narrateur des trois, Freddie Montgomery, assassine une jeune femme dans le premier roman à cause d’un tableau et se retrouve en prison. Dans le second, ayant étudié l’histoire de l’art, on le retrouve vivant sur une île au large des côtes irlandaises et travaillant sur un artiste fictif, Jean Vaublin, qui ressemble fort à Antoine Watteau. Il est remar-quable que l’exégèse autour de Ghosts soit aussi floue que celle autour

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du Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère. Certains critiques considèrent que le protagoniste est effectivement sorti de prison et se trouve sur l’île, mais John Banville a lui-même suggéré que Freddie était peut-être encore en prison, en train de rêver son île, suggestion qui siée tout à fait au thème de Cythère.

A la fin du premier volet de la trilogie, Freddie avouait sa faute et re-cherchait déjà le moyen de se racheter:

i killed her because i could kill her, and i could kill her because for me she was not alive. And so my task now is to bring her back to life. i am not sure what that means, but it strikes me with the force of an unavoidable imperati-ve. How am i to make it come about, this act of parturition? Must i imagine her from the start, from infancy? […] i am big with possibilities. i am living for two. (BE 215-6)

Le narrateur est clairement «gros» d’une nouvelle vie, celle à laquel-le il va (re)donner le jour dans Ghosts. Le seul moyen de rappeler à la vie la femme assassinée est l’imagination. Freddie se retrouve ainsi entre deux espaces temporels éloignés du présent: le passé à réparer et un futur indéfinissable, un peu comme on imagine parfois les âmes perdues, les «ghosts» du titre. C’est par ce passage incertain qu’il entre dans «Le mon-de d’or», un monde qu’il fabrique et dans lequel il nous fait pénétrer au fil de sa narration, un monde irréel inspiré des tableaux de Watteau. C’est un peu comme si les tableaux de Watteau s’animaient et se mêlaient pour donner vie aux personnages du roman, nés de l’imagination du narrateur.

Ce monde se situe sur une île qui se voudrait un peu Cythère, où les personnages, pourtant imaginaires eux-mêmes, ont tous l’impression d’être déjà venus, et où Pierrot apparaît de manière ekphrastique à dif-férents moments. Ce Pierrot-là, mélancolique, comme il se doit, est aussi le Pierrot créé par les Parnassiens, notamment par Théodore de Banville, comme je l’ai mentionné plus haut, fasciné par le mime Deburau. Or De-burau, comme Freddie Montgomery, avait été condamné pour meurtre en 1836. Pour reprendre les termes d’Alain Montandon, son mélodrame muet faisait de Pierrot «un être impulsif, violent, incarnant des appétits vulgaires, n’hésitant pas au vol et au meurtre»26, ce qui pourrait aussi bien décrire Freddie.

Le récit commence avec sept personnages qui débarquent sur l’île, leur bateau s’étant échoué, un accident apparemment dû à l’ivresse du capitaine. Ils ne sont pas ravis d’être sur cette île, plus proche de la mer

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d’Irlande que de la mer Egée. On retrouve là le voyage dépeint comme une quête difficile:

Here they are. […] They are struggling up the dunes, squabbling […] wanting to be elsewhere. That, most of all: to be elsewhere.[…] ‘Cythera, my foot.’[…] Thus things begin. it is a morning late in May. The sun shines merrily. How the wind blows! A little world is coming into being. (G, 3-4)

Ici, les pèlerins sont à l’opposé de ceux de Watteau qui regrettent de partir, tandis qu’eux regrettent d’arriver. «Cythera, my foot» (Cythère, mon œil): la formule désacralisante est répétée plus loin (p.31), alors que le narrateur est tenté d’abandonner son projet de créer une nouvelle Cy-thère. «Such suffering, such grief: unimaginable»: pour lui, il ne peut en effet s’agir de Cythère puisque Cythère n’est pas l’île de la souffrance ou du chagrin. Mais il se reprend tout de suite en disant: «No, that’s not right. i can imagine it. i can imagine anything.» Cythère étant le fruit de fantasmes, son île à lui peut aussi bien faire l’affaire. Et effectivement, il emmène promptement son équipée dans une aventure aux connotations amoureuses digne des mythes de la Grèce antique et des poésies des Par-nassiens.

Afin de pouvoir mêler les représentations de Cythère, Freddie, main-tenant expert en histoire de l’art, invente un artiste, Jean Vaublin (presque une anagramme de John Banville), mais qui n’est qu’une version à peine déguisée de Watteau:

The painter is always outside his subjects, these pallid ladies in their gorge-ous gowns – how he loved the nacreous sheen and shimmer of those heavy silks! – attended by their foppish and always slightly tipsy-looking gallants with their mandolins and masks […] dancing the dainty measures of their dance out at the very end of the world… (G, 35)

L’œuvre fictive de Vaublin, Le monde d’or, n’est pas sans rappeler L’âge d’or des Grecs, qui décrit un temps d’innocence et de justice, ce que Freddie cherche précisément à recréer. Et puisque nous voici revenus à la mythologie, soulignons que le personnage féminin qui va bouleverser le narrateur se nomme Flora. Or, Flora est le nom d’une autre déesse de la fécondité, celle des fleurs. Elle symbolise le printemps, le renouveau, la renaissance de la vie. Petite sœur d’Aphrodite, en quelque sorte, elle devient rapidement un objet de fascination pour Freddie, et restera sur

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l’île, laissant les autres rentrer sans elle, à la fin du roman, laissant planer le doute sur la «rédemption» de Freddie. De façon significative, dans une chambre où elle est allée se reposer, Flora découvre une gravure qui mêle le Pierrot et l’embarquement pour Cythère de Watteau27. Elle s’endort alors et se met à rêver qu’elle se réfugie non pas auprès mais à l’intérieur de Pierrot:

At last she runs behind the motionless, white-clad figure and finds that it has turned into a hollow tube of heavy cloth, and there is a little ladder inside it that she climbs, pulling the heavy, stiff tunic shut behind her. There is a musty smell that reminds her of her childhood. in the dark she climbs the little steps and reaches the hollow mask that is the figure’s face and fits her own face to it and looks out through the eyeholes into the broad, clam distances of the wa-ning day and understands that she is safe at last. (G, 64)

L’apparition du Pierrot de Watteau, qui module l’image de grossesse du départ, permet à Freddie d’évoquer le retour à la vie et à l’innocence, celui de la femme qu’il a tuée et le sien par la même occasion. Freddie se rend compte qu’il n’a jamais vécu dans le présent, qu’il a cherché à s’en échapper mais qu’il est enfin arrivé, arrivé à Cythère, qui signifie ici un monde nouveau s’ouvrant à lui, un monde de possibilités qui s’affirmeront dans le roman suivant:

All my life i had been on my way elsewhere, despising the present, pressing always into the future, wanting the next thing, always the next thing; now at last i had come to rest […]. i had sailed the sea and come to Cythera. That much i could say. Now i was waiting. […] And then one day, […] a door would open into another world. […] Look at this foliage, these clouds, the texture of this gown. A stricken figure stares out at something that is being lost. There is an impression of music, tiny, exact and gay. This is the end of a world. […] the galliot awaits. The figures move […] They are the human moment. (G, 221-2) Nous constatons que le mythe de Cythère persiste et se développe en-

core, tout en continuant son voyage artistique en Europe. Il est même venu en Lituanie – ce que j’ai pu découvrir grâce au Professeur Kęstutis Nasto-pka à qui j’exprime ici ma reconnaissance – par le biais du poète Alfonsas Nykas-Niliūnas et son «Embarquement pour Cythère» (du recueil L’Arbre d’Orphée, 1953). Aujourd’hui, son évolution nous amène plus que jamais

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à l’aspect métaphysique du rêve paradisiaque, à la réflexion humaniste et, à travers son association à Pierrot, à la question existentielle28.

Références1 A Voyage to Cythera by Theo Angelopoulos (Taxidi sta Kithira, 1983).2 Cythère est aussi connue sous les noms de Kythira, Kythera, Cythera, CerigoCythère est aussi connue sous les noms de Kythira, Kythera, Cythera, Cerigo

ou Tsirigo. 3 “Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook / With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, andSweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook / With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and

green, / Did court the lad with many a lovely look, / Such looks as none could look but beauty’s queen” (The Passionate Pilgrim, IV, 1599). “violets, dim But1599). “violets, dim But). “violets, dim But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes Or Cytherea’s breath” (A Winter’s Tale, acte IV scène 4). “Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight Adonis pain-ted by a running brook, And Cytherea all in sedges hid, Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, Even as the waving sedges play with wind” (The Taming of the Shrew, introduction, scène 2). Il est à noter également queIl est à noter également que The Tempest est probablement à rattacher au mythe de Cythère, et que le roman de Banville est un exemple de narration inspiré des deux.

4 Cf.Cf. Gaétan Brulotte & John Phillips, encyclopedia of erotic Literature, Vol.2, New York: Routledge, 2006.

5 Meister der französichen Kunst – Antoine Watteau, Berlin: Tandem Verlag GmbH, 2007, 64.

6 Après une simple recherche sur Cythère dans Gallica (BNF) on obtient 2410 résultats dont voici quelques exemples: La médecine de Cythère, parade en 2 actes, en vaudevilles, tirée des fastes de Syrie, de Grandval, Charles-François Racot de (1710-1784), 1765; un Voyage à Cythère, poème élégiaque. (Par Boi-reaux –date ?) – impr. de J. Clerc (Belfort): «… tout-à-coup l’un deux, avec mystère, Dit: «Je propose un voyage à Cythère: Là, nous pourrons, sans crain-dre les cancans, Parler d’amour, cueillir la fleur des champs, Graver nos noms sur l’écorce d’un hêtre…»; Le congrès de Cythère, poème érotique en cinq chants (par Francesco Algarotti, 1712-1764), traduction libre de l’italien, par C. P*** – J.-G. Dentu (Paris) – 1815; Le Chansonnier des braves. Recueil de rondes, romances et chansons militaires – E. Chaillot aîné (Avignon) – 1830 (contient un poème intitulé «Le voyage à Cythère»). Certains textes sont assez vulgaires, d’autres composés en argot.

7 «De par la reine de Cythère,«De par la reine de Cythère, Soient dans l’un et l’autre hémisphère Tous humains dûment avertis Qu’elle a perdu certaine esclave blonde, Se disant femme de son fils, Et qui court à présent le monde. Quiconque enseignera sa retraite à Venus, Comme c’est chose qui la touche, Aura trois baisers de sa bouche; Qui la lui livrera, quelque chose de plus» (Livre 2).

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L’esclave blonde est Psyché, la reine de Cythère Vénus (Cythérée ici) et Cupi-don (l’Amour) son fils.

8 Son Morceau de réception à l’Académie Royale de Peinture.9 Redécouverte en 1981 seulement.Redécouverte en 1981 seulement.10 La première se trouve maintenant au Louvre, la seconde au Château de Char-

lottenbourg à Berlin.11 Cf. Watteau and the Cultural Politics of eighteenth-Century France, Cambrid-

ge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Et aussi Mary Vidal, Watteau’s Painted Conversations: Art, Literature, and Talk in Seventeenth- and eighteenth-Cen-tury France, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

12 Cf. les Livres de Cantates françoises et italiènes, 1709–1716, et Les Fêstes de l’eté, 1716, de Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.

13 Cf. Michael Levey, «The Real Theme of Watteau’s embarkation for Cythera», The Burlington Magazine, 1961, Vol.103, No.698, 180–185.

14 Florent Carton, dit Dancourt (1661–1725), acteur et auteur dramatique, précur-Florent Carton, dit Dancourt (1661–1725), acteur et auteur dramatique, précur-seur du vaudeville moderne, apprécié pour ses chroniques de mœurs sociales, plutôt irrévérencieuses.

15 Cité par Michael Levey, op. cit., 184.16 Cf.Cf. Catherine Cusset, “Watteau: The Aesthetics of Pleasure”, iN Wagner, Pe-

ter ed., icons, Texts, iconotexts: essays on ekphrasis and intermediality, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.

17 Cf.Cf. Marine Kahane, Théodore de Banville et le théâtre, Paris: Somogy Edi-tions d’Art, 2006, 23.

18 «Ballade de Banville aux Enfants perdus»«Ballade de Banville aux Enfants perdus»

Je le sais bien que Cythère est en deuil! Que son jardin, souffleté par l’orage, O mes amis, n’est plus qu’un sombre écueil Agonisant sous le soleil sauvage. La solitude habite son rivage. Qu’importe! allons vers les pays fictifs! Cherchons la plage où nos désirs oisifs S’abreuveront dans le sacré mystère Fait pour un chœur d’esprits contemplatifs: Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythère. La grande mer sera notre cercueil; Nous servirons de proie au noir naufrage, Le feu du ciel punira notre orgueil Et l’aquilon nous garde son outrage. Qu’importe! allons vers le clair paysage! Malgré la mer jalouse et les récifs, Venez, partons comme des fugitifs, Loin de ce monde au souffle délétère. Nous dont les cœurs sont des ramiers plaintifs, Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythère.

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Des serpents gris se traînent sur le seuil Où souriait Cypris, la chère image Aux tresses d’or, la vierge au doux accueil! Mais les amours sur le plus haut cordage Nous chantent l’hymne adoré du voyage. Héros cachés dans ces corps maladifs, Fuyons, partons sur nos légers esquifs, Vers le divin bocage où la panthère Pleure d’amour sous les rosiers lascifs: Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythère. Envoi Rassasions d’azur nos yeux pensifs! Oiseaux chanteurs, dans la brise expansifs, Ne souillons pas nos ailes sur la terre. Volons, charmés, vers les Dieux primitifs! Embarquons-nous vers la belle Cythère.

19 Cf. Posner, Donald,Cf. Posner, Donald, Antoine Watteau, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984, 182-184, Ostrowski, J.K., «Pellegrinaggio a Citera, ‘Fete Galante’ o ‘Danse Macabre’», Paragone, 1977, No.331, 9-22.

20 «Cythère»«Cythère»

Un pavillon à claires-voies Abrite doucement nos joies Qu’éventent des rosiers amis ; L’odeur des roses, faible, grâce Au vent léger d’été qui passe, Se mêle aux parfums qu’elle a mis ; Comme ses Yeux l’avaient promis, Son courage est grand et sa lèvre Communique une exquise fièvre ; Et l’Amour comblant tout, hormis La faim, sorbets et confitures Nous préservent des courbatures. 21 Baudelaire plaça Watteau parmi les «phares» de l’humanité dans l’un de ses

plus célèbres poèmes («Les Phares», 1855). 22 «Un voyage à Cythère»«Un voyage à Cythère» Quelle est cette île triste et noire ? – C’est Cythère, Nous dit-on, un pays fameux dans les chansons, Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons. Regardez, après tout, c’est une pauvre terre. – Île des doux secrets et des fêtes du cœur ! De l’antique Vénus le superbe fantôme Au-dessus de tes mers plane comme un arôme, Et charge les esprits d’amour et de langueur. Belle île aux myrtes verts, pleine de fleurs écloses,

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Vénérée à jamais par toute nation, Où les soupirs des cœurs en adoration Roulent comme l’encens sur un jardin de roses Ou le roucoulement éternel d’un ramier ! – Cythère n’était plus qu’un terrain des plus maigres, Un désert rocailleux troublé par des cris aigres. J’entrevoyais pourtant un objet singulier ! […] Dans ton île, ô Vénus ! je n’ai trouvé debout Qu’un gibet symbolique où pendait mon image … Les Fleurs du mal, édition établie par John E. Jackson, préface d’Yves Bonne-

foy, Paris: Librairie générale française, 1999 (Livre de poche classique, 677), 173-175.

23 «Quel lys sut ombrager ma sieste ? «Quel lys sut ombrager ma sieste ? C’était (ah ne sais plus comme !) au bois trop sacré Où fleurir n’est pas un secret. Et j’étais fui comme la peste. «Je ne suis pas une âme leste !» Ai-je dit alors et leurs chœurs m’ont chanté : «Reste.»

Et la plus grande, oh ! si mienne ! m’a expliquéLa floraison sans commentairesDe cette hermétique CythèreAu sein des mers comme un bosquet,Et comment quelques couples vraiment distinguésUn soir ici ont débarqué ....Non la nuit sait pas de pelouses,D’un velours bleu plus brave que ces lents vallons !Plus invitant au : dévalons !Et déjoueur des airs d’épouse !Et qui telle une chair jalouse,En ses accrocs plus éperdument se recouse !....Et la faune et la flore étant comme ça vient,On va comme ça vient ; des rosesLes sens ; des floraisons les poses ;Nul souci du tien et du mien ;Quant à des classements en chrétiens et païens,Ni le climat ni les moyens.Oui, fleurs de vie en confidences,Mains oisives dans les toisons aux gros midis,Tatouages des concettis ;L’un mimant d’inédites danses,L’autre sur la piste d’essences....- Eh quoi ? Nouveau-venu, vos larmes recommencent !- Réveil meurtri, je m’en irai je sais bien où ;Un terrain vague, des clôtures,

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Un âne plein de foi pâtureDes talons perdus sans dégoût,Et brait vers moi (me sachant aussi rosse et doux)Que je desserre son licou.»

24 […] Son fier palais, ses blanches tours[…] Son fier palais, ses blanches tours Sont des ruines et des tombes, Et les aigles et les vautours Ont déchiqueté ses colombes.

Veuve de ses belles forêts, Avec ses eaux qui s’évaporent, Cythère est un impur marais Où des monstres s’entre-dévorent.

Et dans un horrible repos Où le vent orageux se joue, De longs serpents et des crapauds Y rampent, tout couverts de boue.

Tandis qu’un bel azur serein Se mirait dans l’eau convulsive, Tel s’attristait le vieux marin Quand nous atteignîmes la rive.

Alors, silencieux, cachés, Dans le chemin que nous suivîmes, Parmi les ombres des rochers, Voici les choses que nous vîmes.

L’île n’était qu’un champ de fleurs Aux mille corolles écloses, Où s’harmonisaient les couleurs Des violettes et des roses.

Et Celle à qui plaisent nos voeux, La grande âme de la nature, Dont l’air baigne les doux cheveux, Cypris à la belle ceinture;

Cypris, vierge, ravie encor Dans sa divinité première, Qui porte une couronne d’or Brillant à son front de lumière,

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Parut. Ses yeux noirs pleins d’éclairs, Pareils au brasier qui flamboie, Emplissaient follement les airs D’éblouissement et de joie.

Et tandis que se reposaient, Oubliant leurs douces querelles, Et tendrement s’entre-baisaient De glorieuses tourterelles,

Des zéphyrs jaloux et tremblants, Errant parmi les feuilles basses, Venaient adorer ses pieds blancs. Derrière elle marchaient les Grâces.

Or le vieux matelot me dit, En prenant des mines confuses: Ah! poète, enchanteur, bandit ! C’est bon, je reconnais tes ruses.

Telle qu’une fleur de lotus Qu’a brisée un tranchant de glaive […]

25 John Banville, The Book of evidence, London: Minerva: 1989; Ghosts, Lon-don: Picador, 1993; Athena, London: Picador, 1995.

26 Alain Montandon, (critique du livre de Louisa E. Jones, Pierrot-Watteau. A Nineteenth-Century Myth, Paris: Editions Jean-Michel Place, 1984), iN ro-mantisme, 1986, Vol. 16, No. 52, 126-127.

27 Watteau peignit Pierrot en 1718-19, c’est-à dire entre le Pèlerinage et l’embar-quement.

28 D’autres romanciers modernes ont repris le mythe de Cythère : Pierre Louÿs, Monique Wittig, Maurice Roche, etc. La Fête à Venise (1990) de Philippe Sol-lers est un roman basé sur un tableau fictif de Watteau. Il y réfute la perception d’un Watteau mélancolique, développée au dix-neuvième. Voir aussi Jeanne Hyvrard, Les Prunes de Cythère (1975).

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TAPATYBĖS RETORIKA

Out of the Remains of an Old World – The British at War in Novels by Woolf, Ishiguro and McEwan

Iš senojo pasaulio likučių – britai kare Woolf, Ishiguro ir McEwano

romanuose

Laura Fernanda BuLGeruniversidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila real1200–733 Lisbon, [email protected]

SummaryEnglishness is usually associated with the British Empire, an elusive concept

that reinvents itself during moments of national crisis when patriotism demands a collective sense of unity and sacrifice in order to fight against the enemy, as in the epic of the British at War. Post-colonial and post-war novelists often engage in the reconstruction of such moments in a self-conscious pursuit of an English identity, Virginia Woolf having been one of the authors who started this retrospective trend in Between the Acts, written during the British retreat to Dunkirk, in 1940, and published posthumously in 1941. The parodic treatment of the pageant-play in Woolf’s novel uses the “looking-glass of fiction” as a means to question both an individual and a national identity. Nowadays, the past continues to be dug up as an attempt to evaluate its effects in the present, shaken by major changes in the Bri-tish social fabric owing to, among other circumstances, the successive waves of migrants from the former colonies looking for a better life in what was once desi-gnated as the metropolis. Britain’s membership in the European Union is also per-ceived as a challenge to the country’s traditional values, the threat of home-grown terrorism also becoming one of the concerns surfacing in recent literary texts. Thus, retrospection is used in a type of fiction that by enhancing Britain’s prestige and decline as a superpower, in the last two centuries, ultimately concurs with the redefinition of an English identity in today’s globalized world. The purpose of our paper is to examine this ongoing endeavour in the fictional remakes of the British wartime experience in Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001), and in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The remains of the Day (1988). In Atonement, where the Dunkirk saga enlarges the personal drama of the protagonist, rescued from prison to fight in World War II, individual and national identity is tied to class and endurance, disguised here as wartime bravery. A less heroic view is reflected in The remains of the Day, where an old-fashioned butler questions the patriotism of his former employer, an English aristocrat who might have collaborated with the Germans, identity, being

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tied not only to class, but to a darker side of Englishness that strives to keep order and decorum at any cost, including the concealment of treason. By examining a wide range of strategies used in the three novels, we seek to demonstrate how they mirror a world about to disintegrate in between and after the two World Wars the lasting implications of which are reflected not only in today’s Britain, but also in an ever changing European landscape.

Key words: war, empire, englishness, identity; country-house; Modernism, class.

In this paper, we will analyse three works of fiction where the war is thematised starting with Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941), a pre-cursor of what became known as “historiographic metafiction”1. Woolf’s novel will be the benchmark for our readings of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The remains of the Day (1988), and Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001), each using the English country-house as a setting for the wartime dramas un-folding in it, each developing its own brand of Englishness2. Through the analysis of a wide range of formal, symbolic and intertextual strategies used in the three novels, we will seek to demonstrate how they render a world about to disintegrate in-between and after the two World Wars.

To leave out the Empire while discussing Britain’s role in the two World Wars would be to bypass an imperial joint venture that cost the lives of thousands of recruits who flocked from all parts of the empire to serve in the trenches. Inside Britain, the unbidden colonial support went almost unnoticed, a powerful front called for demonstrations against a “great” war, for them, Britain’s battle to preserve the empire. The atroci-ties committed by Nazi Germany were also perceived as lies, or rumours, by an invincibly minded public opinion. Despite this antiwar, anti-im-perial mood, the BBC, reflecting the official policy, went on fostering imperial and patriotic sentiments among its audiences, and megalopolis London staged a few imperial extravaganzas3. Yet, to hold the Empire together, or raise the nation’s morale, after the unnerving outcome of the Great War, was no easy task for British Governments. To quote Gertrude Stein on the Great War, it “had neither a beginning nor an end”4 and, one might add, neither winners nor losers bringing no reconciliation but a fragile truce broken in less than two decades. As to the overseas territories during the thirties, London had to cope not only with the dominions’ de-mands for separate constitutional rights, as in Canada or South Africa, but also with the on the rise anti-colonial nationalisms, particularly in Asia. For Britain, a country going through a severe economic crisis and desper-

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ate social conditions at home, the Empire, no longer “internally peaceful” as envisioned by George Orwell5, had become a burden rather than a po-litical and economic asset.

Britain’s on and off insularity is often blamed for her political vacilla-tions while fascism was spreading in continental Europe. A more plausible reason was the drain caused by her first war experience that, together with the strain in dealing with the dominions and colonies, left her quite unpre-pared for a second military challenge. The “people’s war” propaganda by the new media shrouded the impotence of a once imperial superpower to protect her own shores from outside invaders and “win the war” on her own6. Looking back at those wartime years, it is clear that both imperial erosion and war hardships played their part in the gradual loss of Britain’s former international prestige, also prompting the decolonization process, and so Britain’s contraction into her former insular shape. For some intel-lectual elites, her decline prefigured the end of an old world, if not the world, a “civilization in ruins”7.

If Britain’s ambiguous relationship with “the imperial beyond”8 and her no less ambiguous partnership with continental Europe have caused tensions, eventually leading to minor and major conflicts, it has also aroused a national consciousness seeking its self-image in the glow, or darkness, of England’s past, where the nation’s historical and cultural au-thenticity could be found. The search became even more apparent as the imperial architecture started showing its cracks, and the collective sense of unity and sacrifice to fight the second war began to waver. The claims for an English identity have not stopped ever since, more difficult to as-certain, though, in today’s multicultural, multiethnic United Kingdom. In literature, the lure of the past led to a self-reflexive9 way of writing historical fiction as well as to a new way of reading it, the reader’s role as an “activator” being as important as the writer’s in making some “sense of the past”10.

The idea that some modernists “were already designing alternative modes for adapting historical materials”11 may come as a shock to those who regard the formalist aestheticism of Modernism as predominantly ahistorical. Like any other current, Modernism went through different modes and practices, “its point of transition,” says Marina MacKay, hap-pening during the interwar period12. History was certainly no “nightmare” for modernists like Virginia Woolf whose first experiment in writing his-torical fiction was Orlando (1928), the second, Between the Acts (1941).

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Neither novel was read as historical when they were published since Wal-ter Scott’s classical model, though worn out, had not disappeared alto-gether. Woolf’s reputed mastery in rendering individual consciousness might have lead the critics to frown at her skills in rendering a social col-lective, her disruptive ways of handling historical narrative also being part of the problem, theirs, not hers. Yet, in Between the Acts “the presence of the past” is everywhere, the multiple voices, “the stories and coun-ter-stories” in it also allowing for a “pluralism” not peculiar just to “to-day’s thought”13. What might be regarded as one of her novel’s aesthetic flaws – the alternation of modes, narrative, dramatic and lyrical – is also one of its innovations, considering that hybridism is part of the “novel-ness” of a genre that, says Bakhtin, challenges conventional boundaries and is continuously reshaping itself, its nowadays’ contours only reaffirm-ing its mixed-up origins14.

Like with the wars, English Modernism cannot be detached from the empire, neither one being disassociated from Englishness, a concept that is frequently confused with Britishness. To discuss the entanglements between the latter two notions would take us far beyond the scope of this paper, more concerned with what is perceived as “icons of English-ness,” such as “local landscapes, persons, objects of architecture”15, or the so-called English ways. Englishness is indeed an unstable notion that came into sharper focus when Salman Rushdie redefined it in The Satanic Verses through the words stuttered by a burlesque character, Mr. Whisky Sisodia16.

Englishness does resemble a movable feast, celebrated in different visible and invisible forms, reinvented according to the occasion. In late Victorian days, a global type of Englishness happened to coincide with the universalistic and cosmopolitan claims by highbrow modernists such as Eliot, Foster and Woolf. Haughty, or snobbish Englishness is seen as relating to an empire aspiring to a worldwide communality. During the thirties, writes Jed Esty, “the fading of Pax Britannica opened the way for a redefinition of Englishness”17; it was by then less “metropolitan,” even-tually turning inward into a local type of Englishness, keen on the folksy rituals and pastoral lore expressed in the traditional English pageant. The polarization between global and local already revealed disenchantment with the imperial endeavour, a malaise diagnosed by Paul Gilroy as “post-colonial melancholy”18. This brand of Englishness, tied to a “nativism” or an “Anglocentric revival” of history and inherited culture19, was more

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in tune with both the politics and aesthetics of late Modernism. More re-cently, the concept of Englishness has been updated, associating it with “freedom, democracy and human rights”, although “ethnically and racial-ly coded”20. Its latest reincarnation was contrived when Britain was nearly reduced to the size of John of Gaunt’s Island-Fortress21, one of the earliest manifestations of Englishness, and the foundation for the myth surround-ing England’s invincibility, one reason for the passivity shown by those who believed that England would never be invaded.

In fiction, Englishness seems to materialize as a physical space identi-fied with rural England, described as a country of meadows, rivulets and a class-bound society still feeding on past glories and social privileges. It is further connected with the feudal configuration of the country-house, a symbolic reminder of both “England’s local genius and its imperial maj-esty”22. The country-house, in its various architectural shapes and looks – cottage, manor, or stately-mansion –, is also part of the memorabilia of the English novel, as in, among others, Austen, the Brontes, Hardy and Lawrence. It is in the house that locale and past merge turning it into a lieu de memoire, an abode of English authenticity and identity23.

Between the Acts, published posthumously in 1941, was written in 1940, while Britain was facing major military setbacks: Dunkirk, the Bat-tle of Britain and the London Blitz. The novel reflects both historical time and experienced time appearing as a re-enactment of the gloomy atmos-phere at the onset of the Second World War. It is set, like Mrs. Dalloway, on a single day, in June 1939, in a vaguely located country-house, Pointz Hall. The title sets forth the ironic tone of a novel with no plot or action in it, in the Aristotelian sense, the “in-between” pageant-play being noth-ing else but a catch to attract a bunch of nostalgic old people to Pointz Hall for an old-fashioned type of entertainment. Whatever happens in the novel, not much besides the gig, is shown within the temporal and physi-cal boundaries of the old country-house, the spatiotemporal reference of the pageant-novel.

The open terrace and the barn, Pointz Hall’s equivalent to a “public square,” is where the audience gathered to watch the villagers’ pageant and have refreshments, the weather, one of the favourite English topics, being either “fine” or “wet.” The pageant-play was a re-creation of Eng-land’s historical and literary past by a stereotyped “bossy” feminist, Miss La Trobe, and was performed by “simple” locals, easily identified by the audience. Her play consisted of a chronological assemblage of periods:

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from Chaucer’s Middle Ages, the Tudors, the Reformation, the Age of Reason, to the Nineteenth-century Victorians. The audience vented their emotions by laughing, clapping, cheering, only breaking “in between the acts” for the usual cup of tea and chitchat while the players changed their garish raggedy costumes. Neither the chuffing of the old gramophone, hidden in the bushes, nor the cacophony of voices and sounds, frequently smothering the actors’ words, bothered them in the least. Refreshments were served in the decrepit “Noble Barn,” inhabited by mice, birds, in-sects, and one stray bitch. Some nibbled on the food prepared by the cook, who went about her catering as if blind to the filth around her. The guests did not seem to mind either, gobbling down the “fly-blown” cake, or drinking the “rust boiled water,” pretending that it was “delicious”. For a while it was merry old England at her best.

Things began to turn sour when La Trope failed to provide the much awaited, militaristic “Grand Ensemble” as a grand finale. Instead, she in-troduced an Act titled “Ourselves” with the idea of bringing the audience back to their “present-time reality.” The players, choreographed to dance, leap and jump, held up splintered mirrors in front of the audience so that they could see themselves reflected in the broken glasses. What followed was simply anarchy. The audience did not recognize themselves in the “scraps, orts and fragments” reflected by the shattered mirrors, nor in the dismal portrayal of the English race by La Trobe24. To minimize her blun-der, the vicar offered to interpret the play for a, by then, disgruntled audi-ence, but his speech was broken by the “zooming” sound of the airplanes flying above their heads. Soaked by the rain that suddenly showered on them, the audience began to disperse feeling as perplexed as Miss La Trobe, at a loss as to what had gone wrong with her production of the pageant-play, which became an artistic and social failure.

The novelistic frame also purports to a somewhat lunatic world lived inside Pointz Hall, also referred to as “the house in a hollow”, its peculiar topology preventing its residents from seeing what happened outside their walls. Despite its isolation, Pointz Hall, somewhere “in the very heart of England,” had all the elements to be identified as a lieu de memoire25. Its present owners, the Olivers, had been living there for only a hundred and twenty years, their memoires going no further back than one genera-tion, not much by English standards. The aristocratic looking lady in the portrait hung at the top of the staircase was no “ancestress” of theirs. All in all, the Olivers stood out as phonies, their Englishness being tied to the

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authenticity of an ancient place in which they did not quite fit. As gentry, the Olivers were also being upstaged by new comers, who were buying their way up to become the new gentry, like Mrs. Manresa’s husband, whose new money came from his obscure dealings in the City26. Cranky Bartholomew Oliver, “Master” for the servants, had spent his youth in the Indian Civil Service and, like most men of his generation, had never shaken off the empire from his system. His sister, Mrs. Swithin, “Old Flimsy” for the servants, was a potty old lady who daydreamt of pre-his-toric England when the island was a piece of land attached to the conti-nent, a metaphorical projection into the future, if Hitler had his way. Giles Oliver, old Oliver’s super-macho son, broke easily into “rages” owing to his many frustrations, including his stale marriage to Isabella, or Isa. She had a crush on a gentleman farmer who kept vanishing, her recurrent vi-sions, or hallucinations, showing her unbalanced mind. The couple had drifted apart but would remain together because that was the thing to do. Habit and tradition made of Pointz Hall a space of routines, its stifling atmosphere only interrupted by the excitement of the pageant, put on year after year by Miss La Trobe, a sort of permanent artist-in-residence. Noth-ing had changed in Pointz Hall since 1833, when Figgis’ Guide Book was first published27.

About the untold story unfolding outside Pointz Hall no one wanted to speak, except for Giles Oliver28. The twelve aeroplanes flying “in perfect formation” might have been the novel’s turning point, had the audience identified them with the imminent danger over their heads. However, they compared the squadron to a “flight of wild duck,” disavowing, as they had done with the mirrors, their “present-time reality.” The novel comes to a sudden close with Pointz Hall enveloped in shadows and darkness, as in a Gothic novel, the gloomy scenario more attuned to its depiction as a “house in a hollow”. For Giles and Isa, Pointz Hall “had lost its shelter,” their ambiguous thoughts suggesting that Pointz Hall, a synecdoche of the Island, was no longer a safe place in which to live.

As to the backbone of the novel, Miss La Trobe’s dramatized version of England’s past, it was put together with tirades of patriotic rhetoric, rhymes and grotesquely drawn historical types, played by actors who kept forgetting their lines. The interclass pop-like show mixed High Culture with Low Culture, aristocracy with the “riff-raffs”, classical music with jazz, folksy Englishness with imperial Britishness, highlighted by rendi-tions of “’Ome Sweet ‘Ome” and “Rule Britannia.” The audience, mostly

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old-comers from highly “respected families,” is rendered as a philistine lot whose nonsensical dialogues, blended with racial and sexual innuen-dos, advance their parochial Englishness. Mrs. Manresa, the “wild child of nature”29, and the village idiot stand out as the most Rabelaisian fig-ures among the many comical ones, the former playing her usual “vulgar” “over-sexed” self, the latter, always in character. La Trobe had promised more than she could deliver, her pretentious stage production reflecting her conventional views on England’s history, particularly when it came to the Victorians. More than artistic innovations, her gimmicks, like the trick played on the audience with the splintered mirrors, make her plight of the misunderstood artist turn her into a caricature of the artist as a romantic idealization. The pageant’s upside-down-world is in line with the carni-valesque ritualistic pageantry of the Middle Ages, as described by M. M. Bakhtin in rabelais and his World (1965).

Between the Acts is written “between” two models, as if in a transition from a “fading world of elite cosmopolitanism” to “a revived core of in-sular nativism”30, the shift triggered not only by the threat of fascism, but also by social and cultural changes inside Britain. Between the Acts paro-dies the anachronistic pageant in order to show the drama – it does turn out to be a drama – of an isolated community that, besides not display-ing much sense of unity and communality, let “their present-time reality” pass them by, convinced that, by some twist of fate, they would survive on their Fortress-Island. One may go so far as to speculating on whether Virginia Woolf wrote Between the Acts to make up for her past aesthetic and ideological standing31. One must take into account, though, that Woolf was writing on the biggest wartime crisis in Britain’s history while living through it, one of those occasions when historical time is also experienced time. Between the Acts comes out as a bitter, first-hand account of a trag-edy disguised by laughter.

Disavowal, one important trait in Between the Acts, is also apparent in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize winning novel, The remains of the Day, written as a retrospective narrative of the years before and after World War II. The novel’s present, circa 1956, coincides with another crisis, the Suez Canal, “a late flourish of imperial self-assertion” that did not turn out well for Britain32. From his present, Stevens, a middle-aged butler, looks back in time while on a motoring trip through rural England. Through his thoughts, the reader is allowed to watch not only the meanderings of his fickle mind, but also a labyrinth of dark corridors in Darlington Hall, his

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ever-present dwelling even when away from it. The impressive stately house had staged “great” conferences on “great” world issues discussed by equally “great” international figures, including Ribbentrop, Keynes, Churchill and the like. Stevens recalled his involvement in such “great” affairs, while at the service of Lord Darlington, meanwhile deceased. In addition to other distortions, Steven’s superlative vision of the house, a projection of his Anglocentric self, makes him an unreliable narrator. In the hands of the Darlington family for only “two centuries”, slightly long-er than Pointz Hall with the Olivers, the manor had just been sold to a rich American, Mr. Farraday, the “genuine old-fashioned English butler” being part of the package deal. The novel is dominated by Stevens’ obsession with becoming a “great” butler, his only goal and achievement in life, as made clear when he and Miss Kenton/Mrs. Benn, Darlington’s former housekeeper, parted company, each handling it in a very proper, repressed Englishness, learned likely from their “betters”.

From Stevens’ confessional monologue, one gathers that underneath his professional concerns lay the concealed story of his previous employ-er’s alleged treason. Lord Darlington, connected somehow with the Brit-ish establishment, had tried to relax aspects of the Versailles Treaty in or-der to appease the Germans; later, his pro-Hitler sympathies had prompted him to have the Jewish maids kicked out of Darlington Hall, an order that Stevens executed with great efficiency, his never questioning orders from above, just obeying them, as a professional butler should. Stevens insist-ed on Lord Darlington’s innocence, his argument being that his previous master, a “gentleman through and through”33, had acted out of idealism, his patriotism and sense of honour unquestionable. On the other hand, Stevens recalled being told that “his lordship” had been manoeuvred “like a pawn” by the Nazis, admitting that, seen from the present, Lord Darling-ton’s ideas might appear “rather odd.” What was really at stake was not so much if “his lordship’s good name was destroyed for ever”34, but that he himself, having been a witness to what had been said during the conspira-torial meetings held in the house, might be considered an accomplice in Darlington’s crime. The butler’s rambling thoughts on the “dignity” of his profession only helped postpone his having to find a “dignified” way out from his compromising situation. Stevens disavowed his having any part in Darlington’s wartime dealings by avoiding discomforting topics such as Hitler’s totalitarianism, or the “well-being” of the empire, since the imperial enterprise was regarded as a pretty undemocratic one as well.

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The “loyal” butler went as far as denying to have ever worked for Lord Darlington35.

In the end, Stevens was only too eager to please his new American boss by playing the Hollywood type-casted butler, learning new mean-ings of old English words to “banter” with vulgar Mr. Farraday. In The remains, the English old-fashioned class-system is ridiculed through the butler’s fixation on his equally old-fashioned profession, both leftovers from an Englishness living on the privileges of a pre-war society still de-fined by “class-labels”36. Unlike the audience in Between the Acts, Stevens was well aware of his “present-time reality,” a world that would never be the same, Britain no longer playing the biggest role in “great” interna-tional affairs. From then on, they would be run by American know–how and American cash. The butler would likely go on being a “great” butler for whoever hired his professional expertise. In his mind, “dignity” and servility overlapped. To be a “great” butler meant to serve either power or money showing that pragmatism in dealing with contingency was the key for survival, as Britain would learn in postwar years.

As in The remains, historical events, facts and real figures appear fic-tionalized in Ian McEwan’s Atonement, a novel built on a variety of inter-texts, from historical to literary ones, starting with the introductory epigram from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, where Englishness and Christian values are used as an exhortation against suspicion and false judgment. Like the pageant-play in Woolf’s Between the Acts, the episode about Dunkirk, which hangs by itself as a wartime experience, is framed between two sec-tions. The “horrors” described in it are seen from the perspective of a seri-ously wounded infantry corporal Robbie Turner who, together with his two soldier companions, was on the way to the beach where the “chaotic retreat could go no further”37. The first and longer section of the novel tells the events leading to a double crime, told in the perspective of the leading char-acters, among them Briony Tallis, then a precocious thirteen year old with aspirations of becoming a writer and, strangely enough, one of the perpetra-tors. The third section, smaller than the first, deals with guilt and self-pun-ishment. The setting has moved from the countryside to London, and the reader is shown glimpses of the city’s ordeal through the Blitz, now from Briony Tallis’s point of view. She had become a nurse trainee in a military hospital while attempting to publish her first novel.

The last twenty pages, purporting to London, in 1999, refer to the nov-el’s present, time not only for wrapping up but also for astonishing revela-

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tions by a now first-person narrator, the same Briony Tallis, who meanwhile had made it as a writer and was about to celebrate her seventy-seventh birth-day. Threatened by loss of memory due to “vascular dementia”, she hurried to finish the last draft of her novel while she could remember things as they happened, or, rather, as she had them happen by altering facts, she says, to make things right. For Briony, only fiction could redeem human nature her last novel being, thus, a novel of atonement. It would be kept in a vault until all implicated in the crime mentioned in the first section were dead herself included. Briony’s retrospective account went as far back as 1935, when she had accused Robbie Turner of having raped her cousin, Lola Quincey, the latter and the rapist himself, Paul Marshal, being her “fellow criminals”, Briony’s revelation later in the novel. Her motivations for her false accusa-tion are difficult to pin down since each character has a different perspective of it, Briony’s own version changing as the novel progresses. Whatever her reasons might have been, her fantasy-prone mind as a would-be writer turned Robbie Turner into a “sex maniac”, and through her convincing testi-mony he was arrested and thrown into prison.

A Cambridge graduate in literature, Robbie was no stranger to the Tal-lis household. Jack Tallis had paid for his degree and would likely support him through medical school, Robbie’s ambitions to become a medical doctor considered to be “presumptuous” by the rest of the family. The son of a cleaning woman and a father who had vanished when he was a small child, Robbie grew up with the Tallis children, working for the fam-ily as a gardener. Once disclosed, his romantic involvement with Cecilia Tallis would likely be frowned upon, class, money, even jealousy having something to do with it. Briony was certainly the first to make sure that Robbie would stay away from her sister. Her crime, made even more hid-eous by the war, destroyed everyone’s life, including hers, since she car-ried her guilt for the rest of it. Briony also shattered Robbie’s dreams of a medical career, or of being reunited with his beloved Cecilia. Actually, the lovers’ meeting at the Wiltshire cottage never happened, Cecilia having been killed during the Blitz in 1940, the same year Robbie Turner died in Dunkirk. In her fiction, Briony brought them together, likely to make up for having separated them in life, her “kindness”, as she says, being part of her attempt to redeem herself. Judging from the frequency of the word “punishment” in the novel, everyone seemed to be paying for a much big-ger crime with the exception of Lola and Paul who eventually married and lived happily ever after. Sexually precocious Lola had been raped during

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the night, near the eighteenth-century temple erected to “enhance the pas-toral ideal”38, the remainder of a long gone past about which little is told. On the site of the “Adam-style” structure destroyed by fire, an “ugly” house had been built by grandfather Tallis who had made his money in the trade of locks and latches. In Atonement, the country-house is just a drab place with no history, a lieu of very bad memories, only redeemed after having been transformed into the hotel where Briony celebrated her seventy-seventh birthday. By then, the feudal, imperial structure of the country-house had become nothing else but a showpiece of England’s heritage and tourism industry.

Atonement is a novel with plot and characters, “recycling” themes, situations and figures from Mrs. Dalloway in order to reassess England’s second war endeavour in World War II the causes and consequences of which were different from those in the Great War39. Had the war been lost, Britain’s freedom would also be lost, and Dunkirk, the outcome of her military ineffectuality, could never be transformed into a moment of great bravery even through an act of patriotic “kindness”.

In the first section, Cecilia Tallis, like Clarissa Dalloway, fusses over the flower arrangements for the party to celebrate her brother’s homecom-ing. The summer morning is as radiant as the one when Clarissa Dallo-way thought of the flowers for her own party. After opening the French window, Clarissa Dalloway had suddenly “plunged” into her not so radi-ant distant past, in Bourton. Cecilia’s excitement over the flowers is also interrupted by the memory of her uncle’s funeral, and his worthless death in the Great War. Uncle Clem, like Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs. Dal-loway, went into the war moved by his idealism, both willing to die for England. Unlike those two war veterans, Robbie Turner had not volun-teered for the war, having other plans for his life. He had been arrested for a crime he had not committed, and later released in return for fighting in the war. For Robbie, the war meant, ironically, freedom and death, his memory having been rehabilitated only through fiction. Robbie Turner was no war hero, just a pawn in a stupid plot by a child, and ultimately, like Uncle Clem and Septimus, a victim of “the collective insanity of war”40. In the Dunkirk episode, Turner and his two companions were try-ing to escape from the Germans in occupied France, Cecilia’s words con-stantly echoing in his mind, Come back to me. But he never did. The love story overshadows the war story that, as Dunkirk, falls short of being a heroic wartime epic.

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The three novels examined here point to the end of a world that had lost its innocence, hoping, in both Ishiguro’s and McEwan’s fiction, to restart afresh. Meanwhile, the “truth” about wartime crimes will be kept in some archives, as those of the Imperial War Museum, waiting to be retrieved for further interpretations, keeping up with the changes in the European human landscape.

References1 Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, History, Theory, Fiction, New

York, London, Routledge, 1988, 105–123.2 All further references are to the following editions, and will be indicated in

footnote as indicated after each novel: Virginia woolf , Between the Acts, intr. Frank Kermode, Oxford, Oxford World Classics, Oxford University Press, 2008, BA; Kazuo Ishiguro, The remains of the Day, New York, Vintage Inter-national, A Division of Random House, 1993, rD; Ian McEwan, Atonement, Toronto, Vintage Canada Edition, 2002, A.

3 See Piers Brendon, “The Empire, Right or Wrong” and “Englishmen Like Pos-ing as Gods” In The Decline and Fall of the British empire, London, Vintage, 2008, 248–349; Bernard Porter, “Everything Becomes Fluid: 1914–20” and “Moving Quickly: 1939–70” In The Lion’s Share, A Short History of British im-perialism 1850–2004, Harlow, Pearson Longman, 2004, 226–232; 292–297.

4 Gillian Beer, “The Island and the Aeroplane: the Case of Virginia Woolf” In Homi K. Bhabha, Nation and Narration, London, New York, Routledge, 1995, 266.

5 George Orwell, Orwell’s england, The road to Wigan Pier in the Context of essays, reviews, Letters and Poems selected from The Complete Works of George Orwell, ed. Peter Davison, int. Ben Pimlott. London, Penguin Books, 2001, 322.

6 Marina MacKay, Modernism and World War ii, Cambridge, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2008, 23.

7 Richard Overy, The Morbid Age, Britain Between the Wars, London, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2009, 23.

8 Ian Baucom, Out of Place – englishness, empire, and the Locations of iden-tity, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1999, 5.

9 On self-reflexivity, see Elizabeth Wesseling, Writing History as a Profet, Post-modernist innovations of the Historical Novel, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1991, 83.

10 Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, 77.11 Elizabeth Wesseling, Writing History as a Profet, 74. 12 Marina MacKay, Modernism and World War ii, 1–21.13 Matei Calinescu, “From the One to the Many,” In Zeitgeist in Babel, Bloom-

ington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991, 173.14 Michail Bachtin, “Epic and Novel” In The dialogic imagination, Four essays,

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ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, Austin, Uni-versity of Texas Press, 1981, 3-40.

15 Graham MacPhee, and Prem Poddar, “Nationalism beyond the Nation-State” In empire and After, englishness in Postcolonial Perspective, eds. Graham MacPhee and Prem Poddar, New York, Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2007, 1.

16 Ian Baucom opens his “Introduction” by quoting Mr. Sisoda’s famous com-ments on Englishness: “The trouble with the Engenglish is that their hiss hiss history happened overseas, so they doo don’t know what it means.” Out of Place, englishness, empire, and the Locations of identity, 3. It is also interest-ing to read the remarks made by Homi K. Bhabha on Rushdie’s redefinition of Englishness in “DissemiNation: time, narrative, and the margins of the modern nation” In Nation and Narration, London, New York, Routledge, 1995, 317.

17 Jed Esty, A Shrinking island, Modernism and National Culture in england, Princeton, Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2003, 94.

18 MacPHEE, GRAHAM and PODDAR, PREM, “Nationalism beyond the Na-tion-State” In empire and After, 3.

19 Esty, 55.20 MacPhee and Poddar, 16–18.21 richard ii (II. i. 42–45). See Gillian Beer, “The Island and the aeroplane: the

case of Virginia Woolf” in Nation and Narration, 269–270.22 Baucom, 176.23 ibid, 37. 24 BA, 168–9.25 Pointz Hall was a former Elizabethan manor whose story went far back in

times; seen from flying over its site, it stood out as a national landmark.26 BA, 37.27 ibid, 4828 ibid, 42-43; 4929 ibid, 37.30 esty, 107.31 Virginia Woolf’s ideological standing regarding the war and the empire is one

of the aspects developed by Marina MacKay in “Virginia Woolf and the Pas-toral Patria,” Modernism and World War ii, 22-41.

32 Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share, 311.33 rD, 61.34 ibid, 235.35 ibid, 123.36 George Orwell, Orwell’s england, The road to Wigan Pier, 325.37 A, 247.38 ibid, 72.39 Besides containing enough Woolfianisms to prove that Modernism is not dead,

Briony’s novel “within” the novel is also a daring attempt by McEwan to show a novel in the process of being written, a prank played by a God-like narrator who wanted to save her soul through fiction at the reader’s expense.

40 A, 353.

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A journey in Search of the Human Self: Alessandro Baricco – “Novecento”

Kelionė ieškant savo žmogiškosios savasties: Alessandro Baricco

„Novečente“

Nicoleta CĂLiNAuniversity of CraiovaA.i. Cuza, 13,[email protected]

SummaryWith a philosophical and musicological background, Alessandro Baricco, one

of the most appreciated contemporary Italian writers, narrates in one of his latest novels, “Novecento” – a monologue, either a story to read with loud voice or a theatrical text, as it was considered – the journey towards America of the musician T.D. Lemon Novecento. A journey of the soul impregnated with words, music and memories that beyond the literary success gained applauses in cinematography, too (due to the talent of Giuseppe Tornatore, who greatly directed “La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano / “The legend of the pianist on the ocean” and in theatre (the play “Novecento” transposed on the real stage by Arnoldo Foà, directed by Gabriele Vacis)). The artists, after reading the text of the novel, considered that the crossing of the narrative to the stage was almost a debt in order to make more valuable and known, the text considered to be a classic of the contemporary lit-erature. This rhythmic monologue was first recited at Asti, by Eugenio Allegri. As the theatre is an independent language among others, it requires a body and a voice for the narrator. In Novecento’s case, the actor assumes a lot of hypostases, up to identifying himself with the friend whose story he is narrating. Baricco creates characters who are on the edge, limited and there is also the case of his protagonist, an enigmatic person, a musician without nationality, always traveling between Europe and America, in a continuous search of himself.

Key words: contemporary literature, traveling, search of the self.

After his literary debut with Castelli di rabbia (Castels of rage), fol-lowed by Oceano mare (Ocean Sea), Alessandro Baricco did not abandon the theme of the sea that serves as a metaphor, pursuing with it in the monologue Novecento, a text that “occupies a certain place between a real

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enactment and a story to be read with loud voice”1. With a philosophi-cal-musicological background, Alessandro Baricco, one of the most ap-preciated contemporary Italian writers, narrates in one of his latest novels, Novecento – a monologue, either a story to read with loud voice or a theatrical text, as it was considered – the journey towards America of the musician T.D. Lemon Novecento. A journey of the soul impregnated with words, music and memories that, beyond literary success, gained applaus-es in cinematography, too (due to the talent of Giuseppe Tornatore, who greatly directed La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano (“The legend of the pianist on the ocean”) and in theatre (the play Novecento was transposed on the real stage by Arnoldo Foà and directed by Gabriele Vacis2. The art-ists, after reading the text of the novel, considered that the passage of the narrative to the stage was almost as a debt in order to make more valuable and known, the text considered to be a classic of the contemporaneous literature.

This rhythmic monologue was first recited at Asti, by Eugenio Allegri. The theatre, being a language, requires a body and a voice for the narra-tor. In Novecento’s case, the actor assumes various roles, up to identifying himself with the friend whose story he is narrating.

The monologue of Baricco tells the remarkable story of Danny Bood-mann T. D. Lemon Novecento, a man who spent his entire life aboard the steamship “Virginian”, who was found abandoned by someone traveling third class on the black piano of the transatlantic, in a box of lemons and who was born and died without ever walking on solid ground. It tells the story of a man who is the best pianist of all times. A man who lives through the desires and passions of others, a man who is, at the same time, accomplished and devastated by music, who lives suspended between his piano and the sea. A man who never finds the strength to go beyond, who does not succeed in overcoming the fear to love and to create roots of his own, so he devotes his life to play in order to relieve the hearts of the pas-sengers from the immense fear of the ocean3. The story is narrated by his trumpeter friend and takes place between the two World Wars, when the ship was constantly crossing the Atlantic from Europe to America.

The book does not have many pages, but they are extraordinary, in-tense and full of magic. The main character is named Novecento (The Twentieth Century) and is unable to get off the ship and deal with life on land. Music which “sounds because the ocean is big and scary” is his entire life. Jazz, played by him at the piano is music through an infinite

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finitude that makes his voyages to be always caught in-between his music. According to the characters, this is the only music you play when you are at sea. Baricco manages to sound very poetic even since the title, which sums up everything that happens around the Twentieth century.

He preferred to remain on the steamboat rather than reach a compro-mise with his life, disarm himself in front of his dreams, hopes, and let them be alive in his mind, on the transatlantic, where he spent all his life, there where he has known his fears and protected his desires. But the real paradox is that, in terms of theory, Novecento does not exist because he and his name are not recorded in any population records.

Earth is a ship too big for him, so he has never descended on land from his universe which is that transatlantic floating down towards Amer-ica. The book is an entire world in a micro-novel, a drama, a poem or just a charming impromptu for the piano and the trumpet. It can be read as a parable (the world as a ship) or be listened like a relaxing music, like a song that fills your soul.

We can always imagine ourselves as different from everybody and per-haps this is the reason why the protagonist of the book is simply accepted by himself for who he is. He wanted to “get involved”, trying to get off the ship and start a “normal” life, but in the most beautiful moment, he acknowledged his limits and came back. He has chosen the path that was easier for him and returned to do what he could do the best, which is to play his music, to play jazz. He probably believed that only in his small world he would be able to exploit and cultivate his abilities4.

One of the first images in the present text is America as the ideal em-bodiment or better-said, as the destiny. The mythical vision of America created by the Europeans is a land where things that once could only be intuited, thought and imagined, become an absolute reality. America is the Promised Land to which only the worthy and fortunate enter when they are destined for it. We may consider that the action itself is almost zero, since the “story” can be summarized in just a few words and reduced to a few epic nuclei of low tension and uncertainty, placed at the limit between hilarity and incredible tragedy.

Baricco represents the ship as a floating city, a world in miniature, and also the micro-cosmos of an evasion space. Ports appear as spaces of transition between water and land which are contaminated by prejudice. Thus, we are dealing with a ship-type floating island, a paradisiacal space in a really existing time, so that harmony between individuals could be

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tangible5. The characters, like the author’s approach, are comic or tragic and they gravitate around this ship, which is another space, a “non-space” floating on the ocean. In fact Novecento means “Virginian”, he himself is the soul of the ship, identifying his soul with the boat because it was not contaminated by another space.

Music is the defining feature through which his existence can be es-tablished. The piano is his only consolation – he was dropped on a pi-ano – and through it, he successfully wiped out the pain of losing Danny Boodmann. Novecento manages to make the music the attribute of the trip. He imagined himself mentally “visiting” countries that has not really seen and, just like a master of observation and analysis, he recomposes the world, the universe, observes and re-creates it in whole parts, just like a big puzzle. The piano composes the memories of the moments that he has never lived, but that are present in the collective unconscious. He searches for, investigates and asks confessions and descriptions, in order to recompose the ground, but yet deprived of brutality, misery, sadness and tears6. Novecento’s music relates about events, conditions, situations, emotions; he connects everything to it; music is a perfect union of all the expressions of a harmonious world.

Tim’s proposal to leave the boat and go ashore to see another world seems very abstract. On leaving the vessel and descending on land, the decision is taken under an incomprehensible desire: to be able to change perspective, and to experience life out of subjectivism7. But descending in the world is refused since the steamboat is its ideal representation. Nove-cento prefers the finitude of the piano keys; interpreting, he finds freedom rather than assuming the land of the infinity. He does not want the trans-gression of the limits but when he is near to violate them, he realizes that such a tragedy is triggered and chooses to retire in the small space where he can feel free to pursue his own adventure rather than to seek liberty. Outside there is a universe too large for him.

This chosen exile of the main character equalizes with the withdrawal in front of the unknown and wild, because the finitude of the world re-quires a much higher possibility of being controlled, known and broken into smaller and more intimate pieces. He will not let himself go to the dispersion of his personality. From here derives the possibility to reduce the vessel at the quintessential value of the world, a small version of it. Novecento is without doubt a great solitary; loneliness seems to be the main character feature, his best world ever in which he can be himself,

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which may be closer to the core of the world and within which he can create his own freedom8. Giving up to the finite space of the ship would mean to re-create his universe. Therefore he remains faithful to the micro-cosmos which is without limits, without losing his independence. In fact, he was the one that had chosen this voluntary exile. Alessandro Baricco believes that a common feature of his characters is that they win by loos-ing.

His style transposes pieces of the soul in his book that combines writ-ing with pure poetry and his work simply cuts literary genres in order to convey emotions. What may be amazing about the style is that it is so-liloquized, its orality being a refined seeking, a combination of slow but strong and alert tones. There are even phrases of a liquid fluent speech associated with a naturalness of epic yarn given by the memory-flow tech-nique.

Baricco creates characters that are on the edge, and it is also the case of his protagonist, an enigmatic person, and musician without nationality, always traveling between Europe and America, in a continuous search of himself.

In September 1994, the author, referring to this novel, wrote the fol-lowing words:

I do not know if that means that I have written a dramatic story: I doubt it, though. Now that I see it published as a book, it seems to me rather a text that oscillates between a real scene and a fitting story to read aloud. I do not think that such texts have a name. Anyway, this is not too important. It seems to me a beautiful story that deser-ves to be told to others.9

The book is captivating, engaging and deep but, at the same time, iron-ic. It is impossible not to remain fascinated by the attractive and mysteri-ous figure of Novecento, as he is described: as a person for whom there are no complications or problems, but only the music and the ocean. It is a fascinating writing, which gives intense feelings and, above all, makes us reflect upon ourselves; after reading the novel, we might resonate in perfect harmony with the characters. The end is touching, through it, it is possible to understand the paradoxical and yet curious philosophy of the pianist: the earth is an immense keyboard of destiny.

This masterpiece of the contemporary literature escapes from the clas-sical labeling of a monologue, offering to the lecturer the characteristic

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feature of a novel livened by the interweaving direct discourse, reflexive fragments, temporal jumps, flash backs, but the most important is that he manages to reach for the mysterious tone, the hypnotic atmosphere able to cause fascination.

References1 Santena Buscemi, Alessandro Barrico. Novecento, in Cultumedia, 1st May,

20002 Massimo Novelli, Baricco, ripartenza per il suo Novecento, in La repubblica,

25 aprile 2001, 43.3 Valeria Surico, Novecento, in Teatro, 22th December 20064 Costinela Rolea, Alessandro Barrico şi mitual solitudinii in Pro-Saeculum,

nr. 3/2009, 39, 44.5 Santena Buscemi, op. cit., 2.6 Costinela Rolea, op. cit., 44.7 Melfino Materazzi, Giovanni Presutti, Letteratura italiana Modulare. Storia

e testi, Ed. Thema, Bologna, 20058 Costinela Rolea, op. cit., 45.9 Alessandro Baricco, Novecento. un monologo, a cura di Paola Lagossi, Mila-

no, Universale Economica Feltrinelli, 2006, XII.

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The Category of Montage as the Tool to Understand the Grammar of the City in Postmodern Cinema. Representation of the Changing World in “Pulp Fiction”

Montažo kategorija kaip įrankis suprasti miesto gramatiką

postmoderniame kine. KintančioKintančio pasaulio reprezentacija

„Bulvariniame skaitale“

Beata WALiGOrSKA-OLeJNiCZAKAdam Mickiewicz universityinstytut Filologii rosyjskiejal. Niepodleglosci 461–874 Poznan, [email protected]

SummaryUpon the UK release of one of Quentin Tarantino’s films he said that he did

not want his films to be disposable. “Disposable” is the word which comes to mind while discussing the world created by him in Pulp Fiction, the work which seems to evoke particularly strong associations with junk culture, the culture of the instant and the recycled. The vision of the city where the plot is set up can belong to any modern city which is constantly changing and resembles thousands of similar places. It can constitute a simulacrum of daily exposure to consumption, which leaves an individual unable to comprehend and gives an illusion of cultural identity. It can also represent the place where everything is traded, not only mer-chandise but also relationships. The article focuses on the category of montage perceived as the key for understanding the organisation of the post-industrial space in Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction built on the mixture of pop culture values. It tries to establish central and peripheral areas of the city shown in the film and examine the role of urban facilities such as restaurants, motels and restrooms pictured in it. The studies lead to the analysis of heroes’ journeys, which push them somehow outside the city where they lived, and their behaviour in relation to internal and external architecture of the space.

Key words: montage, visual shifts, emotional shock, intellectual engagement, postmodern city, central and peripheral areas.

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Critics say that Quentin Tarantino’s films represent the final triumph of postmodernism, which is to empty the artwork of all content, thus voiding its capacity to do anything except helplessly represent our agonies (rather than to contain or comprehend)1. Tarantino’s distinctive squash of sad-ism, comic-book violence, consumerist trivia, and very good dialogue has come to seem a defining product of the fin de siècle. The director himself claims that everything he writes is extremely personal and has to do with whatever is going on with him at that time. For example, Tarantino was experiencing Europe for the first time when he wrote Pulp Fiction, thus John Travolta’s character has just come back from Europe and that is all he can talk about.

The film’s script had its origins in the old pulp crime stories published by Black Mask magazine. The director comments that “The idea was to start off with really old pulp ideas – the boxer who’s paid to throw a fight but doesn’t, the gangster who takes out his boss’s girl, knows he shouldn’t mess with her, but… – and sort of go to the Moon with them, take them to a place you’ve never seen them taken to before”2. The characters from one story sometimes interact with those of the next, chronology is discombob-ulated: characters that die in one story come back to life in another. Con-sequently, Pulp Fiction is most often associated with chaos, emptiness and slangy dialogue. Tarantino, however, in numerous interviews emphasised the fact that he had been drawn to the genre for its interest in charting the modern urban landscape and the opportunity of working on an emotional level of the audience leading them into unknown territories3.

This article is aimed to focus on artistic means used by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, due to which the spectator is able to go beyond the uncom-plicated level of the content and discover the depth, the hidden meaning of the work of art, initiate communicative interactions with the film. The core subject I will try to discuss here is the problem of the grammar of the postmodern city, internal and external relationships existing in it as well as its central and peripheral areas, the analysis of which may help to draw conclusions concerning the condition of the human being at the time of technological breakthrough. The specific key used for the studies of the problem of my interest will constitute the theory of montage of Sergei Eisenstein, the famous Russian film and theatre director, which should allow to understand the inner logic of Pulp Fiction, which seems to be based on the binary way of thinking, continuous juxtaposition of opposite ideas in order to overcome seemingly chaotic non-linear narrative and

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lead the spectator into one unifying truth. For Eisenstein montage was not only the way of efficient organisation of stories being told as it was for his predecessors, but first of all it constituted the tool for the interpretation of life and conscious management of viewers’ reactions4. The above features of Eisenstein’s method seem to show artistic similarity between creative principles of the aforementioned American director and the Russian film classic motivating the need to establish core intellectual issues, which remain common for both cultures, the East and the West, in spite of tem-poral and spatial distance between them.

As it is known, Eisenstein’s method of work was based exclusively on the reaction of the audience for he saw the main task of every theatre or film in guiding of the spectator into a desired direction5. The elementary creative tool for Eisenstein was so called attraction, i.e. every aggressive moment in a work of art that brings to light in the spectator those senses or that psychology that influence his experience, every element that can be verified and mathematically calculated to produce certain emotional shocks in a proper order within the totality6. In practice, it meant that harmonic composition was understood as much more than the need for the connected and sequential exposition of the theme and action, it was rather perceived as free montage of arbitrarily selected independent mol-ecules which were to engage the audience in the basic intentional line of a film, the core idea. The characteristic element of Eisenstein’s style was pathos built up through continuous change of categories, moving from one intellectual dimension into another in order to evoke a particular reac-tion of the spectator. It was put to life by the juxtaposition of two seem-ingly unconnected images, different styles or thoughts to communicate a completely new idea7. This ecstatic balancing on the verge of separate worlds seems to be also the method utilised by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, in which the director employs the machinery of pop culture in an effort to build a link between his audience and the ontological questions that he poses on-screen. The circular structure of the film suggests that montage in this work of art may be associated with a series of explosions or dynamic fights of opposite ideas rather than a gradual chain reaction of images.

Fights, violence and shootings are familiar elements of conventional action films set up in California. Standard nature of Pulp Fiction’s three main narratives draws attention to the clichés of the film, display a knowl-edge of the crisis of the Hollywood action-cinema, which is apparent in

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the relations between the milieu of Los Angeles and the protagonists. The L.A. of Pulp Fiction is predominantly a space of “rootlessness” with no visibly present central milieu or individual protagonist8. L.A. is shown as any space in both temporal and spatial terms. Characters appear to drift in and out of neutral, non-definable spaces such as coffee shops, motel rooms, bars and apartments. The protagonists appear to have no concrete relations with these spaces; they stroll from one to another. According to Paul Gormley this sense of instability is compounded by the non-defin-able era of these spaces. We travel from the contemporary space of the apartment block to the boxing ring backstage to the Godarian motel room. In the apartments there is nothing to catch our eye, most of the time we can observe walls, floors or elevators from different perspectives, dirty or clean, old or modern but not personalised. Mia’s house is presented as sterile space to be shown around, to admire or to take pictures of. As we follow the movements of the camera we can see spacious interiors resembling those in designers’ catalogues, we wonder if this is really a place where someone lives. A completely different image is created while wandering with Vincent and Jules along narrow corridors of the apart-ment block just before the retrieval of Marsellus’s briefcase. The dramatic intensity is built up by long shots of the characters’ talking in the dirty elevator or in the hall before reaching their destination. The apartment itself is in a state of rather claustrophobic mess, but it is definitely the space where people do their daily routines of eating and sleeping in a big city. The aforementioned images show that L.A. seems to be an undefined and unstructured space which does not evoke a nostalgia for characteris-tic sensory-motor relations of action between the protagonist and milieu. Instead, the film supplies such density of intertextual allusions to cultural artefacts of the past that the viewer’s attempts to keep up provides its own kind of distraction.

In other words we could say that any attempt to use a reference as a sign of any unified structure of meaning behind the film leads in Pulp Fiction to yet another citation. A prime example is the much-discussed briefcase, which Jules and Vincent are to pick up for their gangster boss. The briefcase is opened twice and each time a bright golden light absorbs the opener’s face and the screen. “The viewer never gets to see the source of this golden light, the unseen contents of the briefcase thwart attempts to read it as containing some symbolic deep structural meaning”9. We could argue that on a surface level the golden light operates here as a

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symbol of violence itself, an allusion to Spielberg’s raiders of the Lost Ark and Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly as both films feature boxes with an un-seen object emanating golden light which can be associated with ultimate violent destruction. We can broaden this interpretation with the close-up of the code Vincent uses while opening the briefcase. It consists of triple six which, according to Christian symbolic, can be associated with the sin and the Apocalyptic name of Antichrist rising from the ground, although it also reminds of six days of the Creation of the World in the book of Genesis. Consequently, the briefcase could be associated both with the beginning and the end of the World, which is confirmed by the opening of the discussed object both at the initial and final scenes of the film. The double meaning of the briefcase may be also connected with the rebirth of Jules and the death of Vincent which bring to mind the dual nature of the world, mutual relationships between the spirit and the matter in all aspects of life.

At the same time, these futile attempts to find meaning in the briefcase suggest that the golden glow itself produces an affective reaction in the viewer. “The golden glow functions as an example of the Deleuzian col-our-image in the sense that it does not refer to a particular object, but ab-sorbs all that it can”10. The golden light fills the screen and seizes all that happens within its range, absorbs not only the spectator but also the char-acters and the situations. The curiosity evoked by the unseen nature of the briefcase’s contents suggests the possibility of depth and meaning, as the viewer strains to see the object producing the golden light. Paul Gormley claims that there is something in the image that is beyond the surface that invites the viewer to give it significance beyond its literal physical appear-ance, beyond the superficiality and obviousness of the images11. The op-position between surface and depth may be understood here as a metaphor to express a nostalgia for the real, the spectator’s desire for depth.

This search for the culture which is somehow more real and deep-er than the surface simulation of postmodernism can also be noticed in the creation of the black figures of Marsellus and Jules. Superficially, the film’s two black characters are similarly composed of intertextual allu-sions to other stock cinematic figures, but unlike the white genre charac-ters both Marsellus and Jules are constituted and linked to a truth beyond the plot level. In Jules’s case this is probably most marked when he moves on from being a simulation of a Baptist preacher. At breakfast at a diner Jules and Vincent pursue a philosophical debate unusual for a film of this

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nature, which seems to highlight Jules’s complex and mysterious conver-sion. Jules understands the power of the miracle that he witnesses because he possesses the ethical faculties to listen to the transformational power of their experience. Jules engages in the act of what Miller refers to as the “ethics of reading”. “At such moments an author turns back on himself, so to speak, turns back on a text he or she has written, re-reads it”12. As the de facto author of his own life, Jules reflects upon his past experience as text, attempting to interpret its meaning before his conversion. Previously employing the text of Ezekiel 25:17 as a means for delivering death, after the advent of his conversion Jules reinterprets the passage and discovers the horrible truth about his past existence. For the first time, Jules real-ises the value of human life and his own ability to sustain it. Tarantino establishes Jules as the moral centre of his film, the viewer can observe an image shift as the character transforms from a gangland caricature into a man trying to follow a right path. The viewer feels involved in his trans-formation as the shots accompanying his philosophical conversation with Vincent are mostly close-ups of their faces and eyes, which makes the whole process credible and easy to believe. The idea of using Ezekiel cita-tion as a killing speech and later on as an avenue for redemption, inspired by a kung fu movie, proves again that for Tarantino cultural ephemera very often lead to larger ontological discussions concerning God and re-veal multi-level structure of his works13.

The juxtaposition of opposite categories is also visible in the crea-tion of the controlling figure of Marsellus. This often unseen character constitutes in fact the central omnipotent figure of the film hovering over all the narratives and functioning as the one concrete link between the protagonists and the milieu of the L.A. Underworld14. The first on-screen appearance of Marsellus is in the opening sequence of “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife”. We can see a two-minute-long take of expres-sionless and motionless Butch listening to the unseen instructing voice of Marsellus. The rest of this scene features shots of the back of Marsellus’s black head, partially covered with a band-aid and Butch’s non-reaction to the situation. Throughout the scene the viewer strains to see the face from which the voice is emanating, the shot of the back of Marsellus’s head seems to increase the divide between a visible, simulated and surface whiteness and an unknowable and deep blackness. The band-aid stuck across the back of his head obviously stands out in contrast to Marsellus’s black flesh. “The juxtaposition of head and the plaster evokes the film’s

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construction of whiteness as artificial, while the black flesh underneath is unseen and unknowable”15. The studies show that the film is often per-ceived as the one setting up a dualistic structure where the white culture is revealed as a blank, empty and meaningless space, and African-American culture is fetished as both knowing the meaning and value of popular cul-ture, and a space of affective depth16. The godlike character of Marsellus controlling the symbolic realities of the other characters seems to repre-sent the reversal in cultural authority, the power to energise the world.

Shifts of energy, but of different kind, can be observed also in scenes with Vincent Vega and Mia. The shot of Vincent driving through the dark-ness in an idyllic heroin-soaked haze to meet Mia reminds us of the pleas-ures of inactivity and the need to hang out. The atmosphere continues dur-ing the visit in Jack Rabbit Slim’s, where the waiters and waitresses are Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Zorro, James Dean, Martin and Lewis, Buddy Holly etc., whose catch lines and phrases sell steaks and burgers – “Hi! I’m Buddy, pleasing you, pleases me”17. The spectator has a chance to observe static shots of Mia and Vincent sitting at the table, amusing themselves with the same brand of playful banter that characterises all of Vincent’s relationships. As the evening unfolds the couple share a contest-winning dance, shots of the characters’ dancing become dynamic with lots of close-ups of their bodies’ movements and facial expression lost in twist. The shots take a lot of time, the deliberately unhurried pace of the date al-lows Tarantino to infuse the scene with the archetypal cinematic expecta-tion of sex. It is confirmed by the comic scene in the bathroom, in which Vincent literally staring at his own image in the mirror reminds himself of the inherent dangers awaiting him in the other room, where Mia glides to the song “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”. Both the characters and the spectators are seduced by this scene, share a kind of erotic tension which suddenly switches into Mia’s accidental heroin overdose that requires Vincent to save her and his own life by stabbing Mia in the heart with an injection of adrenaline. The anticipated sexual encounter is replaced by the cover-your-eyes scene in which Vincent and his drug dealer try to save the boss’s wife by plunging a needle into her heart per instructions in a medical book. The woman is on the brink of death, we can see the close-up of the needle looking about 13 inches long while Lance and Vincent are arguing about the instructions. Tarantino himself says that he loves to watch that scene. “When you watch it, the audience is broken into thirds: a third is diving under their chair, a third is laughing, and the other third is

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doing both at the same time”18. The director deliberately put that scene to work on viewers’ emotional level as it is both extremely funny and very dramatic.

Similar emotions are evoked by mixing the categories of tragic and comic in the scenes preceding the adrenaline shot, namely during Vin-cent’s manic drive to Lance. We have no doubts that it represents nothing more than his interest in his self-preservation, there is no place for genu-ine affection or romantic feelings aroused just few minutes earlier. Before answering the phone Lance watches a cartoon representing typical simple comic-strip humour, just few seconds later he experiences similar situa-tions in real life when Vincent literally drives into his house with his car. This time, however, the scenes may seem funny only for the spectator, Lance and his wife are moved from the atmosphere of weekend relaxation and fun into fury and quarrels connected with the unexpected invasion of Vincent. We could say that switching between scenes evoking opposite reactions of the spectator is a kind of Tarantino’s signature mark, it is a game the film maker is playing with the viewer to make him involved with his work. Utilising the language of Eisenstein and his definition of attraction we could say here that Tarantinian humour balancing on the verge of opposite categories is the aggressive element applied to provoke the spectator, to produce emotional shocks leading to the discovery of the basic intentional line of the film.

Similar shocking effect based on two-dimensional character of the sto-ry may be associated with “The Gold Watch” episode. The tale opens with a dream-flashback sequence in which Butch as a boy is presented with the heirloom watch by his father’s fellow officer from the Vietnam conflict, Captain Koons. In addition to establishing the heroic tradition of Coolidge men, Koons’s long monologue tells the story of bizarre method of rectal transport necessary to return the watch to Butch from Vietnam. The un-consciously ironic narrative turns paternal love into control, sentimen-tal attachment into obsession haunting Butch just prior to his big fight19. Sacrum mixes with profanum here, the gold watch becomes the symbol of the objectification of the human, the dominance of object relations in postmodern world. Butch’s traumatic legacy makes him risk his life and go back to his apartment setting in motion the dramatic chain of events.

It starts with putting a pop tart into the toaster at his apartment. The spectator is shocked by a sudden springing up of the tart causing Butch to jerk the trigger of the gun and kill Vincent Vega. The link between the

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object and death appears also in the scenes in the pawnshop, particularly when Butch confronts his most challenging ethical test whether or not to spare Marsellus from sodomy and certain death at the hands of two hillbilly sadomasochists. This crucial moment, a point of moral regenera-tion as well as a life-changing decision for Butch is marked by an elabo-rate inventory of the store’s stock as he searches for a weapon. “First, he picks up a hammer from a drawer below the counter, then a baseball bat snatched off the counter, which is in turn dropped for a chainsaw taken from a chest-height shelf. Finally, the camera focuses on Butch’s face as he stares upwards. He climbs up to get this object, which turns out to be a samurai sword”20. The quasi-magical properties of the object are suggested in Butch’s protracted gaze, in the suggestions of an archetypal quest and its relation to folk tale and myth. The elements of the folk tale may include the dark room at the back of the pawnshop resembling a sort of cave or dungeon or Maynard and Zed’s shift image from the respect-able to murderers. Butch’s process of choosing the right weapon assumes qualities of the ritualistic conferral of the magical gift. Butch with the quasi-magical sword is able to conquer the beasts and save Marsellus, he kills Maynard with curiously expert samurai-style techniques. The episode in the pawnshop is a way for Butch to achieve something of the moral victory and heroism of his forebears. He is forgiven for his betrayal and rides off triumphantly on Zed’s motorcycle, free and dignified. Marsellus cancels the feud between them with the words “there is no me and you” and the exile he imposes “You lost all your L.A. privileges”.

To sum up, we could say that Pulp Fiction mixes lurid, outrageous elements with sweetly appealing ones to the point where the viewer never has the faintest idea what to expect21. It makes people think, laugh, cry and shiver22. Aiming for the emotions it is a movie that moves the audi-ence, the quirky dialogue shifting unexpectedly from funny, hair-split-ting small talk to terrifying extremes accompanies dramatic visual shifts and startling changes of pace23. Extravagant ideas such as the restaurant designed as a shrine to American popular culture with diners sitting in convertibles and a staff made up of ersatz 1950’s celebrities mix with philosophical questions about death imposed by images of samurai sword or martial art techniques. The circular structure of narratives constitut-ing the film plot correspond to the spiral system of citations put to life by the intertextuality of the film. This constant game of opposite elements initiated by the brilliant montage based on intellectual engagement of the

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viewer creates the image of the postmodern city being a space of surface, simulation and emptiness associated with the white culture. The white characters are either killed or moved to peripheral areas with no name or identity. The film seems to turn attention to the possibility of the black culture occupying the central place and re-energising the white with the affect that culture lacks.

References1 James Wood, “You’re sayin’ a foot massage don’t mean nothin’, and I’m say-

in’ it does’”, The Guardian, 1994, 19 November, 31.2 Jim McClellan, Taranti, The Observer, 1994, 3 July, 28–30.3 ibid.4 Jerzy Plazewski, Jezyk filmu, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmo-

we, 1982, 157–160.5 Jurij Lotman, Semiotyka filmu, Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1983, 106–

130.6 Sergei. eisenstein, The Film Sense, London: Faber and Faber LTD, 1997, 166––

168.7 eisenstein, Nieobojetna Przyroda, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Artystyczne i

Filmowe, 1975, 221–240.8 Paul Gormley, “Trashing Whiteness, Pulp Fiction, se7en, strange days, and

articulating affect”, Angelaki, 2001, vol. 6, No. 1, 155–170.–170.170.9 ibid, 159.10 ibid.11 ibid.12 Hillis J. Miller, The ethics of reading: Kant, de Man, eliot, Trollope, James,

and Benjamin, New York: Columbia UP, 1987.13 Beverly Lowry, “Criminals Rendered in 3 Parts, Poetically”, New York Times,

1994, 29.14 Gormley, 161.15 ibid.16 ibid, 157.17 Fred Botting, Scott Wilson, ““Uuummmm, that’s a tasty burger”: Quentin Tar-

antino and the Consumption of Excess”, Parallax, 2001, vol. 7, No. 1, 29-47.18 Lowry, 28.19 Robbie B. H. Goh, “Shop-Soiled Worlds: Retailing Narratives, Typologies,

and Commodity Culture”, Social Semiotics, 2002, vol. 12, No. 1, 5-25.20 ibid., 20.21 Todd Gitlin, “Revenge of the Nerd”, New York Times, 1996, 3 March, 21.22 David Sterritt, “Cannes’ Top Prize Goes to US-Made ‘Pulp Fiction’”, The

Christian Science Monitor, 1994, 25 May, 16.23 Janet Maslin, “Stylish Storytelling and Some Fodder for Remakes at Cannes”,

New York Times, 1994, 20 May, C3.

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The Creation of “Global Ethnoscapes” in the Literature of Migration

„Globalių etnovaizdžių“ kūrimas migrantų literatūroje

Sandra VLASTAuniversity of ViennaSchool of european and Comparative Literature and Language StudiesDepartment of Comparative LiteratureBerggasse 11/5A-1090 [email protected]

SummaryThe anthropologist Arjun Appadurai uses the term “global ethnoscapes” to

describe spaces which are created by migration and mass media. Especially during the second half of the 20th century these spaces have become more and more the place where social, cultural and spatial group identity is being created and acted out. These new, “global” identities, unlike ethnocentric identities, are no longer created with regard to the actual place where one lives, but are defined by long distance affiliations to other places (the homeland, the place where one’s parents come from etc.) and often maintained via mass media. Therefore, the importance of the imagination in the creation of “global ethnoscapes” and new identities is an ever-increasing one. Literature of migration plays a very active role in this proc-ess. The term in this context is used to describe literature by the authors who write in a language different from their mother tongue and/or who have experienced mi-gration either themselves or as second or third generation immigrants. In this pa-per, Appadurai’s concept is adapted and used to analyse recent examples of the lit-erature of migration in German and English (Julya Rabinowich’s novel Spaltkopf (2008), Seher Çakır’s collection of short stories Zitronenkuchen für die sechsund-fünfzigste frau (2009), and Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane (2003)). The analyses show how “global ethnoscapes” are being described and created in the texts and how they therefore can be read as exemplary depictions of living in migration.

Key words: literature of migration, global ethnoscapes, identity and migra-tion, Julya rabinowich, Seher Çakır, Monica Ali.

“Global ethnoscape” (also simply: ethnoscape) is a term which an-thropologist Arjun Appadurai uses to describe spaces that are created by

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migration and mass media. He defines “ethnoscapes” as “the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers, and other moving groups and individuals”1. Particularly during the second half of the 20th (and onto the 21st) century, with ever increasing mass migration and the development of mass media, ethnoscapes have more and more become the space where social, cultural and spatial group identities are being created and acted out. Appadurai even argues that the term “ethnoscape” could be used as an al-ternative for entities such as places, villages or communities. Ethnocentric identities, which are connected to such traditional concepts and indicate a strong link to actual places, are challenged and eventually rewritten by the concept of ethnoscapes.

The adjective “global” underlines that “ethnoscapes” are deterritorial-ized, not tied to particular places, and that they are heterogeneous. This is not supposed to mean that there are no stable or relatively stable com-munities and relationships anymore, rather it implies that these, let us call them “traditional”, relationships are at the same time always also charac-terized by moving individuals or groups (leaving or coming back) or at least the fantasies of having to move.

“Ethnoscapes” are characterized by migration and (mass) media. Mass media accompany migration, they play a decisive role in creating what Appadurai calls the “communities of sentiment”2, communities which be-gin to imagine and feel things together. Film and video, in particular, but also ways of communication such as the Internet, e-mail, telephone, text messages etc. create diasporic communities, on the one hand, and de-termine long-distance relationships with the “homeland”, on the other. Moving images meet deterritorialized viewers: “Turkish guest workers in Germany watch Turkish films in their German flats, […] Koreans in Phil-adelphia watch the 1988 Olympics in Seoul through satellite feeds from Korea, […] Pakistani cabdrivers in Chicago listen to cassettes of sermons recorded in mosques in Pakistan or Iran […]”3. The collective experience of mass media creates solidarities, both within the diasporic communities and with the homeland left behind.

This impact of the media on deterritorialized viewers leads to Appa-durai’s argument that during the past decades, imagination has increas-ingly become a collective, social fact. Of course, imagination has always played an important role in social life. Art, myth, legend, etc. have always been an important part of societies. What is changing though, according

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to Appadurai, is the fact that imagination is no longer restricted to certain parts of life and that it is no longer only certain individuals (religious leaders, politicians, monarchs etc.) whose imagination affects social life, but ‘ordinary people’, who in a “postelectronic world”4 have the possibil-ity to deploy their imagination to actively shape and change their lives. This means that imagination has become part of the daily life of ordinary people from many different levels of society. The access to mass media accounts for more people than ever, considering “a wider set of possible lives than they ever did before”5, as they are confronted with many differ-ent ways of living in films, on video and, then again, through the experi-ence of migration, an experience which they might have had because the idea of leading a life different from that of their parents has enabled them to take that step. Mass media, therefore, create ‘agency’, i.e. they affect people’s lives and provoke re/action, be it in a positive or negative way. Mass media can also account for idealized and/or radical views of the homeland left behind. Global fundamentalist movements often are also based on the “communities of sentiment” which unite deterritorialized groups and the former homeland.

Appadurai’s concept calls for a re-orientation of anthropology, as it points to important factors, which ought to be taken into account in creating new methodologies for anthropological studies with a transna-tional scope. In this paper, I would like to apply his concept to the “lit-erature of migration”, which, I argue, plays an active role in the process of rewriting identities and/or inscribing them into “global ethnoscapes”. The term “literature of migration” is only one of many used to describe literature by authors who write in a language different from their mother tongue and/or who have experienced migration either themselves or as second- or third- generation immigrants. This definition, however, is not to be read exclusively. The ongoing discussions on terminology, particularly in German Studies, reflect the difficulties which definitions such as this pose6. “Literature of migration” is, of course, not only a cur-rent phenomenon – writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad or Adalbert von Chamisso would be famous examples of authors who chose (also) foreign languages for their works. Recently, though, “literature of migration” has been given more attention by read-ers, critics and scholars alike. Many of the texts (but not all!) reflect the deterritorialized world of migration and media and are at the same time part of it. They are an expression of the heterogeneous identity produced

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by migration and are an expression of the link between imagination and social life.

In his work Appadurai himself analyses narrative and film for he be-lieves it is important from an anthropological point of view to take a clos-er look at what he calls “expressive representations”7, such as films and literature, because many lives are now “inextricably linked”8 with such representations and these links ought to be studied.

In this paper, works by Julya Rabinowich, Seher Çakır and Monica Ali, respectively, will be analysed in order to support the argument that lit-erature of migration can be read as an expression of “global ethnoscapes”.

Julya Rabinowich’s novel Spaltkopf9 (Splithead, a ghostlike figure from Russian mythology – we will come back to him later) was award-ed the prestigious Austrian Rauriser literary prize earlier this year. The autobiographically inspired text tells the story of Mischka, a girl born in Saint Petersburg, who emigrates to Austria with her parents and her grandmother at the age of seven. Rabinowich herself was born in 1971 in St. Petersburg to Jewish parents; in the 1970s she came to Austria, where she later studied translation studies, psychotherapy and applied arts. In 2005 she received her first literary prize and has since then published several shorter texts and plays in anthologies. Spaltkopf is her first novel, published in 2009.

The text tells, with Mischka as a first-person narrator most of the time, memories of the Russian past, episodes of growing-up in Vienna and ends with a journey to Saint Petersburg. Already these structural characteristics of the text evoke the notion of a global ethnoscape expressed geographi-cally: the places which are mentioned illustrate the network which migra-tion has opened up. The protagonist’s Jewish family migrates from Saint Petersburg to Vienna, although for security reasons they first tell the child that they are going on holidays to Lithuania. Other relatives also choose to emigrate; they go to the US, to Israel (part of the family is Jewish), to South Africa and Japan. All these places of migration are mentioned on the first pages of the novel, establishing the family’s geographical global ethnoscape right from the beginning. Furthermore, Mischka in the very first, short part of the novel (which is characterized by a slightly differ-ent style and structure than the rest) starts her account on board of a ship, leaving Ireland for Scotland. The journey, the constant moving and shift-ing which characterizes ethnoscapes, has already started when the reader encounters Mischka for the first time, then a young woman and pregnant.

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It is a journey which continues throughout the text and does not find its end even on the last pages, when Mischka, as an adult woman, finds her-self in Saint Petersburg, and not only literally on a journey, but also trav-elling back in time to find out more about herself.

Mischka herself, always slightly ironic and mocking about her fam-ily, albeit often rather despairingly – enlarges the ethnoscape even further when she calls her family members, in particular those in Russia, “cosmo-nauts” (p.143). This of course evokes concepts such as outer space and a distance impossible to bridge, but also has connotations of Communism and the West as its opposite, as well as particular forms of communica-tion.

Now, how does communication with the “cosmonauts” take place? Here the role of the media as described by Appadurai comes in. As the larger part of the novel is set in the late 1970s and 1980s, of course, more recent media such as the Internet or e-mail are still absent, but the tel-ephone as well as letters play a decisive role in keeping up the various strings of the network (as we have seen, Appadurai himself mentions what today are already dated forms of media (such as tapes) as examples of how global ethnoscapes and “communities of sentiment” are characterized and shaped by the media)10. The first-person narrator herself discusses the importance of the telephone and letters, which become the only means of keeping in touch in migration. Also here, the picture of “cosmonauts” in their space suits is evoked:

Die emigration reißt Menschen auseinander. Sie erfahren von Höhepunkten und unglücksfällen über Brief und Telefon. Direkter Kontakt ist unmöglich. Als hätten sie sich auf einem anderen Planeten niedergelassen, geht ihr Atem schwer in ihren raumanzügen, die sie nicht abzulegen wagen, aus Angst, in der ungewohnten Atmosphäre keine Luft zu bekommen. Schwer geht die Brust auf und nieder, die Lunge schmerzt. Die Stimmen anderer Siedler krächzen aus den Mikrophonen ihrer Helme. (p. 84)

emigration tears people apart. They find out about highlights and mishaps via letters and the telephone. Direct contact is impossible. As if they had settled down on a different planet, they breath heavily in their space suits, which they do not dare to take off, afraid, that they might not be able to breathe in the unfamiliar atmosphere. Strenuously, their breast moves up and down, their lungs are hurting. Voices of other settlers croak in the microphones in their helmets. (my translation).

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Decisive moments in the life of the family take place on the telephone, important information has to be given via the line: when Mischka’s grand-mother (from the father’s side) dies, Mischka watches her father, who is told the sad news on the phone. Earlier on, to Mischka herself, her grandmother becomes a vague memory, a voice in the telephone earpiece, which then falls silent forever.

The scene is replicated later, when Mischka’s father dies on his first trip back to Russia and the family in Vienna is again informed on the phone. In these scenes, it is not only migration which tears the family apart, but the very media which, on the one hand, ought to bridge the distances, but on the other hand, interfere and disrupt it at the same time. When calls from and to Russia are mentioned in the text, most of the time they deliver sad news.

Another important medium, which maintains the ties with the lost homeland, but at the same time becomes part of a new, global identity as part of the “ethnoscape”, are narratives from the corpus of Russian mythology. Figures such as the already mentioned “splithead” or “Baba Yaga” turn up again and again (and dominate the text by being used in the title), first in Russia, then in Austria. The “splithead” remains a fantastic figure which children are scared of, even though at the end of the novel Mischka manages to confront him. Baba Yaga, on the other hand, takes on different forms. She is described in her traditional form at the beginning of the text, when the family is still in Russia. She then turns up again in Austria, where Mischka calls an old landlady in the countryside “öster-reichische Baba Yaga” (p.110)11. Eventually, Mischka herself becomes a “Baba Yaga Girl” (p.123), taking the name her boyfriend Franz gives her. Here, it is made explicit how imagination bridges places and transforms them at the same time and what effects imagination (here associated in a rather traditional way with myth and legend) has on the actual life in mi-gration; it therefore becomes possible that a traditional figure of Russian mythology becomes part of the identity of a young girl in Vienna.

As a second example I would like to discuss Seher Çakır’s short sto-ries which have been published in the volume Zitronenkuchen für die sechsundfünfzigste frau12. Seher Çakır was born in Istanbul and grew up in Vienna. She has published poems and short stories and won several prizes.

Çakır’s texts vary considerably in style and atmosphere. Some of them are set in rather traditional surroundings in Turkey, others are inhabited by

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young, urban protagonists and take place in European metropolises such as Vienna, Prague or Lisbon. Seen as a whole, already a mixture of set-tings, but also languages and protagonists, this collection of texts reflects the global ethnoscape created and expressed by migration and the media13:

- There is Adem, whose name evokes a Turkish background; he runs a small restaurant in Vienna;

- Hülya, who calls herself Helen with reference to the Greek god-dess and to her parents’ hometown Canakkale, the ancient Troy;

- Zehra, whose desperate letters from Turkey have been collected by her (Turkish) mother, who lives in Vienna;

- The young Alevi Sevim and his Sunni girlfriend Savaş, who love each other in their hometown Vienna despite the traditional ideas of their parents and

- Selin, whose mother left Istanbul because she was in love with Vi-enna and had decided to live there.

Leaving / travelling / arriving are major topics in the stories, although the protagonists’ motivations are quite diverse. Some go away for a week-end, others start a new life in the new country, still others are ever com-muting between places and lives.

One of the most striking examples, which illustrates the intersection of modern life with migration and the media and the challenges connected to them, is the short story “Sevim and Savaş”. It is told by a first-person narrator who appears in the narrative which forms the framework and tells the reader that the following story supposedly has happened just the way it is told: the young Alevi Sevim and the Sunni girl Savaş are a couple in Vienna. When Savaş’ family decides to take her to Turkey, both are wor-ried it might be for Savaş’ arranged wedding – a worry which proves to be true. However, Savaş successfully opposes her family’s plans and eventu-ally returns to Vienna. Once arrived, she tries in vain to contact Sevim and in the end finds out that he has killed himself. Savaş’ father had told him on the phone that she was about to get married after all and was not interested in him anymore.

In this story the global ethnoscape in which the protagonists move is illustrated in different ways. Religion is the first factor which points from Vienna, the place where Sevim and Savaş live their love, to a tradi-tional background, where religious belief and long-established customs are still of great importance. As another example, the “Turkish village” is opposed to Vienna and the Viennese café where Savaş and Sevim meet

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before she leaves. The village is not described in more detail, neither is its name mentioned. This might be read as a rather clichéd version of “the traditional (i.e. backward) Turkish village”, but this danger is countered by descriptions of the Internet café in the village as well as the doctor at the hospital where Savaş’ parents have to take her to when she goes on a hunger strike. She accuses the supposedly modern, émigré parents of backwardness and shouts at them.

In the story, the role of the media is also made manifest: the young couple communicate via e-mail when Savaş is still in Turkey. One of those e-mails forms part of the text, just like Sevim’s letter of goodbye, which he leaves for Savaş (and the reader) to read after his suicide.

Another medium, which disrupts communication rather than enabling it, is the mobile phone. When Savaş returns to Austria, she is unable to reach Sevim on his mobile phone, nor does he respond to her text mes-sages. However, it is a medium which is described in a peculiar relation to religion and tradition. When Savaş’ father calls Sevim in order to ter-minate the relationship of the young couple, the medium not only works, but Sevim believes Savaş’ father because he knows him to be a religious man. Lying is therefore forbidden to him. He believes Savaş’ e-mails, rather than her father’s words on the phone, to be lies. Here, the contrast and the contemporaneity of modern media, modern life in migration and strong links to the traditions of the home left long ago, are made obvious. Sevim is weighing the importance and credibility of the various messages he has received and decides for the most traditional one, the one closest to religion, which, to him, is the one most likely to be true. This is a form of a “community of sentiments” – religious beliefs link migrants to the homeland as well as to each other.

In Çakır’s short story, the net, which I would also like to interpret as a “global ethnoscape”, is determined by many different layers and direc-tions, all of which come together in different knots in different places: re-ligion, tradition, respect, migration and its impacts, modern life, love etc. Other stories by Çakır reflect this net in similar ways.

With Monica Ali’s Brick Lane14 we turn to an example of the literature of migration in English. Monica Ali was born in Dhaka in Bangladesh and grew up in England. Already before Brick Lane, her first novel, was pub-lished, her name was put on the “Granta list of best young British novel-ists”. Brick Lane tells the story of Nazneen, a woman from Bangladesh who is slowly coming to terms with her life in London and eventually

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manages to lead an independent, self-determined life with her two daugh-ters.

The structure of the book is affected by the media which are used to keep in touch with Bangladesh and the people left behind. There are the letters of Nazneen’s sister, Hasina, which arrive in London on a more or less regular basis. In the book, they appear in italics, at one point a whole chapter consists only of Hasina’s letters. Towards the very end of the nov-el, there are the letters of Nazneen’s husband Chanu from Bangladesh, which are, however, only mentioned, never actually rendered in the text. Also, Chanu makes telephone calls every now and then. Letters and the telephone are therefore the media in question in Ali’s text.

We might add to these media Nazneen’s memories of Bangladesh and of her childhood, which also connect her current life in London to Bang-ladesh. This is an especially important aspect as she, during her first years in London, states that she is homesick not for a different place, but a different time: “[…] she knew that where she wanted to go was not a dif-ferent place but a different time” (p.35). To comfort herself, she would often slip away into her childhood memories, using her imagination to simultaneously bridge the distance to her homeland and to come to terms with her new situation in London. The impact which her imagination has on Nazneen’s current life is made obvious, although it is not used by her in a ‘productive way’ yet. However, her identity in the first years in Lon-don is based just as much, if not more, on her memories as on her actual surroundings.

While Nazneen’s memories go back to a hard, though idealized life in a small village, Hasina’s letters reflect her difficult everyday life in Bang-ladesh. In these letters, which are written in broken English, a debatable stylistic choice, the particular nature of long-distance relationships caused by migration can be observed; here the connection between émigrés and the homeland is illustrated. The letters are especially interesting as they are written by one woman to the other. Coming from a traditional back-ground, where home and the family are associated with women, family bonds seem to be the main interest both for the sender and the addressee. But then, social and economic issues (Hasina, who lives in changing, but always difficult situations, has to take care of herself most of the time) become just as important and, finally, decisive political events take place in front of Hasina’s eyes. In Hasina’s letters, it is the particularly tumultu-ous time before the parliamentary elections of 2001, which accounts for

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the violent atmosphere described in them. Through her letters, Nazneen is able to take part in the current events in Bangladesh, and a “community of sentiments” (though uncommented!) is formed, not only with her sister, but also with the homeland.

Besides the long-distance relationships, the London district Tower Hamlets may also be interpreted as an expression of the global ethno-scape. Here, where a lot of immigrants from Bangladesh live, it becomes clear how imagination serves to construct identities in migration, in par-ticular with regard to the situation of the novel’s women. In their new sur-roundings they manage to imagine better lives if not for themselves, then at least for their children. To achieve this, through the experience of mi-gration, they arrange their lives accordingly. For instance, Ali describes:

- the emancipation of Bengali wives, who start working from home, first to contribute to the family income, later in order to become in-dependent, and/or to be able to finance their children’s education;

- their attempt to learn English;- their ambitious plans for their children;- the slow progress of Nazneen, who, coming from a periphery

(Bangladesh), explores first the surroundings of the block where she lives and at the end of the novel literally manages to travel alone to the very centre of London, a journey which reflects her personal coming-of-age.

ConclusionIn applying Arjun Appadurai’s concept of “global ethnoscapes” to

literature of migration this paper has tried to show how this concept is reflected by and inscribed into the literary texts themselves. Looking at the different aspects which link the “new” and the “old” homeland, the various media which are used to keep in touch, the way the formation of “communities of sentiments” is described, etc. has shown that migrant fictions can be read as representations of the living in migration, which again might be linked to the actual lives of migrants. What effect these texts might have on the imagination of groups and individuals, is a ques-tion which has to be brought back to anthropologists.

However, from the point of view of literary studies, it has to be added, that the perception and creation of “ethnoscapes” in the texts happens on an individual level and leads to very different interpretations, as has also been testified by the present analysis. Literature of migration there-

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fore “represents individuals” rather than groups; it points to the construct-edness, fluidity and individuality of identities rather than represent “the identity (of Jewish Russians in Austria, Turks in Vienna or Bangladeshi in London) in migration”. It can therefore be read only as an exemplary il-lustration, but not as a distinct picture of certain groups of migrants.

References1 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998, 33.2 ibid., 8.3 ibid., 4.4 ibid., 5.5 ibid., 53.6 For current summaries on the discussion of terminology see for instance: Hiltrud

Arens, ‘Kulturelle Hybridität’ in der deutschen Minoritätenliteratur der achtziger Jahre, Tübingen, Stauffenburg, 2000, in particular 24–34; Carmine Chiellino, interkulturalität und Literaturwissenschaft, in: C. Chiellino ed., interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland. ein Handbuch, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2000, 387–398, in particular 389f.; Sabine Fischer, Moray McGowan, Migrant Writing in the German Federal republic, in: R. King et. al. eds., Writing Across Worlds. Litera-ture and Migration, London: Routledge, 1995, 39–56; Saskia Hintz, Schreiben in der Sprache der Fremde. Zeitgenössische deutsche ‘Migrantenliteratur’ und Kreatives Schreiben im Fach Deutsch als Fremdsprache, New York: University of New York, Dissertation, 2002, in particular 50–62.

7 ibid., 64.8 ibid.9 Julya Rabinowich, Spaltkopf, Vienna: edition exil, 2008, further quotations

from the book will be indicated by page numbers in brackets. 10 In her reading of the Turkish-German writer Emine Sevgi �zdamar’s narrativeIn her reading of the Turkish-German writer Emine Sevgi �zdamar’s narrative

“The Courtyard”, Leslie A. Adelson also takes up Appadurai’s concept. There also, the text deals with rather old-fashioned forms of media, such as the tel-ephone and the television. However, Adelson describes how these interact with other leitmotifs of the text such as mirrors, windows, doors and books, which in a way become media too. Leslie A. Adelson, The Turkish Turn in Contempo-rary German Literature. Towards A New Critical Grammar of Migration, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005, 41ff.

11 “Austrian Baba Yaga” (110).“Austrian Baba Yaga” (110).12 Seher Çakır, Zitronenkuchen für die sechsundfünzigste frau, Vienna: edition

exil, 2009 [Lemoncake for the 56th Wife]. Further quotations from the book will be indicated by page numbers in brackets.

13 In one of the stories, single Turkish words such as “yani” (93), “gülpastahane-In one of the stories, single Turkish words such as “yani” (93), “gülpastahane-si” (94), “tatlı kızım“ (99) are used and are explained in footnotes.

14 Monica Ali, Brick Lane, London: Doubleday, 2003. Further quotations from the book will be indicated by page numbers in brackets.

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Vers un radieux avenir English speaking? Quelques réflexions sur l’impact et les enjeux linguistiques de la mondialisation en Irlande et en Inde

Towards a Radiant Future with Global English? Some

Considerations on the Linguistic Consequences of Globalization: The

Cases of Ireland and India

Į šviesią ateitį su anglų kalba? Keletas pamąstymų apie kalbines globalizacijos pasekmes Airijoje ir Indijoje

ekkehard Wolfgang BOrNTrÄGerDépartement d’anglais et de slavistiqueuniversité de Fribourg SuisseC.P. 133CH-1701 [email protected]

SummaryOne of the key points of the public (and scientific) discourse on globaliza-

tion rests on the assumption that the spread of English is concomitant to – if not a precondition for – effective socio-economic modernization and the free circula-tion of modern, emancipatory ideas, as well. English has long become a syno-nym and a symbol for progress. Little wonder that more and more voices are demanding that English should be introduced as a main or additional “working” language into crucial fields of inner-state corporate life, educational systems and scientific research even in humanities. After all, a pattern of sociolinguistic think-ing is gaining ground in Europe that has pre-existed in many former colonized countries outside Europe. In order to exam whether the equation spread of English = spread of progress holds true, we shall first have a look at Ireland, a case in point for a massive collective language shift taking place before globalization. By way of comparison with other smaller European language communities that man-

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aged to preserve their linguistic autonomy, we will try to identify some hints as to how Ireland’s culture and economy would fare had she never abandoned Irish or should she return one day to Irish again. After this more hypothetical approach we will outline the actual dynamics of language competition in India, which beyond its centrality in the demographical and linguistic sense, holds a distant mirror to the prospects of a re-organization of the language landscape in Europe, potentially anticipating (and subsequently diminishing) part of it, i.e. the high penetration of English. Our findings will partly reverse the conventional wisdom about globali-zation as a motor for the unlimited spread of English. They show that socio-eco-nomic success triggered by liberalization and globalization does not only lead to an increased demand for English, but at the same time gives rise to a society made up of more self-reliant citizens and consumers less inclined to traditional fatalism and submissiveness. This new self-assertiveness finds one of its expressions in the way the language question is addressed. The prestige of the former colonial language is shrinking, whereas the use of Hindi is expanding, in particular in the print and audio-visual media. It is becoming increasingly popular even among the new urban middle classes.

Key words: linguistic globalization, intercultural relations, language policy, language contact.

Esminiai žodžiai: globalizacija kalbų srityje, tarpkultūriniai ryšiai, kalbos politika, kalbų kontaktas.

Un discours de la mondialisation largement rabâché veut que l’écono-mie mondiale soit le principal moteur de l’expansion de l’anglais. Cette nouvelle langue universelle faciliterait l’accès au progrès technique et scientifique; en outre, c’est bien elle qui serait utilisée dans la grande ma-jorité des échanges commerciaux. Qui plus est, des voix s’élèvent en fa-veur d’un rôle croissant de l’anglais même au niveau national: l’ancienne commissaire européenne Diamantopoulou a proposé d’élever l’anglais au rang de deuxième “langue officielle” en Grèce; mais c’est à un homme politique allemand que revient la palme de la mondialisation linguistique à l’anglo-américaine: Oettinger, l’ancien chef du gouvernement du Land de Bade-Wurtemberg allait jusqu’à suggérer très sérieusement l’abandon de l’allemand dans toute la vie professionnelle – ou, du moins, pour les postes de travail qualifiés – au profit de l’anglais, ne réservant à l’alle-mand qu’une place au foyer et les moments de convivialité, par exemple pour un verre entre amis.

La réalité linguistique est encore assez loin de ces idées extrêmes. Tou-jours est-il que l’anglais, surtout après 1989, a non seulement consolidé sa position déjà très forte comme lingua franca dans le cadre des échanges

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et des contacts internationaux – que ce soit au niveau commercial, cultu-rel ou scientifique – mais au sein de l’administration de l’U.E. également, il occupe de facto une position dominante, malgré d’autres dispositions légales et le discours sur la défense du plurilinguisme1. Dans la plupart des pays européens, l’anglais a pu renforcer son statut de première langue étrangère au niveau de la formation secondaire et universitaire ; de même, son rôle dans la vie professionnelle va augmentant, y compris dans des secteurs dont les échanges internationaux ne constituent guère l’axe prin-cipal. Certains pays européens sont en passe d’abandonner partiellement ou intégralement la langue nationale au profit de l’anglais dans nombre de domaines scientifiques2.

Nous nous proposons d’étudier, à l’aide de deux cas concrets fort différents mais tous deux paradigmatiques, comment pourrait évoluer la situation linguistique dans le contexte de la mondialisation là où l’an-glais paraît déjà bien implanté ou s’est déjà substitué presque totalement à l’idiome local. Afin de mieux saisir les enjeux des nouvelles dynamiques culturelles, nous présentons non seulement un cas européen, mais nous oserons aussi tendre au paysage européen des langues une sorte de mi-roir lointain: l’Inde, deuxième pays le plus important après la Chine, de par sa population, sur la scène linguistique internationale. Une attention particulière sera portée à la question de savoir si l’équation: adoption de l’anglais (comme langue officielle ou co-officielle dans l’enseignement et la recherche, ainsi que comme moyen privilégié de communication dans la vie professionnelle) = progrès économique et culturel, et sa formulation complémentaire: pas de progrès économique et culturel sans adoption de l’anglais, correspondent à une situation réelle. Des constats comme celui du British Council: “English vital to India’s success” reflètent-ils une vé-rité facilement extensible même à l’Europe, ou sont-ils issus du “wishful thinking” partisan de l’un des acteurs principaux du marché des langues?

L’Irlande: un exemple d’assimilation presque parfaite? Jetons d’abord un regard sur le seul pays européen qui a subi une sorte

de «mondialisation linguistique» avant la lettre assez complète: l’Irlande. Au cours de la première moitié du 19e siècle déjà, les irlandophones de-vinrent minoritaires3.

Aujourd’hui, la quasi totalité de la population irlandaise est composée de monoglottes anglophones, à l’exception d’une faible minorité de bilin-gues (entre 20’000 et 70’000 personnes utilisent l’irlandais quotidienne-

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ment, dont environ un tiers sont résidents de la Gaeltacht, la petite «réser-ve» irlandophone au régime linguistique spécial répartie sur plusieurs îlots territoriaux dans l’ouest du pays) et d’une fraction plus grande ayant des compétences variées en irlandais comme seconde langue (environ 30% de la population totale)4.

Moins de 15% des livres vendus en Irlande proviennent des éditeurs irlandais, l’écrasante majorité des titres étant importés du Royaume-Uni et des Etats-Unis. La production des éditeurs irlandais reste modeste : ils publient environ 1800 titres par an5 (dont pas plus de 200 en langue irlandaise), chiffre remarquablement bas pour un pays de 4,4 millions d’habitants – en tous cas dans le contexte de l’Europe du Nord. A titre d’exemple, l’Islande, dont la population est plus de dix fois moins nom-breuse que celle de l’Irlande , publie en moyenne 1500 titres par an, dont 70% en langue nationale et un pourcentage de traductions évalué entre 25 et 30%6. D’ailleurs, tous les pays scandinaves peuvent se targuer d’un marché du livre autochtone majoritaire. Les pays baltes devancent eux aussi l’Irlande, et cela malgré des conditions socioéconomique plus diffi-ciles: la Lituanie publie environ 4000 titres par an, et l’Estonie 3100 titres dont 2560 en estonien7, pour un public estonophone dépassant à peine le million de lecteurs.

Un partisan de l’anglophonie irlandaise pourrait être tenté de faire fi de ces données statistiques prosaïques du marché du livre et rappeler, a contrario, la gloire du triumvirat des grands auteurs irlandais faisant par-tie de la littérature mondiale. De fait, il serait difficile d’imaginer Shaw, Yeats et Joyce utiliser l’irlandais dans leurs œuvres, malgré un éventuel attachement de leur part à un style ou à des thèmes reflétant une spécificité irlandaise; vu le piètre état dans lequel se trouvait cette langue au seuil du 20e siècle, elle n’aurait pu être l’instrument adéquat pour servir un grand talent littéraire. Par ailleurs, tout le parcours créateur de ces auteurs aurait été impensable sans l’étroit contact qu’ils entretenaient avec la vie litté-raire anglaise, dont ils faisaient pleinement partie; tous trois avaient passé la plus grande partie de leur période la plus féconde (ou même de leur vie toute entière) hors d’Irlande.

Un fervent défenseur de la langue et de la cause irlandaises pourrait, de son côté, avancer l’hypothèse qu’un Shaw ou un Yeats irlandophone aurait exclusivement à la gloire des lettres irlandaises sur la scène de la littérature mondiale; il pourrait également invoquer les grandes pertes qu’a coûtées le passage à l’anglais dans la génération de talents littéraires

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potentiels «sacrifiés» – ceux qui ne maîtrisaient plus assez l’irlandais pour écrire dans cette langue, sans pour autant maîtriser pleinement l’anglais.

Plutôt que d’entrer dans une spéculation de plus en plus virtuelle, il sera plus judicieux de se poser la question de façon plus générale: un auteur de grand talent s’exprimant dans une langue «mineure» quant à sa diffusion sera-t-il, dans le contexte du monde culturel d’aujourd’hui, condamné à une reconnaissance et à un public «provinciaux», sans véritable portée in-ternationale? La réponse est claire: à l’étape actuelle de la mondialisation, il y a très peu de risque que cela se produise dans un pays développé, la popularité des traductions et leur forte représentation parmi les best-sellers de certains marchés comme celui de l’Allemagne en sont la preuve. Mieux encore, il n’est plus nécessaire d’être un Andersen, un Hamsun, un Ibsen, un Kadaré ou un Kazantzakis pour être traduit à partir d’une «petite» lan-gue. Pour la période 2000–2005, l’index translationum de l’Unesco recense plus de 160 traductions à partir de l’albanais, 351 à partir du lituanien, 360 à partir de l’islandais et bel et bien 1444 à partir de l’estonien, pour ne pas parler des 4385 à partir du danois et des 7952 provenant du suédois8. Comme tous ces chiffres représentent en première ligne des traductions lit-téraires, il est évident que même un auteur de deuxième, voire de troisième rang aura aujourd’hui bien des chances d’être traduit. La position du «ge-nere nazional-popolare», (Gramsci) de la littérature d’évasion demeure plus faible dans les langues périphériques, qui en importent plutôt à partir des langues hyper-centrales9. Néanmoins, la prépondérance de l’anglais – et du français, Georges Simenon oblige – dans ce domaine s’avère un peu moins forte aujourd’hui. Le roman policier s’internationalise : des auteurs tels que Vázquez Montalbán, Petros Markaris ou Henning Mankell l’ont enrichi d’ouvrages traduits dans la plupart des langues majeures.

Par ailleurs, le succès des traductions souligne que leurs limites inhé-rentes à la transposition culturelle ne sont pas assez prégnantes pour les voir éclipsées par des auteurs connus dans leur langue d’origine10.

Cependant, il n’en est pas moins vrai que les auteurs les plus traduits ne sont souvent pas forcément les meilleurs, ou même ne font pas partie d’un canon littéraire quelconque : rappelons que Barbara Cartland, avec ses romans roses, trône toujours sur le piédestal de l’auteur le plus traduit au niveau mondial.

Pour en revenir à l’exemple de l’Irlande, la production littéraire irlan-daise dans son ensemble a-t-elle profité de l’anglophonie? Il sera difficile de répondre à cette interrogation. Tout en admettant qu’avoir accès au

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plus grand marché mondial du livre avec le texte original constitue tou-jours un avantage indéniable, il faut néanmoins nuancer. Ce qui vaut sans doute pour un auteur établi, d’un certain prestige et rayonnement, ne vaut pas nécessairement pour un jeune auteur en herbe, lequel aurait parfois plus de chances de se voir publié s’il écrivait en irlandais dans une société majoritairement irlandophone. En témoignent les plaintes des éditeurs ir-landais quant à la difficulté de promouvoir de nouveaux auteurs anglo-phones locaux face à l’omniprésence des auteurs anglophones importés11. La concurrence est très forte dès le départ, ce qui laisse peu de marge aux auteurs irlandais pour s’affirmer et progresser peu à peu.

Selon notre petit exercice de spéculation linguistique, un retour partiel ou complet – et en réalité fort hypothétique – de la littérature irlandaise à l’idiome traditionnel facilitera donc la découverte et la promotion de jeunes auteurs grâce à un marché national mieux protégé. La production nationale de titres littéraires et non littéraires sera plus grande et probable-ment plus riche et différenciée, couvrant davantage de domaines; le livre made in Irlande sera cependant un peu plus cher que dans la situation actuelle, comme d’ailleurs le livre traduit importé – du moins dans l’hy-pothèse d’un unilinguisme irlandais.

Mais quelles seraient les conséquences de l’adoption du gaélique au niveau socio-économique? Une telle Irlande risquerait-elle d’être moins développée?12 L’anglophonie généralisée n’a pas empêché le traditiona-lisme et l’immobilisme dans lesquels la société irlandaise a longtemps persisté à rester, avec toutes les conséquences économiques et sociales qui en découlaient.

Mais l’essor économique impressionnant qu’a connu l’île verte à par-tir des années 1990 n’est-il pas une sorte de rente de situation tardive du passage à l’anglais? Aurait-il pu avoir lieu avec une langue celtique pour hypothèque? A nouveau, l’exemple de l’Islande démontre de manière plus que convaincante que l’anglophonie intérieure n’est point une condition préalable pour un succès économique international faramineux – aussi peu solide qu’ait été, au demeurant, l’expansion des banques islandaises. La situation initiale n’était guère plus favorable en Islande qu’en Irlande, les deux îles ayant vécu dans leur histoire moderne une émigration massive, et leur structure économique peu diversifiée ne laissant guère présager un décollage économique récent.

Une tendance linguistique tout à fait nouvelle apportera une réponse encore plus révélatrice: dans la foulée de l’essor économique du «tigre

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celtique», on observe que, pour la première fois depuis l’Indépendance, s’amorce une tendance au renforcement de l’irlandais dans la vie quoti-dienne et l’espace public. Un sociologue irlandais résume ainsi ce ren-versement de situation: “This new prosperity brought a sense of pride and self-assurance that prompted a rediscovery in Ireland’s “cultural as-sets””13. Longtemps condamnée à une lente mais inéluctable agonie où elle jouissait d’une vie muséale dans la Gaeltacht et était dotée d’un rôle comparable à celui du latin dans l’enseignement, la langue irlandaise est revenue en force: les dernières années ont vu une augmentation rapide du nombre des écoles unilingues irlandaises, les gaelscoileanna; de plus, les jeunes commencent à pratiquer la langue hors des classes d’école, n’y voyant plus une corvée aride. L’irlandais est tout à coup devenu chic, au campus universitaire “it’s no longer regarded as “uncool” to speak Irish”, et même parmi les nombreux migrants étrangers le gaeilge fait des adep-tes14.

Reste à savoir si cette mode se transformera en un véritable change-ment d’attitude envers langue nationale; aussi prometteurs que soient ces développements pour les partisans du gaeilge, il n’en reste pas moins vrai que de solides infrastructures socioculturelles, sur lesquelles une telle re-naissance de la langue pourrait s’appuyer, font toujours dramatiquement défaut15. Les médias, qui jouent ailleurs le rôle de fer de lance de l’éman-cipation linguistique (voir ci-dessous), constituent toujours en Irlande, malgré la création en 1996 d’un canal de télévision émettant en irlandais (TG4), un fief de l’anglophonie: le seul hebdomadaire en langue irlandaise a cessé de paraître par manque de subsides des autorités publiques – alors qu’en pays basque espagnol, un quotidien en euskara sort déjà depuis longtemps.

Le cas indien: la réémergence de l’hindiL’Inde est souvent perçue comme l’une des régions phare de la mon-

dialisation linguistique, et par conséquent langue emblématique y serait en forte expansion16. L’Inde se voit parfois attribuer le titre de pays anglo-phone le plus grand du monde, le nombre de ses locuteurs anglophones y dépassant probablement déjà celui des Etats-Unis. En tout cas, soixante ans après l’Indépendance, l’ancienne langue coloniale demeure encore la langue co-officielle de la Fédération indienne; au sommet des hiérarchies sociale et administrative, elle paraît mieux ancrée que le hindi, pourtant officiellement première langue de l’Etat central. Dans la haute culture,

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celle à rayonnement international, la prédominance de l’anglais ne sem-ble pas faire de doute, le seul domaine culturel connu à l’étranger dans lequel les langues indiennes ont su se tailler leur place étant les mélodra-mes de Bollywood. Des écrivains de renom et de public international, de Arundhati Roy à Amitav Ghosh et Vikram Seth, continuent à se servir de l’anglais, et certains auteurs de la diaspora indienne comme V. S. Naipaul ou Salman Rushdie se moquent parfois de la littérature «en langue verna-culaire». On soulignera également la prolifération rapide de hautes écoles et instituts techniques où l’anglais, dans les faits, reste la langue largement préférée, aucune langue indienne ne pouvant lui contester cette position. De l’informaticien et mathématicien indien apprécié et sollicité partout dans le monde aux collaborateurs indiens d’un call center, on s’imagine bien que toutes ces incarnations personnelles de la succes story indienne des vingt dernières années auraient difficilement pu «fonctionner» dans un autre idiome que l’anglais; son adoption serait même l’une des origines de cet envol technique et scientifique.

Au niveau du «nation planning» fédéral, l’anglais a longtemps été cré-dité d’un rôle de médiateur «neutre» servant à renforcer la cohésion au lieu d’attiser les tensions interethniques, comme le résuma l’adage des années 1960: «English unites, Hindi divides». En fait, lorsque l’adminis-tration centrale voulut s’attacher à imposer le hindi comme seule langue à l’échelle fédérale, après l’expiration du sursis de quinze ans à partir de l’Indépendance prévu dans la Constitution, les Etats fédéraux non hindous y opposèrent leur veto, suspendant ainsi ce projet pour un temps indéter-miné, l’administration centrale ne voulant pas mettre en danger cohésion de l’Etat.

Tout ou presque semble donc annoncer l’avenir radieux d’une Inde marquée par une anglophonie de plus en plus diffusée grâce aux progrès de la scolarisation et de l’alphabétisation, et cela du sommet de la société aux couches rurales modestes.

La grande surprise surgit lorsque l’on a le loisir de mieux cerner les dimensions réelles de cette anglophonie et les dynamiques sociolinguisti-ques profondes qui se sont déployées à grande échelle en Inde au cours de cet envol économique et social.

Jetons tout d’abord un regard sur le pourcentage des anglophones: «Actuellement, le nombre des locuteurs dont l’anglais est la langue ma-ternelle est évalué à 0,3%, soit 179000, lors du recensement de 1991 […]. Selon les estimations les plus sérieuses, on peut considérer qu’entre 3%

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et 11 % des Indiens auraient une maîtrise de l’anglais suffisante pour leur permettre de se placer sur le marché du travail national et international»17. On admettra facilement que le pourcentage des native speakers (avec pour critère la langue maternelle) figurant dans les recensements nationaux in-diens paraît un peu bas; mais même les estimations actuelles les plus op-timistes font tout au plus état de 2% de la population, soit un peu plus de 20 millions de personnes – abstraction faite du discours sur le recul de la «qualité» de l’anglais indien par rapport au standard des pays anglopho-nes. Très rarement, les estimations pour les trois catégories que repré-sentent les native speakers, les locuteurs de l’anglais comme 2e langue et ceux qui le parlent comme 3e langue dépassent les 10%, soit environ 100 à 110 millions de personnes. Un chiffre certes impressionnant comparé aux 60 millions d’anglophones du Royaume-Uni, mais à relativiser nettement si l’on tient compte des plus de 900 millions de non-anglophones en Inde.

Mais cela ne change rien au tableau de la diffusion limitée de l’an-glais dans ce pays, a fortiori si l’on tient compte de la forte croissance de l’hindi, également comme deuxième langue hors des régions hindiphones traditionnelles – dont certains Etats dravidophones où il a fait son entrée grâce aux mass media audiovisuels. Près de la moitié de la population in-dienne maîtrise aujourd’hui la langue nationale à différents niveaux18.

Si l’on excepte la proportion actuelle de 1-2% de native speakers tout au plus, le pourcentage d’anglophones ayant une maîtrise suffisante de la langue pour être «opérationnels» dans un milieu professionnel qualifié est loin de dépasser le pourcentage analogue dans nombre de moyens et petits pays européens tels les Pays-Bas.

Le point essentiel, c’est la rupture de l’équation traditionnelle entre le plein accès à la culture écrite, un solide bagage culturel et un statut so-cioéconomique élevé, d’un côté, et l’anglophonie, de l’autre. L’essor rapi-de des classes moyennes, auquel la libéralisation économique des années 1990 a fortement donné le coup d’envoi, s’est en grande partie déroulé par la voie du hindi et des autres langues indiennes principales, malgré la place importante de l’anglais, par endroits, dans le système scolaire – en particulier dans les écoles privées. Comme en Irlande, mais avec une am-pleur et une dynamique incomparablement plus grandes, le succès écono-mique et l’émancipation sociale ont largement fait disparaître le tradition-nel complexe d’infériorité face à un anglais investi de toutes les valeurs positives de la vie moderne. L’anglais, symbole traditionnel d’apparte-nance à la petite élite «acculturée» au British way of living d’ailleurs fa-

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rouchement défendu par une partie de celle-ci, n’a pas su exercer le même attrait que jadis sur les couches récemment alphabétisées ou urbanisées, et même au sein d’une part croissante des nouvelles élites pour lesquelles “Hindi is hip. It spells glamour, cheer and success”19.

Un angliciste indien peu suspect d’anglophobie caractérise ainsi cette nouvelle configuration sociolinguistique:

[…] there are lots of people who are affluent or professional who do not use English, who use […] Hindi most of all […]. So it is on its own steam, and lately driven by the market, that Hindi has emerged […] as the predominant Indian language […] – a status that could not be achieved for it, by state inter-vention. […] over the last 20-odd years […] we have seen the rise of Hindi in a way that one could not have contemplated before that.20

Ce découplage entre ascension sociale et passage à l’anglais a eu des répercussions très manifestes sur les comportements culturels.

Les préférences en matière de lecture sont l’un des reflets de ces chan-gements. Observons tout d’abord le marché du livre.

Les best-sellers anglais y trouvent un public, il est vrai, mais pas très nombreux. Ils enregistrent rarement plus de 5000 exemplaires vendus de la version originale. On ne s’est même pas arraché les Harry Potter qui, dans de nombreux pays, ont pourtant battu tous les records de vente ; en Inde, on n’a enregistré qu’environ 20’000 ventes de ces livres à succès, ce qui souligne les limites du public anglophone – et cela, alors que les ouvrages des auteurs populaires d’expression hindi atteignent facilement des tirages de 100’000 exemplaires et plus. Dans ce contexte, il ne faut pas oublier que le livre, à la différence des mass media, a traditionnelle-ment représenté un article de luxe pour la vaste majorité de la population, tant au sens culturel qu’au sens matériel; c’est aussi pour cette raison qu’il a longtemps constitué une sorte de dernier bastion de l’anglais. Dès l’In-dépendance et jusqu’aux années 1990, l’ancienne langue coloniale était la langue de publication préférée, plus de la moitié des titres sortant en anglais. En 1980 et 1981, 44,6% des publications se faisaient dans cette langue, contre 13 % en hindi21. Cependant, la langue nationale semble – pour la première fois – avoir récemment détrôné la lingua franca exogène en ce qui concerne le nombre de titres publiés: plus de 30 % d’entre eux auraient paru en hindi contre 30% en anglais, même si les statistiques du marché du livre indien restent sujettes à caution22. Bien que le secteur du livre scientifique continue à être dominé par des ouvrages anglopho-

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nes, les autres genres de publications ont en général passé aux langues indiennes; d’ailleurs, plusieurs langues «régionales» de grande diffusion ont elles aussi vu les chiffres de leurs titres publiés s’envoler au cours des quinze dernières années.

Rien n’illustre mieux la nouvelle donne linguistique en Inde que le fait que Penguin Books, le géant du livre de poche anglais bien ancré sur tous les marchés du Commonwealth, a décidé en 2005, pour la première fois dans son histoire, de publier dans une autre langue que celle de l’Em-pire défunt : sa filière indienne a lancé sa première collection en hindi. Ce n’est certainement pas là une décision trahissant le spleen de l’amateur de langues «vernaculaires exotiques», ni un simple acte symbolique pour fai-re preuve d’ouverture multiculturelle, mais une nécessité économique au vu de la forte dynamique du marché du livre hindi, laquelle résulte d’un changement des mentalités culturelles, comme le résume Ravi Singh, édi-teur de Penguin india : “In the past, people would have been embarrassed to admit that they were not comfortable reading English [...]. The status that was given to English was such that it was seen the language of the elite, but also of the “intelligent”. That’s changing now.” 23

Le plus frappant, c’est que l’un des moteurs principaux de ce retour en force des langues indiennes est l’économie. Le secteur où la nouvelle donne sociolinguistique saute aux yeux de la manière la plus évidente est bien sûr la publicité, qui se fait de moins en moins en anglais – à la grande différence des pays germanophones, lesquels affichent à cet égard un comportement plutôt digne d’un pays en voie de développement – et c’est le hindi, les langues régionales ou cet étrange hybride connu sous le nom de hinglish qui prennent sa place. Ce hinglish, que l’on aurait du mal à toujours classifier comme une simple variété indienne de l’anglais, semble tantôt un argot ludique mais passager, tantôt un futur créole. Il est en vogue auprès des nouveaux yuppies à l’indienne – la jeune génération montante des milieux socioprofessionnels élevés – tout d’abord comme moyen d’expression orale, mais également comme idiome «branché» pour la communication écrite de tous les jours, la messagerie électronique, etc. Le hinglish conteste ce terrain aux formes plus «British» de l’anglais in-dien et laisse également son empreinte sur le vocabulaire du hindi – du moins du hindi colloquial, celui des films de Bollywood entre autres. Tout comme l’anglais indien subit une vague de changements lexicaux et struc-turels en raison de son contact avec le hindi et les autres langues indien-nes, de façon analogue le vocabulaire du hindi compte de plus en plus

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d’emprunts lexicaux et conceptuels à l’anglais, et même des mots bien établis se voient concurrencés par ce genre de néologismes.

Il reste cependant fort douteux que la mode actuelle du hinglish abou-tira un jour à une acceptation générale de ce créole comme langue authen-tiquement nationale, ainsi que le prévoient – et le souhaitent – certains observateurs. Qu’un auteur comme Chetan Bhagat ait connu un énorme succès avec ses romans populaires fort imprégnés de hinglish ne suffit pas encore pour que les lecteurs indiens plébiscitent un jour cet idiome mixte aux dépens de l’hindi.

La presse et les mass media parlent de plus en plus un autre langage que l’anglais, à savoir le hindi ou d’autres langues indiennes de grande diffusion – mais pas le hinglish, même si le hindi journalistique n’excelle point en termes de pureté littéraire.

Le recul de l’anglais dans le domaine de la presse est encore plus im-pressionnant que dans le monde du livre, souvent plus élitiste. Jusqu’en 1977, la circulation totale des journaux en anglais dépassait celle de toute la presse non anglophone. Par la suite, le paysage linguistique des jour-naux indiens a radicalement changé: d’après le National readership Sur-vey de 2003, pas un seul journal anglais ne figure parmi les dix quotidiens les plus vendus24.

Il serait cependant erroné de considérer la presse jaune comme princi-pal vecteur de cet essor de l’hindi et des autres langues indiennes à grande diffusion. Depuis vingt ans, une presse régionale de qualité s’est dévelop-pée en langue indienne, même si elle ne peut encore rivaliser en matière de ressources avec la crème de la presse anglophone et son phare, le Times of india25. Néanmoins, l’écart de qualité entre presse anglophone et presse indophone, s’il existe toujours, va diminuant également du côté anglopho-ne, où une partie importante de la presse est en train de perdre la bonne maîtrise de l’anglais et de se rapprocher de plus en plus, quant au choix et à la présentation des thèmes, du modèle de la presse people26.

ConclusionAfin d’éviter toute «mécompréhension» signalons qu’il n’a point été

dans nos intentions de prédire un prochain retour de l’Irlande à l’irlan-dais, pas plus que nous prévoyons un abandon complet de l’anglais en Inde d’ici quelques années. En revanche, à l’aide de ces deux exemples, nous avons voulu illustrer le fait que la mondialisation économique peut entraîner des évolutions dans la sphère linguistique qui vont à l’encontre

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des idées reçues quant à l’expansion inéluctable de l’anglais non pas uni-quement dans les communications internationales, mais également dans un nombre croissant de domaines au niveau intra-national. Parallèlement, nous avons repéré des indices qui montrent que la modernisation socioé-conomique elle-même est susceptible de devenir un moteur d’émancipa-tion linguistique et culturelle. En effet, le présupposé populaire – assumé également dans certains milieux académiques – selon lequel l’assimilation linguistique à la langue «mondiale» dominante serait la clé du progrès économique, scientifique et même culturel semble issu d’une perception sélective ou même partisane de la dynamique de la mondialisation et de ses enjeux.

Références1 Voir l’étude perspicace de Robert Phillipson, english-Only europe?, London:

Routledge, 2003, 105–138.2 Ce n’est pas par hasard que le plus haut responsable de la culture alleman-

de s’est publiquement demandé il y a quelques années, avec une forte dose de scepticisme, si l’allemand aurait encore un avenir en tant que langue de la science, voir aussi Ulrich Ammon, ist Deutsch noch internationale Wis-senschaftssprache – englisch auch für die Lehre an den deutschsprachigen Hochschulen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998; pour une plaidoirie en faveur du plurilinguisme dans le contexte culturel européen, voir Fritz nies (éd.), europa denkt mehrsprachig – L’europe pense en plusieurs langues, Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2004.

3 Andrew Carnie, “Modern Irish: A Case Study in Language Revival Fail-ure”, 1995 (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics), http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~carnie/publications/PDF/Endangered.pdf [30-10-2009], 3-5.

4 Chiffres cités sur la base du “Preliminary Report of Census” de 2002, d’après Ó hÉallaithe, Donncha, From Language revival to Survival http://anghaeltacht.net/ctg/altveritas.htm [30-10-2009], 11.

5 Philip Jones, “Book output up, publishers down””, 3-2-2009 http://www.the-bookseller.com/.../76269-book-output-up-publishers-down.html.rss [31-10-2009].

6 Iceland National Bibliography, version électronique, reference time 1999-2007. http://www.utgafuskra.is [28-11-2009] Les statistiques islandaises considèrent,[28-11-2009] Les statistiques islandaises considèrent,Les statistiques islandaises considèrent, il est vrai, déjà une publication à partir de 50 pages comme un livre, mais cela ne change rien à la haute productivité des éditeurs locaux par rapport a ceux de l’Irlande.

7 ekkehard w. Bornträger, “Litauen und die baltischen Kulturen auf dem in-“Litauen und die baltischen Kulturen auf dem in-Litauen und die baltischen Kulturen auf dem in-ternationalem Translationsmarkt Versuch einer übersetzungsgeographischen Bestandsaufnahme”,”,, Colloquia, Vilnius 2009 .

8 http://databases.unesco.org/xtrans/xtra-form.shtml [30-8-2009].

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9 Gramsci avait fait ce constat pour l’Italie de l’Entre-deux-guerres, voirGramsci avait fait ce constat pour l’Italie de l’Entre-deux-guerres, voir Anto-nio Gramsci, Letteratura e vita nazionale, Turin: Editori riuniti, 1987.

10 Si part des traductions reste faible sur le marché du livre anglophone, cela n’estSi part des traductions reste faible sur le marché du livre anglophone, cela n’est guère dû à la qualité de la traduction en tant que telle, mais à la grande différenciation thématique interne au sein de la littérature anglophone; une certaine autosuffisance ou un nombrilisme culturel y a certainement aussi sa part.

11 Caroline walsh, “Publishers and shops launch campaign to boost Irish book sales”,”,, irish Times, 1-10-2009 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire-land/2009/1001/1224255613596.html [31-10-2009].

12 Evidemment, si l’on veut rester dans la logique de notre spéculation, le problème majeur ne sera pas l’adoption en soi du gaeilge, mais l’effort énorme et coûteux – matériellement et intellectuellement – de la transition, qui pourra prendre plus d’une génération.

13 Maire Nic Ghiolla Phádraig, voirMaire Nic Ghiolla Phádraig, voir Don Duncan, “Ireland’s Language Dilemma”,”,, Time, 23-10-2008 http://www.time.com/time/world/article/O,8599,1853128,00.html [31-10-2009].

14 Don Duncan, op. cit.; il donne le témoignage d’un migrant tchèque qui s’estmigrant tchèque qui s’est lancé dans l’apprentissage de l’irlandais pour être mieux intégré linguistique-ment: “People don’t realize I’m not from here when I speak Irish […]. A lot ofA lot of Irish people who speak Irish speak it as a second language and so we are all on the same footing. I fit in better in Irish”.I fit in better in Irish”.

15 Certains spécialistes comme Ó hÉallaithe restent très sceptiques et rejettent catégoriquement toute idée d’un language revival, même limité, comme une illusion pure et simple (voir Donncha Ó hÉallaithe, op. cit., 14); une attitude compréhensible devant l’échec retentissant de tels projets en Irlande, mais qui paraît néanmoins trop négative en regard des nombreuses expériences euro-péennes encourageantes réalisées à partir du 19e siècle dans différents pays,érents pays,rents pays, dont les pays baltes.

16 Une telle vision des choses se retrouve également – sous une forme certes plus nuancée – dans nombre de publications scientifiques, en particulier celles issues de la plume des auteurs appartenant à l’ancienne élite anglicisée, ou celles rédi-gées par des chercheurs d’origine dravidienne, qui affichent souvent une attitude réservée face a l’hindi et à son rôle. Les chercheurs hindiphones, en revanche, ont plutôt tendance à voir l’avenir de leur langue avec plus d’optimisme.

17 Jacques Leclerc, “Inde”, in: L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde, Qué-bec: Université Laval 2009 http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/asie/inde-1Union.htm [25-8-2009]. Une étude récente du linguiste David Graddol commanditée par le British Council estime la proportion de fluent speakers de l’anglais à 5% à peine, et met en garde contre les désavantages économiques présumés d’un dépassement de l’Inde par la Chine pour ce qui est du nombre d’anglophones, voir Stevenson, Alexandra, “India losing English advantage to China”, Finan-cial Times, 19-11-2009

18 Selon le dernier recensement de 2001, il y aurait 41% d’hindiphones de lan-gue maternelle; leur nombre va augmentant depuis des années: en 1971, on en comptait 37 %; en 1981, 38,9% ; en 1991, 39,3%, voir Statement 6, “Com-

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parative ranking of scheduled languages […] 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001”.1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001”. http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Lang [4-11-2009]. Le potentiel linguistico-culturel des hindiphones s’est accru plus queLe potentiel linguistico-culturel des hindiphones s’est accru plus que ne le suggèrent ces chiffres, puisqu’il faut tenir compte des rapides progrès de l’alphabétisation au sein de cette population dont le taux d’illettrisme a long-temps été l’un des plus élevés en Inde. Les estimations quant à la diffusion de l’hindi comme deuxième ou troisième langue varient sensiblement; le nombre de ses locuteurs sera très probablement plus ou moins du même ordre que celui des anglophones – ou même plus élevé – mais il ne dépassera pas les 90 millions. D’autres observateurs du sud de l’Inde continuent à considérer l’anglais comme plus attrayant que l’hindi pour la plupart des bilingues dont un peu plus de 50% auraient opté pour l’ancienne langue coloniale, voir Amritavalli, R. et Jayaseelan, K. A., “India”, in: Andrew Simpson, Language and National identity in Asia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 80, le pourcentage des bilingues et leur préférences quant à la deuxième langue varient cependant de manière considéra-ble entre les Etats fédéraux, l’anglais n’arrivant pas en tête dans une majorité deête dans une majorité dete dans une majorité de régions, voir les calculs de McConnel, Grant cités par Louis-Jean Calvet, Pour une écologie des langues du monde, Paris: Plon, 1999, 84 – 88.

19 Gajendra S. Chauhan, “Resurgence of Hindi in the Wake of Globalization”,”,, Language in india, 6:12, 2006, 6. En 1996 encore, un observateur déclara dans un ouvrage standard: “The question now seems to be not whether English can re-placed, but whether the spread and penetration of English can be controlled […]”,”,, Dua, Hans Raj, “The spread of English in India […]”,”,, in: Fishman Joshua et alii (éd.), Post-imperial english, Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996, 585

20 Contribution deContribution de Harish Trivedi, in: “The rise of Hindi as the lingua franca of the literate in India”, émission”, émission, émission lingua franca: Radio National, Australie 11-2-2006 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s1565945.htm [31-10-2009].

21 Lokenath Bhattacharya, Books and reading in india, Paris: Unesco, 1987 (Studies on Books and Publishing, N° 26), 12.

22 Chad W. Post, “The future of publishing in India – a view from across the Atlantic”,”, Newsletter: Frankfurter Buchmesse, 2009 http://www.buchmesse.de/en/company/press_pr/newsletter/2009/01141/index.html [31-10-2009].

23 Amelia Gentleman, “Penguin turns to publishing in Hindi”,”,, New York Times, 16-5-2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/business/worldbusiness/15iht-books16-5032280.html [30-8-2009]

24 Sutanu Guru, “When the Regional Lords it Over the National”, Planman Con-”, Planman Con-, Planman Con-sulting, 2005 http://www.planmanconsulting.com/when-the-regional-lords.html [4-11-2009], 2.

25 Jeffrey Robin, india’s Newpaper revolution, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

26 Kanishk Tharoor, “India’s Media Explosion”,”,, Foreign Policy, July 20, 2009. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/0720/indias_media_explosion [4-11-2009], 4-6 (pagination de la version internet).

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Modern Paranoia and Kafka’s “Der Bau” (“The Burrow”)

Modernioji paranoja ir Kafkos “Der Bau” („Urvas“)

David ADAMSOhio State university4240 Campus DriveLima OH 45804 [email protected]

SummaryOne of Franz Kafka’s late stories, “Der Bau”, can be read as a comment on

Western epistemology and in particular on efforts at knowing the self and the other. The story’s sole character and first-person narrator is an unnamed and uni-dentified animal, a burrowing carnivore. His burrow is his lifework, and the story consists entirely of his description of his life in this home, of his pleasures and fears in relation to the burrow’s strengths and flaws. Every clever feature and crafty stratagem serves also as a sign of the animal’s vulnerability, and eventually the animal becomes convinced, based on minimal evidence, that another creature is coming after him. The animal’s difficulty in assessing his own vulnerabilities and the nature of the other he might encounter anticipates difficulties readers have in interpreting Kafka’s story; like the animal, readers know nothing certain about the existence of the predator or the fate of the narrator and his burrow, and many readers have difficulty accepting the contingency and uncertainty that the animal accommodates. By foregrounding such contingency, the story serves as a critique of the ancient injunction to know thyself, of Cartesian dualism, and of the ideal of objectivity in the human sciences. More paranoid than the animal are, at times, Kafka’s readers, who attempt to arrest the flux and contain the contingency by diagnosing the animal, attributing to him a variety of psychological ailments and moral flaws. Both the animal’s anxiety and the critics’ paranoia serve to marginal-ize the animal, heightening his isolation. Kafka’s final story, “Josefine, die Sänger-in oder Das Volk der Mäuse”, written several months after “Der Bau”, addresses questions of community only hinted at in “Der Bau” and thus points the way to-ward understanding the animal as a social being. His imagined social contact with another creature becomes the primary focus of the narrator’s anxiety. No retreat into solitude, no burrow, no diagnosis, no construction of any kind can insulate the animal from his social origin.

Key words: Franz Kafka, reception, paranoia, epistemology, contingency, “Der Bau”, “The Burrow”, “Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse”, “Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk”.

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Among its other uses, literature provides us with dense case studies of social and psychological challenges, and sometimes literary works turn the tables on us by transforming readers into case studies. As readers, we routinely find ourselves repressing, resisting, transferring, projecting, identifying, and succumbing; we animate the text with our own desires and anxieties, and in some cases we exercise our paranoia by discover-ing patterns not readily perceived by the characters, the author, or other readers. Suspicious readers are sometimes the best readers, and this has been true in the reception of one of Franz Kafka’s late stories, “Der Bau”, known in English as “The Burrow”. No work of literature offers a more intimate, unsettling experience of paranoid self-knowledge in the modern world.

Kafka wrote “Der Bau” in 1923, in the final year of his life. The first-person narrator is an unidentified animal, a burrowing carnivore. His bur-row is his lifework, and the story consists entirely of his description of his life in this home, of his pleasures and fears in relation to the burrow’s strengths and flaws. In the opening sentence he optimistically announces, “Ich habe den Bau eingerichtet und er scheint wohlgelungen.”1At times the burrow is the most felicitous space imaginable for him; he feels secure and relaxed, delighting in the absolute silence. He is proud of a visible false entrance which runs into solid rock, while the real entrance is hidden under moss 1,000 paces away. But he also fears that this cunning might backfire, that the visible false entrance will serve as a sign to a predator that the area is worth investigating further. “Freilich manche List ist so fein, daß sie sich selbst umbringt”2, he concludes about the false entrance, but the observation could apply to the burrow as a whole. Every clever feature and crafty stratagem serves also as a sign of the animal’s vulner-ability, and the animal’s close identification with the burrow seems even-tually to put him at risk.

Such paradoxes and reversals occur repeatedly throughout the story of his rational analysis of dangers and defenses. At the heart of the bur-row lies the keep, or stronghold, a cell where the animal stores most of his provisions. Tunnels radiate out from this keep, widening periodi-cally to create smaller cells for resting or feeding. When he decides it is too risky to store all his provisions in the keep, he distributes them to these smaller cells; then he decides to consolidate the provisions again, frantically returning them to the keep and in the process disturbing the tranquility of his home. He is not usually impulsive and he rationally

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justifies many of his changes in strategy and attitude – he acknowledges that such “mühselige Rechnungen” involve “die Freude des scharfsin-nigen Kopfes an sich selbst”3 – but this mental labor never finds firm footing and he is left with no way to mediate between contradictory lines of thought. Thus at one point he admits about one of this ideas, “Ich kann in dem ehemals verständigen nicht den geringsten Verstand finden.”4 In short, his anxiety and his strategy are constantly in flux. He observes that “meiner Gegner gibt es unzählige, es könnte geschehen, daß ich vor einem Feinde fliehe und dem anderen in die Fänge laufe”5; but then he also reports, “Es gab glückliche Zeiten, in denen ich mir fast sagte, daß die Gegnerschaft der Welt gegen mich vielleicht aufgehört oder sich beruhigt habe.”6 These waves of surging and receding anxiety wash away all certainty, exhausting the reader as well as the animal. No wonder W. H. Auden confessed after reading this story, “I am inclined to believe that one should only read Kafka when one is in a eupeptic state of physical and mental health.”7

The exhausting fluctuations become more clearly connected to modern thought in the middle of the story when the animal tells of an excursion out of his burrow, enabling him to spend time spying on his own refuge. The episode provides a clever critique of the ancient injunction to know thyself, of Cartesian dualism, and of the ideal of objectivity in the human sciences (animal though he is). While observing his burrow’s entrance from a nearby hiding place, he feels as if he stands not in front of his house, but in front of himself, as if he enjoys a deep sleep while vigilantly guarding himself. The burrow has become not merely an means of defense but an integral part of his identity. Observing his burrow from above, he reports, “Ich bin gewissermaßen ausgezeichnet, die Gespenster der Nacht nicht nur in der Hilflosigkeit und Vertrauensseligkeit des Schlafes zu se-hen, sondern ihnen gleichzeitig in Wirklichkeit bei voller Kraft des Wach-seins in ruhiger Urteilsfähigkeit zu begegnen.”8 But this combination of perspectives does not result in an integral or stable self-knowledge. The initial satisfaction he takes in the external view of his burrow soon suc-cumbs to the realization that he cannot simultaneously be inside and out. He has the “kindischen Wunsch” that he might spend the rest of his life observing from the outside how well the burrow would protect him if he were inside. He is then startled out of this dream by the thought that the apparent safety of the burrow might result from his absence, for no enemy can detect him when he’s not there. Having decided he can therefore learn

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little by observing his burrow from the outside, he begins the long, tortu-ous process of plotting his return.

The final phase of the story begins once he finally returns. His initial delight in reuniting with his home is disturbed by a faint hissing sound which he would not even hear if his burrow were not so quiet. At first he assumes the hissing is coming from air blowing through the small air vents dug by smaller creatures, but he is unable to find the source. He decides to dig a series of experimental trenches through the burrow to locate the sound; this also fails to accomplish anything other than to dam-age his burrow. He begins to imagine with increasing conviction that the sound comes from a predator, a burrowing beast approaching him not from above ground but through the earth. But when he attempts to listen closely from different positions in his burrow, he is unable to detect any variations in volume, unable to determine the direction from which the sound comes. The hissing is pervasive and seemingly without a source.

Kafka wrote this story of nearly 13,000 words in one long night a few months before he died of tuberculosis. He reportedly set it aside before completing it, though it is difficult to imagine a more appropriate end-ing than the one he left us. The final sentence reads: “Aber alles blieb unverändert – – ”9. Indeed all remains unchanged in the sense that eve-rything continues in flux, contingent and indeterminate. Like the animal, we as readers know nothing about the source of the noise or the existence of the predator or the fate of the animal and his burrow. The boundary be-tween common sense and paranoia shifts, blurs, and disappears. Although the animal employs reason in creating his refuge, his reasoning is ren-dered ineffectual – perhaps detrimental – by the impossibility of knowing when and in what form an antagonist will arrive, if one arrives at all. He therefore recognizes also the impossibility of building the perfect burrow and achieving perfect peace. The text offers readers no ground or frame of reference beyond the shifting perspectives of the first-person narrator; readers are invited to share his perplexity, though many readers refuse this invitation.

Literary critics as a breed are disinclined to surrender to perplexity, and in response to this story we have provided a variety of diagnoses in an attempt to fix the floating frame of reference. One reader labels the ani-mal’s monologue “a sequence of schizophrenic projections”10 and another concludes that “the animal must necessarily suffer from a persecution complex.”11 Some readers reduce the story’s indeterminacy by assuming

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the animal is hallucinating when he hears the hissing sound, while others go to the opposite extreme by taking for granted the imminent arrival of the beast and death of the animal. Even some of the most nuanced close readings of the text focus on what is wrong with the animal: two critics agree “that the animal’s intellectual failure points to a moral fault” so they can then disagree on how to characterize this fault. Many of these read-ings seem to share the animal’s own anxiety about the unknown and go further than the animal in assuming and asserting knowledge even when lacking evidence. In short, these readings are often more paranoid than the animal’s own narrative in their reluctance to stare down the ungrounded, shifting experience of knowledge, especially self-knowledge. Such read-ings of “Der Bau” serve as a microcosm of much intellectual endeavor in the modern age. Indeed, Kafka’s story serves as a parable of modern Eu-ropean thought, which is similarly rational and ungrounded, rigorous and mutable, disinterested and paranoid.

Both the animal’s anxiety and the critics’ paranoia serve to marginalize the animal, heightening his isolation. Kafka nevertheless finds a way to bring the social world back into what seems the most private, solitary suf-fering. While most of the time the animal refers to the ominous noise as a hissing sound – Zischen – he makes an interesting substitution on three occasions, calling the noise a whistling, or Pfeifen. Whistling is central to Kafka’s final story, “Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse”, written several months after “Der Bau”. The mouse folk are all accom-plished whistlers, for whistling is their characteristic mode of expression, a defining feature of their lives. By conflating Kafka’s last two stories, one might assume that the whistling noise disturbing the burrowing ani-mal comes from the mouse folk, who would no doubt be as disturbed by his presence as he is by theirs. But the stories resonate with each other on another level. The first hint of this is that their characters have so much in common. Like the burrower, the mouse folk, we are told, are always dart-ing back and forth for purposes that aren’t always clear, plagued by incal-culable dangers. As if commenting on the burrowing animal, however, the narrator of “Josefine” observes that one cannot carry the burden of anxie-ties and fears alone; one needs a folk. Thus the story addresses questions of community only hinted at in “Der Bau”.

The unresolved mystery at the center of “Josefine” is captured in two interconnected questions about Josephine’s whistling. The member of the mouse folk narrating the story wonders whether Josephine’s singing is

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any different from the everyday whistling of her compatriots and, given the difficulty of answering this first question, how she manages to exer-cise such enormous influence. The discussion of the first question makes clear that whistling in all its forms – both the folk’s everyday habit and Josephine‘s artistic performance – provides a fundamental social bond. The story addresses the second question, about Josephine’s relation to her folk, by imagining her eventual death. Kafka’s final understanding of the individual’s relation to the community, though enigmatic, is not particu-larly paranoid: the narrator announces that the community grants gifts but does not receive them, and that Josephine will find her redemption in be-ing forgotten by the folk.

Kafka’s final story casts light on the way its immediate predecessor, “Der Bau”, succeeds in placing the animal in a social context, even though this most solitary of creatures remains the only character in the story. Separated from any folk, the burrower apparently has no hope of salva-tion. But his yearning for salvation finds expression in his response to the whistling sound, which is not merely a source of terror for him. He begins considering his potential relations to others, or to an other. Through the entire story he has never had a single thought or memory of another crea-ture of his own kind – he mentions only the smaller creatures he preys on and his imagined predators. But at the end of the story he begins to won-der whether the beast he imagines as the source of the whistling might not be pursuing him at all; perhaps the beast, like the narrator himself, is building a burrow. The animal allows himself to dream of a “Verständi-gung” with his neighbor, though he knows such a dream to be impossible. He does not imagine he can tolerate such a neighbor, but then he begins to wonder what the neighbor might know about him already; he wonders, in short, whether he is recognized. This imagined social contact becomes the primary focus of the narrator’s anxiety. The intuition the animal seems to be developing at the end of the story is nicely summarized in Theodor Adorno’s observation that “der gesellschaftliche Ursprung des Individu-ums enthüllt sich am Ende als die Macht von dessen Vernichtung”.12 No retreat into solitude, no burrow, no diagnosis, no construction of any kind can insulate the animal from his fellow creatures. Indeed, the contingency the animal feels so acutely as well as the dream of an enigmatic, redemp-tive forgetfulness are both thoroughly social. The animal’s struggles and concluding words still resonate, for this social truth “remains unchanged”

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References1 Franz Kafka, “Der Bau”, in: Franz Kafka,“Der Bau”, in: Franz Kafka, Beschreibung eines Kampfes: No-

vellen, Skizzen, Aphorismen aus dem Nachlaß. Gesammelte Werke in acht Bän-den, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1983, 132., 1983, 132.

2 ibid., 132.3 ibid., 132.4 ibid., 158.5 ibid., 133.6 ibid., 141.7 w. H. Auden, “The I Without a Self”, in: The Dyer’s Hand and Other essays,

New York: Vintage, 1989, 166.8 Kafka, 140–141.Kafka, 140–141.9 ibid., 165.10 Peter Stine, “Franz Kafka and Animals”, Contemporary Literature 22, 1981,

75.11 Heinrich Henel, “Kafka’s Der Bau, or How to Escape from a Maze”, in: P.F.

Ganz, editor, The Discontinuous Tradition, London: Oxford, 1971, 231.12 Theodor w. Adorno, „Aufzeichnungen zu Kafka“, in: Kulturkritik und Ge-

sellschaft i: Gesammelte Schriften 10.1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977, 264–265..

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III. CeNTre / PerIPHerY AS A CHALLeNGeCeNTro / PerIFerIJoS IŠŠŪKIAI

World Literature(s) and Peripheries

Pasaulio literatūra(-os) ir pakraščiai

Marko JuVAN,Scientific research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and ArtsNovi trg 2, Si-1000 Ljubljana, [email protected]

SummaryThe original Goethean (cosmopolitan, but peripheral) notion of world litera-

ture as analogous to the capitalist world-system has become relevant to transna-tional comparative studies: it implies a conceptual-evaluative background and practices, media, and institutions that allow intercultural transfer, intertextual ab-sorption of global cultural repertoires, and self-conscious production for inter-national audiences. Since the cultural nationalism of the nineteenth century, the theoretical or poetic consciousness of world literature, its intertextual coherence, and its material networks have been “glocalized.” The literary world system is accessible through the archives of localized cultural memory and particular cogni-tive or linguistic perspectives, whereas centrality and peripherality are variables that depend on historical dynamics and system evolution.

Key words: comparative literary studies, world literature, literary system, glo-balization, cosmopolitanism, cultural transfer.

The recent intensity of the debate over the concept of world litera-ture is a symptom of social and political shifts in literary studies under conditions of globalization1. On the one hand, comparative literature is challenged by the “shrinking world” and the neo-liberal ideology of the free circulation of capital, goods, and people. On the other hand, it has to respond to postcolonial and anti-globalist emancipatory movements. Such conditions have also developed an awareness of the global mobility of cultural products, their deterritorialization, singular local appropriations, and hybridizations, and the massive variation of the same matrixes in dis-parate parts of the world. This is the reason why literature, considered as a global phenomenon, has become relevant to comparative literature.

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The debate on this subject has changed its focus: from disputes about the under-representation of marginalized communities and peripheries in the global cultural canon, which implied questioning the Eurocentrism and occidentocentrism intrinsic to literary studies, the debate turned to the problem of how the geopolitical distribution of power, with its centers and peripheries, shapes intercultural understanding.

Of course, addressing world literature belongs to comparative liter-ary studies’ oldest disciplinary constants and the notion of Weltliteratur has been with us ever since the late 1820s. As is generally known, it was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that – feeling somehow deprived as a Ger-man writer in relation to the French or English metropolises and their in-ternationally renowned national canons – launched the concept of “world literature”2. The historical consciousness of literature’s worldwide scope thus had a rather peripheral, nationally biased origin, notwithstanding its cosmopolitan pedigree and claims to universalism. The intellectual back-ground of the idea was definitely established by post-Enlightenment cos-mopolitanism, a belief that “in their essence” people are equal, regardless of affiliations to various states, languages, religions, classes, or cultures. Since the eighteenth century, cosmopolitanism has informed the lifestyles of urban intellectual elites as well as conceptually inspired ethics and in-ternational law, economic theories of the free market, political science, the arts, and the humanities3. Coining the phrase Weltliteratur, Goethe – as Marx and Engels later would – expected “world literature” to transcend national parochialism through cosmopolitan cultural exchange. In accord-ance with the ius cosmopoliticum from Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1795), Goethe thought that knowledge of other languages and literatures, their deeper understanding, and openness to their influence would lead people from different countries to mutual understanding and peace. The ideologeme of world literature was invented to buffer the dangers of im-perialism, cultural wars, and economic competition between national enti-ties in post-Napoleonic Europe. However, even Goethe fueled his cosmo-politan idea with nationalist anxieties and goals; after all, his Weltliteratur aimed at the transnational promotion of German literature, which was fac-ing strong international competitors and British or French cultural hegem-ony4. Encouraged by the considerable foreign success of his works and enjoying an influential position in culturally prosperous Weimar, Goethe believed: “There is being formed a universal world literature, in which an honorable role is reserved for us Germans. All the nations review our

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work; they praise, censure, accept, and reject, imitate, and misrepresent us, open or close their hearts to us.”5

From his particular perspective, marked by German cultural nation-alism6, Goethe – as one of the most outstanding cosmopolitans of the Herderian brand – was experiencing world literature primarily as a vast network of transnational interaction; that is, as a rise in the circulation of literary artworks across linguistic and national borders, and increasing cultural exchange between continents and civilizations. As will be seen later on, Weltliteratur also appeared to him in the guise of the modern capitalist market going global. The mutual understanding and intercon-nections of literatures in various linguistic expressions through transla-tions, theatrical performances, reports, and reviews; the creative response to literary repertoires stemming from various periods and cultures of the world (from the classical Chinese novel through Persian poetry to Serbian folk songs) – Goethe considered all of this essential to the viability of the German and any other national literature and to the experience of what he called the “generally human”7. With his cosmopolitan idea of world literature, in which all creativity appeared to be equal, regardless of its ca-nonicity or linguistic or national provenance, Goethe discovered a deeper meaning in many of his daily activities, such as multilingual readings, identification with culturally distant literary characters or problems, moni-toring the international reception of his works, establishing contacts with European artists and scholars, or editing the journal Über Kunst und Alter-thum, devoted to Weltpoesie.8 He also transfigured world literature into his poetic principle, leading to a globalized imagination and world intertex-tuality. Goethe’s West-eastern Divan (1819/27), inspired by the German translation of Hafez’s Divan (1812), is an example of how an Orientalist intercultural “synthesis” can be intertextually inscribed in a literary text from one of the literatures that were becoming nationally conscious9.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Goethean Weltliteratur evolved to the regulatory idea that shaped the new discipline of com-parative literature, defining its transnational subject as well as methods of examining international cultural relations10. In comparative studies, the concept of world literature has by now obtained several meanings: (a) the sum of literatures expressed in all languages of the world, (b) liter-ary works with “generally human” values that transcend local, national, and limited historical importance, which qualifies them as cornerstones of the universal canon, (c) global bestsellers distributed in several lan-

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guages, (d) authors, texts, structures, and ideas that cross the borders of their domestic culture and are actively present in other languages and so-cieties – as “multiple windows on the world”11, imported originals, trans-lations, the subject of discussions and the media, and sources of literary influence and intertextuality, and (e) a system of interaction and interfer-ence between heterolingual literatures and areas that shape international or transnational literary processes12. After a period during which notions of world literature as the global literary canon or history of inter-literary relations and developments prevailed, the original Goethean conception has recently come back to the forefront of comparative studies, especially in the transnational approach. There are many good reasons for Goethe’s comeback13. According to Goethe, world literature implies a network of practices, media, and institutions that transfer international resources in the home literary field, encouraging transcultural circulation of concepts, representations, and intertextual absorption of global cultural repertoires as well as self-conscious production for an international audience. Goethe is currently considered a visionary mainly due to his symptomatic use of economic metaphors14. Knowing that he was – at least through German adaptations and interpretations – familiar with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776), one cannot be surprised by Goethe’s interdiscursive re-sponse to the “free market” ideology – for example, when expressing his hope that the German “production” in England “would find a market” and achieve “a balance of trade”15. In their Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), which is currently read as a description of today’s globalized capi-talism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels followed Goethe’s economic lead; here they connected the global expansion of the capitalist market and economy to the beginnings of the transnational system of world literature, which was held to be formed by the exchange and interaction between the spiritual products of national, local literatures16.

World literature, however, may not be reduced to mere interaction on the international cultural market. It is also a category of ethical, political, historical, and aesthetic thought. This category was shaped in the nine-teenth century not only because of the development of communications, transport, and markets and the expansion of international politics, all of which was required by industrialized capitalism and imperialism, but also in view of travel writing, newspaper reports on world events, archaeo-logical and anthropological discoveries of pre-classical civilizations, the broadening of the translation repertoire (including Egyptian, Mesopota-

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mian, Chinese, Indian, and Arabic literature), and attempts at reconstruct-ing the sense of the original otherness in translations17. In order to fashion an awareness of world literature and foster intercultural transfers, a sort of localized infrastructure within European cultures was also necessary. In addition to the media, such as reviews and journals that included transla-tions, or theaters with an international repertoire, the sheer mobility of books, manuscripts, and other cultural objects was truly instrumental, much like their exchange, systematic collection, and cataloging, and the encyclopedic ordering of knowledge about foreign cultures. Such net-works “translated” (in Bruno Latour’s use of the word) remote foreign objects, texts, and their representations in a multitude of local archives and libraries, where their referential and contextual liaisons with origi-nal spaces were adapted to particular epistemes and the strategies of the receiving location – for example, the formation of Orientalist corpora in western libraries and preparation of encyclopedias, such as Barthélemy D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque orientale from the turn of the eighteenth centu-ry, which represented and systematized Islamic civilization for the needs of the French metropolis18.

In the theoretical and poetic consciousness of world literature (Goethe’s case), as well as in the case of establishing the media and insti-tutional infrastructure for its circulation and representation (D’Herbelot), there is a taste of a “glocalization”19 of world literature that led to its plu-rality in as early as the nineteenth century. The need to speak of world literature in the plural form becomes even more urgent due to the fact that the Goethean concept of Weltliteratur was launched through the ide-ologeme of “national literature” and that it was modeled by nationalist cognitive centrisms. Ever since Goethe, world literature’s interactions and universal canons thus presuppose extant or at least emerging national lit-eratures as their basic elements. Inclusion of the national in the world, the presence of the world in the national, and nationality as a necessary condition for the appearance of world literature are symptoms of the inter-locking ideologies of the post-enlightenment cultural nationalism, cosmo-politanism, and the aesthetic understanding of art practices20. According to Siegfried J. Schmidt, two complementary processes were characteristic during the making of modern European literary fields in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: autonomization and nationalization21. Following Pierre Bourdieu, it may be said that the ideology of aesthetic autonomy, which was fed into texts, activities, and actors in the literary field, was

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actually compensation for the fact that (as shown by Balzac’s depiction of the 1820s in The Lost illusions) literary life became subject to the market mechanism and political manipulations of public space in print media: the value of artistic products was contingent, and the accumulation or loss of cultural capital depended on the shifting interests of publishers, social networks, and cliques and on their tactical use of the media22. The process of nationalization, on the other hand, profiled literature as a crucial lin-guistic and cultural attribute of the nation’s “imagined community”23. Au-tonomizing and nationalizing literature invoked the “nation” as a cultural hero on the ruins of the ancient canon and, from its Eurocentric perspec-tive, generalized this aesthetic and national attitude to all literatures of the world24. Following the logic of identity construction, nations as imag-ined communities only became possible through their relations with each other: while emulating the same discursive repertoire of the transnational current of nationalist ideology, they sought their individuality through relentless comparisons with and differentiation from other nations (here, comparative methods in philology, folklore, and literary history were also instrumental). Hence modern European nations were established within a new geopolitical reality that was perceived as inter-national25; borders on the newly imagined map of Europe were now drawn almost exclusively by existing or emerging nation-states.

An example of these processes in one of Europe’s peripheries – Slov-enian ethnic territory in the Habsburg Monarchy – is the poetry of the ro-mantic France Prešeren (1800–1849) involved in devising the context of national, “Slovenian,” or “Carniolan” literature. In addition to his national self-awareness and cultural activity, however, Prešeren saw himself in a larger European context. His poem Glosa (1834/47) tackles the relation-ship between verbal art in Slovenian language and the local environment, in which parochial bourgeois capitalism plays a decisive role26. Prešeren reinforces his insistence on the poetic vocation by alluding to a set of models of the world’s classics (Homer, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, Camões, Cervantes, and Tasso), who at first sight seem to justify the poem’s thesis that art – in opposition to the logic of profit – is always bound to be so-cially marginalized. Prešeren intertextually transfers world literature in a Slovenian text written in a Habsburg province, thereby giving meaning to both his own poetic work and the emerging national literature. With local-ly perspectivized allusions to world literary classics, Prešeren accumulates their cultural capital in his text, evoked by the “currency” of their famous

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names. For Prešeren, such a testimonio of world literary classics repre-sents imaginary compensation for the plain social phenomenology of eco-nomic capital. Generally speaking, through the formation of the canon of world literature, the cultural elites of the romantic period spread their be-lief in the transcendental importance and autonomy of art. With reference to the canon of world and European literature, Prešeren also advocated an autonomous order of the literary that inverts the principles of the capitalist market27. From this we may conclude that the emergence of a peripheral national literary system tends to imply a specific local understanding of the global nature of literature, as well as the world imagination and inter-textuality. The glocal inscription of world literature into Prešeren’s poetry was embedded in a social network of “culture planning,” which also in-volved other intellectuals pursuing the task of establishing national “so-cio-cultural cohesion” among the bilingual and biliterary educated classes in Habsburg Carniola28. His mentor and friend, the librarian Matija Čop, took care of collecting manuscripts, books, and news about current cul-tural events abroad, as well as studying the histories of many literatures; on the other hand, through his vast correspondence, he spread information on past and contemporary Slovenian literature among the intellectuals and poets in Czech, Slovak, and Polish territory.

The emergence29 of the peripheral national literary field described above is an example of how, in the circumstances of the bourgeois society and the capitalist art market, national identity is established relationally, through realizing its position among literatures in other languages and within world literature understood as a common heritage of mankind. The case could be explained by recent conceptions of the world system that build on Goethe and Marx’s observations. I am thinking of Immanuel Wallerstein, Franco Moretti, and Pascale Casanova. Elaborating upon Marx’s insights, Wallerstein writes that capitalism, encouraged by new technologies of transport and communication, made the economy glo-bal by introducing forms of exploitation, labor division, capital flow, and surplus value appropriation that were organized geographically and po-litically. The world economy thus created and multiplied local state struc-tures that regulated social tensions by both fostering particular cultural identities (national literature having a key role) and embracing universal patterns of the capitalist “geoculture”. In the growing international system of global capitalism, which produced and spread geoculture, nation-states were positioned unequally: whereas “core-states” as the sites of developed

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production could accumulate capital and control the geopolitical division of labor, “peripheral” or “semi-peripheral” areas, whose means of produc-tion were less developed and statehood was weaker, remained dependent on those centers30. Hence the world system of capitalist economics with its geoculture, cores, and peripheries shows many striking analogies with the gradual formation of a “world republic of letters” from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. On the one hand, world literature participates in the transnational circulation of geoculture; on the other hand, however, it is – parallel to the capitalist world-system – a complex field of asymmet-rical relations and struggles for visibility and recognition. La république mondiale des lettres is conceived by Casanova as a hierarchically organ-ized semiotic space, in which the established and emerging literary fields interact from unequal positions, either as centers of cultural influence, where consecration of literary products for the international cultural mar-ket takes place, or as peripheries with poorer cultural capital and worse linguistic, social, or political possibilities for international literary break-through31. According to David Damrosch, world literature is the space reserved for the diffusion and flow of literary texts that, after having been recognized by some global metropolis, exceed the linguistic boundaries of their literary fields and become “actively present” in other languages or cultures32. Drawing on Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, Moretti also portrays the “world literary system” as analogous to the world econ-omy (although not identical with the history and spatial distribution of economic cores and peripheries); it consists of influential productive cent-ers and primarily receptive peripheries33. Nonetheless, according to Even-Zohar and Moretti, strong and developed literatures, which now function as centers of the world literary system, used to be peripheral in the phase of their emergence (e.g., the French and English dependence on Classi-cal Antiquity); without interference with peripheral productivity and the resources of “small” or “minority” literatures (e.g., the global influence of orientalism, bard poetry, Nordic ballads, Balkan imagery and folklore, Karel Čapek’s robot, and Latin American magical realism), even central literary systems would stagnate. No cultural system is self-sufficient and free of interference34. It would be misleading to draw evaluative conclu-sions from the asymmetries of cultural power described above. Centrality and peripherality are variables that depend on historical dynamics and system evolution; there are normally multiple centers that attract different global areas to their sphere of influence and compete with each other for

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wider dominance; in this millennium, for example, Eastern metropolises (China, South Korea, and India) are overshadowing the role of the US and the Western world. Important artistic innovations are also occurring on the fringes of the world system. Moreover, cultural transfer from metropoli-tan source literatures to (semi-)peripheral target literatures should not be reduced to Moretti’s neat formula of “a compromise between a Western formal influence (usually French or English) and local materials,” de-rived from his important and large-scale analyses of the European novel35. While the formula may be operational at the macro-level of the transna-tional literary market, which, with its wavelike diffusion of successful cultural products, causes diverse peripheral fields to choose and adapt the most demanded, appealing, prestigious, fascinating, or innovative global patterns, it proves to be too superficial at the level of intertextuality36: “strong” peripheral authors that are aware of their strategic borrowing from a foreign literary repertoire and its grafting into the “local” conven-tions tend to cope with the Bloomian “anxiety of influence” in many other ways – for example, by ironic and self-reflective fictional presentation of their systemic dependence on the world literary canon (Prešeren’s metapo-etic sonnets that ironize his own romantic Petrarchism). Being frustrated by their marginality or border position, small or peripheral literatures tend to be more open and “nomadic” in their search for disparate world sourc-es. Because of their often irregular development, they mix and transform foreign transfers in very singular ways (e.g., Balkan Zenithism and Srečko Kosovel’s avant-garde poetic constructions). Nevertheless, it still cannot be denied that the path of a peripheral innovation to the metropolis is cer-tainly more difficult, exceptional, and often delayed37, as Slavoj Žižek’s move from the circle of the Ljubljana Lacanians through US academia to the world theoretical icon might testify. According to Casanova, every writer that seeks to enter the space of the world republic of letters depends on the international prestige (cultural capital) accumulated in his or her home language, traditions, and society – British authors, for example, have much better conditions for starting an international career than those that write in Slovenian or Lithuanian38.

Peripheries or semi-peripheries, such as central Europe, are not just passively dependent on their in-between position and interferences from neighboring world centers. These areas, too, contain their own urban cent-ers (Vilnius, Warsaw, Prague, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Trieste, etc.) and their respective literatures sometimes establish mutual contacts without the

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necessary intermediation of global metropolises (e.g., various Slavisms in the nineteenth century and after the First World War). Artworks, authors, techniques, and themes from one among the peripheral literatures are thus also “actively present” outside their home literary fields, operating within what Ďurišin called inter-literary community or centrism (e.g., Arab or South Slavic)39. Without inter-literary transfers within such communities, the world literary system as a complex network would collapse. The cul-tural capital that authors accumulate through the reception of their works within such multinational and multilingual areas may also pave their way to the metropolis and wider international recognition. Globalization and the postcolonial situation have created favorable conditions for regional and global success of peripheral authors (not only modern) and allowed them to self-confidently plan their writing for world audiences. For ex-ample, the Trieste Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol (1903–67) privately considered his novel Alamut (1938) a potential global hit. The text was conceived to become an international bestseller: it draws on Orientalist historical knowledge, sets the story in exotic medieval Iran, displays eru-dition, uses an easily translatable style, clings to successful genre patterns, creates suspense, and addresses big issues of totalitarianism and conspira-cy theory. In the very year of its first publication in Slovenian, Bartol tried to offer his novel to the global cultural market. He submitted a screenplay about Alamut Castle directly to the Hollywood film metropolis, but MGM studios rejected it. Notwithstanding, Alamut later won wide recognition and was translated into about eighteen languages (and in 2004 also into English). Alamut’s entrance into world literature occurred due to a favora-ble, although contingent, historical situation and thanks to “consecration” in a global metropolis: in 1988, Alamut was translated into French be-cause its story and setting coincided with the topicality of Islamic funda-mentalism and terrorism after Khomeini’s revolution in Iran40.

In conclusion, I am returning to world literatures in the plural. The plural designation has been used so far mainly for “great” literatures in the world languages, which differ from “small” literatures with what Paul van Tieghem once called “limited radiation”41. Nevertheless, my point of departure is the problem of how the complex world literature mega-sys-tem, with its linguistic variety and multitude of texts, could possibly be cognitively grasped and represented. Even if we attempted to overcome national literature’s atomism with Dionýz Ďurišin’s methodology of in-ter-literary processes that take place in a range of culturally, historically,

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geographically, or politically coherent areas or, if we followed Moret-ti’s proposal for “distant reading” (i.e., systematizing second-hand infor-mation on foreign literatures)42, we would at best highlight only some highly generalized hypotheses about the underlying “laws” of the devel-opment of world literature. It is therefore necessary to agree with Zoran Milutinović, who has recently considered that the history and theory of world literature could only be fragmentary and appear through specific viewpoints43. World literature is thus inevitably reflected in a plurality of different versions and images. It may be true that the literary world mega-system primarily exists as a network of transfers, interference, and developing relationships between texts, conventions, and structural matri-ces from different national literatures or inter-literary communities. None-theless, it should be remembered that world literature also consists of the media and institutional infrastructure, the materiality of texts, and, above all, the canon of world literature (as a repository of cultural memory) and the consciousness – theoretical, practical and poetic – of the interconnect-edness and interdependence of the world’s literatures. Poetic awareness of world literature is realized in literary texts in the form of intertextual-ity and globalized imagination. The literary world system is therefore a complex topology, which is cognitively and creatively accessible only through the archives of localized cultural memory and singular cognitive or linguistic perspectives. They show world literature as a set of variant corpora, representations, inspirations, and classifications. World literature is being constantly translated and presented in manifold localized inscrip-tions, which are the subject of reflection and reworking in different sem-iospheres. To begin with, canons of world literature are plural because they exist only within particular literary fields and interactions between them: each national literature or country has its own version of the world literature canon, and any literature intertextually bases its production on different selections from global cultural heritage. Any literature or liter-ary history sees world literature through the lenses of how they perceive their position within the global literary system. The different perceptions of world literatures in metropolitan or peripheral cultural environments condition even “national” schools of comparative literature, although this discipline should in principle be the most cosmopolitan form of literary knowledge. However, this issue is already the subject of another discus-sion44.

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References, literature1 John Pizer, Goethe’s “World Literature” Paradigm and Contemporary Cul-

tural Globalization, in: Comparative Literature, 2000, 52.3, 213–227: 213; Vid Snoj, Svetovna literatura na ozadju drugega, in: Literatura, 2006, 18.177, 61–78: 65–66; Tomo Virk, Primerjalna književnost na prelomu tisočletja: kritični pregled, Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2007, 184–187.

2 Johann W. Goethe, Goethes Werke in Zwölf Bänden, Vol. 11, Berlin & Wei-mar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1974, 456–465; Johann W. Goethe, Some Passages Per-taining to the Concept of World Literature, in: Hans-Joachim Schulz & Philipp H. Rhein, eds., Comparative Literature – The early Years: An Anthology of es-says, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1973, 1–12. On Goethe’s Weltliteratur see: Hendrik Birus, The Goethean Concept of World Literature and Comparative Literature, in: CLCWeb, December 2000, 2.4: <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol2/iss4/7> [20 Sept. 2009]; David Dam-rosch, What is World Literature?, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003, 1–36; John Pizer, 2000; Tomo Virk, 2007, 175–179.

3 Marko Juvan, ideologije primerjalne književnosti: perspektive metropol in periferij, in: Darko Dolinar & Marko Juvan, eds., Primerjalna književnost v 20. stoletju in Anton Ocvirk, Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2008, 57–91: 67–77.

4 David Damrosch, 2003, 8; John Pizer, 2000, 216; Pascale Casanova, La république mondiale des Lettres, Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1999, 63–64.

5 Johann W. Goethe, 1973, 5. Later, too, it often turned out that ambitious, cos-mopolitan writers from peripheral literatures (James Joyce, Derek Walcott, or Tomaž Šalamun) were more strongly inclined toward global imagination than those from metropolises (David Damrosch, 2003, 13).

6 Joep Leerssen, Nationalism and the Cultivation of Culture, in: Nations and Nationalism, 2006, 12.4, 559–578.

7 Johann W. Goethe, 1974, 458.8 Hans-Joachim Schulz & Philipp H. Rhein, 1973, 3.9 John Pizer, 2000, 218.10 John Pizer, ibid., 214; Marko Juvan, 2008, 72–77.11 David Damrosch, 2003, 15.12 See:See: Dionýz Ďurišin, Theory of Literary Comparatistics, Bratislava: Veda,

1984, 79–90; Dionýz Ďurišin, Théorie du processus interlittéraire i, Bratisla-va: Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, 1995, 11–37, 45, 51–54; David Damrosch, 2003, 4–6, 14–24; Marián Gálik, Concepts of World Literature, Comparative Literature, and a Proposal, in: CLCWeb, 2000, 2.4: <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol2/iss4/8>; Pavol Koprda, La mondialité de la littérature chez Dionyz Ďurišin, in: Medziliterárny proces IV, Nitra: Univerzita Konštantína filozofa, 2003, 251–265.

13 John Pizer, 2000, 213–214; Pier Paolo Frassinelli & David Watson, World Literature: A receding Horizon, in: Pier Paolo Frassinelli, Ronit Frenkel & David Watson, eds., Traversing Transnationalism: The Horizons of Literary and Cultural Studies, Amsterdam: Rodopi (in press), 1–19.

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14 See, e.g.,See, e.g., Pascale Casanova, 1999, 27.15 Johann W. Goethe, 1973, 7–8. See Bernd Mahl, Goethes ökonomisches Wis-

sen: Grundlagen zum Verständnis der ökonomischen Passagen im dichterisch-en Gesamtwerk und in den “Amtlichen Schriften”, Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1982.

16 Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, New York: Cosimo Classics, 2006, 45–46.

17 Ginette Verstraete, Tourism and the Global itinerary of an idea, in: Ginette Verstraete & Tim Cresswell, eds., Thamyris/intersecting 9 = Mobilizing Place, Placing Mobility: The Politics of representation in a Globalized World. Am-sterdam: Rodopi, 2002, 33–52; David Damrosch, 2003, 39–77; Peter V. Zima, Komparatistik: einführung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Tübingen: Francke, 1992, 211–213.

18 Bruno Latour, Ces résaux que la raison ignore – laboratoires, bibliothèques, collections, in: Marc Baratin & Christian Jacob, eds., La pouvoir des bibliothèques: La mémoire des livres dan la culture occidentale, Paris: Albin Michel, 1996, 23–46; Nicholas Dew, The Order of Oriental Knowledge: The Making of D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale, in: Christopher Prendergast, ed., Debating World Literature, London: Verso, 2004, 233–252.

19 Roland Robertson, Comments on the “Global Triad” and “Glocalization”, in: N. Inoue, ed., Globalization and indigenous Culture, Tokyo: Kokugakuin University, 1997, 217–225.

20 Marko Juvan, 2008, 64–77.21 Siegfried J. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation des Sozialsystems Literatur im

18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989, 282–283; see also Pascale Casa-nova, 1999, 148–152, 260–265.

22 Pierre Bourdieu, The rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996, 20–21, 48–68, 81–85. Bourdieu is actually discussing the radicalization of this situa-tion in the second half of the nineteenth century.

23 Benedict Anderson, imagined Communities: reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised edn. London, New York: Verso, 1998.

24 David Damrosch, 2003, 6.25 Pascale Casanova, 1999, 56–59.26 France Prešeren, Zbrano delo, vol. 1, ed. Janko Kos, Ljubljana: DZS, 1965,

111–112.27 Pierre Bourdieu, 1996, 20–21, 48–85.28 Itamar Even-Zohar, Culture Planning, Cohesion, and the Making and Main-

tenance of entities, in: Anthony Pym, Miriam Shlesinger & Daniel Simeoni, eds., Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008, 277–292.

29 César Domínguez, Literary emergence as a Case Study of Theory in Com-parative Literature, in: CLCWeb, 2006, 8.2: <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clc-web/vol8/iss2/1> [21 Sept. 2009].

30 Immanuel wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture: essays on the Chang-

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ing World-System, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 139–156, 184–199; Im-manuel wallerstein, The Modern World System, in: The Modern World Sys-tem: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the european World-economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1976, 229–233; Immanuel wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An introduction, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2004, ix–xii, 23–75.

31 Pascale Casanova, 1999, 119–178.32 David Damrosch, 2003, 4–6.33 Franco Moretti, Conjectures on World Literature, in: New Left Review 2000,

1, 54–68.34 Franco Moretti, More Conjectures, in: New Left Review 2003, 20, 73–81: 75–

77; Itamar Even-Zohar, Polysystem Studies, in: Poetics Today, 1990, 11.1, 59, 79.

35 Franco Moretti, 2000, 58–60; 2003, 78–79.36 Marko Juvan, History and Poetics of intertextuality, West Lafayette, Purdue

University Press, 2008, esp. pp. 54–69.37 Franco Moretti, 2003, 75–77. Even-Zohar (Polysystem Studies, 65) speaks

of the “incubation” period that is necessary for the interference of a peripheral literature into a central one.

38 Pascale Casanova, 1999, 28–32, 63–64. – For a similar observation see It-amar Even-Zohar, 1990, 59.

39 Dionýz Ďurišin, 1995, 21–24, 48–51.40 Miran Košuta, Alamut: roman – metafora, in: Vladimir Bartol, Alamut, Lju-

bljana: Mladinska knjiga 1988, 551–597: 554; Miran Košuta, usoda zmaja: ob svetovnem uspehu Bartolovega Alamuta, in: Jezik in slovstvo, 1991, 36.3, 56–61.

41 Paul Van Tieghem, La littérature comparée, Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1931, 16.

42 Dionýz Ďurišin, 1995; Franco Moretti, 2000, 56–57.43 Zoran Milutinović, Jasno opredeljen pojav in enotna perspektiva: ali je zgo-

dovina svetovne književnosti možna?, trans. Seta Knop, in: Darko Dolinar & Marko Juvan, eds., Primerjalna književnost v 20. stoletju in Anton Ocvirk, Lju-bljana: Založba ZRC, 2008, 223–238: 236–237.

44 Marko Juvan, 2008, 80–86.

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The Urban Landscape in Macedonian Literature in the Context of the Centre / Periphery Discussion

Miesto peizažas Makedonijos literatūroje centro / periferijos

diskusijos kontekste

Sonja STOJMeNSKA-eLZeSerinstitute of Macedonian LiteratureSs. Cyril and Methodius universityGrigor Prlicev 5, p.o.b. 4551 000 Skopje, r. [email protected]

SummarySkopje – the capital of the small Balcan country Macedonia, is very often an

urban scene for the literary works written by Macedonian writers. How do they see the city of their own? Do they feel it as an European urban space? Skopje from the memories (before the catastrophy of the earhquake in 1963) is conserved in the literature with intimate and nostalgic aura. But the contemporary city is a field for a lot of transformations reflected in the literary works nowadays. Skopje can be discussed in comparison with European cultural centres in the context of the opposition centre-periphery. The paper is a kind of summary from one “liter-ary walk” through Skopje on the coordinates given in the contemporary novel The Snow in Casablanca by Kica B. Kolbe. In a way it refers to the tradition of mod-ernist flâneri and also to the postmodern treatmen of the city in the works of art (Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau, Chris Jenks etc.).

Key words: Macedonian literature, Skopje, urban landscape, centre-periphery discussion.

In the last decades in humanities the opposition centre/periphery was very much explored and discussed. It is rather provocative to rethink the literature and culture through the prism of spatial, even geographic terms. What is central and what is peripheral, what is local and what is global, what is European and what is non-European, what is Western and what is Eastern in the culture, and in its frames in literature? Both writers and thinkers have been preoccupied with these questions, which provoked

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them to analyze and create their own visions of such spatial distinctions. After projects such as geophilosophy, psychogeography and geopoetics it is clear enough that culture is very strongly connected with space (loca-tion, place), almost the same or even more, as it is with a certain histori-cal moment, with the time itself (finally, they always work together, as it is emphasized in the Bakhtinian concept of xronotop). The great role of geography and geometry in the understanding of literary processes and works is strongly emphasized in the maps of Franco Moretti (2005) who has shown how creative the rethinking of literature can be with categories of space and location.

Centre/periphery opposition as a spatial category is explicitly char-acteristic of urbanization, of making order in space and its organization. That is why it is dominant in the rethinking of urban culture, although the phenomena of the city has been researched by almost all disciplines: first of all, by sociology, then by history and politics, architecture, geog-raphy and tourism, etc. Polis, urbs, civis, city – that is not only the place where we live, not only houses surrounded with city-walls, but the idea of how we live and how we wish and could live. The dignity of the city was decreased by the rural utopia of rusoism in the eighteen century when it started to be considered as a place of crime and evil. The city was thought to be created by the devil, and on the contrary, the country was given birth to by God. In the period of Enlightenment, the main focus was on the eth-nic dimension of urbanity. Modernism made urbanity the main stage of art works - novels, stories, films and many other pieces of art. “The city is a state of mind”, wrote Robert Park, leader of the Chicago school of urban sociology, in 19151. This observation is a strong argument for the meaning and influence that the city life has on identity, psychology, and creation. The relation between cities and art always vibrates between the reality and fiction. The city in artistic works is never the same as it is in reality. It is always fictional, the result of complex imagination, the mixture of private and collective memory, something learnt, something experienced, something conscious and something unconscious… In literature, there have always been excellent stories, novels, poems devoted to particular cities, known or unknown in reality, imagined (and even invisible in the manner of Italo Calvino).

When we speak about the relation between the city and literature we cannot omit the impressive modernist figure of flâneur, or in German wandersmänner (as it is known from the influential work by Michel de

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Certeau) which is a great metaphor of the closeness between the indi-vidual and his urban surroundings. It is the personification of urbanity itself and has survived through literary works for a long time. At the end of the nineteenth century it was a very popular literary character. The term comes from Walter Benjamin’s analyses of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry. This figure is a kind of stroller who walks on foot through urban land-scapes and undergoes mysterious experiences in it, mainly produced by visual effects. His walks are without particular motivations, and they usu-ally turn into adventures and bring him aesthetic or erotic pleasures. First, flânery was strictly connected with Paris from the period of the nineteenth century and flâneur was walking in the novels written by the authors of High Modernism. This figure was also present in the paintings from that period. Later, this kind of creative city experience was modified, but re-mained one of the most productive strategy of prose writings. Following influential essays by Walter Benjamin, Chris Jenks, Michel de Certeau and others, this figure of flâneur became a metaphor and methodological tool for analyzing urban culture.

In literary studies, this figure is still a creative principle and has a great role in the researches of the modern novel. The novel itself is compared with the city, so the process of reading can be thought of as a kind of flân-ery. It is also obvious that the strategy of description is very compatible with the flânery, that is why we find such narration in many contemporary novels.

Our interest in this paper is to see how some echoes of this literary figure function in prose writings in Macedonia, how the urban landscape is described in Macedonian prose and how it is turned into a process of identification. For these purposes we focus our attention on one recent Macedonian novel, the novel The snow in Casablanca by Kica B. Kolbe, published in 2005. In a way, this novel is a very interesting continuation of the tradition of modernist flânery, but its main preoccupation is exactly through those promenades and city walks of the main character (a young woman Dina Asprova) to build her complex identity crucified between the experience of European cities and the experience of her native town Skopje. Long walks in her town evoke her memories of her childhood and youth and help her find a spiritual harmony. The first element that sepa-rates this novel from the modernistic tradition is the ordinary fact that the narrator of the story who walks through her place of birth is a woman. The modernist flâneur was generally a man. In modernist literature the city

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was seen through man’s eyes. In this example, we can see the city of Sko-pje through women’s eyes, and that is may be the reason why the feeling of the city in this novel is deeply connected with a love story. It is inter-esting that in this novel promenades, city walks (not only in her own town of birth, but in the major European cities) are main chains of the subject. Young intellectual Dina who temporarily lives in Florence (and works in Ufficci gallery) is forced to come back to her town of birth Skopje to take care of her empty family apartment. She has left her town for more than ten years and lived for a while in Rome, Paris, Prague, and finally, in Flor-ence. This is the key counterpoint of the novel: European urban centres versus Skopje. This is how Dina Asprova describes Florence:

Believe me, in the last ten years I’ve lived in all the beautiful cities in Western Europe, but none of them is like this unearthly pearl. Florence is not just a city. It is embodied artistic vision...2

On the other hand, her native Skopje is “behind the back of Europe” , as she says:

For me, Skopje was always far from Europe and the world, it was always pro-vincial and narrow that strangles me [...]. I must escape from this spirit of nar-rowness. Here. From this suburb of Europe. Macedonia. I dream of Europe!3

The novel The Snow in Casablanca is based on ironic discourse which can be recognised in the ludic toponimia: Dina Asprova creates her virtual biography in which her country Macedonia is named Casablanca and her town Skopje is named Justiniana. That is irony towards the position of the Macedonian state and people in the contemporary world:

... the picture of Casablanca is created by weakness, due to constant defeats in my conquest of the West Europe. We were not a province in that time, when we recited Rimbaud on the edge of the river Vardar. We are province now! If we are province, then let us be a true one. With style! Exotic. That’s why I figured all that stuff: Casablanca, Justinijana, Balkanija. Codes of powerles-sness!4

The urban landscape in this novel is a mode of finding and building

the identity of the main character (and of the authoress herself). Walking through the cities is the most common form of narration. Dina Asprova walks in museums of European centres in their famous places and feels

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herself as a spiritual relative to all the precious icons of the European culture: her closest spiritual relatives are Frantishek (France Kafka) from Prague, Proust, Musil, Mann, Beckett, Dostojevsky and all the great writ-ers of the European tradition whose creations are her own spiritual treas-ure. They all build her complex identity which struggles the stigma of not being accepted and not being recognised:

I told myself that it shouldn’t bother me that those famous ancestors in Wes-tern Europe don’t consider me for their relative ... Anyway, I am sure that I didn’t go into the heart of Europe by chance. One day, even those invisible spiritual ancestors in the eternity will have to understand and accept that their European spirit has always lived in my heart.5

The European spirit on the one hand, and the native town and native country with all its dirt, dust, provinciality, and all the backwardness on the other, are in struggle in the character of Dina. But what happens when she turns back to her ugly town? (She admits that her city is not beauti-ful, it is beautiful only when covered with snow, as it is during the almost whole period of the novel, mainly because of the metaphoric role of the snow.) From the corners of the city come flooding back her memories of the happy childhood and especially of the love of her life which unfortu-nately lasted only one night. The young painter whom she fell in love with left Skopje the day after their meeting. But it seems that he was her desti-ny. In her walks through Skopje on one of the most beautiful streets of the town she recognises the house that she walked past very often as a child to enjoy the music played by one mysterious woman. The love is found again after many years, and it is symbolised by the nice stylish house, the home that she finds with her beloved man, his old dying mother, her friends from the youth etc.

It happens that her life, which was concentrated on the European art and culture, museums and theatres, walks through the streets of the most beautiful European cities, suddenly gets a new centre – she finally finds her own home in which all the values that are considered to be European for her can harmonise with her intimate life. In such an outcome the terms like European spirit and home get together, and the oppositions get lost.

But Europe makes fun of our yearning for world culture! She herself has forgotten this yearning long time ago. That’s why she is cynical towards us! She wants to squeeze out our vital liquids, even the last drops, that keep us alive. Do you know how painful it is to wish one’s whole life to go to live in

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the land of Proust, to live a year in Paris, to be foreigner there and everybody to look at you as at an ox with three heads when you pronounce the name of Proust? Because they all believe that you are the Barbarian from the Balkans to whom they have to make a primat, to teach you to read and write! But you go there to tell them that even when you were fifteen, when you were sitting by the waters and smells of the river Vardar you also enjoyed the aroma of the Proust’s linden tea. You will tell them passionately that we, Nora and I, your students, recited Rimbaud and Mallarme all the nights standing on Stone Bridge! We, the dreamers of the world culture. ... I was not taught to love Proust by any non-governmental organisation or any old European Founda-tion during my wanderings through the European wasteland! You are the one who taught me that love, here, in Skopje, the town about which in Paris they asked me whether it is a suburb of Istanbul or of Tirana? …Europeans, they will never believe me that my father has taught me that admiration for world culture before Europe came to Macedonia and made big mess from our lives. They want to believe that we have always been barbarians because if they don’t believe it, then their truths about Macedonia will be false. And they are lies. Europe doesn’t know Macedonia. We are a secret for her, because she is an arrogant ignoramus...6

In these words you can feel the stigma of the Macedonian intellectual who has always considered herself as a part of one European spiritual community, but formally is not accepted in it. This double standard for what is and what is not European tradition bothers the young writer. The problem of the location of the European culture through the spatial terms contribute to its rethinking as much more complex phenomena than just a simple characteristic of one of the world’s continents. Are the geographic points or geopolitical tendencies the only arbiters of what is or what is not part of the European cultural heritage?

The new European imagination is crucified between two tendencies: to connect all the different streams in one common identity based on the common memory and creativity, and, at the same time, to take care about the specificity and uniqueness of all the different identities in its frames. The idea of unity in diversity is very positive, creative and potential, but it is still very far away from its practice. What is the correct balance be-tween the unity and the diversity, unfortunately, is still impossible to say. The opposition centre / periphery comes from various spheres: geographi-cal, political, economic etc., but if we want to summarize, we can say in aother words: power, money, greatness in terms of quantity make the pic-ture of the world. But the stigma of being peripheral is not characteristic only of poor, weak, or “small” peoples and cultures. The richest regions

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of Europe (in its North) have the same problem with the complex of being peripheral.

We must also have in mind that throughout history the points of cul-tural radiation, or positions of cultural centres were changeable. Even the Balkans, that “barbarian” periphery of Europe was centre of cultural ra-diation in particular historic circumstances. So, the question what is/are the centre (or centres) and what is/are the periphery/peripheries of culture is still open. Culture itself, creation itself, art itself in harmony with her intimate life is the real centre for the young woman in the novel we talk about. She asks herself:

Maybe it’s wrong that I look for the answer to my secret of creativity in the famous cities of Western Europe. David and his colleagues play Mozart in Skopje, and in this moment here is the heart of Europe.7

The European heart is something common for the people of art, music, literature, culture, wherever they are on the globe – maybe this concept could be a solution to overcoming the stigma of being peripheral, mar-ginal, provincial.

That is why in this paper we tried to question the meaning of opposi-tion centre / periphery in culture with the illustration of only one con-temporary novel from Macedonian literature in which urban landscape is dominant. There are also other titles in which we can find the same pre-occupation with this problem, because most provocative issues in Mac-edonia nowadays is membership in European Union. It produces various images of Europe, and in popular culture we can find a really wide spec-trum of feelings and attitudes towards EU, from extreme euro-fascination to complete euro-phobia. In the novel The Snow in Casablanca by Kica. B. Kolbe this ambiguity can be felt, but mainly this story argues that the way to overcome those contradictions is to find one’s own identity which doesn’t stand to be thrown by force on geographic pieces and different sides of the world. In the novel Dina Asprova says: “i live over the all geographic determinants”8. Therefore, this novel shows us that identity is built up somewhere between, (in this particular case, between different geographic places in Europe and different cultural backgrounds) and is al-ways a kind of mixture, a kind of cultural and experiential compendium.

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References1 The city: Suggestions for the investigation of human behavior in the urban en-

vironment, in: R. E. Park, E. W. Burgess, and R. McKenzie. The city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, 1.

2 Kolbe, Kica B.: The Snow in Casablanca, Skopje: Tri (��б�, �� Б. Снегот во Казабланка, ��ј�, Тр�), 2005, 7.

3 ibid, 124, 169.4 ibid, 251. 5 ibid, 113.6 ibid, 313.7 ibid, 322.8 ibid, 109.

LiteratureWalter BenjaminBenjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the era of High Capital-

ism, NBL 1977. 1935 = “Paris – the Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” 1938 = “The Paris of the Second Empire.”

Michel de Certeau, Walking in the city, in The Practice of everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees, London, N.Y, Verso, 2005.Chris Jenks, Watching your Step: The History and Practice of the Flaneur, in:

Visual Culture. Ed. Chris Jenks. NY: Routledge, 1995. Chris Jenks (ed.) urban Culture: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Stud-

ies. NY: Routledge, 2004.raymond williams, The Country and the City, London, Chatto and Windus, 1973.

Reprinted, London, Hogarth Press, 1985.

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The Borderline Situation and the Border Crossings in the Baltic Prose at the Turn of the 90’s

Pasienis ir sienos kirtimas Baltijos šalių prozoje įžengiant į paskutinį

XX a. dešimtmetį

Zanda GŪTMANeLiepaja university, LatviaLiela St. 14, LV-3401, [email protected]

SummaryThe article deals with the reflective, essay-type and bold prose in Latvian,

Lithuanian, and Estonian literature of post-communist period which tends to go beyond all the borderlines marked in the literature of the Soviet period. The philo-sophically reflective prose helps us realise the Soviet / post-Soviet individual’s identity problems and is one of the catalysts of the political changes in the Baltic states at the turn of the 90’s. I have selected three novels from this prose tendency which can be described as novels of liminality and which have become like the border phenomena in their national literary contexts. They are the novels by the Lithuanian author Ričardas Gavelis: The Poker in Vilnius (Vilniaus pokeris, 1989), Latvian author Aivars Tarvids: Transgressor (robežpārkāpējs, 1990), and Esto-nian writer Tõnu Õnnepalu (pen-name Emil Tode): Border State (Piiririik, 1993). The novels’ protagonists can be called the borderline situation heroes. According to Bildungsnovel tradition they are outsiders who dissent from the surrounding world. I have characterized the novels of liminality from the point of view of post-colonial criticism because this kind of novel is a typical post-colonial prose variety. I have concluded that the mentioned prose texts of Baltic literature show this process of colonisation as a cultural bomb (using the theoretician of post-colonialism Wa Thiong’o Ngugi’s concept) and a consequence of colonisation as colonisation of the mind or the captive mind (using Czeslaw Milosz’s concept). All these three novels of the Baltic authors reveal us the Soviet/post-Soviet human being’s unenviable condition at the end of the 20th century. The protagonists of the novels try to get free from the mind colonization, to break the disturbing physical and mental borders. They start their way to freedom but do not get free. Their de-velopment or Bildung is not possible, for they are real border situation figures. The mentioned novels of liminality uncover the fact that although the national border has formally been abolished, the mental border still exists.

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Key words: novel of liminality, pos-tcommunist literary studies, post-colonial studies, cultural bomb, colonization of the mind, national border, mental border.

A new paradigm in Baltic literature was formed only at the beginning of its Third Awakening. The end of the 80’s and the beginning of the 90’s is the time when the Baltic States regain their independence, and it is also the borderline in the literature of these countries.

The prose that appeared during that time is a witness of the political liminality situation: it reflects the society’s mood and model of behaviour, life during the Soviet system’s decline and the first years of independence; thus life in the interspaces of two essentially different systems. It is inter-esting that the very events (the singing revolution, rapid political colli-sions, euphoria of the restoration of independence) are hardly reflected in the prose. The tendencies of writing back and re-writing are present in the prose a lot more. Here there is a turn to the distant and quite recent past: firstly, it is an explosive and quantitative upsurge of the memoirs literature where the experience of the withheld and tragic repressions is revealed. This experience is rendered in a simple, traditional realistic form, but in most cases these texts have a documentary narrative style. Secondly, there appears a reflective, essay-type prose where attention is paid to the Soviet/post-Soviet individual’s identity issues, the conditions of identity forma-tion, creation and changes.

In both cases the narratives are directed backwards, in both cases the borderlines drawn by the Soviet regime are trespassed: history is re-writ-ten through an individual’s prism, life stories, which were forbidden and withheld before, are being told now, a traumatic experience is shown. In both cases the literary text is one of the catalysts of the political changes: an awareness of the tragic experience is psychologically necessary for the nation’s further development. However, the philosophically reflec-tive prose helps us understand identity problems. I would like to focus just on this part of prose - the reflective, essay-type bold prose which tends to go beyond all the borderlines mentioned before. At the turn of the 80’s/90’s, in Estonia there appears the so called “new, bold literature” Its representatives are Mati Unt, Viivi Luik, Tõnu Õnnepaly (pen-name Emil Tode), the writers Jurgis Kunčinas, Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Ričardas Gavelis in Lithuania, and the “angry girls” Andra Neiburga, Rudīte Kalpiņa, Gun-dega Repše in Latvia, as well as the writer and publicist Aivars Tarvids

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whose work has remained as the unprecedented case in the history of Latvian literature,.

In this prose I would like to single out three novels which can be de-scribed as novels of liminality, and which have become as if the border phenomena in its national literary context. They are the novels by the Lithuanian author Gavelis: The Poker in Vilnius (Vilniaus pokeris, 1989), Latvian author Tarvids: Transgressor (robežpārkāpējs, 1990)) and Esto-nian writer Tode: Border State (Piiririik, 1993).

When Tarvids’ novel was published, it was an event in Latvian culture. However, in comparison with the Lithuanian and Estonian provocative pieces of work, which more or less have managed to overcome the nation-al hermetic thinking, the Transgressor has not produced an international echo. Its main reason is the novel’s abutment with journalism, placards and schématisme. In Latvian literature, Tarvids’ novel sums up and closes the wave of the new, angry and the so called black prose, but it becomes an unconnected phenomenon till the mid 90’s 1 and even the beginning of the new millennium, when Latvian writers turn to identity issues and reas-sessment of the recent past. Gavelis is called the foremost literary chroni-cler of the pos-tcolonial condition in Lithuania, and now Tode is tradition-ally considered to be the discoverer of the post- colonial situation. Unlike the novels of Tarvid’s Lithuanian and Estonian colleagues, his work has not been assessed from the point of view of post-colonial criticism.

Despite the fact that post-colonial studies are traditionally devoted to the research of the consequences of European colonization, the term “Bal-tic post-colonialism” has gained more weight and became more popular, and it is believed that “it is possible and fruitful to extend the boundaries of the post-colonial studies’ paradigm to cover the literatures of post-com-munist countries. This would help elaborate on a general comparative framework for post-communist literary studies”2. In the context of Baltic prose it is possible to notice a productive approach to post-colonialism, therefore more philosophical meaning denoting a space or position be-yond colonialism is yet inextricably linked to it.3

In the present paper I will analyse the three novels as novels of limi-nality4, which is a typical variety of post-colonial prose, and look at these novels as modifications of the traditional Bildungsnovel. The novels’ pro-tagonists can be called the borderline situation heroes, for they are trying to escape the so-called colonization of the mind or “the captive mind”, as Czesław Miłosz called it in his essay The Captive Mind (Zniewolony

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umysł , 19535). The mind is colonized by means of education and culture, the colonized ones are gradually integrated into the Other - culture and history of the colonizers, they acquire their language and assume their identity as well as mentality.

The primary aim of Gavelis, Tarvids and Tode novels’ protagonists is to get free from the mind colonization, to break the disturbing physical and mental borders.

Gavelis’ structurally complicated novel The Poker in Vilnius is perme-ated with the depressive mood which is the cause of the awakening. The novel shows the intellectual’s tragic situation in the Soviet system, reveals his striving for mental freedom in the space of captivity. In Gavelis’ novel there is a strong opposition against representatives of totalitarian regime (who are called They in the novel) and victims of the mind colonization (in the novel they are called homo sovieticus and homo lithuanicus). One of the narrators Vytautas Vargalis does not include himself into the latter group, therefore he fosters illusions about the possibility of mental non-conformity. He becomes an inner exile. However, this opposition does not come into life in the surrounding world. By resisting the totalitarian regime for a long time (which in the novel is impersonated in Their im-age), the individual also gradually destroys his own system of values. The individual i becomes Their victim. The novel illustrates the Georgian phi-losopher Merab Mamardashvili’s idea that it is not possible to work and think through the looking glass or inside the absurd world, it is important to get out of it.6

The attempts of “getting out” are shown in Tarvids’ novel. The pro-tagonist of Tarvids’ novel is a depressed Soviet doctor who leaves Latvia, tries to escape from his past, and looks to the future which is full of hope. The narrative is woven from the hero’s reflections about the recent past in the Soviet space and his future possibilities. The hero of Tarvids’ novel looks at the whole society with cynicism and treats both the Soviet of-ficials and members of the singing revolution in a sarcastic way. He is aware that the nation of today will be inappropriate for the future. He rejects the past and does not believe in the future. Neither he has any illu-sions about his own life. Here Gavelis’ term is appropriate to characterize Tarvids’ hero who is a real homo sovieticus, and he is well aware of it. Tarvids’ hero represents an individual whose mind is fully distorted, and which the theoretician Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o calls “the cultural bomb: “The aim of the cultural bomb is to shatter people’s belief in their names, in

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their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately, in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement, and it makes them want to distance themselves from the wasteland.”7

The hero of Tarvids’ novel is on the way, thus he lives in uncertainty, in the inter-space between the past and the future, between two different systems. Being on the way marks a borderline which has to be crossed not only physically but also mentally. Neither staying in his country, nor emigration can eliminate the border. As the hero admits, the border is high and inviolable, it is nearly as absolutely safe as the distant wall ( the Berlin Wall8 is meant). In the novel, the trespasser’s ideal of freedom that he has dreamt about breaks as a soap bubble. The hero is well aware that the limiting cage of his personal freedom is not only the frame imposed on him by the system, but also the construction that has been rooted in the mind. Tarvids breaks the illusion that the change of the place can automat-ically solve problems of the individual crippled during the Soviet regime.

What Gavelis’ and Tarvids’ novels share is first of all the fact that the heroes’ reflections have a strong destructive effect. Nihilism, anger, even aggression having been suppressed for a long time, are directed against the system where people were forced to live during the Soviet re-gime. This negative pathos in literature is also reflective of socio-political changes of the time, and it proves that at the end of 80’s and the beginning of 90’s the Baltic states were under a social explosion. The second feature common to both novels is the choice of lexicon which reveals cynically a distorted world. It is possible to notice a maximal language profanity in the heroes’ expressions and stream of consciousness, there is a lot of speech simplicity, russifications, and slang. In order to depict the things and phenomena, concentrated dark colours are mainly used, metaphors and comparisons are chosen to reinforce the idea of decay, and everything that is physiological and extremely profane is emphasized. Due to the lan-guage of homo sovieticus, the distortion of one’s own language, gradual acceptance of Other languages and depreciation of values are revealed. The literary critic Guntis Berelis admits that in a certain way the Trans-gressor is a unique work in Latvian literature, for “the language existence in a real situation” is shown in it, “the ideological slang” 9 formed by the socialist system. Tarvids’ novel exceeds the borders of the previous liter-ary traditions not only because of its openness, but also because of the language usage.

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Other methods of narrative are used in the Estonian writer’s Tode’s novel Border State which is characterized by laconicism, clear forms, and the choice of homogeneous narrative methods. In comparison with Gav-elis’ and Tarvids’ work, Tode’s novel is much more poetic and there is no profanity here. Despite the different narrative, Tode’s novel merges into the mentioned threesome, for the feelings which appear after the bor-der crossing and loss of the fatherland, are revealed strongly here. Tode’s hero is basically a cosmopolitan traveller, an individual who considers the change of domicile as a way of his inner problems’ solution.

His reflections about the recent past and present feelings reveal precisely the Eastern European human being’s complicated self-awareness at the end of the 20th century. The narrator’s psychological discomfort and his sharp-ened identity crisis reflect real complexes of the post-soviet society trying to integrate into the European space. Like thousands of people, the hero feels a strange nostalgia which is full of dislike for the lost fatherland, and is forced to admit that he is an alien to the Old Europe. Although the national border has formally been abolished, the mental border still exists.

The novel conveys the ambivalent feelings – hopes, sorrow, incredu-lity, nostalgia - of a person who has left his fatherland, which resembles balancing on the border and searching for balance. It is an everlasting hope to see the border, where the real world has to begin10, and an inevita-ble disappointment when it is not there.

ConclusionsAll three novels of the Baltic authors reveal us the post-Soviet human

being’s unenviable condition at the end of the 20th century: wherever his choice is, this human being feels fatally stamped. He lost his ability of a positive approach, is insecure and tense inwardly. As in the tradition of Bildungsnovel, the protagonists of the novels are outsiders who dissent from the surrounding world. They start the initiation, but do not complete it, for they are real border situation figures. Their identity is unstable and flowing; split, self-destructive They think in black-and-white and are sub-jugated to fast changes of mood and sudden impulses. The protagonists’ disability to implement the initiation also confirms other researchers’ con-clusion that in the post-colonial situation development is not possible, for the hero as if gets stranded in the developmental stage and cannot get out of it. Development is not possible because of the mind colonization, and the mind can be set free only after several generations have passed.

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References1 Guntis Berelis, Latviešu literatūras vēsture No pirmajiem rakstiem līdz 1999.

gadam. Rīga: Zvaigzne ABC, 1999, p. 298.2 Piret Peikerm, 2006. Post-communist literatures: A postcolonial perspective.

SA Kulturileht, Vikerkaar. Available from: www.eurozine.com/RSS/Goethe.html [Accessed 07.09.2009.].[Accessed 07.09.2009.].

3 ibid.4 Wa Nyatetu Wiagwa Wangari, The Liminal Novel: Studies in the Francopho-

ne-African Novel As Bildungsnovel. Peter Lang, 1997, 134 p.5 Česlavs Milošs, Sagūstītais prāts. Rīga: Zvaigzne ABC, 1998, 186. lpp.6 Merab Mamardašvili, Domātprieks. Rīga: Spektrs, 1994, 116. lpp.7 Wa Thiong’o Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in Af-

rican Literature. London, James Currey, 1986, p. 3. 8 Aivars Tarvids, Robežpārkāpējs. Avots.1989, Nr.8, 8. lpp. 9 Berelis, 298.lpp. 10 Emīls Tode, robežvalsts. Rīga: Preses Nams, 1995, 113. lpp.

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Georgian-Lithuanian Literary Relationships (Historical and Philological Overview)

Gruzijos-Lietuvos literatūriniai ryšiai (istorinė ir filologinė

apžvalga)

Nana GAPriNDASHViLi, Nino TSereTeLi ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State universityilya Chavchavadze av.1, 0179, Tbilisi, [email protected][email protected]

SummaryGeorgian-Lithuanian literary relationships, which became especially strong in

the Soviet period, are an extremely interesting phenomenon. Due to the obvious reasons, they were strongly affected by the ideology of the time with the works of dubious literary quality being promoted and those of genuine value, concealed. However, Soviet writers and translators managed to break the shackles of cen-sure and export real aesthetic values. Despite territorial distance, the Georgians and Lithuanians have much in common in terms of spirituality. Therefore, these relationships are to be viewed as a highly positive cultural phenomenon and be further enhanced and deepened in the light of the twenty-first century artistic and aesthetic thought.

Key words: Georgia, Lithuania, literary relations.

It is a widely accepted view that culture entails a dialogue, and if it is true, literary and cultural relations play an important role in the formation of aesthetic and artistic values of the nation, dissemination of aesthetic ideas and enrichement of culture and literature. From this viewpoint, any mutual literary relationship is a positive factor reagardless of whether it will be established between the related cultures or geographically and culturally remote nations. Some evidence of Georgian-Lithuanian liter-ary and cultural relations can be found in the distant past. For example, in Georgian historical records the mentioning of Lithuania goes back to the 17th century in Vakhushti Bagrationi’s historical-geographical work Kartvel Tavadaznaurta Aghtseriloba (Description of the Georgian Nobil-

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ity) and Grigol Bagrationi’s essay Mogzauroba Peterburgidan Vilnomde (Traveling from Petersburg to Vilno)1, 2.

The thirties of the 19th century provide interesting material. Particular-ly, the diaries written by the prominent Georgian poet-romanticist Grigol Orbeliani, where he describes the impression made on him by the Kovno and Vilensk provinces3.

Especially noteworthy is the trip of a celebrated Georgian playwright, Giorgi Eristavi, who came to Vilno (Vilnius) at the age of 17. There he studied the Polish language and translated A. Mickiewicz’s poems Home-land Lithuania and The Akerman Steppe. Eristavi had Lithuanians on his mind when he wrote: “I am deeply touched by such a warm welcome”4.

The Georgian public figure and publicist Mikheil Kipiani5 wrote the first story devoted to the Lithuanian theme Polshis Karoli (The King of Poland and the Hetman of Lithuania), which was published in the Geor-gian literary press. In the 19th century, the articles published by the Lithua-nian writer and playwright Antanas Vilkutaitis aroused Lithuanians’ in-terest in Georgia. Antanas Vilkutaitis lived and worked in Georgia from 1891 to 1902. Of special importance is the newspaper article Georgians and their State printed in the third issue of the Varpas in 18925.

Although Georgian-Lithuanian literary and cultural relations were epi-sodic, they continued into the early 20th century too. In 1916, a group of Lithuanian patriots exiled to Tbilisi by the government of the Rus-sian Tsar, founded a musical theatre company under the leadership of Pašakarnas. The company also had a choir conducted by I. Štarka.

Of special attention is a classic of Lithuanian literature Antanas Vi-enuolis-Žukauskas who started his career of a writer in Georgia. His essay Caucasian Legends [Crimean Legends/Meetings in the Caucasus] was in-fluenced by the impressions received in Georgia. The 1910s were marked by the activity of Jurgis Baltrušaitis, who established close ties with the prominent Georgian writers K. Gamsakhurdia and T. Tabidze and had a great desire to translate The Knight in the Panther’s Skin into Lithuanian. In 1916, the Rustaveli Academic Theatre even hosted the presentation of his poetry, which is a clear indication of great love and respect of the Georgian people to the personality of the author and his work.

Unfortunately, beginning around the second half of the 1930s there is no longer any factual information concerning the Georgian-Lithuanian relations. And only in 1937 the fourth and fifth issues of the Literaturo Nauno published Liudas Gira’s article on Rustaveli’s work The Knight in

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the Panther’s Skin, which could be considered as a response to the 750th anniversary of Shota Rustaveli, solemnly celebrated in Georgia6.

The 1940s should be regarded as an important period in the history of Lithuanian-Georgian literary relationship. It was during this toughest time for both countries that the relations were reinforced.

Naturally, literary relations as well as all literature in the Soviet space were under a strong ideological pressure, and the aesthetics of social real-ism did have a great influence on these relations. This was clearly reflect-ed in the themes of numerous works written in the spirit of social realism which strived to forge new characters, builders of Communism and its leaders according to the rules similar to those followed in hagiography. In this regard the presentation of Georgian reality appeared to be useful in the period of Stalin’s dictatorship. A small Georgian town of Gori, where Stalin was born, acquired an almost religious importance. It turned into new Bethlehem which had given birth to a new Messiah. This attitude is obvious in the eulogies of Georgian writers describing Stalin’s infancy and childhood (G. Leonidze, D. Shengelaia and others). This approach is further evidenced in an essay by Petras Cvirka, The Heart of Georgia7. It contains refined literary passages on Georgia, its history and people. However, as required by the rules of social realism, for Lithuanian writ-ers Georgia was associated with Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. If it had not been Stalin’s phenomenon and the rules of social realism, Gori would have never become the heart of Georgia either for Lithuanian, or Georgian writers.

As it was mentioned above, in the 1930-40s, Georgian-Lithuanian lit-erary relations moved to a new stage. This was encouraged by the arrival of the first Lithuanian delegation in Georgia in 1946. Members of this del-egation were Antanas Vienuolis-Žukauskas, Juozas Paukštelis and Petras Cvirka. Their essays dealing with Georgia demonstrate their obedience to the main principles of social realism – “Socialist in content and national in form”, as well as an aspiration to take a deep insight into Georgian his-tory and culture.

Of particular note is Paukštelis’ essay The Country of Heroes and Pro-metheuses,8 in which he focuses on Georgia’s geopolitical situation and its tragic history. He wrote: “The land of the freedom-loving and proud Georgians has been a venue of struggle against foreign invaders for over twenty-one centuries”. The author finds many similarities in the history of Georgia and his country. Like Georgia, Lithuania throughout its ex-

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istence has experienced disintegration, annexation, and occupation more than once.

In the first years of the establishment of the Soviet rule in Lithuania, a wide range of readers were absolutely ignorant of Georgia’s literature and culture. The Tarybų Lietuva newspaper published the translation of G. Leonidze’s two poems. The translator was Juozas Krūminas and preface writer - Jonas Šimkus9.

In 1914, the whole second issue of the raštai magazine was dedi-cated to Georgian literature. The same magazine published fragments of The Knight in the Panther Skin in Lithuanian. The translation made by J. Krūminas was based on the word-for-word translation by Balmont. Also noteworthy is the translation of Akaki Tsereteli’s popular poem Suliko, Tit-sian Tabidze’s Poems Write Me and Okrokana, translated by Krūminas10.

The third issue of raštai included the translation of fragments of Gva-di Bigva written by a Georgian writer L. Kiacheli (translator Kirsh)11. This is a classic example of Georgian socialist literature, which describes the communist transformation of people’s mentality in a Georgian village.

Perhaps it should be also mentioned that despite the dominance of the aesthetics of social realism, Georgian and Lithuanian writers succeeded in sharing and exchanging genuine artistic and aesthetic values. For ex-ample, the Pergalė magazine responded to the 100th anniversary of the prominent Georgian romantic poet N. Baratashvili’s death and printed Lithuanian translations of his poems To My Star and Sky-Blue12.

In the second half of the 1950s, natural changes relating to the disclo-sure of the personality cult were followed by the changes of the cultural atmosphere. The time came known as the ‘thaw’ period during which the Soviet censorship policy relented and gave more freedom to cultural ac-tivity. Loud words about the leaders, Communism, and loyalty to Com-munist aspirations disappeared from periodicals, and it seemed that the tight restrictions of social realism loosened. Yet, this was the period of partial thawing rather than that of giving absolute creative freedom. The party and the Soviet authorities still discouraged some writers’ deep inter-est in their homeland, national culture, language, and history and contin-ued to object these fully logical and natural aspirations considering them as a serious drawback if not a crime on the part of the “people building Communism”.

In the 1950s there was not a single date important for Georgian lit-erature that the Lithuanian press did not feature: a Georgian art festival

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in Moscow in 1958 (Aleksas Baltrūnas), the 250th anniversary of David Guramishvili, articles dedicated to the 120th, 125th and later 150th anniver-saries of Ilia Chavchavadze (Antanas Venclova, Marija Macijauskienė and Vida Gudonienė). Antanas Venclova is the first translator of N. Baratash-vili, a classic of Georgian poetry. Lithuanian writers and literary critics tried not only to shed light and evaluate separate facts and events in Geor-gian literature, but also to draw typological parallels with similar Lithua-nian literary phenomena. For example, national liberation movements were pursued simultaneously in Lithuania and Georgia. In his article im-mortal Forever, Kostas Korsakas13 noted an obvious affinity between Ilia Chavchavadze and Jonas Basanavičius in terms of their contribution and service to their nations. Ilia Chavchavadze did the same for the Georgians as Jonas Basanavičius for the Lithuanians.

Periodicals, such as the Pergalė magazine, the Kauno tiesa newspaper, and the Literatūra ir menas newspaper, made a substantial contribution to the Georgian-Lithuanian literary relations. For example, Literatūra ir menas showed a keen interest in the translation of Georgian works into Lithuanian and other related issues. Namely, it published Z.Serapinis’ re-view of the translation of G. Tsereteli’s First Step into Lithuanian (5 Janu-ary, 1956)14 and the Lithuanian translation of A. Kazbegi’s selected works performed by K. Biržaz15.

In the 1960s Lithuania and Georgia became more interested in their re-spective literatures. It was in this period that profound changes took place in the relations as Georgian and Lithuanian writers got seriously interested in each other’s literary and aesthetic achievements and became involved in the exchange of cultural values. The relationship reached its peak in the 1970-80s when several important aspects were outlined:

i) the use of Georgian themes by Lithuanian writers and vice versa, the treatment of Lithuanian themes in Georgian literature;

ii) Georgian-Lithuanian translating relations;iii) scholarly study of Georgian-Lithuanian literary relations. Beginning from the 1960s, the Georgian periodicals regularly printed

poetic works by Eduardas Mieželaitis, Salomėja Nėris, Antanas Venclova, Jouzas Nekrošius and Justinas Marcinkevičius. The publication of a five-volume edition of Georgian poets by “Vaga” Publishers in 1966 can be viewed as a remarkable page in the history of Georgian-Lithuanian liter-ary relations. The literary reviewer of the Literatūra ir menas newspaper S. Geda dedicated an interesting article to this important event and provid-

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ed biographic notes on each of the five poets (T. Tabidze, G. Leonidze, S. Chikovani, I. Abashidze and K. Berulava)16 to the Lithuanian reader. The same event was responded to by T.Rostovaitė’s article “Exciting, Colour-ful, Melodic” in the magazine Pergalė 17.

The year of 1966 was declared a jubilee year of the great Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli, and it was not forgotten to celebrate this event in Lithuanian literary circles. A literary evening dedicated to the 800th an-niversary was held in Vilnius where Eduardas Mieželaitis made a speech18 that was later published in Georgian translation and received acclaim. Pergalė19 and Kauno tiesa20 published articles written by both Lithuanian (Jokūbas Skliutauskas, Sprindis) and Georgian (Sargis Tsaishvili, N. Mi-kava) literary critics dealing with the legacy of Shota Rustaveli. Eduardas Mieželaitis wrote letters dedicated to Shota Rustaveli, which are marked by a deep and careful attitude to Georgian literature and history21, 22.

In Lithuanian literature essays and short stories dealing with Georgian themes were created in which Lithuanian writers tried to understand the nature of the Georgians, take an insight into Georgia’s history and present to the Lithuanians an artistic image of Georgia seen through their eyes. Lithuanians perceived “mountains” and “vineyards” as symbols which they associated with Georgia. A centuries-old history of Georgia was also a subject of keen interest to the Lithuanians. Georgian reality was also successfully reflected in travel literature. For example, a book of es-says by Jokūbas Skliutauskas, The Knight from Georgia, printed in 1972 (Montisi Publishers) is the most complete collection of publicistic essays dealing with Georgian themes23. Georgian motif is traced in the novel by Mykolas Sluckis Journey to the Mountains and Back 24 and a miniature novella by Bronius Bušma Georgian Sky in Žemaitia (Literatūra ir me-nas, 22.09.1977)25.

Beginning from the 1970s, the Lithuanian and Georgian literary crit-ics expanded their research area. Literary seminars devoted to Georgian and Lithuanian literatures were organised. In addition to this, a meeting of young writers and a round table discussion were held in Tbilisi and Kau-nas (1976).

It was at that time when young translators Virginia Timinskaitė, D. Gogeshvili and Dalia Juodišienė started their creative activity. Short sto-ries of Georgian writers G. Panjikidze, S. Ioseliani, G. Dochanashvili and S. Aldiashvili were translated into Lithuanian, whereas short stories by

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Petkevičius and Rimkevičius were translated from Lithuanian into Geor-gian.

Georgian people deeply appreciate Lithuania, its people, history, and culture and feel a strong spiritual connectedness with the Lithuanians. This is manifested in Georgian literature too. For example, G. Kharchi-lava’s poem Freedom to a Lithuanian was published during the days of the siege of Lithuania, in which the poet announced his solidarity with the Lithuanians’ strive for independence26.

An important task is the study of each other’s language and litera-ture. In this regard, there is a valuable experience in Georgian-Lithua-nian, Georgian-Estonian and Georgian-Byelorussian reality. In the 1970s, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University implemented an important project which was of great cultural and educational importance. Within the framework of the project, an agreement was concluded with Riga, Vil-nius, Kiev, Tartu and Minsk universities on the exchange of students. Stu-dents of the Humanities from these universities came to Tbilisi to study the Georgian language and literature, while Georgian students went to Riga, Vilnius, Tartu and Minsk to learn Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Estonian and Byelorussian.This was a highly advanced and well-organised project, thanks to which qualified specialists of strongly demanded specialisation were trained. These studens continue to pursue their scholarly, translat-ing, and cultural activity to the present day facilitating the development of literary and cultural relations and promotion of literary and aesthetic achievements. There is a pressing necessity for similar projects the suc-cessful implementation of which will allow us to respond adequately to the requirements and challenges of our time.

In the 1970s Darejan Buachidze and Nana Devidze studied the Lithua-nian language and literature in Vilnius University. On their initiative, the students of the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi State University published collected works of translated Lithuanian poetry in 1982 titled Khe imedisa (The Tree of Hope; Tbilisi State University Publishers), which was dedi-cated to the 400th anniversary of Vilnius University. It contained Georgian translations of poems by Petras Cvirka, Antanas Vienuolis-Žukauskas, Salomeja Nėris and others. Nana Devidze and Darejan Buachidze con-tinued the study of Lithuanian literature in Georgia and its popularisa-tion. Darejan Buachidze investigated Georgian-Lithuanian relations. Her works, along with those of G. Leonidze, I. Bogomolov, R. Miminoshvili and others, will be of great assistance to those who will take interest in

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these issues. Nana Devidze is a dedicated promoter of Lithuanian culture and translator of Lithuanian literature. She has never deviated from this endeavour. Thanks to her activity the works of Lithuanian literature are available to Georgian readers in their native language today. Nana Devi-dze is a translator of refined literary taste and has an excellent understand-ing of the Lithuanian language.

All the latest Georgian-Lithuanian translations either belong to her or are based on her word-for-word translation. From 1982 to 2005 the Georgian literary press printed her translations of the leading Lithuanian writers. In 2006, all the translations were collected into one edition. The works of the contemporary Lithuanian prose translated by Nana Devidze were published as a separate book titled as Chemi Velebi (My Fields). In 2008 Nana Devidze worked on the book Green rutha. This is a collection of Georgian translations of Lithuanian folk songs, which contains transla-tions made by various poets. In 2006 Nana Devidze published a transla-tion of Saulius Tomas Kondrotas’s mythological saga Clan of the Centaur in the literary journal Chveni Mtserloba.

The Caucasian House regularly issues Mravalsakhovani Kvekana (Multi-Sided Country) magazine, the fourth issue of which contains Devi-dze’s translation of the legend Cursed Monks written by Antanas Vienu-olis which is based on Georgian motifs.

Hence, Georgian-Lithuanian literary relationships, which became es-pecially strong in the Soviet period, are an extremely interesting phenom-enon. Due to the obvious reasons, they were strongly affected by the ide-ology of the time with the works of dubious literary quality being promot-ed and those of genuine value, concealed. However, Soviet writers and translators managed to break shackles of censure and export real aesthetic values. Despite territorial distance, the Georgians and Lithuanians have much in common in terms of spirituality. Therefore, these ties are to be viewed as a highly positive cultural phenomenon and be further enhanced and deepened in the light of the twenty-first century artistic and aesthetic thought.

* The authors are grateful to the translator Nana Devidze for assistance while writing the paper.

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References, literature1 Vakhushti Bagrationi, Kartvel Tavadaznaurta Aghtseriloba, in: Kartlis tsxov-

reba (The Life of Kartli) v.4, Tbilisi 1983, 161.2 Grigol Bagrationi, Mogzauroba Peterburgidan Vilnomde (Traveling from

Petersburg to Vilno), Historical Foundation of the Georgian State Museum #2178.

3 Grigol Orbeliani, Letters and Diaries, under E.Gatserelia’s editorship and commentaries, Tbilisi, 1936, v.1.

4 G. Eristavi, Works, literature and art, Tbilisi, 1966, 11.5 Antanas Vilkutaitis, “Georgians and their State”, Varpas, 1892, Nr. 3.6 Literatūros Naujienos, 1937, Nr. 4–5.7 Petras Cvirka, “Gruzijos širdis: apybraižos”, Vilnius, Tiesa, 1947, 33–43.8 Juozas Paukštelis, “The Country of Heroes and Prometheuses”, in: Kelionė po

užkaukazę, Vilnius, Vaga, 1973, 116–117.9 Giorgi Leonidze, “To the Poet, Mkviraloba”, in: Tarybų Lietuva, 1940,

Nr. 15.10 raštai, 1941, Nr. 2.11 ibid., 1941, Nr. 3.12 Nikoloz Baratashvili, “To My Star and Tsisa Pers”, in: Pergalė, 1945, Nr. 6.13 Kostas Korsakas, “Ever Immortal source”, Mnatobi, 1957, Nr. 10.14 Literatūra ir menas, 1956, 5 January.15 ibid.16 Sigitas Geda, “The Picture of Georgia’s Conditions”, in: Literatūra ir menas,

1967, 22 April.17 T. Rostovaitė, “Exciting, Colourful, Melodic”, in: Pergalė, 1967, Nr. 2.18 Eduardas Mieželaitis, “Report made at Rustaveli Jubilee evening”, in: Litera-

turuli Sakartvelo, 1966, No. 9.19 Pergalė, 1966, Nr. 9.20 A. Sprindis, “Great singer of the Georgian people”, in: Kauno tiesa, 1966, Nr.

224.21 Eduardas Mieželaitis, Glory to Poetry, in: Komunisti, 1966, Nr. 161.22 Eduardas Mieželaitis, Light of Beauty. To the 800th Anniversary of

Sh.rustaveli, in: Pravda, 1966, 25 09.23 Jokūbas Skliutauskas, The Knight from Georgia, Vilnius: Mintis, 1972, 179–

207.24 Mykolas Sluckis, Journey to the Mountains and Back, 1986.25 Bronius Bušma, Georgian Sky in Žemaitija, in: Literatūra ir menas, 1977 09

22.26 G. Kharchilava, Freedom to a Lithuanian, in: Literaturuli Sakartvelo, 1990,

No. 20.

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Between the Center and the Periphery: the Past and Present of the Literature of the Polish-Ukrainian Borderland

Tarp centro ir periferijos: Lenkijos-Ukrainos pasienio

literatūros praeitis ir dabartis

Oksana WereTiuKProfessor of Comparative Literaturerzeszów universityrejtana St. 16c, b. A3 35-959 rzeszów [email protected]

SummaryThis study examines the interface between the cultural and political identities

of people living on the international border between Poland and Ukraine. Literary texts created by them are full of ethnic, political and cultural differences governed by language, religion, national traditions and Centre Canon. The comparative analysis of the clashing canons and traditions has shown that the literature of the Polish-Ukrainian borderland falls into the mainstream of two national literatures: Polish and Ukrainian. However, it may also appear in the form of regional litera-ture, literature of national / ethnic minorities, and in the form of ideo-thematical unity. In Galicia, there is a confrontation between the two literatures of the same borderland, but there are two different peripheries, and each of them is the projec-tion of its own Great Center Canon, each of them constructs its own image in ac-cordance with the ideology of its own Centre (the concentration of ethnic-cultural consciousness in a concrete historical period of the nation). Nevertheless, in such a space of cultural confrontation very often an interchange of cultural patterns takes place with a subsequent enrichment of both national literatures. The transforma-tions of European landscape after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Treaty and Post-Warsaw Pact induced the domination of convergence processes in the literature of Polish – Ukrainian borderland. The comparative approach has opened national, international and super-national perspectives of the literature of borderland.

Key words: literature of borderland, center–periphery, comparative analysis, national literature, regional literature, clashing canons and traditions, ideo-the-matical unity, cultural confrontation, interchange.

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Comparative literature is the discipline of studies in literature across national borders, across languages. It also studies literature between these borders, the literature of borderland, those works which appear on the land located on or near a frontier separating geopolitical territories – of-ten in a culturally indeterminate area, a melting pot of languages, religions and cultures with the domination of two opposing languages and cultures. “Comparative Literature has intrinsically a content and form which fa-cilitate the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of literature and it has a history that substantiated this content and form”, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek emphasizes1. In accordance with the literature of borderland, I am under the impression that the aim of comparative literature is to find the national identities of these cross-cultural trends with the help of comparing the clashing canons and traditions, examining resemblances and differences between them. This is is the comparative analysis which opens national, international and super-national perspectives of the literature of borderland. Works of great intellect are great only by comparison with each other, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. Essentially, Polish literature and Ukrainian litera-ture of borderland also show their distinctive characteristic features in com-parison. I would like to dwell on the Polish-Ukrainian borderland named Galicia, which has different, subjectively oriented understanding in Polish and Ukrainian encyclopedias, and in both these interpretations Poles and Ukrainians emphasize their historical claims on this territory2.

In the long-standing history of Poland and its neighbouring countries on the Galician territory there were different kinds of frontiers and bor-derlands3 - ranging from the hostile and mortal “mine field” („Nie mów o Polakach i Ukraińcach – to pole minowe…” – K. Wierzyński) to the place of the most active cooperation of both sides – “market square” (e.g. Lvov’s Krakidals from Lew Kaltenberg’s memories under the title ułamki stłuczonego lustra). Galician historical (social-cultural) borderlands had different forms:

1) relatively symmetrical borderland between two centers = border-land connecting two opposite areas,

2) relatively symmetrical borderland, on which widespread cultural and social contacts took place = transitional borderland,

3) asymmetrical borderland, which was formed by one dominating focus, moving the border of its domination = so called kresy4.

Borderland as the place of sharp confrontations, bloody battles, victo-ries of the one side and defeats and stock colonization of the other as its

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consequences had the longest historical life in Galicia. For a long time its fertile soil and its important commercial connections were at the bottom of conflicts. However, Galicia has always maintained its unique cultural charm.

Being the place of the Polish – Ukrainian cultural borderland, Gali-cia formed two main literary phenomena: Galician ukrainian litera-ture on the bounds of Ukrainian literature and literature of South-East-ern Borderland (Kresy) on the bounds of Polish literature, which are the two manifestations of national literature of each centre on the opposing sides of the boundary. Some scholars claim that there exists “one homo-geneous Galician literature” (in single form!) based by German, Austrian, Jewish, Polish, and Ukrainian literatures (the so called concept by Yuri Prohaz’ko)5 . I, however, prefer the concept of national self-dependency of each of them, with due regard to their interaction, inter-conditionality, and transgression. Ultimately, on each side of the Polish-Ukrainian borderland, at the place of concentration of national and ethnic minorities two litera-tures of the largest two ethnic minorities might be – potentially – created on equal terms: in the form of the native language of the author, and in the form of an official language, as well as bilingually. These and some other phenomena existing between the center and periphery, both strengthen-ing and weakening, amplify a complicated literary process in Poland and Ukraine, and pave the way to the integral evolution of Polish and Ukrain-ian national literatures and European literature as a whole. Although each side of the divide (literary evolution) comes to the literary table with its own baggage of linguistic, ethnic, cultural, religious, mental, ideological experience, an attempt will be made to identify the key elements in the literary process in Polish – Ukrainian borderland, named Galicia. After-words, I will present every type of literature mentioned above, which to-gether form a literary order, a literary variability.

Thus, Galician ukrainian literature: Galician ukrainian literature primarily was the literature of the Ukrainian minority in Austria-Hungar-ian Empire and in Poland between WWI and WWII. This term has been used by such authorities of Ukrainian literature as Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Lesia Ukrainka, Mykhailo Kotsiubyn’ski to characterize the Ukrainian literature which was created in Galicia by local writers, and which differ essentially from Ukrainian literature created in Central and Eastern (Right-Bank) Ukraine6. Two streams of the same river, two literatures of the same nation varied thematically, and ideologically, but

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the greatest differences were linguistic. The Galician language (Polish- Ukrainian) is a specific system of lingual signs, so called galicyjski bałak (bo nie mówiło się w Galicji, ne rozmowlałosia, a bałakało). Every town had its dialect (vernacular). Village people spoke their own language as well as the Galician language, a mix of Polish-Ukrainian-German-Jewish, sometimes with Slovak, Hungarian, and Romanian elements.

In the inter-war period Galician Ukrainian literature and Soviet Ukrainian literature diverged even more for one simple reason: their ide-ology differed. The first one was created in the space of the domination of two political and cultural centers: the Ukrainian Galician writer had to withstand simultaneously the supremacy of its direct Polish metropolis (Polonisation) and indirect influences of the neighbouring Soviet empire (Russification). This double centralization intensified the tendentiousness of Galician Ukrainian literature, which became the embodiment of this double colonial experience with a definite supremacy of Polish (not Rus-sian) cultural patterns (promoted in the inter-war period by Polonisation, Polish-language schooling, propaganda, and the support of Polish culture and literature). After World War II there appeared more conducive con-ditions for the development of literature in the neighbouring Poland: a less strict censorship and control of the government, an openness to the West, contributed to the growth of Polish influences on Galician Ukrain-ian literature. In the period of Independent Ukraine, a phase which started after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the differences between Ukrainian literature created in Eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian literature created in Western Ukraine reduced, but the reader recognizes immedi-ately a work written by a Galician writer: a different mentality, other ar-chetypes, another mythology, imagery, and representation, the handling of two individual histories. “[D]o you think that the existence of Galician tradition in ukrainian writing, with its mountain romance, rationalistic persistence in building artistic bridges to the West, with its deep, almost mystical traditionalism, magic poetics of provincial life, philosophic at-tention to the details, with its excellent feeling of national and cultural borderland is a “prejudice”, a “minus” for the whole ukrainian litera-ture? really? – the Ukrainian intellectual, Oleh Bahan, defends the values of Ukrainian Galician literature (including today’s literature)7.

It must be remembered that very often in the space of cultural con-frontation an interchange of cultural patterns takes place.Then the prin-ciple of selection and posterior transformation of these patterns works.

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For example, the setting – physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs, the background, atmosphere or environment in which Stasiuk’s and Andrukhovych’s characters live and move, physical charac-teristics of the surroundings in Biały kruk (1995, “The White Raven”) and Дванадцять обручів, 2003 (“Twelve Rings”) – is the same: the Bieszc-zady/id est Carpathian mountains constitute mystery, enigma, create both the romance of the travelers’ adventures and its credibility; the down to Earth realism. The similarities and links between the two patterns come sharply into focus in spite of their thematic and stylistic differences. This fact confirms that not only Ukrainian Galician popular songs had an in-fluence on modern Polish culture. Juri Andrukhovych’s novels and Ro-man Lubkivski’s poetry came into it as well, and, of course, vice versa: Andrzej Stasiuk’s prose and Adam Zagajewski’s poetry – into Ukrainian intellectual life.

Finally, the works of Juri Andrukhovych, Viktor Neborak, Halyna Pa-hutiak, Taras Prokhaz’ko and other “Galician” authors are well known in Poland and other countries, and this is the best argumentation for the significance of the literature being created by them in the contemporary culture/literature process not only in Ukraine, but throughout the whole of Europe as well. Although written by regional writers, these literary works seem to transcend geographical and linguistic boundaries, slipping away from the confines of “regional” literature”. In the “most private” – as the author noted – novel, titled Дванадцять обручів, 2003 (“Twelve Rings”), Andrukhovych creates a fictional world, which is an integral whole of the poetic fairy tale reality and bitter Ukrainian post-communist present on the one hand, and Hutsulia, which the Polish reader associates with the inter-war vision of Vincenz – on the other. The same can be said about Bieszczad’s adventures of Stasiuk’s heroes in Biały kruk (1995) (“The White Raven”). More prosaic are Opowiadania Galicyjskie (1995) (“Galician Stories”), where the realities of another Polish center (poor and drunken just post-PGR’s8, post-communist Poland) were projected in Polish periphery, the borderland Polish – Ukrainian Galicia, called “poor Ukraine” in Warsaw. The most characteristic features from the perspec-tive of borderland and center-periphery relations are mentioned above My europe (Moja europa), written in co-authorship by Andrukhovych – Sta-siuk9. Each author in this book introduces the reader to their own Gali-cian, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi religious genealogy. Here and in his other ironic, carnival, postmodernist prose works, Andrukhowych very

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often undertakes post-colonial motifs, both in relation to the Russian Em-pire (the novel Moskowiada, 1993), and to the Polish colonist in the his-torical period of Polish presence in Ukraine (Moja europa). The coopera-tion of Andrukhovych with Stasiuk’s additional center “Czarne” led to the Ukrainian author becoming the most translated into Polish – all his works were translated into the Polish language. Andrukhovych and Stasiuk are creating today’s European literature – Ukrainian and Polish, based mostly on Galician realities, destroying the ideologies of their Centers.

The second flow of Galician literature borderland mentioned above is Polish literature of South-eastern borderland, South-eastern Kresy10. It is not symmetrical in relation to Ukrainian Galician literature, because it does not go within the limits of regional literature. Its locality is historical.

Being created primarily by “Kresowiacy”, who were born on the South-Eastern borderland, it expresses a national grief for the lost ter-ritories of the formerly strong Polish state (Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom between the 16th and 18th centuries and in the inter- war period of the 20th century, the Second Republic of Poland), a hope for the revival of the power and authority of the as well as an unquenchable love for this wonderful land of those who lost their rightful place of birth. It has become a peculiar code of Polish patriotism. Thus, it comprises works written not only by the authors born on the South-eastern borderland before WWII, but also by those Poles who share the same spirit, and thus it forms an ideo-thematic rather than a genetic-territorial unity (i.e. they show the South-eastern Polish borderland not as a place of work or origin of its author, but emphasize its spirit, ideas, ideals). Thus, the South-eastern borderland in Polish contemporary literature is presented by such authors as Andrzej Kuśniewicz born in 1904 near Sambor (now Ukraine), Andrzej Chciuk born in 1920 in Drohobych (now Ukraine), and Włodzimierz Odojewski born in 1930 in Poznań (Poland), Włodzimierz Paźniewski born in 1942 in Bobrowniki near Toruń (Poland) as well. Ta-deusz Drewnowski notes that the “Southern School” [it is his definition] includes only the eastern part of Galicia, without Cracow and without the whole of its [Galician – O.W.] western part. That is why Mrożek, Kijowski, and Nowak do not represent this school11. However, Galician Mrożek, Nowak, and even Stasiuk and Szuber (who live on the Galician borderland in Czarne and Sanok) do not represent kres literature mainly because they do not show kres moods and do not follow kres tradition and canon. Kres literature has its characteristic yearning for the Home lost

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(“obszary tęsknot”, T. Chrzanowski) and catastrophic threads (“zniszczoną Arkadiją”), myths „Austria (read: Galicia) Felix” (E.Wiegandt) and “hap-py small Fatherlands”(“szczęśliwych małych ojczyzn”, J.Olejniczak), the myth of Ukraine with “metaspace of adventure (J. Kolbuszewski)”, “mix of customs” (Andrzej Kuśniewicz, Mieszanina obyczajowa, 1985), het-eroglosia and heterogeneity (E. Czaplejewicz), broken up between mine and stranger. This literature presents the tradition of Polish kres litera-ture (tradycja kresowa), which started with poems entitled “Mohort” and “Pieśń o ziemi naszej” by Wincenty Pol (Cracow, 1854). Mrożek concen-trates on human absurdity as such, Stasiuk raises to the ground the Polish ideology canons, including kres ideology.

Despite the undoubtedly colonial sense of the term “kresy”/“Kresy”12, the category “kres literature” („literatura kresowa” / „literatura kresów”) is still working in Polish literary criticism (Jacek Kolbuszewski, Bogusław Hadaczek, Eugeniusz Czaplejewicz, Edward Kasperski, Stanisław Uliasz etc.), because it hasn’t lost its historical sense. Kresy, as it is well known, is a specific type of borderland in Polish consciousness: Kresy have their historical, mythical, patriotic sense for the Polish. They vividly present the ideology of the inter-war Polish Centre after Poland regained its inde-pendence in 1918 and the nostalgia of inter-war generation for the territo-ries lost after World War II. Nevertheless, a purely borderland perspective, borderland option directs its attention towards the Other, those from the other side of the border, who have no desire to be labelled as “kres” (i.e. the outskirts of historical Polish empire) in modern times and who are not Kres, who understand Kresy as Polish ideology, style, and a way of think-ing of the Polish colonizer. The mythologem13 of Kres, being a specific “recurrent pattern” of the symbolic mode of an open communication with universal values (hankering for the Home lost) coded in the mythocrea-tive acts, has not lost its universally held sense. In this form it has become strongly steeped in Polish consciousness and plays the role of the kres literature tradition. The mythologem of Kres in the plurality of its sens-es also addresses itself to the struggle for “its own” periphery, building above the universal senses a superstructure, a “second system” (by Yuri Lotman) with additional, ideological meaning. On the one hand, the very ideology of borderland-kresy forms a strong literary tradition (tradition as “the basic concept of the established history of literature” in Juri Tynian-ov’s opinion). On the other hand, it does not allow for the acceptance of this status quo in the literature and history of Ukrainian, Byelorussian,

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and Lithuanian scientists. Thus, “kres literature” is still an object of sharp discussions among Polish and Ukrainian critics, specialists in Polish and Ukrainian literatures, comparative literature14. In my opinion, it is only the comparative perspective which allows objectivity of the critics of this stream of borderland literature, and which does not ignore the historical tradition and at the same time suppresses the polono-centrical option.

Being “inbetween peripherality” (Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek’s defini-tion) on each side of the present Polish-Ukrainian borderland – poten-tially – two main literatures of the ethnic minorities may be created. But the only Ukrainian literature of Ukrainian minority exists on the Polish borderland. It does not mean that in post-communist Ukraine circum-stances for the evolution of Polish literature are more favourable. Quite on the contrary, better material goodies, more democracy and longer lasting democratic tradition, broadened after WWII, and the completely severed relations with the West, obvious after Poland became a member of the Eu-ropean Union, the possibility to activate contacts with the West without a bar, and a significant support of Polish authorities for repatriates induced and are still inducing the migration of Polish writers to Poland. There sporadically appeared amateur writers representing different generations and regions of Ukraine (Irena Sandecka, 1912 from Krzemieniec, Dorota Jaworska, 1957 from Kiev, Jan Bill from Lviv). Their works have a float-ing artistic value, and they do not provide a structured process in literary evolution. Whereas the Ukrainian minority driven by similar conditions in Poland after WWII (in spite of forced deportation to Soviet Ukraine as a result of operation “Wisła”, 1946) even accentuated by the Ukrain-ians, migrated from the Ukrainian to Polish side, makes the peculiar fluent of national literature. Sometimes it is called “diasporic Ukrainian litera-ture”15, but the works created by autochthones Lemko from Bieszczady or autochthones Ukrainian from Podlasie, Nadsanie present, to my mind, Ukrainian literature created by Polish Ukrainians. Sometimes it is very difficult to define the national identity of those writers and their works, and, of course, their belonging to one of the two national literatures. For example, Jerzy Harasymowicz-Broniuszyc (1933-1999), a famous Polish poet from Cracow, presented an oscillation between the Centre and pe-riphery. He wrote his poems in Polish, and although he did not identify himself officially as Ukrainian or Lemko 16 , his works confirm that. His poetry is full of Rus imagery, Byzantine traditions, Lemko myths and leg-ends16. He is a typical man of the Polish borderland. His veiled minority,

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pulled up to the Centre on the linguistic, artistic, and ideological levels, comes to light on the level of meaning, vernacular, imagery, and stylistics (i.e. “Nad samym ranem tęsnię/ zaczęły naszczekiwać młode wilczki/ na dachu gór/ wowk/ wowk/ wowk/ wowk”, (“Na dachu gór”)). The Culture of the Polish majority forms the Canon for him, which is an aesthetic pat-tern and ethnocentric source of his creative work. Sometimes this Canon does not prevent him from providing evidence of the minority’s patriotism under the cover of local patriotism. I assume it is a kind of compromise between the centre and periphery.

Another example: Władysław Graban (1955), a Lemko poet from Krynica, creates in three languages: Ukrainian, Polish, and Lemkos and is a bearer of cultural trivalence17. He continues Bohdan Ihor Antonych’s tradition of Ukrainian modernist poetry18. His poems very clearly iden-tify his ethnic roots: his “small fatherland” and spiritual motherland is Łemkowyna (he names it only in the original Lemkos language!), and Canon he finds in Ukrainian poetry, but a reader can notice vivid Polish influences as well. This is a typical borderland phenomenon.

Thus we are coming to the point at which we may postulate that all of these examples show:

1. The literature of the Polish – Ukrainian (the works which form the literature) borderland falls into the mainstream of two national literatures: Polish and Ukrainian, and into the sea of European lite-rature;

2. The literature of the Polish – Ukrainian borderland may appear in the form of regional literature, literature of national/ethnic minori-ties, and in the form of ideo-thematical unity.

3. In Galicia, there is a confrontation between the two literatures of the same borderland, the two literatures of the two peripheries, each of them is the projection of its own Great Center Canon, each of them constructs its own image (including the construction of its tendentiousness!) in accordance with the ideology of its own Centre, its axis mundi. It doesn’t mean that these centers must be Warsaw and/or Kiev only. They may be Lviv or Crakow, Poltava or Lublin, every centrum of ethnic-cultural consciousness in a con-crete historical period of the nation;

4. There is a frequent interchange of cultural patterns in the border-land space of cultural confrontation with a subsequent enrichment of both national literatures.

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5. Ukrainian Galician literature, being regional literature, attains the status of “national” writing. It is not a mere sub-category of Ukrai-nian national literature, but a powerful stream which depicts the spe-cificities of Galician borderland life experienced and viewed simul-taneously within a narrower framework and broader perspectives.

6. Transformations of European landscape after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Treaty and Post-Warsaw Pact induced the domination of convergence processes in the literature of Polish-Ukrainian borderland.

This study examines the interface between the cultural and political identities of people living on the international border between Poland and Ukraine, full of micro-differences of ethnic and cultural identities gov-erned by language, religion, national tradition, and Centre Canon. It is still under discussion due to the diverse, complicated and interlaced phe-nomena in borderland identity.

References, literature1 Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Comparative Literature Theory, Method, Appli-

cation, in: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, Vol. 18, Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi 1998, 299: <http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/pub/: <http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/pub/http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/pub/totosy98/1.html> (08 09 09).

2 „„Galicja, potoczna nazwa ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej pod zaborem austr. 1772-1918 (faktycznie od 1770) powstała z nadanej im przez Austrię oficjal-nej nazwy Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii”, in: Wielka encyklopedia PWN, t. 9, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2002, 493; “Галичина і��. �р��,. �р��,�р��,, щ� �бі�м�� і�д.-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. �бі�м�� і�д.-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.�бі�м�� і�д.-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. �і�д.-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.�і�д.-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р..-з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.з�х ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. ��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.��р��у � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. � ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.� ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. ��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.��ч�щі г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.г�р. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.. і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.і ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. ��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.��р. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.. Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р.Д�і��р�, г�р. Пру��, г�р. Бугу і � бі�ьші� ч��і ��ч�щ� ��у”, in:in:: Енциклопедія українознавства (Reedition in Ukraine)Reedition in Ukraine) in Ukraine)in Ukraine) Ukraine)Ukraine)), р�д. В. �убі��ч, �. І, Ль�і�: НТШ «��д� ж��» 1993, 343; “[Галичина] “��ь ч�� у�р. �р�� ід ��м м��г��і��-��г� ��у�� П. ��р�� р��ід�у ��р��у, �� з� м��м ��м з�з��-�� із��і�...”, in:in:: Енциклопедія українознавства у 3 ��м�х. З�г��ь�� ч��. П�р��д�� р��і; �. 1, �� 1994, 170. Compare with the; �. 1, �� 1994, 170. Compare with the�� 1994, 170. Compare with the 1994, 170. Compare with the two English definitions: “Galicia, Polish Galicja, German Galizien, Russian Galytsiya, historic region of Eastern Europe that was a part of Poland before Austria annexed it in 1772; in the 20th century it was restored to Poland but later divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. […] Incorporated into Kiev Rus by Vladimir I in 981, eastern G. (also called Red Ruthenia, or Red Rus), being the country arround Halicz (Galich, or Galych) on the upper Dniester, east of Zbruch confluent and west of the Leadwaters of the San River, became an in-dependent principality in 1087...”, in: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition by Robert P. Gwinn, vol. 5, Chicago, 1993, 84; “Galicia, the western region of today’s Ukraine; the southeastern region of Poland between WWI

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and WWII, the northeastern province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Gali-zien und Lodomerien), stretching from roughly Krakow/Krakiw in the west to roughly Tarnopol/Ternopil in the east. Today, this area would be South-Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine”: <http://www.halgal.com> (05 10 08).05 10 08).

3 See:See: Grzegorz Babiński, Przemiany pograniczy narodowych i kulturowych – propozycje typologii, in: Polskie pogranicza a polityka zagraniczna u progu XXi wieku, pod red. R. Stemplowskiego i A. Żelazo, Warszawa: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych 2002, 14.

4 Grzegorz Babiński’s typology is used here,Grzegorz Babiński’s typology is used here, op. cit., 15. 5 Юрко Прохасько, Чи можлива історія ‘галицької літератури’? (Лек-

ція-2005 на пошану Соломії Павличко), in: Project Jurka Prohazka. [online],in: Project Jurka Prohazka. [online],: Project Jurka Prohazka. [online],Project Jurka Prohazka. [online], Jurka Prohazka. [online],Jurka Prohazka. [online], Prohazka. [online],Prohazka. [online],. [online],[online], Center for the Humanities, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv: <http://humanities.lviv.ua/projects.php?pid=80> (25 08 2008).

6 See e.g. Іван Франко, Література, її завдання і найважливіші ціхи, in: І�� Фр��, Зібрання творів у 50 т., �. 26, ��: Н�у�� дум��, 1980, 5–14; Василь Васильович Деркач, Філологічна термінологія М.П.Драгоманова в системі української наукової термінології кінця ХІХ-початку ХХ ст., ��р��. д��... ��д. �і��. ��у�, ��: І�-� м��з�� ім. �. �. П��б-�. �. П��б-. �. П��б-�. П��б-. П��б-П��б-�і Н�Н ��р��, 1999, 16. Н�Н ��р��, 1999, 16.Н�Н ��р��, 1999, 16. ��р��, 1999, 16.��р��, 1999, 16., 1999, 16. 1999, 16.

7 Олег� �аг�ан �аг�ан, Галичофобія: міфи і факти, in: Д��ь, 2007, No. 84.No. 84. 84.8 PGR – a state-owned farm in commmunist Poland, PGR was a form of collec-

tive farming in People’s Republic of Poland, similar to Soviet sovkhoz. Relati-vely inefficient and subsidized by the government, most PGRs went bankrupt quickly after the fall of communism and adoption of a market economy by Poland.

9 It is necessary to mention here in the first turn:It is necessary to mention here in the first turn: Jurij Andruchowycz, Andrzej Stasiuk, Moja europa. Dwa eseje o europie zwanej Środkową, Wołowiec: Czarne, 2000, 156.

10 The term Kresy, meaning “Outskirts” or “Borderlands”, is used to define the Polish eastern frontier. The term referred to the eastern frontiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the period of the Second Polish Republic, these territories roughly equated with the lands to the east of the Curzon line. In September 1939 these territories were incorporated into the Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. When the Soviet Union broke up, they remai-ned part of those respective republics after they gained independence.

11 Tadeusz Drewnowski, Próba scalenia, Warszawa: PWN, 1997, 397.12 A negative critic of this term with its colonial sense Daniel Beauvois, a Frenchwith its colonial sense Daniel Beauvois, a French

specialist in the history of the Slavs, at the end of 80-ies and at the beginning of 90-ies. See: Kresy jak literacki mit ukrainy,acki mit ukrainy, in: Daniel Beauvois, Polacy na ukrainie 1832-1863: Szlachta polska na Wolyniu, Podolu i Kijowszczyź-nie, Paryż: Instytut Literacki 1988, 13-19; Daniel Beauvois, Trójkąt ukraiński. Szlachta, carat i lud na Wołyniu, Podolu i Kijowszczyźnie 1793-1914, przełożył z jęz. francuskiego K. Rutkowski, Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS 2005, 7, 11, 17, and his report Mit „Kresów wschodnich”, czyli, jak mu położyć kres (1993). We must also remember the dual colonial sense of Poland. Of course, it is dif-

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ficult to determine “who is the object of colonization: Poland divided into partszation: Poland divided into partsation: Poland divided into parts by three usurpers, or the Eastern territories of old Rzeczpospolita mostly settled by Byelorussian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian population and oppressed by Polish gentry?” (here Grażyna Borkowska is of the same mind with me, see:(here Grażyna Borkowska is of the same mind with me, see: Grażyna Borkowska, Polskie doświadczenia kolonialne, in: Teksty Drugie, 2007, No. 4, 15.

13 “mythologem - a mythical story; a fundamental theme or motif of myth” [in:]“mythologem - a mythical story; a fundamental theme or motif of myth” [in:] The New Shorter Oxford english Dictionary, ed. By Lesley Brown, vol. I, Ox-ford: Clarendon Press, 1993, 1875.

14 Олексій С�хомлинов С�хомлинов, Креси – польсько-українське пограниччя, in:in:: Де-ржавна етнонаціональна політика: правовий та культурологічний аспек-ти в умовах Півдня України. Збір�� у��х �р��ь, �ім��р��ь, 2003, 134–139; Олексій С�хомлинов, Проза Ярослава Івашкевича міжвоєнного періоду: топіка функціональність польсько-українського пограниччя (dis-sertation), �� 2004, 198; Stanisław Uliasz, O kategorii pogranicza kultur, in: Pogranicze kultur, pod red. Czesława Kłaka, Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo WSZP,Czesława Kłaka, Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo WSZP, 1997, 9–20; Stanisław Uliasz, O kategorii pogranicza kultur, in: O literaturze kresów i pograniczu kultur: rozprawy i szkicy, Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uni-wersytetu Rzeszowskiego, 2001, 15; Aleksander Fiut, Polonizacja? Koloni-zacja?, in: Teksty Drugie, 2003, No. 6, 150–156; Bogusław Bakuła, Kolonial-ne i postkolonialne aspekty polskiego dyskursu kresoznawczego (zarys proble-matyki), in: Teksty Drugie, 2006, No. 6, 11–33; Стефан Козак, Український преромантизм: джерела, зумовлення, контексти, витоки/ Preromantyzm ukraiński:źródła, uwarunkowania, konteksty, tendencje, В�рш��: ��др� ��р��ь�� Фі��гі� В�рш��ь��г� ��і��р��у, 2003, 225; Стефан Козак, Polacy i ukraińcy. W kręgu myśli i kultury ogranicza: epoka roman-tyzmu, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 2005, 306; Edward Kasperski, Przeszłość, romantyzm, literatura. Głos w dyskusji polo-nisty z ukrainistą, in: Przegląd Humanistyczny, 2006, No. 1, 11–24.

15 See:See: Оcтап Лапський, Про череп’я, Warsaw (without publisher), 1997, 12,without publisher), 1997, 12, 25, 33.

16 The Ukrainian roots of Herasymowicz and his identity ambivalence Ihor Kaly-The Ukrainian roots of Herasymowicz and his identity ambivalence Ihor Kaly-nets, the well known Ukrainian poet and a translator of Herasymowicz’s poetry, presented in his preface to: Єжи Герасимович, Руський ліхтар, або небо лемків. Поезія 1957-19991957-1999. В�бір �� р��д з ��ь�ь�� Іг�р�� , ��р��д з ��ь�ь�� Іг�р�� , Ль�і�: ��і�, 2003, 464.

17 He made his debut in 1984 with a book in PolishHe made his debut in 1984 with a book in Polish Twarz pośród cieni, the next was written in Polish-Lemkos: Na kołpaku gór (Kraków 1991); in 1997 he edited in Ternopil, Ukraine poems in Ukraine ikonostas bólu dedicated to the 50-anniversary of Lemkos deportation. The most recent volume, Znaleźć równowagę duszy (2004), is written in Polish and Lemkos.

18 Bogdan Igor Antonych (1909 – 1937), Lemkos, was one of the greatest Ukrai-Lemkos, was one of the greatest Ukrai-nian poets of the 20th century. He was born in the borderland Lemkos region of the Carpathian mountains (now Bieszczady, Poland) which has always been influenced by both Polish and Ukrainian cultures.

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Vasilij Kamenskij and AubreyAubrey Beardsley: Vulgar Russia versus: Vulgar Russia versus Vulgar Russia versus Refined Britain

Vasilijus Kamenskis ir Aubrey’is Beardsley’is: vulgarioji Rusija prieš

rafinuotą Britaniją

Nina BOCHKAreVAPerm State university 614068, russia, Perm, Petropavlovskaja St, 121, [email protected]

SummaryThe article is devoted to a comparative-typological analysis of the literary

works by the English artist Aubrey Beardsley and Russian futurist Vasilij Kamen-skij. In Kamenskij’s poem emigrant kachaetsja izyskanno the image of “Beard-sley’s vignette” becomes a symbol of Englishness which attracts the poet and repulses him at once. The poem is devoted to Konstantin Balmont because Beard-sley’s daintiness is associated with Russian symbolists. At the same time graphic vision of wordy music unites Aubrey Beardsley and Vasilij Kamenskij, their poetry and prose. There is a synthesis of drawing and literature in their works. Beards-ley’s illustrations, ornaments and text complement each other in his literary works. Kamenskij’s visual and verbal signs apply to each other in his ferroconcrete po-ems. The idea of wallpaper for Kamenskij’s books could be triggered marginally by William Morris whose activities were well-known in Russia. Poster played an important role in experiments with spatial composition of a text. Beardsley de-voted the essay The Art of Hoarding to protecting this new art. Kamenskij wrote a poetic decree about writing poems on fences, painting the walls of houses, playing music from balconies. The commonness of topics of these Beardsley and Kamen-skij’ works accentuate their differences. The idea of “theatralization of life” unifies Beardsley and Kamenskij through Nikolaj Evreinov. Both artists treat the images of song and singer inherited from the folk and knights’ tradition in original man-ners. As Beardsley is fascinated with Nietzsche and Wagner cult of Dionysus, so Kamenskij is captivated with spontaneity of Russian folk. Autobiographical char-acters of Tannhäuser, the lutenist-minnesinger, and Stenka Razin, the guslar-song-fighter, are created in Beardsley’s and Kamenskij’s novels. Both protagonists play music. Motives of wandering and revolt (moral and political) are drawn together (and also separate) in Beardsley’s and Kamenskij’s main characters (Tannhäuser and Stenka Razin). The protagonists go through the conflict of passion between aspiring to heaven (religion) and attracting to earth (sexuality).

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Key words: comparative and typological analysis, english and russian litera-ture, synthesis of arts, Vasilij Kamenskij, Kamensky, Aubrey Beardsley.

In Vasilij Kamenskij’s poem emigrant kachaetsja izyskanno («�м�гр�� ч�� зы��») first published in the collection of his verses, Zvuchal’ vesnejanki («З�уч��ь ��», 1918)1, “which may be roughly translated as “Sound-Song of the Pipe of Spring”2, the image of Aubrey “Beardsley’s vignette” becomes a symbol of Englishness that attracts the poet and repulses him at once.

From the beginning of the poem the Atlantic Ocean (and a ship) con-nects and divides an alien country – england – and a home – russia – in the chronotop(os)3:

Из Англии по Атлантическому ОкеануНа корабле плыву домой…

Firstly, Englishness is marked with “a brunette from Scottish islands”, her “terrier” and “�э��” (probably the brand of cigarettes Capstone):

Вся – как бердслейская виньетка – Не знаю молодо иль старо – На палубе сидит брюнеткаС шотландских островов.Гуд дэй, и поднимаю шляпуНебрежно кэпстоном дымя – У ног ее терьерик лижет лапуСвоей уютностью томя.Брюнетка что-то говоритИ хочется мне петь…

In the middle of the poem Englishness is marked with the famous Englishmen – a writer Oscar Wilde and a scientist Charles Darwin:

Какое дело мне до всех – Уайльд иль Дарвин Чарльз.И лень подумать – в чем успех.Насвистываю вальс.

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Finally, in the English context the image of a night that “puts her stockings on street lamps” can be interpreted as an allusion to Beardsley’s erotic drawings:

Брюнетка снова говорит.Гуд бай. Мне надоело.Скорей бы ночь на фонариЧулки свои надела.

The repetitions (lady’s speaking, poet’s singing and greetings – Good day and Good- bye) organize a composition of the poem. But the images “a street lamp / stockings / a night” are adopted from Vladimir Majako-vskij’s poem “Iz ulitsy v ulitsu” («Из у��ы � у��у», 1913)4:

Лысый фонарьСладострастно снимаетС улицыЧерный чулок.

Vasilij Kamenskij contrasts refined Britain with Russian futurism and French primitivism:

В России тягостный царизм Скатился в адский люк – Теперь царит там футуризм Каменский и Бурлюк.[…]Мои культурные пути Полны чудес наитий.Я гордо славлю примитив – Гогена на Таити.

The poem is devoted to Konstantin Balmont because Kamenskij as-sociated Beardsley’s daintiness with Russian symbolists. Some Russian researchers pointed to different aspects of Russian symbolists and Bal-mont’s influence on Kamenskij’s verses interpreting it ambiguously5. In 1908 Balmont translated into Russian Oscar Wilde’s play Salome that was illustrated by Beardsley in 1896. Sometimes Wilde’s Salome and Beards-ley’s under the Hill are published in the compendium edition.6

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In the same way graphic vision of wordy music unites Aubrey Beard-sley, an English aesthete, and Vasilij Kamenskij, a Russian futurist, their poetry and prose.

According to Arthur Symons’ recollections, Beardsley created under the Hill, or the Story of Venus and Tannhäuser at the concerts of chil-dren’s dances in Dieppe: “He would glance occasionally, but with more impatience, at the dances, especially the children’s dances in the concert room; he rarely missed a concert, and would glide in every afternoon, and sit on the high benches at the side, always carrying his large, gilt leather portfolio with the magnificent, old, red-lined folio paper, which he would often open, to write some lines in pencil. He was at work then, with an almost pathetic tenacity, at his story, never to be finished, the story which never could have finished, “Under the Hill”, a new version, a parody (like Laforgue’s parodies, but how unlike them or anything!) of the story of Ve-nus and Tannhauser. Most of it was done at these concerts, and in the lit-tle, close writing-room where visitors sat writing letters”7. Nikolaj Evrei-nov contended that Beardsley’s natural and full-fledged musical talent didn’t leave him in the moments of intense plastic visions and determined his choice in favour of drawing instead of painting: “In the latter the op-portunity to delight in the melodic language of lines disappears at all quite often, and vice versa – in graphic method the line retains its independent function and speaks like continuity of moving tones”8. Beardsley arranged the concerts at the drawing desk just as he used to play the piano in his childhood.

Kamenskij’s verses were created as songs. A.V.Lunacharskij compared him to “minnesinger” and “French chansonnier”9. According to Savvatij Gints, Kamenskij was very musical, played the accordion («г�рм�ш��») like virtuoso, composed music and often performed his verse aloud me-lodically and luxuriously10. That is why Kamenskij tried “to display visu-ally (on the paper) inner rhythmics and sound structure of poetry”11. The poet explained in his memoirs Put’ entuziasta (The road of enthusiast, «Пу�ь э��уз��», 1931): “The underline of marked words, leading in verses (with a bold type) numbers, mathematical characters and lines made a thing dynamic for perception and easier to memorise (you read words like you read music), with expression of labelled accent). And what is more, we can draw the graphic picture of a word with single letters”12. We can agree with Vladimir Markov that “he probably went further than any other Russian futurist in using the graphic aspects of words […] In

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Kamensky’s ferroconcrete poems, the visual aspects virtually eliminate all others, and it is nearly impossible to read these poems aloud”13. But first of all, the poet reproduces city sounds in the visual form of his ferrocon-crete poems.

Beardsley and symbolists advanced the theory and practice of synthet-ic poetics of the verge of the XIX and XX centuries (including Kamensk-ij’s experiments) when “the sound form of a word” and “the graphic-mo-tor elements of poetic language” are accented at once14. There is a syn-thesis of drawing and literature in their works. But if Beardsley’s illustra-tions, ornaments and text complement each other, Kamenskij’s visual and verbal signs apply to each other. As a result of this, the last ones need in interpretation of meaning, decoding their peculiar visual language. Thus, Andrej Shemshurin deciphered Constantinople15 [Ш�мшур�� 1991: 13–15] and Thomas Keith analizes Telephone16.

The assumptions concerning the choice of a wallpaper for collected poems «��д�� уд��» (1910), «Н�г�� р�д� �д��ых» (1913), «Т��г� � ��р��м�» (1914) are different17. Kamenskij in Put’ entuziasta declared on the occasion of Sadok sudej («��д�� уд��»): “…to print the book on underside of the cheap room wallpaper marked the protest against lux-urious bourgeois editions”18. But the idea of wallpaper for other books («Н�г�� р�д� �д��ых», «Т��г� � ��р��м�») could be triggered mar-ginally by William Morris whose activities were well-known in Russia19. Morris and other painters designed wallpapers trying to decorate everyday life, to unite life and art. For example, the Library at Speke Hall contains one of Morris’s earliest wallpaper designs Pomegranate (1864) which makes the background for Napoleon’s portrait by Antoine Gros20. Now the pages of books about William Morris are decorated with his wallpaper de-signs and each design is titled21. Probably the London trip of Kamenskij-aviator had an influence on Tango s korovami (Tango with Cows, «Т��г� � ��р��м�»). In London the poet was invited to Lord Chamberlain’s reception, and in the exhibition of aeronautics English aristocrats gazed at aeroplanes as cows should gaze at a piano («�� р��ы ��»)22. In Russia Latin-American dance tango was considered “native” for Eng-land23. Concerning the decoration of «Т��г� � ��р��м�» Jurij Gerchuk wrote that “in the book some vulgar material of an awfully harsh (rough) bourgeois wallpaper turned into unexpected daintiness, enriched it with lush colour”24, but “without trying to decorate the book expressly with ornaments”25. Moreover, the scholars payed attention to the similarity of

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thin wallpaper underside and canvas, to its yellow colour. Before Majako-vskij’s yellow jacket the scandal of Oscar Wilde’ arrest was well-known beyond the bounds of England. Wilde carried an issue of the magazine Yellow Book which was suppressed because of it. Aubrey Beardsley was a contributor of this magazine and didn’t love Wilde.

The poster played an important role in experiments with spatial com-position of the text. Beardsley devoted the essay The Art of Hoarding (1894) to protecting this new art: “Advertisement is an absolute neces-sity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash”26. Ian Fletcher appreciated the essay as “the most significant of his early pieces”27. The topic of popular art and street advertisement isn’t usual for “refined aesthete”. Democratism and avant-gardism of the essay approached Beardsley to futuristic manifestos that appeared after twenty years.

«Д��р�� з�б�р�� р��ур� – � р�� у�� – � б��х � музы�� – � ��р��х И��у��» (“Kamenskij’s poetic “decree” about writing poems on fences, painting the walls of houses, playing music from balconies, and otherwise celebrating revolution”28) in the collection of his verses Zvuchal’ vesnejanki («З�уч��ь ��»)29 could be called a manifesto. The common topic of Beardsley and Kamenskij’s works ac-centuate their differences. While Beardsley contrasts poster artists with painters, Kamenskij contrasts modern “poets-painters-musicians” with old writers, artists and scientists:

Вчера учили нас Толстые да Канты Сегодня – звенит Своя Голова.

Whereas Beardsley opposes old forms (“The popular idea of a picture is something told in oil or writ in water to be hung on a room’s wall or in a picture gallery to perplex an artless public. No one expects it to serve a useful purpose or take part in everyday existence. Our modern painter has merely to give a picture a good name and hang it. Now the poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries, and the designers of affiches pose proudly in the public eye as the masters of Holland Road or Bond Street Barbizon (and, recol-lect, no gate money, no catalogue)?”), Kamenskij turns down authorities.

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Beardsley compared a hoarding with an old fresco over an Italian church door (John Ruskin’s motive): “Still there is a general feeling that the artist who puts his art into the poster is déclassé – on the streets – and consequently of light character. The critics can discover no brush work to prate of, the painter looks askance upon a thing that achieves publicity without a frame, and beauty without modelling, and the public find it hard to take seriously a poor printed thing left to the mercy of sunshine, soot, and shower, like any old fresco over an Italian church door”. Kamenskij compared writing poems and painting pictures on fences to building ca-thedrals (Victor Hugo’s motive):

Давайте все пустые заборы – Крыши – фасады – тротуары – Распишем во славу Вольности Как мировые соборы Творились под гениальные удары Чудес от Искусства – Молодости.

The artists must create town environment with street advertisement. Uniting beauty and utility is the main idea of the style Modern. Beards-ley believed: “London will soon be resplendent with advertisements, and, against a leaden sky, sky-signs will trace their formal arabesque. Beauty has laid siege to the city, and telegraph wires shall no longer be the sole joy of our aesthetic perceptions”. Kamenskij sets a more global aim – life-building:

Требуется устроить жизньРаздольницу.Солнцевейную – ветрокудруюЧтобы на песню походилаНа Творческую ВольницуНа песню артельную мудрую.

Beardsley advocated new art forms which “isn’t considered to be lofty”30 in the XIXth century: “What view the bill-sticker and sandwich man take of the subject I have yet to learn. The first is, at least, no bad substitute for a hanging committee, and the clothes of the second are bet-ter company than somebody else’s picture, and less obtrusive than a back-ground of stamped magenta paper. Happy, then, those artists who thus escape the injustice of juries and the shuffling of dealers, and choose to

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keep that distance that lends enchantment to the private view, and avoid the world of worries that attends on those who elect to make an exhibition of themselves”. He also drew posters for theatre31. Beardsley appealed to theatrical art in the essay “Prospectus for Volpone” (1897, publ. 1898), which was devoted to the play of Ben Jonson (1573–1637)32.

Beginning his artistic career as a drama actor Kamenskij always relat-ed with theatre as a synthetic kind of art33. In his poetic “decree” he joins poets, painters, musicians for a carnival – a show for the masses:

Предлагаю всем круто и смелоУстраивать Карнавалы и Шествия – По Праздникам Отдыха – Воспевая Революцию ДухаВселенскую.

The idea of “theatralization of life” («��р��з�� ж�з��») uni-fies Beardsley and Kamenskij through Nikolaj Evreinov. In 1912 Evrei-nov wrote an essay about Beardsley34, in 1917 Kamenskij published the “monography” about his friend Evreinov35, in 1922 Evreinov published an essay about Kamenskij in “My magazine of Vasilij Kamenskij”36 («�� жур�� В�� м��г�»; according to Markov, it “is still the only book about Kamensky and is written in the best tradition of mutual admi-ration”37).

Evreinov’s essay about the English graphic artist is begun and ended with the topic of a scandal that became a leitmotif of Beardsley’s image in it: “…among delightful scandals of the XIXth century which was typical for artistic eccentricity of decadence the most striking, overbold, beautiful, unexpected, and complete was surely the scandal concerned in the history of drawing with the name of genius Beardsley”38. In Evreinov’s descrip-tion of the “school of Beardsley” we can see the difference and similarity of Russian futuristic scandal and aesthetic eccentricity of European deca-dence: “justification of vice through beauty, aesthetization of sin, conver-sion of Black God to White God with high magic of art, charm of candour wearing a mask of abstraction, all-childish satisfaction to oneself, mad-ness of bravery opening forbidden doors, and what is more, demonstra-tion to ridiculous boasting Guards of morality”39. According to Evreinov, “Beardsley realized extremely well that the persuasiveness of an artistic scandal straight depends on technical maturity of a gesture”40.

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In his non-republished “monography” about Evreinov, Vasilij Kamen-skij inevitably mentions about Aubrey Beardsley: “Nikolaj Evreinov’s two books about an ingenious artist Beardsley and Rops as two festivals was painted in gay in hearts of all who value a beautiful and proud (fine and majestic) word about beautiful and proud actions. And here the invariably lively and paradoxical critic Evreinov remains true to himself and wittily points to historical series of talented scandals on which we value events and remember heroes”41. Kamenskij confessed that he and his comrades realized “deep importance of life-theatre”, “significance of theatralization of life” and “ fascinating beauty of theatricality” with no interminable complicated theory of theatrical art, with no thoughts, no reasoning, but once suddenly, spontaneously, with the same inherent instinct of transfor-mation with which Evreinov got out his nursery too…»42. Here like in the poem emigrant kachaetsja izyskanno («�м�гр�� ч�� зы��») Kamenskij contrasts the primitive with intellect.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was doomed to early death, but was considered a talented artist by himself and his contemporaries. Vasilij Ka-menskij (1884-1961) lived a long life, was considered a talented futurist by himself and his contemporaries. Now the literary works of Beardsley and Kamenskij are usually valued as secondary, autobiographical, and experimental.

Beardsley called under the Hill, or the Story of Venus and Tannhäuser (1894-1898) “my first book”43 and wrote: “The Book really will be fine”44. He supposed to create a synthetic Book45 realizing Mallarmé’s idea about a single universal Book (Mallarmé’s letter about this idea was addressed to Paul Verlaine in 1885)46. Haldane Macfall wrote about under the Hill: “The book is a revelation and confession of the soul of the real Beard-sley […] It is Beardsley’s testament – it explains his art, his life, his vi-sion…”47. Brigid Brophy explained: “He was own hero, the Abbé (as he is simply called in the illustration); his initials ‘A.B.’, pronounced in French, say the world ‘abbé’”48. Kamenskij called his first book entitled Zemlyan-ka (The Mud Hut, «З�м��», 1910) “a new kind of novel”, but Vladimir Markov claims that “it is a romantic story with some autobiographical ele-ments. Philip, a provincial turned into a fashionable writer now living in the capital, is a naïvely glamorized self-portrait of Kamensky”49.

Beardsley in under the Hill and Kamenskij in Zemlyanka describe a new life of an autobiographical character who escapes to a forest (like in a fairy-tale). We discover allusions to Dante in under the Hill and oth-

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er Beardsley’s works (the poem Dante in exile)50. Markov wrote about Zemlyanka: “In fact, for the author, the novel was an ambitious undertak-ing, something terribly significant, a kind of Divina Comedy with the hero going through the hell of city life, then cleansing himself in solitary com-munion with nature, and, at the end, entering the paradise of peasant life. The peasant, according to Kamensky, partakes of the “enormous myster-ies of earth”, which the author refuses to reveal to anyone”51. Beardsley planned to put some verses into the unfinished prose of under the Hill52. Kamenskij put earlier verses into the prose of Zemlyanka: “The lyric qual-ity of the nature chapters is further intensified by the free verse poetry that often interrupts the emotional prose in which the work is written…”53

Both artists treat the images of song and singer inherited from the folk and knights’ tradition in original manners. As Beardsley is fascinated with Nietzsche and Wagner cult of Dionysus, so Kamenskij is captivated with spontaneity of Russian folk. Autobiographical characters of Tannhäuser, the lutenist-minnesinger, and Stenka Razin, the guslar-songfighter54, are created in Beardsley’s and Kamenskij’s novels. Both protagonists play music.

Motives of wandering and revolt (moral and political) draw together (and also separate) Beardsley’s and Kamenskij’s main characters (Tan-nhäuser and Stenka Razin). The protagonists go through the conflict of passion between aspiring to heaven (God and religion) and attracting to earth (woman and sexuality). Tannhäuser in Wagner’s opera breaks between Venus (Antiquity) and Elizabeth (Christianity). The conflict of Stenka Razin appears through the images of two women – Russian wife Alena and Persian princess Meiran (in Zemlyanka – Marina, the fairy-tale-like Maika and Marijka).

Both artists are interested in the East. While Beardsley is fascinated with Japan55, Kamenskij is captivated with Persia. In Beardsley’s draw-ing patterns of Persian carpets, silhouettes of Egyptian wall-drawing, and contours of Assyrian relief”56. Kamenskij used Egyptian symbolism57 and appealed to India and the Caucasus 58.

This comparative-typological analysis of Russian futurism and Eng-lish culture on the verge of the XIX and XX centuries will be continued. Another typological pair can be compared on the scale of personality and nature of gift. Oscar Wilde and Vladimir Majakovskij shocked the audi-ence and died of it. Both were good orators and actors. Wilde was made fun of in Gilbert-Sullivan’s comic opera, and Majakovskij played himself in the film Baryshnja i hooligan («Б�рыш�� ху��г��»).

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References1 Василий Каменский, Танго с коровами. Степан Разин. Звучаль веснеян-

ки. Путь энтузиаста / �� ь�� .Я.П��. ��: ��-г�, 1990, 27–28.

2 Vladimir Markov, russian Futurism: a History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, 330.

3 This term is defined as “the interrelation of time and space in a novel” by Michael Bachtin in: Михаил �ахтин, Формы времени и хронотопа в ро-мане. In: Б�х��, ��х��. Вопросы литературы и эстетики. Исследова-ния разных лет. ��: Худ�ж�� р��ур�, 1975, 234.

4 Владимир Маяковский, Полное собрание сочинений: � 13 �. ��: Ху-д�ж�� р��ур�, 1955. Т.1, 38-39.

5 Владимир Васильевич Абашев, Пермь как текст. Пермь в русской культуре и литературе ХХ века. П�рмь: Изд��ь�� П�рм��г� у��р-��, 2000, 152-155; Наталья Фаг�имовна Федотова, В.В.Каменский: эволюция лирики: д��. … ��д.��.�. ��з��ь, 2003, 43–47; Любовь Олег�овна Федорова, Аида Геннадьевна Раз�мовская. Мотив солнца в творчестве В.Каменского и символистская традиция. In: Погранич-ные процессы в литературе и культуре: �б�р�� м��р��м ��жду��р�д�� уч�� р��, ��щ�� 125-��ю �� д�� р�жд�� В�� м��г�. П�рмь: П�рм�� г��уд�р��ы� у��-��р��, 2009, 343–345.

6 Oscar Wilde, Salome; Beardsley, Aubrey. under the Hill. London: Creation Books, 1996.

7 Arthur Symons, Introduction. In: The Arts of Aubrey Beardsley. New York: The Modern Library, 1925, 15.

8 Николай Евреинов, Обри Бердслей. In: Обри �ердслей, Многоликий порок. История Венеры и Тангейзера. Стихотворения. Письма. ��: ��-ПР��, 2001, 27.

9 Савватий Гинц, Василий Каменский. П�рмь: П�рм�� ж�� зд�-��ь��, 1984, 187.

10 ibid, 187–191.11 Владимир Поляков, Футуристическая книга. In: Футуризм – радикаль-

ная революция. И�� – Р��. � 100-��ю худ�ж��г� д��ж�-��. ��: �р�� щ�дь, 2008, 191.

12 Василий Каменский, Танго с коровами. Степан Разин. Звучаль веснеян-ки. Путь энтузиаста / �� ь�� .Я.П��. ��: ��-г�, 1990, 485.


14 Николай Иванович Харджиев, Статьи об авангарде: � 2 �. / �р�д��-�� Р.В.Дуг��. ��: �рх�� ру��г� ��г�рд�, 1997. Т.1. C.54. In his book Nikolaj Khardzhiev analyzed graphic experiments of French poets from Mallarmé to Cendrars and Apollinaire, their influence on Russian avant-

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guard. Vladimir Markov quoted the Russian researcher: “The Soviet scholar N.Khardzhiev sees in Kamensky’s experiments of this kind “a true parallel to the experiments of Apollinaire [i.e., his “simultaneous” poems] and of the Italian futurists” (Markov, P. 200). The recent exhibition “Futurism – radical revolution” (Moscow, 2008) was devoted to the influence of Italian futurism on Russian budetl’ane (Футуризм – радикальная революция. И�� – Р��-��. � 100-��ю худ�ж��г� д��ж��. ��: �р�� щ�дь, 2008). The aim of our papers is the comparative typology of Russian and English influences and parallels (see also: Дмитрий Серг�еевич Т�ляков, Нина Станиславна �очкарева, Соотношение вербального и визуального в манифестах русского кубофутуризма и британского имажизма 1913-14 гг. In: Пограничные процессы в литературе и культуре: �б�р�� -�� м��р��м ��жду��р�д�� уч�� р��, ��щ�� 125-��ю �� д�� р�жд�� В�� м��г�. П�рмь: П�рм�� г��у-д�р��ы� у��р��, 2009, 329–333).

15 Андрей Шемш�рин, Железобетонная поэма (��р��. �б.1. П��р�гр�д, 1915). In: Василий Каменский, Танго с коровами. Железобетонные поэ-мы. ��: Изд�� Д.Д.Бур�ю��, 1914. Ф��м��ь�� зд�� р��-ж��м ��. ��: ��г�, 1991, 13–15.

16 Томас Кайт, «Телефон-№2В-128» Василия Каменского и «dadadegie» Рауля Хаусманна/ Йоханнеса Баадера – два примера визуализированной поэзии в русском и немецком историческом поэтическом авангарде. In: В.В.Каменский в культурном пространстве ХХ века: ��р��ы м�жду-��р�д�� уч��-�р��ч�� р��. П�рмь, 2006, 31–38. http://www.diary.ru/~monstera/p5949390.htm

17 Юрий Александрович Молок, Типографские опыты поэта-футурис-та. In: Василий Каменский, Танго с коровами. Железобетонные поэмы. ��: Изд�� Д.Д.Бур�ю��, 1914. Ф��м��ь�� зд�� р��ж�-��м ��. ��: ��г�, 1991, 7–8.

18 Василий Каменский, Танго с коровами. Степан Разин. Звучаль весне-янки. Путь энтузиаста / ��. � ��. �.Я.П��. ��: ��г�, 1990, 443.

19 К.А Макаров, Эстетика Морриса и судьбы декоративного искусства России. In: Эстетика Морриса и современность. ��: Из�бр�з��ь-�� у��, 1987, 114–140.

20 William Morris: An illustrated Life. Hampshire: Pitkin Pictorials, 1996, 8-9.21 Christine Poulson, William Morris. London: Eagle Edition, 2002.22 Василий Каменский Танго с коровами. Степан Разин. Звучаль веснеян-

ки. Путь энтузиаста / ��. � ��. �.Я.П��. ��: ��г�, 1990, 455–458.

23 Юрий Александрович Молок, Типографские опыты поэта-футуриста. In: ��м��, В��. Танго с коровами. Железобетонные поэмы. ��-��: Изд�� Д.Д.Бур�ю��, 1914. Ф��м��ь�� зд�� р��ж��м ��. ��: ��г�, 1991. C. 4.

24 Юрий Яковлевич Герч�к, Русская книга 1910-х годов. In: И��у��

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��г�. Л��гр�д, 1987. Вы�. 10. 1972-1980. �. 216.25 Юрий Александрович Молок, Типографские опыты поэта-футуриста.

In: ��м��, В��. Танго с коровами. Железобетонные поэмы. ��-��: Изд�� Д.Д.Бур�ю��, 1914. Ф��м��ь�� зд�� р��ж��м ��. ��: ��г�, 1991. C. 7–8.

26 in Black and White. The Literary Remains of Aubrey Beardsley. Including “Under the Hill”, “The Ballad of a Barber”, “The Free Musicians”, “Table Talk” and Other Writings in Prose and Verse / ed. by S.Calloway and D.Colvin. L.: Cypher, MIIM, 1998. http://www.cypherpress.com, 117–120.

27 Ian Fletcher, Aubrey Beardsley. Boston: Arizona State University. Twayne Publishers A Division of G.K.Hall @ Co, 1987, 143.


29 Василий Каменский. Танго с коровами. Степан Разин. Звучаль весне-янки. Путь энтузиаста / ��. � ��. �.Я.П��. ��: ��г�, 1990, 148–149.

30 Дмитрий Владимирович Сарабьянов, Модерн. История стиля. �.: Г�-��р�, 2001, 21.

31 Peter Raby, Aubrey Beardsley and the Nineties. London: Collins&Brown Limited, 1998, 53.

32 For more details see about it in: �очкарева Н.С., Пик�лева И.А. Жанро-вый синтез в эссеистике Обри Бердсли (“Искусство рекламного щита” и “Проспект для Вольпоне”). In: В�� П�рм��г� у��р��. Р��-�� з�руб�ж�� г��. 2009. №1, 61–71.

33 Екатерина Серг�еевна Шевченко, Концепция театральности русских футуристов: размыкание границ искусства. In: Пограничные процессы в литературе и культуре: �б�р�� м��р��м ��жду��р�д�� уч�� р��, ��щ�� 125-��ю �� д�� р�жд�� В��-�� м��г�. П�рмь: П�рм�� г��уд�р��ы� у��р��, 2009, 322–324.

34 Николай Евреинов, Обри Бердслей. In: Б�рд��, �бр�. Многоликий порок. История Венеры и Тангейзера. Стихотворения. Письма. ��: ��-ПР��, 2001, 6–34.

35 Василий. Каменский, Книга о Евреинове. П��р�гр�д: Изд��ь�� «��-р�м�� у�� Н.И.Бу��», 1917.

36 Николай Евреинов, О Василии Каменском // �� жур�� В�� -м��г�. 1922. №1.


38 Николай Евреинов, Обри Бердслей. In: Обри �ердслей, Многоликий порок. История Венеры и Тангейзера. Стихотворения. Письма. ��: ��-ПР��, 2001, 8.

39 ibid, 24.40 ibid, 25.41 Василий. Каменский, Книга о Евреинове. П��р�гр�д: Изд��ь�� «��-

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р�м�� у�� Н.И.Бу��», 1917, 73.42 ibid, 94.43 Aubrey Beardsley, under the Hill. In: Oscar Wilde, Salome. Beardsley,

Aubrey. under the Hill. London: Creation Books, 1996, 69.44 The Letters of Aubrey Beardsley. Ed. by H.Maas. London: Rutherford, Fairleigh

Dickinson university press, 1970, 73. 45 See about it: Ирина Александровна Пик�лева, Проблема синтеза в ли-

тературном наследии Обри Бердсли: д��. … ��д. ��. ��у�. П�рмь, 2008.

46 Стефан.Малларме, Сочинения в стихах и прозе: �б�р�� р��уз�-��м ��зы�� р��ь�ым ру��м ��м. ��: Р�дуг�, 1995, 411.

47 Haldane Macfall, Aubrey Beardsley. The Man and his work. London: John Lane the Bodly Head Limited, 1928, 81.

48 Brigid Brophy, Beardsley and his world. London: Thames & Hudson, 1976, 99.

49 Vladimir Markov, russian Futurism: a History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, 29–30.

50 See about it: Нина Станиславна �очкарева, Ирина Александровна Пи-к�лева, Дантевская аллюзия в романе Обри Бердсли uNDer THe HiLL. In: Л��р��ур� В��бр�� Р�м�� м�р. В�� Н��г�р�д: Н��Г�, 2006. �.105–106; П��у�� Ир�� др��, Б�ч��р�� Н�� . Философская лирика Обри Бердсли. In: В�� П�рм��-г� у��р��. ��р�� «И��р��ы� ��зы�� р��уры». 2008. Вы�. 5(21), 23–29.


52 Ирина Александровна Пик�лева, Проблема синтеза в литературном наследии Обри Бердсли: д��. … ��д. ��. ��у�. П�рмь, 2008, 144.


54 About the difference of “Stenka Razin” (1915) and “Stepan Razin” (1928) see: Светлана Леонидовна Константинова, От «Стеньки Разина» к «Степа-ну Разину» к проблеме текстовых трансформаций в прозе В.Каменского. In: Пограничные процессы в литературе и культуре: �б�р�� м��р��м ��жду��р�д�� уч�� р��, ��щ�� 125-��-��ю �� д�� р�жд�� В�� м��г�. П�рмь: П�рм�� г��уд�р�-��ы� у��р��, 2009, 345–347.

55 Ирина Александровна Пик�лева, Нина Станиславна �очкарева. Восток в творчестве Обри Бердсли. In: Лингвистические и эстетичес-кие аспекты анализа текста и речи: �б�р�� VI В��р�� (� м�жду��р�д�ым уч��м) ��уч�� р��. ��м��, 2006, 41-45; Ирина Александровна Пик�лева, Проблема синтеза в литера-турном наследии Обри Бердсли: д��. … ��д. ��. ��у�. П�рмь, 2008. �. 172–193.

56 Николай Евреинов, Обри Бердслей. In: Обри �ердслей, Многоликий

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порок. История Венеры и Тангейзера. Стихотворения. Письма. ��: ��-ПР��, 2001, 32.

57 Леонид Фридович Кацис, Владимир Маяковский: Поэт в интеллекту-альном контексте эпохи. ��: Язы�� ру�� у�ь�уры, 2000, 657–669.

58 Наталья Фаг�имовна Федотова, В.В.Каменский: эволюция лирики: д��. … ��д.��.�. ��з��ь, 2003, 43-47; Наталья Фаг�имовна Федотова, «Гармония всеединства» как вариант художественного синтеза в поэзии серебряного века. In: Пограничные процессы в литературе и культуре: �б�р�� м��р��м ��жду��р�д�� уч�� р��, ��щ�� 125-��ю �� д�� р�жд�� В�� м��г�. П�рмь: П�рм�� г��уд�р��ы� у��р��, 2009, 325–326.

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“Tysk host” (“German autumn”) – The Swedish Author Stig Dagerman’s Journalism on Germany immediately after World War II

“Tysk host” („Vokiškas ruduo“) – švedų rašytojo Stigo Dagermano

reportažai apie Vokietiją po Antrojo pasaulinio paro

roland LYSeLLDepartment of Literature, university of StockholmSweden [email protected]

SummaryThe poetry of the 1940s represents one of the peaks of modern Swedish lit-

erature. The aim of this paper is to discuss Stig Dagerman’s articles collected in Tysk höst (1947) from the view of a literary historian. How does the Germany of 1946 fit into the general aesthetics of the Swedish Generation of the 1940s (Fyr-titalisterna)? It is shown that Stig Dagerman criticizes all contemporary German political parties. The only exception is the small group that was anti-fascist dur-ing World War II. In those days anarchic syndicalism was sceptical concerning the state as such. Germany became an example for Dagerman to corroborate this thesis. Dagerman also shares the metaphysical scepticism of the 1940s. Even if we know nothing about the deeper reality that we are dependent upon, it makes us the victims of its revenge and we have to accept the absurdity of human existence and the fact that distress has become a consolation. The German spirit of the late 1940s is obviously dominated by bitterness and apathy. Concerning stylistic tech-nique Dagerman is also typical of the 1940s: he prefers paradoxes, gives the ruins a symbolic function, formulates skillful metaphors and uses intertextuality. How-ever, the metaphysical aim of art is not shown to be a failure in Tysk höst, but it is treated with a certain distance, typical of Dagerman, but not of his generation.

Key words: Stig Dagerman, “Tysk host” (“German autumn”), aesthetics of Fyrtitalisterna, paradox, intertextuality, the metaphysical aim of art, distance.

The poetry of the 1940s in Sweden represents one of the peaks of modern Swedish literature. Poets like Erik Lindegren (1910–1968), Karl Vennberg (1910–1995), Ragnar Thoursie (* 1919), Werner Aspenström

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(1918–1997), Elsa Grave (1918–2003) and Sven Alfons (1918–1996), all of them influenced by Gunnar Ekelöf (1907–1968), Thomas Stearns Eliot and French poetry from Charles Baudelaire and Symbolism to Surrealism, developed modernist lyric into an intellectually advanced rhetoric poetry, at the same time very intellectual, very emotive and very dense. At the same time a new kind of prose was developed by the novelists Lars Ah-lin (1915–1997), Stig Dagerman (1923–1954) and Gösta Oswald (1926–1950).

Stig Dagerman is the only author in this group whose novels have encountered an international audience. He is still very much read today, especially in France and Germany, and there is a Dagerman prize that has been awarded to, among others, Elfriede Jelinek and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. His first work was Ormen (“The Snake”, 1945), followed by De dömdas ö (“Island of the Doomed”) in 1946, one of the most impor-tant Swedish novels of the 20th century. He was also an important drama-tist. He was married twice, to Annemarie Götze, a daughter of German refugees, and to the actress Anita Björk (* 1923).

Dagerman had mixed feelings about the role of a journalist. He wrote 570 articles for various newspapers from 1941 to his death 13 years later. In the summer of 1941 he began to write for the important syndicalist publications Storm and Arbetaren (“The Worker”). He reviewed books, of course, and among his favorites were Franz Kafka and William Faulkner. Apart from his literary criticism in 40-tal, Prisma and BLM, he also wrote articles on general themes. He was commissioned by the then fairly new evening newspaper expressen to Germany in the autumn of 1946 to write a series of reports about postwar Germany. 13 articles were written and 11 were published. In 1947 these articles were collected and issued as a book with the title Tysk höst (“German Autumn”), a Swedish classic, reprinted in the Collected Writings edited by the Dagerman scholar Hans Sandberg1.

My aim in this article is not to discuss the articles as journalism. Mrs. Karin Palmkvist, has already done that in a doctoral thesis from 19892. Her conclusion is: “Dagerman’s reports from Germany differed from those of other Swedes at this time through the author’s consciousness of and reflections about his own role, his great empathy with the situation of the Germans, and the fact that he did not condemn the German peo-ple”3. Mrs. Palmkvist shows that in this aspect Dagerman was close to the Englishmen Stephen Spender (1909–1995), a favourite poet of the 1940s,

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and Sir Victor Gollancz (1893–1967), whose books about Germany ap-peared at roughly the same time. All of them discuss “the problem of guilt and suffering in a universal perspective”, according to Mrs. Palmkvist4. Dagerman spent two months in Germany, from October 15th (Hamburg) to December 12th (Frankfurt) – five days in Berlin, a week in the Ruhr district, and everywhere he tried to come into contact with so many pri-vate persons living under different social circumstances as possible5. Of course he despised the kind of journalist who stays at his hotel and only uses stuff from local newspapers in his report.

Dagerman’s material must have been overwhelming and it was a ques-tion of choice what to publish in the articles. My own aim is to discuss the articles from the view of a literary historian. How does the Germany of 1946 fit into the general aesthetics of the Swedish Generation of the 1940s (Fyrtitalisterna). I concentrate on ten dominating themes and stylistic ef-fects: Politics, Scepticism concerning the state, The Question of a Deeper Reality and the Absurd and the Possibility of Consolation, The Psychol-ogy of the Germans, The Ruins, The Use of Metaphor and Intertextuality and The Function of the Artist.

I. PoliticsConfronted with everyday reality, Stig Dagerman severely criticizes

German active political parties.– The Liberals are conscious of the present situation, but they are un-

able to act:

“We” that can mean the Liberal party, which in North Germany is rather small but has a good reputation on account of its anti-Nazi attitude, but which in South Germany is large and suspect for there we can hear it said “Think Li-beral, act Socialist and feel German”. But “We” can mean much else. “We” can be those middle-class German intellectuals who were at heart anti-Nazi but never had to suffer for this and perhaps never wanted to suffer for it, who never voluntarily went against the grain and are now bearing a kind of anti-Nazi jalousie de métier against the legitimated anti-Nazis, those who were politically persecuted. (p. 38) 6

– The CDU is a chameleon without any ideology of its own:

The CDU is a chameleon who won in Hamburg thanks to crude anti-Marxist propaganda and tried to win in Berlin through an equally diligent use of the word “socialism”. (p. 47)

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– The social classes are still there:

The thesis of a classless Germany involved a cynical exaggeration. After the collapse, class frontiers have been sharpened rather than blurred. The bourge-ois ideologists confuse poverty and classlessness when they assert that by and large all Germans are financially in the same desperate straits. (p. 36)

– The Social Democrats seem to be a bit pathetic, e.g. Paul Löbe:

The most tragic aspect of the big meeting under canvas which I attended in Frankfurt-am-Main just before Christmas and where the old Social Democrat and former Parliamentary President Paul Löbe spoke, was not perhaps that it was impossible to spot a single young person in the thousand-strong audien-ce. What was tragic and frighening was that the audience were so advanced in years. (p. 62)

On several occasions the difficulties between generations are focussed by Dagerman, the Social Democrats do not want to accept the youth. Kurt Schumacher, a Social Democrat leader, is criticized for being dangerous and helpless:

What can be held against Dr. Schumacher is that through his doomsday ser-mons against the victors he adapts a limited national perspective instead of a socialist and international one. (p. 91).

Schumacher is dangerous “because of his enormous popularity” (p. 89). Three pages of the book from page 89 onwards are devoted to con-sidering his weaknesses.

Several times Dagerman attacks the Bavarians who sent starving ref-ugees from Hamburg and Essen back home in miserable trains. There seems to be no German solidarity (p. 69); “Just think fellow-countrymen evicting fellow-countrymen. Germans against Germans. The worst of all” (p. 56), somebody remarks. Many Germans suspect the Russians for try-ing to create a “Verelendigung”, through people coming from the concen-tration camps and from the east, in the western zones to cause a political chaos for the British, French and Americans.

The real losers of the war, according to Dagerman, are the German antifascists:

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For there is in Germany a large group of honest anti-fascists who are more disappointed, homeless and defeated than the Nazi fellow-travellers can ever be: dissappointed because the liberation did not turn out to be as radical as they had thought it would be; homeless because they did not want to associate themselves either with the overall German dissatisfaction, among whose in-gredients they thought they could detect far too much hidden Nazism, or with the politics of the Allies, whose compliance in the face of the former Nazis they regard with dismay; […] These people are Germany’s most beautiful ruins (p. 24–25).

This point of view is further developed in later chapter:

But there are numerous anti-Nazi Germans who had hoped for another out-come: people who reject the kind of unity without freedom offered by the Communists, regret that the anti-Nazi enthusiasm of the spring of 1945 failed to create something other than the ensuing situation of party division and im-potence in the face of reaction. (p. 98)

The real losers of the war are apparently the German antifascists.This political scepticism already occurred in texts by Erik Lindegren.

In the 1930s Lindegren tested many political views, including Marxism and Freudianism, but always reacted against dogmatism. His only sympa-thy was a sympathy for anarchism and syndicalism. After the war, in the early 50s, Karl Vennberg was involved in the discussion about “The Third Position” (Tredje ståndpunkten). These intellectuals were neither pro-American nor pro-Russian, but wanted to find a third solution in world politics.

Thus Stig Dagerman criticizes all contemporary German political par-ties. The only exceptions are the small groups who were anti-fascists dur-ing World War II.

II. Scepticism concerning the stateDiscussions about the questions of democracy and human rights are

common among the authors of this generation. According to Dagerman, the elections in Germany have lost their democratic function:

Throughout that autumn there were elections in various places in Germany. Participation was perhaps surprisingly active but political activity limited it-self to voting. (p. 15)

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Law and justice have lost their force and people seem to condemn the Germans, independent of existing laws. Hunger does not seem a righteous punishment, according to Dagerman:

Even from a judicial point of view such an argument is quite untenable be-cause the German distress is collective whereas the German cruelties were, despite everything, not so. Further, hunger and cold are not included among the indictable offences of legal justice, for the same reason that torture and abuse are not. (p. 11-12).

A common way of criticizing the Germans seems to be to criticize them for their obedience to the state (p. 12). Thus an old lawyer is se-verely criticized (p. 70), and the so called “Spruchkammern”, civil courts where people have to prove that they never were Nazis, are illusory as evidence tends to be bought. You can feel a cold draught from the time of terror, “kall fläkt från skräckens tid” (p. 75)7. Anarchic syndicalism was in those days sceptical concerning the state as such. Germany became a good example for Dagerman to corroborate his thesis.

III. The Question of Deeper Reality and the AbsurdThe importance of silence is emphasized in this work as well as in

many other Swedish literary works of the 1940s: “The silence and passive submission of these apparently insignificant people gave a sense of dark bitterness to that German autumn.” (p. 5.) Even reality as such seems to be questionable:

It is important to remember that statements implying dissatisfaction with or even distrust of the goodwill of the victorious democracies were made not in an airless room or on a theatrical stage echoing with ideological repartee but in all too palpable cellars in Essen, Hamburg or Frankfurt-am-Main. (p. 9).

One of the persons asserts: “Why not see this too in a historical per-spective, why not judge what has happened as if it had happened a hun-dred years ago? Strictly speaking reality doesn’t begin to exist until the historian has put it into its context and then it’s too late to experience it, and vex over it, or weep. To be real, reality must be old.” (p. 115). But at the same time the man with the stick passes the whole bread queue; somehow very brutal power seems to dominate a reality that does not ex-ist (p. 115).

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Sometimes Dagerman notices an idiotic absurdity. Hannover was de-stroyed, but the prominent statue of King Ernst August of Hannover was not damaged at all (p. 19); Ernst August being extremely unpopular in his own kingdom. The new kind of consolation could also be said to be typi-cal of the 1940s: “It is not a matter of finding consolation in the midst of distress – distress itself has become a consolation.” (p. 19). Thus Dager-man shares the metaphysical scepticism of the 1940s. Even if we know nothing about the deeper reality that we are dependent upon, it makes us the victims of its revenge and we have to accept the absurdity of human existence and the fact that distress has become a consolation.

IV. The Psychology of the GermansWhat kind of Germans does the narrator of German autumn meet?

Some of them are bitter. In the chapter “Bombed Cemetery” we meet Fräulein S., once the owner of a fishmonger’s shop, who now inspects ru-ins to check that those who are able to work really are at work: “Fräulein S. is said to be very bitter but at the same time grateful for a job that gives her the chance of keeping her bitterness on the boil.” (p. 29). Many Ger-mans feel that they do not deserve the punishment they are now getting. (p. 30).

Another interesting character is the lawyer, who has a friend who writes comical novels, once a silent anti-Nazi, nowadays a “master of fragile resignation who leans over the equally fragile Meissen porcelain” (p. 38). Even more intellectual is the hermit writer who has isolated him-self in a villa in the Ruhr district writing books and giving lectures on Burckhardt and Mörike, “a young author with the tired smile and the aris-tocratic name, smoking cigarettes for which he has traded away books, drinking tea whose taste is as bitter as the autumn outside.” (p. 113).

There is also something double-bound about the unimportant persons who are accused of being Nazis in the “Spruchkammergericht”, Herr Krause and Herr Sinne (p. 78–81). But of course also more proletarian persons, like the man who plays a “portable organ” on Sundays and a simpler “barrel-organ” on weekdays appear in the book (p. 43). Even a hysteric girl in a wheel-chair is focussed at the end of one of the articles (p. 58).

The essential theme for Dagerman is that a new kind of morality is de-veloped: “The new morality postulates that there are conditions in which it is not immoral to steal since in these circumstances theft means not de-

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priving someone of his property but a more just distribution of available goods; likewise black-marketing and prostitution are not immoral when they have become the only means of survival.” (p. 45). The new reasons for keeping together are cynically formulated: “The knowledge that none of them needs to suffer alone has generated a kind of communal wellbe-ing.” (p. 56). Obviously the young generation has Dagerman’s sympathy. The desperation of young people is often focussed. Dagerman criticized the egoists: “anyone who knows the art of wearing whatever colours he chooses” (p. 82) is a very free translation of “den som kan konsten att sko sig med vilket läder som helst”8.

In showing complicated characters reacting in complicated ways Dagerman fulfills the intentions of his contemporaries. Drastic formula-tions is another common trait among the poets and prose writers of the 1940s. Dagerman quotes Brecht: “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Mor-al” (p. 14). “Apathy and Cynicism (“…dann kommt die Moral”) were two conditions which marked the reactions to […] the executions in Nurem-berg and the first elections (p. 15). The German spirit of the late 1940s is obviously dominated by bitterness and apathy.

V. The ParadoxThe Paradox is a common rhetoric strategy of the generation of the

1940s, sometimes in weaker forms, when describing both metaphysical and social reality. Karl Vennberg, for instance, writes about the choice between the indifferent and the impossible. When Dagerman describes the advent of the refugees from the East he concludes:

Their presence was both hateful and welcome – hateful because they arrived bringing with them nothing but their hunger and their thirst, welcome be-cause it fed suspicions which one would willingly entertain, distrust which one would willingly cultivate, and despair by which one would willingly be possessed.( p. 5–6).

Another situation reminding us of a paradox is the description on p. 96 of “det fattiga och hederliga, det välmående och tvivelaktiga”; the ”pa-thetic confrontation [. . .] between two kinds of Germany: the poor but honest, the prosperous but dubious (p. 96)9. When he describes politics Dagerman also tries to formulate pseudocontradictions: the Allied Forces are accused of ”the attempt to eradicate militarism by means of a military regime” (p. 16).

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VI. The ruinsThe ruins are extremely important in Tysk höst; one of the chapters is

even called “Ruins” (p. 19). In the first chapter the writer seems to take a journalistic cynical position: “Ruinhögar av internationell typ” – “high piles of rubble (standard international variety)” (p. 8)10. But later, at the end of the Bombed Cemetery chapter, Fräulein S. describes the bombed cemetery as a sort of objective correlative to Germany: “This is Germany, Mr. D., a bombed cemetery.” (p. 33.) In fact, this is a normal way of describing cemeteries in the book. “We wander around in this endless shambles of a graveyard” (p. 23). The ruins are monuments or symbols of death and destruction. The “fallen Prussian colonnades rest their Greek profiles on the pavements” in Berlin (p. 19), some Hitler buildings look like mausoleums (p. 85), and a man who has lost his family walks around like a “wandering Second World War memorial” (p. 94).

In the chapter of Ruins the ruins are even described as a stage scenery for a play:

Rusty girders poke out of the gravel-heaps like the stems of long-since foun-dered boats. Slender pillars which an artistic fate carved out of collapsed tene-ments rise from white piles of crushed bath-tubs or from grey piles of stone, powdered brick and melted radiators. Carefully manipulated façades, with nothing to be façades for, stand there like scenery for a play that was never performed. (p. 21)

Interestingly enough this Hamburg landscape is compared to Guernica and Coventry, more conventional symbols of evil human destruction: “All the figures of geometry are on display in this three-year-old variation of Guernica and Coventry” (p. 21).

Death can also be connected to erotics, at least when making advertise-ments: “On big posters a young woman, her skull showing faintly beneath the mask of the faces, warns against venereal disease. One has to learn to see death in every woman one meets.” (p. 102.) Many people cannot get on the trains, of course, but Dagerman prefers to focus on a woman who cannot get on the train, although she must reach a deathbed (p. 107).

It seems that the Ruins are not only symbolic ruins but also possess the metaphysical qualities of Walter Benjamin’s ruins in his book about The Baroque German Plays11. The whole world seems to be a place of execution. The hermit writer of the last chapter seems to hide in a very serene baroque attitude where suffering is transformed into something

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sublime; but after having left him the narrator seems to see “a chubby baroque angel” “displaying his ghostly wings against the darkening ruins” (p. 117); “den en barockens knubbiga ängel jag tycker mig se avteckna sina spökvingar mot de mörknande ruinerna.”12

My thoughts go to Lindegren’s important lyric volume mannen utan väg (1942), where ruins of a general character are mentioned. Both Lin-degren and Dagerman can be read according to Walter Benjamin, who stresses the importance of the baroque ruin landscape, representing a world waiting for a salvation not yet to come. Dagerman had not read Benjamin, of course, but still his way of making literal ruins metaphysical and allegoric is similar.

VII. The Metaphors and IntertextualityLike his colleagues, Dagerman has a good sense of finding good im-

ages to represent. The first one is the autumn leaves. The first chapter begins: “In the autumn of 1946 the leaves were falling in Germany for the third time since Churchill’s famous speech about the fallling of leaves”. (p. 5.) The potato, “Germany’s most sought-after fruit” (p. 28), is used several times, and in the 12th chapter a green apple eaten by a small girl stays in focus. Another symbol is the cake of the Liberal lawyer, which is even called “symbolic” (p. 41). It consists of false cream and dry bread.

A story about a Goldfish is told by a soldier as a story in the story: The four occupiers of Berlin “rule over a pond and each has his own goldfish. The Russian catches his goldfish and eats it up. The Frenchman catches his and throws it away after pulling off the beautiful fins. The American stuffs his and sends it home to the USA as a souvenir. The Englishman behaves most strangely of all: he catches his fish, holds it in his hand and caresses it to death” (p. 49). Dagerman also quotes allegorical phrases like in “In Deutschland ist nix mehr los” (p. 103). Many of Dagerman’s im-ages and metaphors are those especially cherished by his generation. One of them is the winter. Dagerman’s Munich chapter begins: “A Sunday in early winter in Munich, with a cold sun” (p. 83). A favorite in Greek my-thology is Sisyphus, a famous cat of Karl Vennberg was even named after him. In Tysk höst the woman who wants to go by train from Celle to Ham-burg with four heavy potato sacks is compared to Sisyphos: “She does not yet know that she is a Sisyphus who has rolled her stone up to the hilltop; soon it will tip over and vanish far below” (p. 108). Friedrich Hölderlin was especially celebrated in 1943, 100 years after his death. Vennberg

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introduced him to a Swedish audience in Arbetaren, and Lindegren pub-lished a poem, later included in Sviter (1947). Dagerman writes: “We can imagine that German soldiers with Mörikes’s poems in their inside pock-ets subjugated Greece, or that after yet another Russian village had been levelled to the ground the German soldier returned to his interrupted read-ing of Hölderlin, the German poet who said of love that it conquers both time and bodily death.” (p. 114). A last example is the theme of Ascension and airplanes could be found in W.H. Auden’s The event of F 6 and in Lindegren’s imagery13. Tysk höst ends with a final overview when the plane leaves Frankfurt:

Three thousand five hundred metres. The ice-ferns thicken on the windows. The moon has risen, a frosty ring round it. We are told of our whereabouts. We are flying over Bremen but Bremen is not to be seen. Lacerated Bremen is lying hidden beneath dense German clouds, impenetrably hidden as the mute German agony. We fly out over the sea and on this rolling, marbly floor of clouds and moonlight we take leave of Germany, autumnal and icebound. (p. 120)

Intertextuality is extremely frequent in the poetry of Lindegren and Vennberg and in the prose of Oswald. In this context I would like to point out an important example that shows the method of Dagerman. On p. 76 a line from the second stanza of the Horst-Wessel-Lied is quoted, “Die Strasse frei den braunen Batallionen”, in the context of the trials. When Tysk höst was written the song was very well-known, also in Sweden. The reader is thus reminded of the whole stanza:

Die Straße frei den braunen Bataillonen.Die Straße frei dem Stumabeilungsmann!Es schau’n aufs Hakenkruz voll Hoffnung schon Millionen.Der Tag für Freiheit und für Brot bricht an!

[“Clear the streets for the brown battalions,Clear the streets for the stormtroopers!Already millions look with hope to the swastikaThe day of freedom and bread is dawning!”]

Obvious keywords are “bread” – the lack of food is a frequent theme in the book – and “hope”, contrasting the despair, or hopelessness, of postwar Germany. The apparently superficial quotation in fact stresses the

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ironic contrast between the dawning hope of the Nazis (the losers of the war) and the despair of the postwar Germans, a despair of course caused by the illusions of the Nazis14.

VIII. The function of the artistThe Swedish generation of the 1940s is very far from idealism, as well

as from agitprop or l’art pour l’art. Literature has an aim to fulfill, but this aim is metaphysical. The dream of the artist is that his work of art might transform suffering, a good example is the woman who reads Rilke with her friends in a concentration camp. But in the actual context this woman does not want to write about the force of poetry, she would prefer to write about her husband who has turned mute after spending eight years in Dachau. In Dagerman’s Tysk höst art is usually contrasted to poverty and it is frequently superseded by physical reality. Thus, the metaphysical aim of art is not shown to be a failure, but it is treated with a certain distance, a distance typical of Dagerman, but not of his generation.

notes1 Stig Dagerman, Samlade Skrifter, med kommentarer av Hans Sandberg. Vol.

1–11, Stockholm, 1981–1983; Vol. 3, Tysk höst, Stockholm, 1981.2 Karin Palmkvist, Diktaren i verkligheten. Journalisten Stig Dagerman [The

Author in Reality. Stig Dagerman as Journalist], Stockholm, 1989.3 ibid, 268.4 ibid.5 See the map in Palmqvist, p. 95.6 All page references in this paper are references to Robin Fulton’s English

translation of the book: German Autumn, London & New York (Quartet Bo-oks), 1988.

7 The Swedish quotation is from Dagerman, Tysk höst, p. 89.8 ibid, 56.9 ibid, 116.10 ibid, 11.11 Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama (ursprung des deuts-

chen Trauerspiels), translated by John Osborne, London (Verso), 1992.12 The Swedish quotation is from Dagerman, Tysk höst, p. 140.13 Concerning Lindegren and the ascension theme: Lysell, Roland, erik Linde-

grens imaginära universum (diss.), Stockholm, 1983.14 The Horst-Wessel-Lied was first published in the Berlin Nazi newspater Der

Angriff in September 1929. The approximate English translation is quoted from http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied.

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Regioninės literatūros istorijos paieškos

Looking for Regional Literary History

Aušra JurGuTieNėVilnius Pedagogical universityT. Ševčenkos str. 31, LT-03111, Vilnius31, LT-03111, Vilnius [email protected]

SantraukaPastaruoju laiku augant globalizacijai, plečiantis Europos sąjungai ir stiprė-

jant nacionalinių literatūrų metanaratyvų kritikai, vis aktualesne tampa regioninė literatūros istorijų modeliavimo bei tyrimo tendencija. Be jos neapsieina ne tik patys naujausi Europos literatūros identiteto įsivaizdavimai, tautinės literatūros, praradusios homogeninę „tautos dvasios“ aureolę, tyrimai, bet ir tautinių mažumų, etninių grupių ar tarminių literatūrų gaivinimai. Toks įvairiai profiliuojamos regi-oninės atminties žadinimas gali būti motyvuotas tik šiandieninės literatūros inter-pretatorių savimonės ypatumais. Kodėl literatūros istorijose, šalia turėto etnocen-trinio tapatybės modelio, vis labiau šiuo laiku įsitvirtina įvairių profilių regioniniai tapatumo modeliai, kvestionuojantys paveldėtą savo vs. svetimo opoziciją? Kuo regioninės atminties kūrimo pastangos gali būti svarbios ir perspektyvios atskirų tautų individams bei jų visuomenėms? Šiems klausimams, pasirėmus konkrečiais naujausių regioninių lietuvių literatūros tyrimų pavyzdžiais, pranešime yra ieško-ma konkrečių atsakymų.

Esminiai žodžiai: etnocentrinis tapatumas, daugiakultūriškumas, istorinė at-mintis, Baltų regiono literatūra, rytų-Vidurio europos regiono literatūros koncep-cija, postkolonializmas.

SummaryLately, with the rise of globalization, the development of the European Un-

ion and the strengthening of the critique of national literary metanarratives, the regional tendency in writing literary history becomes more and more topical. Not only the latest conceptions of the identity of common European literature and the analyses of national literature now devoid of the homogeneous aura of “national spirit“ but also the enlivening of minority literatures, and ethnic or dialectal litera-ture, cannot manage without it. Such stimulation of multi-profile regional memory can be motivated only by the peculiarities of the self-consciuosness of the contem-porary interpreters. Why do various regional models of identity that question the opposition of one‘s own to other’s and replacing the previous ethnocentric model of identity now get stronger positions in literary history? Could regional recollec-

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tion deveIopment efforts be interesting and important to individuals of separate nations and their societes? The author of this article refers to concrete examples from recent regional investigations in the history of Lithuanian literature and seeks concrete answers to these questions.

Key words: ethnocentric identity, multicultural historical memory, Baltic re-gional literature, conception of the literature of east-Central europe, postcoloni-alism.

Intense and full-scale revival of historic memory that commenced to-gether with the Singing Revoliution (and Reform by Gorbachiov) still remains strong in Lithuania. This fact is witnessed by increasing publish-ing of memoires, reminiscences and highly rated television broadcastings prepared by historians. The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore (LLFI) with its programme activities focused on the history of nation-al literature researches. Three latest works stand out as the most funda-mental ones: XX amžiaus lietuvių literatūra (1995, 1996) (20th Century Lithuanian Literature) by Vytautas Kubilius, Lietuvių literatūros istorija: XiX amžius (History of Lithuanian Literature: the 19th Century) (compiled by Editor-in-Chief Juozas Girdzijauskas, 2001), and Lietuvių literatūros istorija: Xiii–XViii amžius (History of Lithuanian Literature: the 13th–18th Centuries) (written by Eugenija Ulčinaitė and Albinas Jovaišas, 2003). Besides, we could also mention Lithuanian literature (1997) and Liter-atur in Freiheit und unfreiheit (2002) prepared by Kubilius in foreign languages, and A Short History of Lithuanian Literature (2002) written by a famous emigrant literary critic Rimvydas Šilbajoris. All these new books have set one task “to present the correct and objective history of literature” which was distorted by Marxist ideology in the times of Soviet occupation.

However, we cannot help but hear increasingly more criticism ex-pressed towards such a national history. This criticism is of two kinds: first of all, there is scepticism, which is more and more frequently ex-pressed by Western scholars in relation to histories of national literature. rethinking Literary History – a selection of articles by famous scholars is-sued by Oxford University Press in 2002 – could serve as a good example of it. In this book, the authors – although some more and others less – in unison question the writing of national literary histories. It is interpreted as a rudimental phenomenon stemming from the culture of Romanticism in the current uniting Europe and in the entire world of globalization.

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Secondly, there is an increasingly more open criticism aimed at histor-icism and the positivistic metanarrative, and the need to update the meth-odology for writing literary history. Therefore, the fundamental compen-satory Lithuanian literary histories – intended for literature of the 19th and 20th centuries – received not only well-deserved compliments on fulfilling expectations of the public but also well-deserved questions on whether the cultural historic school tradition that combines views of positivistic and hermeneutic historicism and its fostered metanarrative are sufficient in order to write contemporary histories? Do not the most up-to-date Lithua-nian literary histories – written on the basis of the “hermeneutics of trust” and modernity – deserve more critical reflections? “Whatever is written now are broadbrush subjects, Soviet histories. The enduring value of these texts will be revealed in the future”1. “Unfortunately, in our case we are still asking the same questions as in Soviet times. This is the reason why we are getting the same answers and replicate the same trains of clichés”2 ; “Is the impartial history of the 19th century possible? These days, histo-ries that are in search of total impartiality are drawing to an end”3. Most of new literary history critics maintained that rewriting histories can no longer be limited to usual corrections of ideological nature because they require essential changes of methodological character, which would be initiated by the post-modern hermeneutics of suspicion, reception, and the new historicism. Without this, literary studies in Lithuania that broke free from the Soviet Union will sustain the unchanged old dictatorial and normative thinking and evaluation habits, as well as common depiction structures and clichés, only dressed in the masquerade of new style con-ceptions.

This means that new expectations related to a more in-depth audit of methodological and philosophic thinking and evaluation habits of writing literary history are forming in the post-Soviet society. This is the second reason that makes us go deeper into the issues of historic self-perception complications. Especially conceptual discussions on this issue were held in conferences organized by the Lithuanian Literature and Folklore In-stitute4 and conventions of the World Lithuanian Philology Community5. From all of these discussions, yet another critical thought of an emigrant scholar Saulius Sužiedėlis should be mentioned:

During the period of approx. 1940–1990, there was a failure to create Lithu-anian historiography both in Lithuania and among emigrants, i.e. the dialogue between different perspectives that would expand our horizons. Different de-

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velopments occurred in the Western academic life, where the struggle conti-nued between volatile historic interpretations as well as lively search for new methodological prospects. In other words, as the first generation of modern historians (Ivinskis, K. Avižonis, J. Jakštas, and others) were deprived of con-ditions to create in emigration and the others who remained in the motherland had to stand the Soviet censorship, it was somewhat forgotten what the sci-ence of history was. The stagnation of critical and innovative history among emigrants was the result of isolation and conservation, and in Lithuania—the outcome of political oppression. 6

A more exhaustive knowledge of historiography of Western Europe – which was mentioned by Sužiedėlis – commenced in Lithuania only after the restoration of independence.

In the world overtaken by globalization, national literature can no longer be perceived as the greatest value. The younger Lithuanian lit-erature researchers come to this conclusion more and more frequently: “Following the meltdown of the National Revival, it is possible to refuse that fetishist stereotype of a united and pure imaginary community”7. The spreading multicultural phenomena and the migration that grew stronger together with globalization of the world economics deny the territorial integrity of the national culture and demand new contemplation. After Lithuania became a member of the European Union, it not only experi-enced an intense migration of citizens to other countries of Europe, but also started receiving newcomers from other nations and different races who clearly would not want to identify themselves with the locally de-signed national culture model but declare cultural diversity and independ-ence of their own identity. The growing problem of newcomer integration on the one hand, and the necessity to suppress the emerging racist mani-festations on the other, as well as the imperative democratization of the post-Soviet society had inevitably encouraged historians to transfer from closed national literary models to open pluralistic comparative culture models. Literary historians felt they came short of the national distinctive-ness idea that was so carefully fostered in the 19th century and during the years of occupation, so they started getting more interested in “others” around the world and getting more in touch with the multicultural reality of today as well as reflecting more on the concept of hospitality.

What is the purity of the idea of one language or one ethnic group – which is anchored in national literatures – when history always and eve-rywhere provides us with trends of mixing and changing nations, cultures, and languages? No wonder that Lithuanian literature from the end of 19th

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century always generated national values and marginalized everything non-Lithuanian. So the greatest challenge to historians of Lithuanian lit-erature (and culture) was to revisit the multicultural heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in 16th – 18th centuries) as well as works of Adam Mickiewicz and Vilnius school of Romanticism together with col-leagues from Poland and avoiding nationalistic pushing and pulling to-wards one side of another. The multicultural aspect of the research should help to better reveal moments of encounter and communication of nation-al cultures rather than their hostility moments alone. All former disputes regarding the national identity of Mickiewicz should lose their meaning as the only obvious and specific fact of his work is becoming clear, i.e. the multiculturalism without privileging either one national principle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Such an important multicultural aspect has already been more broadly applied in the most recent researches of the old Lithuanian literature: Darius Kuolys, Asmuo, tauta, valstybė LDK istorinėje kultūroje (A Person, the Nation, and the State in the Historic Culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) 1992, Dainora Pociūtė, XVi–XVii a. protestantų bažnytinės giesmės (Protestant Hymns of the 16th–17th Centuries) 1995, Sigitas Narbutas, Lietuvos renesanso literatūra (Litera-ture of the Lithuanian Renaissance) 1997, Eugenija Ulčinaitė, retorinės kultūros ir embleminio mąstymo modeliai (Models of Rhetorical Cul-ture and Emblematic Thinking) 1997, Eglė Patiejūnienė, Brevitas or-nata: Mažosios literatūros formos Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės spaudiniuose (Brevitas Ornata: the Forms of Small Literature in the Pub-lications of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the 16th-17th Centuries 1998, Brigita Speičytė, Poetinės kultūros formos: LDK palikimas XiX amžiaus Lietuvos literatūroje (The Forms of Poetic Culture: Legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Lithuanian Literature of the 19th Century) 2004, Dalia Dilytė-Staškevičienė, Kristijonas Donelaitis ir Antika (Kristijonas Donelaitis and Antique) 2005. Also, we must admit that very important regional research of the cultural history of Polish-Lithuanian Common-wealth today is not satisfactory and that a closer collaboration between the scholars of the two countries.

Few programme works could be defined as vivid samples of national literary history transformations to regional history: History of the Literary Cultures of east-Central europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries (eds. Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer, vol. I-II, Amsterdam: Johns Benjamins Publishing, 2004–2006), Baltic Postcoloni-

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alism (ed. Violeta Kelertas, Amsterdam: Rodopi Editions, 2006), We Have Something in Common: The Baltic Memory (eds. Anneli Mihkelev, B. Kalnačs, Tallinn, The Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, 2007). All these works investigate and shape the literary history according to the regional comparative principle that unites national cultures according to certain aspect. Such awakening of variously profiled regional recollection may be motivated only by the self-aware-ness peculiarities of modern literature interpreters. Would separate nations like to attribute themselves to the general regional model of culture as well as the ethnocentric one? Could regional recollection development efforts be interesting and important to individuals of separate nations and their societies? And how – in this case – the opposition “own vs. outland-ish” could be legitimated? This is because the identity of any phenomenon is perceived only in comparison to that of the other.

Czesław Miłosz – who is not only a prominent intellectual and Polish writer, a Nobel Prize winner, but also the most typical descendant of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who grew up in Lithuania, in the estate of his parents by Kėdainiai and graduated from Vilnius University – can help us to find an answer to this rather difficult question. He – as well as Adam Mickiewicz – could not imagine his cultural identity without either Po-land or Lithuania while designing the multicultural profile of the “Native Europe” ( or “Rodzinna Europa”, or “Native Realm”):

I understand well that this little book is rubbing salt into wounds and thus will raise anger in most readers. The Polish orthodoxy exists with a typical variety of shades and I have noticed that I have wound up beyond its borders [...]. It may be that some persons feel badly in ethnocentric cultures. Their usefulness might exactly manifest itself by designing the “connective tissue” where it seems impossible to reconcile national contradictions. 8

It was exactly his charismatic personality and books – which were abundantly translated in Lithuania that regained its independence in 1991 – that educated Lithuanians and Polish in new national awareness and new interrelations that were severely aggravated following the proc-lamation of Lithuania’s independence in 1918 and the occupation of Vil-nius by Polish armed forces in 1919. This writer would be interesting to us due to his constant identification with his made-up “Native Europa” or “Native Realm”, which he described as East-Central Europe. Although being aware that his Utopian concept of East-Central Europe would not

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be popular either among nationalistically-minded, or among cosmopolitan people, he persistently and consistently wrote about it in numerous books: “My roots are there in the East and this is an axiom. Even if it is hard or unpleasant to explain what I am, still I need to try”9. This means that he was encouraged to do that by a very important internal cultural and psy-chological intention to search Europe for difference of his own “Native Realm” (East-Central Europe) that would not coincide either with Western Europe, or with Russia. This is how Milosz explained the identity of the regional “Native Realm” (East-Central Europa): 1) it is a region of nations that historically was under constant threat of German and Russian military forces and national oppression, and acted as an “object of sale” in politics; 2) a writer had an especially high social status in them; 3) their literature focused on politics, moral, metaphysical, and philosophical problems; 4) its works were influenced by western borrowings which were originally reworked beyond recognition; 5) the form of creating – a “lack of form”; 6) it is a region that experienced the annihilation of Jews who used to reside there in great numbers; 7) and finally, these are mostly intermixed languages and cultures that can best understand each other10.

The famous Czech writer Milan Kundera – who was a great supporter of Miłosz’s idea of Central Europe – was mostly concerned in differentiat-ing the Region from Russia by underlining the Region’s greater rationality and influence made by Enlightenment ideas, meanwhile indicating works by Dostoevsky as typical examples of Russian simulated sentimentality. Miłosz emphasized this East-Central Europe difference from Russia even by contrasting privileges of noblemen and tradition of the Parliament of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Russian monocracy of the tsar. And the resistance of – East-Central Europe from Western Europe was reasoned by him with the help of ideas regarding Western literature creat-ed among ruins of values as it was expressed by Robbe-Grillet in interna-tional writers’ conferences. So the opposition of West and Central Europe is still valid on the stale stereotype of opposition of hedonistic Roman Empire and barbarians from the East. We can trace the tradition of such interpretation and at once its ironic travesty from the Greek poet Con-stantine Cavafy’s (1863–1933) Waiting for the Barbarians (1904) to the Lithuanian mythologist Gintaras Beresnevičius’s (1961–2006) book im-perijos darymas: Lietuvių ideologijos metmenys: europos Sąjunga ir Li-etuvos geopolitika XXi a. pirmojoje pusėje (Forging an Empire: Sketches of Lithuanian Ideology: The European Union and Lithuanian Geopolitics

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in the First Half of the 21st Century, 2003). The stereotypical attitude of Westerners that the East poses only a menace of barbarians is once again resurrected in these works with no hidden ironic distance, and the para-dox of a barbarian identity is discussed. The myth of the “Native Realm” could be continued by adding yet other exotic “peculiarities”, in Lithua-nia the most popular of which was the idea of synthesis of the Western and Eastern Cultures (Stasys Šalkauskis, Sur les confins de deux Mondes, 1919). But for us, the development motivation is no less important than the content of the “Native Realm” idea.

The creation of the myth or ideological concept of “Native Europe” (“Native Realm”, East-Central Europe) is not only limited to the desire to learn more about oneself through comparing oneself to other Europeans. Miłosz also explained a desire of this new identification from his prag-matic “American point of view” that he gained after emigration from So-viet Poland to the USA. He proposed that the myth of the “Native Realm” is very important for daily life purposes and practical cultural education of others. It might help the West to better learn about something that recently seemed so totally alien, only “barbaric”, “unknown”, and “new” Europe. According to Miłosz, the creation of the “Native Realm” concept helps resisting the cultural globalization and nivelation:

I will make no secret of the fact, that while talking about Central Europe I am simply looking for a stick I could use to fight not only the East but also the West. You see, I always denied the fact that I had been remade into a West European or American writer.11

In the global space of science and studies, the “Native Realm” con-cept gives a chance to design an appealing general university course and required materials (handbooks, samplers, and readers), as isolated and weak national cultures from Central and East Europe would not anchor themselves in study programmes of US and European universities. Be-sides, Miłosz believed that it is very important to discover a new identity model for your own culture that would overreach the border of classical nationalism. And the regional cultural identity could become that identity model as it would no longer dispose of extremeness of “pure nationality” that already lost its appeal, but would still help preserving its distinction:

If the nineteenth century patriotism examples are suffering a crisis, a new identity is sought for. Thus, my family myths and my constant focus on a

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Polish-Lithuanian duality probably means the same – I am looking for an identity beyond the classical borders of nationalism as it is described in the handbook of the professor Chrzanowski.12

These briefly phrased Miłosz’s thoughts and ideas, I hope, may en-courage us to seriously consider a possibility of the regional cultural memory and regional identity.

The book entitled History of the Literary Cultures of east-Central eu-rope: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 29th centuries (eds. Mar-cel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer, vol. I-II, Amsterdam: Johns Benjamins Publishing, 2004–2006) – which was written by a large group of authors of various nationalities – provides us with the postmodern deconstruction of separate national literatures and remodelling into the wider regional cultural model of East-Central Europe. It practically realizes the Central European cultural concept, which was rather widely discussed by Miłosz and Kundera. Editors and publishers of the aforementioned book used the term “imagined communities” employed by Benedict Anderson and do not believe that their offered imagined East-Central European cultural model would be somewhat better than the former imagined ethnocentric culture models, but hope that its intention to pursue an encouraging open-ness of national culture and the need for a better culture is the most im-portant one at the moment, for regional multicultural literary studies are “destroying” the insularity and purity rather than the national treatment of literature by focusing on the local/global investigation of relation be-tween facts. In this book, the history of national conflicts in East-Central European Region is transformed to the new communicative structure of cultures that enrich each other.

The Baltic Region culture and literature researchers are taking a simi-lar path as well. In these latter years, scientists of the Under Tuglas Litera-ture Centre of the Estonian Academy of Science, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, and Lithuanian Literature and Folklore Institute have been carrying out joint memory researches of the Balts and organizing biannual conferences as well as launching the periodical of their works entitled We Have Something in Common: The Baltic Memory,(Tallinn: The Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, 2007) and Back to Baltic Memory: Lost and Found in Literature 1940-1968, (ed. Eva Eglaja-Kristone, Benedikts Kalnačs, LU Literaturas, folkloras un makslas instituts, 2008). The Baltic memory is an ambiguous concept which has several different meanings

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that initiate different trends of research: ethnographic, geographic cultural and historic political. If to perceive the Balts as a separate branch of the Indo-European parent language and pre-Christian culture of the ancient tribes, we would deliver the genetic lingual and ethnographic research (in which – apart from Lithuanians and Latvians – the cultural heritage of an-cient tribes of the Balts would be remembered, i.e. Prussians, Yotvingians (Sudovians), Selonians, Curonians, Semigallians, meanwhile Estonians as Finno-Ugric people would not be attributed).

If to perceive the Balts as nations of the Northern Europe that settled by the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) we would be able to carry out their geographic cultural research. In Lithuanian culture, this trend of self-perception would be supported by a strongly entrenched image of Vilnius and the entire Lithuania as Athens of the North, which stimulates the geographical axis of Europe’s Southern and Northern countries. The genesis of the image of Athens of the North – works of Lithuania of the Renaissance, which on the basis of a similarity between the Lithuanian and Latin languages the theory of origination of Lithuanians from Ro-mans was derived13. The chronicles of Lithuania of the 15th–16th centuries (Bychowiec Chronicle) contain the legend about Palemon who came from Roma and gave the origin to the dynasty of Grand Dukes of Lithuania14. No wonder that the vision of Athens of the North was brought back again in visions of Oscar Milosz, a descendant of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, French symbolist, Lithuanian diplomat and active supporter of Lithua-nia’s independence in 191815. Following the restoration of independence in 1991, the conception of Athens of the North was meaningfully remem-bered and reiterated in the heading of the first independent cultural week-ly. Lithuania as a geographical cultural formation of Northern Europe was also described in books written by Kazimieras Pakštas The Baltoscandian Confederation (Chicago, 1942), Kultūra. Civilizacija, Geopolitika (Cul-ture. Civilization, Geopolitics, Vilnius, 2003), on the basis of whose ideas Silvestras Gaižiūnas initiated the Baltoscandian Academy in Lithuania in 1991.

If we perceive the Balts as an image of “three sisters” (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) living in USSR ocupation, the research should be di-rected towards historic political memory. It is exactly this direction that is taken by researches mentioned in the book. In the deep past (until the 18th century), the three Baltic States had little historic generalities. In me-

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dieval times, Estonia and Latvia did not create states or join the political power of their Nordic neighbours (Germans and Danish). Lithuania, on the contrary, created an Empire and played a significant part in the his-tory of Europe until the 16th – 17th century. A political union with Poland consolidated the historic relations of Lithuania with Central Europe where the place of Latvia and Estonia was marginal. Estonia and Latvia at the beginning of the 18th century and Lithuania following the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795) – although under more complicated conditions – were occupied by the Tsarist Russia. During the occupation the name of Lithuania disappeared from maps and official doc-uments, and became the “North-Western District” (Severo-Zapadny Krai). In 1918-1939, all three Baltic States gained and retained their independ-ence until the second occupation. Following the Secret Protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a political spectacle takes place simultaneously in all three States – they all unanimously request “joining the USSR” in 194016. Unfortunately, only the common trauma of two occupations by the Russian Empire and later by the Soviet Union now creates realistic preconditions that allow talking about distinction of the region of three Baltic States. Although in the Soviet Union, cooperation of 15 “brotherly republics” was delivered and controlled from Moscow, it is no secret that Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians have always been feeling especially closely bound by a common destiny. This region’s identity clearly mani-fested itself at the end of the ninth decade after national reform move-ments were established and the so-called Singing Revolution commenced with its most important action – the Baltic Way (1989), when people were holding hands all the way from Vilnius to Tallinn to express their joint will to be liberated from the idea of the Soviet Union. It is only in 1991 – following the restoration of independence and statehood – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia made their way into the outlook of the international community as new states. This sort of gave rise to the political usage of the term “Baltic” that unites three states (in interwar period, Finland and sometimes Poland as states that got liberated from occupation of the Rus-sian Empire after the First World War were also named Baltic States).

The prospect of comparative researches of Baltic cultures can no long-er be imagined without postcolonial, ideological criticism, and new in-novations in historicism that are wider introduced in the book Baltic Post-colonialism (ed. Violeta Kelertas, Amsterdam: Rodopi Editions, 2006). Concentrating on the topic of national distinction that predominates in the

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narratives of national literature and basing on new methodology as well as value focus, joint researches of cultural memory of the Baltic States are currently being carried out.

Most middle and new generation Lithuanian literary scholars come to very clear conclusions that the developing phenomena of globalism (capital movement flows and new investments, labour force migration, spreading of book translation software, and tourism, the boom of commercial enter-tainment culture, and development of international scientific programmes) demands from a historian to change the stereotype of national literature narration. And that is only possible in two ways: strengthening the self-criti-cal reflection and activating the sense of multicultural present. The growing national and cultural diversity of the contemporary humankind is the key cause that forces historians to look for new narrative methods by replacing national models by the regional comparative ones where no literature would be presented as universal or privileged. As the contemporary historian can no longer ignore the criticism of historicism and metanarrative, and can no longer continue telling the sacred national literary history, the problem of literary regionality becomes one of the most actual.

References1 Antanas Kulikauskas, Lituanistika dabarties visuomenėje: tradiciniai ir

nauji uždaviniai: i diskusijų stalas, Priklausomybės metų (1940-1990) lietuvių visuomenė: pasipriešinimas ir/ar prisitaikymas (“Lithuanian Linguistics in the Contemporary Society: Traditional and New Problems: The 1st Round Table Discussion, Lithuanian Society during the Years of Dependence (1940–1990): Resistance and/or Conformity”), Vol. 2, Vilnius: World Lithuanian Philology Community, 1996, 58.

2 Violeta Kelertienė, Lengvai pučia keturi vėjai lietuvių literatūrologijoje, Priklausomybės metų (1940-1990) lietuvių visuomenė: pasipriešinimas ir/ar prisitaikymas (“Four Winds Breeze in Lithuanian Literary Science, Lithuanian Society during the Years of Dependence (1940–1990): Resistance and/or Con-formity”), Vol. 2, Vilnius: World Lithuanian Philology Community, 1996, 69.

3 Alfredas Bumblauskas, Lituanistikos tyrinėjimo būdai: naujos temos ir meto-dai: ii diskusijų stalas, Priklausomybės metų (1940-1990) lietuvių visuomenė: pasipriešinimas ir/ar prisitaikymas (“Research Methods for Lithuanian Linguis-tics: New Topics and Methods: The 2nd Round Table Discussion, Lithuanian So-ciety during the Years of Dependence (1940–1990): Resistance and/or Conform-ity”), Vol. 2, Vilnius: World Lithuanian Philology Community, 1996, 134.

4 Senoji Lietuvos literatūra: Literatūros istorija ir jos kūrėjai (“The Old Lithua-nian Literature: Literary History and Its Creators”), Vol. 17, Vilnius: ILLF, 2004; Senoji Lietuvos literatūra: istorijos rašymo horizontai (“The Old Lithua-

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nian Literature: Horizons of History Writing”), Vol. 18, Vilnius: ILLF, 2005.5 Priklausomybės metų (1940-1990) lietuvių visuomenė: pasipriešinimas ir/ar

prisitaikymas (“Lithuanian Society during the Years of Dependence (1940-1990): Resistance and/or Conformity”), Vol. 2, 1996; Lituanistika XXi amžiaus išvakarėse (“Lithuanian Linguistics on the Threshold of the 21st Century”) Vol. 2, 1997; Lituanistika pasaulyje šiandien: darbai ir problemos (“Lithua-nian Linguistics in the World Today: Works and Problems”), Vol. 3, 1998.

6 Saulius Sužiedėlis, istorijos politizavimas išeivijoje ir Lietuvoje, Lituanistika XXi amžiaus išvakarėse: tyrinėjimų prioritetai, metodai ir naujovės (“Politici-zation of History in Emigration and Lithuania, Lithuanian Linguistics on the Threshold of the 21st Century: Research Priorities, Methods, and Novelties”), Vol. 1, Vilnius: World Lithuanian Philology Community,1997, 18.

7 Artūras Tereškinas, Kūno žymės: seksualumas, identitetas, erdvė Lietuvos kultūroje (“Bodily Signs: Sexuality, Identity, and Space in Lithuanian Cul-ture”), Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2001, 124.

8 Czesław Miłosz, Tėvynės ieškojimas (“In Search of a Homeland”), Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 1995, 12.

9 Czesław Miłosz, Gimtoji europa (“Native Realm”), translated by J. Tumelis, Vilnius: Regnum Fund, 2003, 6.

10 Maištingas Czesławo Miłoszo autoportretas: Pokalbiai su Aleksandru Fiutu (“Czesław Miłosz: A Contradictory Self-Portrait: Conversations with Alexander Fiut”), translated by B. Jonuškaitė, Vilnius: ALK/Alma littera, 1997, 340-353.

11 ibid., p. 345.12 ibid., p. 353.13 “We are drawing knowledge from Moscovians, which has nothing ancient and

can not invoke virtue as Ruthenian language is alien to us – Lithuanians, i.e. Italians who originated from Italian blood […]. Indeed, our forefathers Roman citizens and worriers arrived to these whereabouts”, Mykolas Lietuvis, Apie totorių, lietuvių ir maskvėnų papročius (“On Customs of Tartars, Lithuanians, and Moscovians”), quote from Alfredas Bumbliauskas, Senosios Lietuvos is-torija 1009–1795 (“The History of Ancient Lithuania 1009–1795”), Vilnius: Paknys Publishing House, 2005, 206.

14 “Prince by the name of Palemon, [...] [was running], bringing along everything and five hundred Roman patricians with him. [...] And he [Palemon] sailed to the Mediterranean taking with him one astronomer who understood stars. They were sailing by ships over the sea in North direction and – bypassing France and England – entered the Kingdom of Denmark. And in the Kingdom of Den-mark they entered the sea-ocean and over this sea-ocean they arrived to the river mouth where Neman River enters the sea-ocean”, Bychowiec Chronicle, quote ibid(em), 207.

15 Neringa Putinaitė, Šiaurės Atėnų tremtiniai (“Exiles of Athens of the North”). Vilnius: Aidai, 2004, 68–92.

16 Mika Waltari (Nauticus), Tiesa apie estiją, Latviją ir Lietuvą (“The Truth about Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania”), translated by Stasys Skrodenis, Vilnius: VPU Publishers, 2005, 55.

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XXI amžiaus pastoralė: „naujieji išvietintieji“ šiandienos prozoje

The XXIst Century Pastoral: “New Displaced Persons” in

Contemporary Prose

Livija MAČAiTYTėVytauto Didžiojo universitetasS. Daukanto g. 58, LT-44248 [email protected]

SantraukaIšvietinimas (deteritorizacija) arba tautos be namų, be valstybės (tėvynės) ir be

savasties jausena – tarsi natūralus, skirtingų literatūrologų bei kultūrologų įvairia-pusiškai tyrinėtas, visą egzodo literatūrą vienijantis motyvas (Jonas Mekas Seme-niškių idilės, Pulgis Andriušis Anoj pusėj ežero, Marius Katiliškis užuovėja). Para-doksalu, tačiau šiuolaikiniai lietuvių literatūros tekstai, panašiai kaip XX amžiaus istorinių pervartų (karai, tremtis, sovietinė okupacija, cenzūra) situacijoje „gimę“ kūriniai, aktualizuoja sudėtingą išvietinimo situaciją. Tačiau šis „bevietiškumas“ kitoks nei egzodo rašytojų tekstuose, nes XX amžiaus pabaigos – XXI amžiaus pradžios žmogus atramos bei stabilumo jau nebesuranda nei gimtosios šalies gam-toje, tėviškės laukuose, nei urbanizuoto miesto gatvėse (Marius Ivaškevičius isto-rija nuo debesies, Jolita Skablauskaitė Trečiasis tūkstantmetis, Jurga Ivanauskaitė Miegančių drugelių tvirtovė, Gintaras Beresnevičius Paruzija, Andrius Jakučiūnas Tėvynė, Sigitas Parulskis Murmanti siena, Renata Šerelytė Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai). Pačia bendriausia prasme pastoralė vaizduoja nostalgiją praeities, kokios nors hi-potetinės laimės ir ramybės būsenos, kuri realybėje buvo kažkaip prarasta (John Anthony Cuddon). Būdama simboliniu prarastojo rojaus sinonimu, ji suponuoja gamtos vs kultūros dichotomiją, pirmykštį natūralumą bei archaiškumą priešprie-šindama urbanistinei miesto kultūrai. (Post)kolonialistinėse literatūrose kalbėjimas pastoraliniais terminais įgyja ideologinį valentingumą. Kaip pastebi Lawrence Bu-ell, „naujųjų pasaulių“ pastoralizacija, t.y. kolonizuotų šalių bei jų gyventojų vaiz-davimas kaip kitų, kitokių, laukinių, egzotiškų davė pradžią skirtingų nacionaliz-mo formų gimimui Europoje, Lotynų Amerikos šalyse, Afrikoje bei Karibuose. Taigi, savo esme pastoralė reiškia ir globiančią, tautos gyvybingumą saugančią bei nacionalinį jos savitumą arba kultūrinį skirtumą reprezentuojančią uždarą vietą – topos. Visos tapatybės, o ypač tautinės, yra sukuriamos, išreiškiamos ir patvirti-namos erdvėje ir erdvės. Tačiau ar, perfrazuojant vieną iš pastoralizmo teoretikų Terry Gifford, pastoralė egzistuoja šiuolaikiniame rašyme? Ar apskritai įmanomas kalbėjimas pastoraliniais lokalios kultūros skirtingumo, nacionalinės savivokos išskirtinumo ar idealizuotais tautos bendruomeniškumo terminais, jei dominuojan-

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tys šiuolaikinės globalizacijos „produktai“ – tautinių tapatybių niveliacija, nacio-nalinių kultūrų hibridizacija, lokalaus virtimas globaliu, subjekto susvetimėjimas, atskir(t)umas, bevietiškumas, pasimetimas laike ir erdvėje? Žvelgiant į šiuolaiki-nės lietuvių literatūros prozos tekstus, ryškėja specifinių vietų ir/ ar erdvių (tiesa, naujų, visiškai netikėtų bei neįprastų, lyginant su visą XX amžių dominavusia kultūrine tradicija) pastoralizacija. Tad koks yra esminis kalbėjimo pastoraliniais terminais šiuolaikinėje lietuvių literatūroje tikslas (pastoralinio naratyvo intencio-nalumo klausimas)? Kokį vaidmenį pastoralė atliko/ atlieka lietuvių kultūroje bei visuomenėje? Kokią tautą mato/ vaizduoja lietuvių literatūros kūrėjai šiandien? Ir koks vaidmuo pastoralei, kaip specifinei nacionalinės kultūros formai, tenka pa-kitusioje bei nuolat kintančioje XXI amžiaus pradžios situacijoje? Siekis atsakyti į šiuos klausimus, kartu praplečiant tradicinę pastoralės (kaip konkretaus bei api-brėžto literatūrinio žanro) sampratą, yra esminis šio straipsnio tikslas.

Esminiai žodžiai: pastoralė, tautinis tapatumas, kultūrinis skirtumas, trečioji erdvė, (be)vietiškumas, šiuolaikinė lietuvių proza.

SummaryDeterritorialization, or the sense of the nation without a home, without a coun-

try (Motherland) and without a self-image in the exodus literature is already an al-most natural, widely analyzed, and universally accepted phenomenon. Under criti-cal historical circumstances, which threaten the survival of the nation (wars, exile, Soviet occupation, censorship), the forest, wood, nature (later the village was in-cluded) were the places to which people were running, where they were searching for support and shelter, and which were perceived as the lost paradise – pastoral. The end of the 20th c. And the beginning of the 21st century mark radical changes not only in Lithuanian literature, but also in the national consciousness and self-awareness. The subject of contemporary literature is a rover, a nomad, a person without place, lost in space and in time, and lost in the seared virtues. However, this „unplaceness“ differs from the texts of the exodus authors, because the person of the end of the 20th c. and the beginning of the 21st century finds support and stability neither in the nature of motherland, fields of homeland, nor in the streets of the urbanized city. So where are running Lithuanians running today? Where are they retreating? Where do contemporary Lithuanian writers “place” them, when the traditional pastoral toponyms no longer “work“ in the changed environment of the beginning of the 21st century (globalization processes, technical achieve-ments, influence of European mentality or Western traditions)? How and for what purpose is the image of the Lithuanian as other being created in contemporary prose? In order to answer these questions, the texts of Marius Ivaškevičius istor-ija nuo debesies, Jolita Skablauskaitė Trečiasis tūkstantmetis, Jurga Ivanauskaitė Miegančių drugelių tvirtovė, Gintaras Beresnevičius Paruzija, Andrius Jakučiūnas Tėvynė, Sigitas Parulskis Murmanti siena, Renata Šerelytė Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai, are used in this article.

Key words: pastoral, national identity, cultural difference, third space, (un)placeness, contemporary Lithuanian prose.

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Šiandieninės kultūrinės globalizacijos rezultatas – spartėjantis XXI amžiaus pradžios subjekto atsisaistymas nuo konkrečios vietos. Nors ats-kirose tautinėse bendruomenėse ar kasdieninėje vietinės aplinkos patirtyje dar išlaikomas tam tikras artumas, tačiau jį žadina jau ne lokalizuotos vietos savitumai – „globalizacija iš esmės pakeičia santykį tarp mūsų gy-venamų vietų ir mūsų kultūrinių užsiėmimų, patirčių bei tapatumų“, pa-stebi Anthony Giddens1. Panašias pakitusio socialinio, kultūrinio bei ge-opolitinio gyvenimo realijas reflektuoja ir šiuolaikiniai lietuvių literatūros prozos tekstai. Dar Donelaičio bei Baranausko tekstuose „gimusi“ ir visą XX amžių išlikusi agrarinė–mitinė pasaulėjauta, neišardomas žmogaus ryšys su žeme, atramos bei užuovėjos suradimas natūraliose, civilizacijos „nepaliestose“ erdvėse (miškas, pelkės, neįžengiami raistai) ar bendruo-meninėje kaimo aplinkoje – tai išimtinai lietuviškąją kultūrą bei jauseną atspindintys motyvai. Reikšminga, jog XX amžiaus pabaigos – XXI am-žiaus pradžios tekstuose šioms, tradiciškai lietuvį saugančioms bei glo-biančioms vietoms, suteikiamos visiškai priešingos – visos tautos mirtį, moralinį žlugimą, destrukciją pranašaujančios reikšmės:

Pakeisti mus nutarė [pabr. L.M.]. Šitą mišką ant mūsų užsiundė. Mes nuo maro drimbam, nuo bado ir nuo mirties, o miško nei badas žudo, nei jam val-gyti stinga. Jį žemė maitina, o mūsų nebe. Jau mįslių nebeliko. Jei medis pro kaminą žvalgos – kokia čia mįslė2.

Amžių sandūros pokyčiai (globalizacija, vakarietiškosios kultūros „įsi-veržimas“, lemiantys nacionalinių kultūrų niveliaciją, o kartu ir neišven-giamą tautinių tapatumų maišymąsi) lemia, jog nyksta lokalinės kultūros nulemti skirtumai. Urbanizacija, šiandieninė globalizacija, migracija „iš-blukina“ tradicinius lietuviškumo modelius, paremtus pirmaprade gam-tiškąja (vėliau – agrarine) pasaulėjauta. Nyksta mitologizuoti lietuvio ry-šiai su natūralia aplinka, įsigalint vartotojiškam, pragmatiškam požiūriui į gamtą („Jau mįslių nebeliko. Jei medis pro kaminą žvalgos – kokia čia mįslė“). Visa Lietuvos žemė – destruktyvi, agresyvi žmogaus atžvilgiu, todėl bet kokios pastangos ieškoti užuovėjos bei atramos tradicinėje na-cionalinėje kultūroje bei lietuvių tautos sąmonėje vis dar „gyvose“ ideali-zuotose, saugiose vietose (mitinė žemė-globėja, partizanus globęs miškas, tėviškės sodyba, kaimas su savo bendruomene) tampa beprasmiškos.

XX amžiaus pabaigoje – XXI amžiaus pradžioje pasirodžiusiuose lie-tuvių literatūros kūriniuose subjekto nesugebėjimas / negalėjimas atrasti stabilios, saugios, jo egzistenciją įtvirtinančios vietos tampa dominuojan-

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čiu teksto elementu, kurio pagrindu kuriami apokaliptiški, nacionalinės kultūros „mirtį“ bei tautos egzistencijos nestabilumą akcentuojantys nara-tyvai (Marius Ivaškevičius istorija nuo debesies, Gintaras Beresnevičius Paruzija, Jurga Ivanauskaitė Miegančių drugelių tvirtovė, Herkus Kun-čius Gaidžių milžinkapis). Šiuolaikiniam subjektui saugumo nesuteikia nei tradiciniai pastoraliniai toponimai (žemė, kaimas, miškas, bažnyčia, tėvų sodyba ar vaikystės namai), nei tuo labiau – šiuolaikinės kultūros su-konstruotos dirbtinės erdvės: miestas, ligoninės, muziejai, gatvės. Regis, XX amžiaus pabaigoje – XXI amžiaus pradžioje visoje Lietuvos teritori-joje nebelieka vietos, į kurią, kaip į krikščioniškąjį prarastąjį rojų ar anti-kinę mitologinę svajonių ir iliuzijų šalį – Arkadiją3 būtų galima pasprukti ir kuri teiktų nusiraminimą bei užuovėją chaotiškų, žmogaus atžvilgiu destruktyvių, jam priešiškų jėgų apsuptyje.

Tokiu būdu šiuolaikinė lietuvių literatūra atskleidžia bei aktualizuoja sudėtingą „naujųjų išvietintųjų“4 situaciją. Nors šiandieninę kultūrą tyri-nėjantys teoretikai teigia, jog „vietos jau nėra aiškios mūsų tapatumo atra-mos“5, o subjekto deteritorizacija bei išvietinimo / bevietiškumo pojūtis yra tapęs kone natūralia XXI amžiaus žmogaus, kaip „pasaulio piliečio“ būsena, visgi analizuojamuose lietuvių literatūros tekstuose tokia ne-vie-tos (ang. non-place) patirtis suvokiama kaip destruktyvi visos tautos at-žvilgiu, todėl patiriama kaip trūkumas:

Tik Vilnius dar laikosi, o kur jis – jau gerai nežinau. Mes irgi į Vilnių einam, kaip ir tu, bet pametėm kryptį [pabr. L.M.]. Tikriau, kryptį mes žinom, rytuo-se Vilnius buvo, kai į Vilnių išėjom, bet ar dar jis ten – negaliu pasakyti, nes viskas taip pasikeitę, kad galėjom pro šalį praeiti. Negi koks basas kareivis bėglys pasakys, kokia čia vieta. Jis dar mažiau žino, nes šitos šalies iki karo ir sapnuose nematė.6

Kalbėjimas „mes“ (visos tautos) vardu, laikmečio sociokultūrinių bei geopolitinių reikšmių aktualizavimas, išvietinimo / bevietiškumo jausenos reflektavimas, kartu akcentuojant vietos / įvietinimo poreikį, leidžia kal-bėti apie postkolonialistines šiuolaikinės lietuvių literatūros linkmes.

Vieta (ang. place) postkolonialistiniu požiūriu suvokiama kaip sąsa-jinė, istorijos determinuota bei neišvengiamai susijusi su tapatumu. Ji, kitaip nei erdvė (ang. space) nėra vertybiškai bei ideologiškai neutrali, kadangi bet kurioje kultūroje bei kasdieninio gyvenimo praktikose būtent vieta (o ne abstrakti geografinė erdvė) yra matoma, girdima, užuodžiama, įsivaizduojama, mylima arba nekenčiama, jos bijoma arba ji yra garbina-

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ma, apie ją svajojama7. Kaip teigia prancūzų antropologas Marcas Augé, pastovios, tradicinės, todėl kiekvieno tautos nario sąmonėje įsitvirtinusios kaip natūralios, artimos bei savos, šios vietos „kuria organišką socialumą [...] teikia kultūrinį tapatumą bei kultūrinę atmintį ir kasdien pasikartojan-čia organiška socialine sąveika jos gyventojus susieja su vietos istorija.“8

Taigi, vieta, kaip tikslingai (su)kuriamas, į tautinę savivoką į(s)teigiamas, o kartu tą pačią tautą vienijantis, jos bendruomeniškumą bei artimumo pojūtį skatinantis konstruktas, nėra emociškai, kultūriškai bei politiškai neutrali. Dar daugiau, būtent mitologizuota, kultūriškai bei emociškai „įmagnetinta“ vieta skirtingais istorijos tarpsniais turėjo (vis dar turi?) galią kurti bendruomeninius tapatumus.

Lietuvių literatūroje, jau pradedant Baranausku bei Maironiu, pastebi-ma natūralių, civilizacijos nepaliestų gamtos vietų pastoralizacija. „Kal-bėjimas pastoraliniais terminais bei tam tikrų kraštų / vietovių suvokimas kaip natūralių sričių, kur viskas galima kaip rojuje, būdingas kolonizuotų šalių / tautų literatūrai“, pastebi ir kultūrologas bei ekokritikas Lawrence Buell9. Todėl neatsitiktinai būtent natūralios, civilizacijos „nepaliestos“, neapvaldytos gamtos erdvės – giria, miškas – šio laikotarpio tekstuose tampa lietuvį globiančiomis, dvasinį nusiraminimą bei fizinį prieglobstį dramatiškose istorinėse aplinkybėse (karai, nutautinimo grėsmė) sutei-kiančiomis vietomis. Po Antrojo pasaulinio karo, atsidūrus Vokietijoje, jau nebe giria, o kaimas – ta vieta, kuri sapnuojasi prarastojo rojaus peizažais. Įvairiose pasaulio šalyse istorijos jėgų išblaškyti lietuvių rašytojai sugrįžta į kaimą, kaip į idilinę vietą, kurios galbūt jau nebėra, o gal niekada ir ne-buvo (Marius Katiliškis užuovėja, Jonas Mekas Semeniškių idilės, Pulgis Andriušis Anoj pusėj ežero).

Kritinėmis, tautos išlikimui grasinančiomis istorinėmis aplinkybėmis (karai, tremtis, sovietinė okupacija) miškas, giria, natūrali gamta, o vėliau ir kaimas – tai vietos, į kurias bėgama, kuriose ieškoma atramos bei užuovėjos ir kurios suvokiamos kaip simbolinis prarastasis rojus – pastoralė10. Bene geriausiai šio laikotarpio nacionalinės kultūros, kuriamos tautinės pastora-lės, o kartu ir lietuvių tautos savivokos savitumą atskleidžia J. Mekas:

Aš pavadinau savo skiltį Laiškai iš Niekur. Bet skaitydamas visus šituos laiš-kus aš jaučiau, kad tie laiškai irgi buvo iš Niekur. Jeigu neturi žemės, tai tu esi niekur [pabr. L. M.].Žemė, žemės, žemei, žemę, žeme, žemėje, o, žeme!Apleisk žemę – ir visi miestai sugrius.Apleisk valstiečius – ir pradėk kasti savo paskutinę duobę11.

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Tad visą XX amžių būtent pastoralinių naratyvų pagrindu formuoja-mas lietuvio – žemės vaiko, gamtos mylėtojo, darbštaus, dvasingo žmo-gaus vaizdinys, kuris lietuvių kultūroje bei nacionalinėje savivokoje įtvir-tina agrarinį tautos tapatumą bei mentalitetą (lietuvių literatūroje tipiškas bei nuolat atsikartojantis lietuvio – žemdirbio vaizdinys). Pastoraliniai toponimai: gimtoji žemė, laukai, kaimas, miškas, giria, gamtos peizažai, sodyba įsitvirtina lietuvių kultūroje, tapdami lietuviškumo bei nacionali-nio savitumo simboliais. Dar daugiau, toks pastoralinis susisaistymas su mitologizuota, kultūriškai bei emociškai „įmagnetinta“ vieta tampa sim-boliniu visos tautos išlikimo, ilgaamžiškumo garantu:

Ir ūkininkai, žemdirbiai, valstiečiai buvo, yra ir bus - - ir aš visados būsiu su jumis, kur bebūčiau: čia, ten, ar Niekur.12

Perfrazuojant J. Meko mintis, galima teigti, jog šiandienos lietu-vių literatūros subjektas yra „nei čia, nei ten, nei niekur“. XX a. pab. – XXI a. pr. ženklina radikalius pokyčius ne tik lietuvių literatūroje, bet ir tautos sąmonėje bei savivokoje. Šiuolaikinės literatūros subjektas – tai klajoklis, nomadas, žmogus be vietos, pasiklydęs erdvėje ir laike, pasi-metęs „išskydusiose“ vertybėse. Išvietinimas (deteritorizacija) arba tautos be namų, be valstybės (tėvynės) ir be savasties jausena – tarsi natūralus, savaime suprantamas bei visą egzodo literatūrą vienijantis motyvas (Jo-nas Mekas Semeniškių idilės, Pulgis Andriušis Anoj pusėj ežero, Marius Katiliškis užuovėja). Paradoksalu, tačiau šiuolaikiniai lietuvių literatūros tekstai, panašiai kaip XX amžiaus istorinių pervartų (karai, tremtis, sovie-tinė okupacija, cenzūra) situacijoje „gimę“ kūriniai, aktualizuoja sudėtin-gą išvietinimo situaciją. Tačiau reikšminga, jog šis „bevietiškumas“ kitoks nei egzodo rašytojų tekstuose, nes XX amžiaus pabaigos – XXI amžiaus pradžios žmogus atramos bei stabilumo jau nebesuranda nei gimtosios ša-lies gamtoje, tėviškės laukuose, nei urbanizuoto miesto gatvėse.

Gyvojoje gamtoje žmonės (homo sapiens) išsiskiria tuo, jog „yra natū-ralūs svetimšaliai, būtybės be fiksuotų įpročių, galinčios lokalizuoti save iš esmės bet kur“13, šiek tiek ironizuodami tvirtina ekokritikos atstovai. Ir visgi tokio įvietinimo, susisaistymo su konkrečia vieta poreikis yra gyvy-biškai būtinas, ypač kalbant apie postkolonialistiniam rašymui atstovau-jančius tekstus. Grįžtant prie pagrindinio straipsnio tyrimo objekto – šiuo-laikinės lietuvių literatūros, negalima nepastebėti, jog Mariaus Ivaškevi-čiaus istorija nuo debesies, Jolitos Skablauskaitės Trečiasis tūkstantmetis, Jurgos Ivanauskaitės Miegančių drugelių tvirtovė, Gintaro Beresnevičiaus

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Paruzija, Andriaus Jakučiūno Tėvynė, Sigito Parulskio Murmanti siena, Renatos Šerelytės Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai – tai tik keletas simptomiškausių prozos tekstų, perpildytų įvairiomis atskiro subjekto ar visos tautos ne-vietos patirtimis. M. Ivaškevičiaus, G. Beresnevičiaus bei S. Parulskio veikėjai vaizduojami kaip pasimetę laike ir erdvėje, panardinti egzisten-cinėje „tarpo“, tuštumos būsenoje. Visa aplinka suvokiama bei patiriama kaip grėsminga, destruktyvi subjekto atžvilgiu:

Aš esu dabar burbulinis.Marija net truputį šyptelėjo.– Ir nėr ko šypsotis, boba, nes ir tu burbulinė sapne. Visa šeimyna – lietus, ir nėr kur padėti akių, prie lango prieiti bijau, nes ponas gali išgarint.14

Apskritai, bene visuose šiuolaikiniuose lietuvių literatūros prozos tekstuose Lietuva – tai netikrumo, egzistencinio nestabilumo, netvarumo erdvė. Aktualizuojamas tradicinių pastoralinių įvaizdžių bei stereotipinių lietuviškųjų tapatybių „nusidėvėjimas“, negalia, neveiksmingumas. Pra-dedamas reflektuoti išėjimo / pasitraukimo iš tradicinių, visą XX amžių lietuviškumą bei lietuviškąją kultūrą reprezentavusių vietų poreikis bei „kitų“, nepažintų erdvių ilgesys:

Tai toks apavas. Lietuva.Svarbu ją laiku sunešioti15. Turėčiau ieškoti kitokios – kvapnios ir nenudėvėtos tėvynės. Tektų pamažu ją jaukintis, paskui – ja rūpintis ir ją puoselėti. Tai, naujajai, nebeužtektų vien šuniško prieraišumo ir ištikimybės16.

„Kitų“, pirmapradiškai gamtiškų, nesukultūrintų erdvių ilgesys ypač juntamas moterų rašytojų (J. Ivanauskaitės bei J. Skabklauskaitės) prozos tekstuose. Tokios erdvės trūkumas kompensuojamas atsiveriančia erdvine tuštuma ar visa apimančia ne-vietos patirtimi:

Nerimas skyrėsi nuo kankinamo namų ilgesio visų pirma tuo, kad jame nebu-vo namų [pabr. L. M.] – kaip salos, kurioje gali šnekėtis su paukščiais ir au-galais. Atsivėrė erdvė, kurioje ne tik kad nieko nebuvo, bet nieko ir negalėjo atsirasti17.

Benamiškumas ar plačiąją prasme suvokiamas bevietiškumas, kaip įžvalgiai pastebi vienas postkolonializmo teoretikų Homi K. Bhabha, yra

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„paradigminė kolonializmo bei postkolonializmo būsena“18. Būti išvie-tintu šiuo atveju nereiškia būti benamiu. Reikšminga, jog tokiu būdu pa-tiriama benamystė (bevietiškumas) atveria galimybę naujų / papildomų / tarpinių teritorijų atsiradimui19. Sekant šia mintimi galima daryti išvadą, jog ir šiuolaikiniuose tekstuose dominuojanti bevietiškumo, nepritapimo bei nesutapimo su applinka su jausena bei visa apimanti erdvinė tuštu-ma atsiveria kaip teigiamybė – vienintelė įmanoma, išankstinių identitetų nekanotuota, kultūros bei ideologijos „nepaženklinta“ vieta. Tai savotiš-ka Homi K. Bhabha minima „trečioji erdvė“, atverianti galimybę lokalių kontrakultūrų, kaip opozicijos dominuojančioms hegemoninėms kultū-roms, radimuisi20.

Anksčiau straipsnyje aptarti, lietuviškosios kultūros bei specifinės tau-tinės kultūrinės vaizduotės „pagimdyti“ tradiciniai pastoraliniai įvaizdžiai (miškas, giria, kaimas) visą XX amžiaus antrąją pusę egzistavo kaip opo-zicija sovietinės ideologijos primetamoms mąstymo bei rašymo klišėms. Tačiau prieš ką kovoja ir kam priešinasi šiuolaikiniai lietuvių rašytojai visą lietuvių tautą iškeldami už Lietuvos ribų (M. Ivaškevičiaus Ma-dagaskaras) arba patalpindami mistinėje siurrealistinėje erdvėje (J. Ska-blauskaitė Trečiasis tūkstantmetis)? Atsakymą pateikia S. Parulskio Mur-manti siena pasakotojas:

Staiga visi suprato, kad visiškai nepažįsta savęs, kad laisvas žmogus yra bau-ginanti, alinanti, sunkiai pakeliama nežinomybė. Niekas taip neslegia žmonių kaip nežinomybė. Dar sunkiau buvo susitaikyti su mintimi, kad pasikeitė tik-tai kameros dydis ir jos kaimynai, bet ne pats kalėjimas21.

Globalizacija, pakitusi geopolitinė pasaulio situacija (Europos Sąjun-gos atsiradimas, vakarietiškosios kultūros įsigalėjimas) suvokiama kaip grėsminga, destruktyvi, niveliuojanti lokalios lietuviškosios kultūros pa-matines vertes. Šiandieninės visa apimančios globalizacijos ir nacionali-nės kultūros sąveikoje, pasak H. K. Bhabha, atsiveria visiškai kokybiškai nauja kultūrinė – „trečioji erdvė“ (ang. third space). Ir būtent ši simbolinė erdvė atveria galimybę ribinėms tapatybėms rastis22. Tokių naujų tautinių tapatumų paieškas / atsiradimą lietuvių literatūroje simbolizuoja lietuvio kaip kito, salos mentalitetą turinčio subjekto atsiradimas G. Beresnevi-čiaus Paruzijoje.

Apibendrinant galima teigti, jog išvietinimas (deteritorizacija) arba tautos be namų, be valstybės (tėvynės) ir be savasties jausena – tarsi na-tūralus, skirtingų literatūrologų bei kultūrologų įvairiapusiškai tyrinėtas,

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visą egzodo literatūrą vienijantis motyvas (Jonas Mekas Semeniškių idi-lės, Pulgis Andriušis Anoj pusėj ežero, Marius Katiliškis užuovėja). Para-doksalu, tačiau šiuolaikiniai lietuvių literatūros tekstai, panašiai kaip XX amžiaus istorinių pervartų (karai, tremtis, sovietinė okupacija, cenzūra) situacijoje „gimę“ kūriniai, aktualizuoja sudėtingą išvietinimo situaciją. Tačiau šis „bevietiškumas“ kitoks nei egzodo rašytojų tekstuose, nes XX amžiaus pabaigos – XXI amžiaus pradžios žmogus atramos bei stabilumo jau nebesuranda nei gimtosios šalies gamtoje, tėviškės laukuose, nei ur-banizuoto miesto gatvėse (Marius Ivaškevičius istorija nuo debesies, Jo-lita Skablauskaitė Trečiasis tūkstantmetis, Jurga Ivanauskaitė Miegančių drugelių tvirtovė, Gintaras Beresnevičius Paruzija, Andrius Jakučiūnas Tėvynė, Sigitas Parulskis Murmanti siena, Renata Šerelytė Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai).

Šiuolaikiniuose tekstuose lietuviai vaizduojami kaip salos gyventojai (G. Beresnevičius Paruzija), iškeldinami už Lietuvos ribų (M. Ivaške-vičius Madagaskaras, istorija nuo debesies), patalpinami mistinėje siur-realistinėje antirealybėje (J. Skablauskaitė Trečiasis tūkstantmetis, R. Še-relytė Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai). Regis, pakitus tradicinei, kelis šimtmečius gyvavusiai, iš kartos į kartą perduotai tautos sąmonei bei savivokai (G. Beresnevičiaus Paruzijoje itin akcentuojamas lietuvio – žemdirbio, kaimo žmogaus virtimas „saliečiu“), tradiciniai pastoraliniai toponimai praranda esminę savo paskirtį, o kartu ir galią saugoti / globoti / globti lietuvį. Dar daugiau, atrodo jog būtent dėl tokių lietuvių tautos transformacijų šiuolai-kiniai rašytojai yra „priversti“ ieškoti visiškai naujų, XXI a. pradžios lie-tuvio mentalitetą geriausiai atspindinčių / įkūnijančių / įsteigiančių vietų.

Paradoksaliai, tačiau kaip ir šiuolaikiniais prozos tekstais kuriamų naujųjų pastoralinių naratyvų, taip ir lietuvių egzodo literatūroje bei su-dėtingomis tautai istorinėmis aplinkybėmis (karai, tremtis, nutautinimo grėsmė, cenzūra) „gimusių“ tekstų tikslas išlieka tas pats – (su)teikti guo-džiančius, tautos egzistenciją, jos tapatumą bei savitumą (pa)tvirtinančius sapnus.

Literatūra1 John Tomlinson, Globalizacija ir kultūra, ALK, 2005, 114–115.2 Marius Ivaškevičius, istorija nuo debesies, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjun-

gos leidykla, 1998, 68.3 Arkadija – antikos poeto Vergilijaus „išradimas“, antikinė mitologinis iliuzijų

ir svajonių šalis, gaivios žalumos viešpatija, tam tikras krikščioniškojo Rojaus

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sodo atitikmuo, vėliau kaip itin stiprus meninis įvaizdis naudotas daugelio ra-šytojų. Žr. in: wolfgang Iser, Fiktyvumas ir įsivaizdavimas, Aidai, 2002.

4 Doc. dr. I. Žakevičienės pavartotas terminas, kuriuo pažymima ypatingaDoc. dr. I. Žakevičienės pavartotas terminas, kuriuo pažymima ypatinga šiuolaikinio – XXI amžiaus – lietuvio būsena, reiškianti įtampą tarp paklus-numo išoriniams globalizacijos dėsniams ir kartu slaptą ilgesį primirštos, tačiau vis dar gyvos, lietuvio sąmonėje bei savimonėje slypinčios senosios agrarinės pasaulėjautos arba „niekur nedingusios, tačiau nebemadingos Arkadijos“. Žr. in: Irena Ragaišienė, Vijolė Višomirskytė, Indrė Žakevičienė, ekokritikos akivarai, Kaunas, 2007, 168.

5 John Tomlinson, Globalizacija ir kultūra, ALK, 2005, 114.6 Marius Ivaškevičius, istorija nuo debesies, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjun-

gos leidykla, 1998, 68–69.7 Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism, Blackwell, 2005,

63.8 John Tomlinson, Globalizacija ir kultūra, ALK, 2005, 117.9 Lawrence Buell, The Future of environmental Criticism, Blackwell, 2005,

144–145.10 Remiamasi dr.Remiamasi dr. Vijolės Višomirskytės įžvalgomis.11 Jonas Mekas Laiškai iš niekur, Baltos lankos, 1997, 29.12 Ten pat, 145.13 Lawrence Buell, The Future of environmental Criticism, Blackwell, 2005,

71.14 Ivaškevičius Istorija nuo debesies.(Ten pat, p. 134). 15 Marius Ivaškevičius, istorija nuo debesies, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjun-

gos leidykla, 1998, 75.16 Andrius Jakučiūnas, Tėvynė, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla,

2007, 81.17 Renata Šerelytė, Mėlynbarzdžio vaikai, Vilnius: Alma littera, 2008, 140.18 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge: London and New York,

1994, 9.19 Ten pat, 9.20 Ten pat, 9.21 Sigitas Parulskis, Murmanti siena, Baltos lankos, 2008, 290.22 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge: London and New York,

1994, 218.

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IV. TrAVeL LITerATUreKeLIoNIŲ LITerATŪrA

L‘Itinéraire de la Terre Sainte de Fr. Pantaleão de Aveiro – un voyage de spiritualité

The Itinerary of the Holy Land by the Monk Pantaleão de Aveiro – a

Spiritual Voyage

Brolio Pantaleão de Aveiro piligrimystės į Šventąją Žemę užrašai kaip dvasinės kelionės vadovas

Maria Teresa NASCiMeNTO universidade da MadeiraCampus universitário da Penteadaário da PenteadaFunchal – [email protected]

SummaryPublished approximately at the turn of XVI century, the work by the Portu-

guese Franciscan monk, Father Pantaleão de Aveiro, pursues his long-term pil-grimage aims to the Holy Land, and offers the pious readers the chance to be guid-ed in this long voyage departing from Venice. The itinerary falls within the travel literature framework. From the narrator-character’s view, the reader perceives the narrative unfolding of the stages of his trip, the historical, geographical and topo-graphical description of the islands and villages, as well as the report of the navi-gation incidents, such as storms and ship wrecks. The stopovers often offer the chance for the encounter with distinct cultures and religions; yet, the view given to the latter does not necessarily mean the expression of the unsolved dichotomies from the point of view of faith. Upon arrival at the Holy Land, the reader partici-pates in the narrator’s long tour to each holy destination site to which tradition has seen it assigned the Lord’s presence. The meaning of each of the places is worth for his own ability to evoke The Sacred History. The relation between the writing of the narrative of the visit to the Holy Land and the Bible is, thus, essential. The holy text comprises the source text, resorting not only to the facts having already disappeared, but also to the existing ones but with new features. The describing

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KELIONIŲ LITERATŪRA

subject becomes thus the mediator of an observable reality in which details and precise indications abound. These make a world tangible to the reader to which converge different religious ideologies, claiming to share the same spiritual spac-es. But the experience of the sacred allows one to overcome the sensible percep-tion of reality. Through Divin God, the subject may access the unreachable, and the pilgrimage trip also plays the role of an encounter, unlikely to take place, as at the outset, from the Other’s perspective, either the native’s or the foreign pilgrim’s one, but foreshadows the desirable union with the Creator, instead.

Keywords: itinerary, Holy Land, travel literature, Other, Creator, unreachable.

Objectifs• Situer l’itinéraire de la Terre Sainte de Fr. Pantaleão de Aveiro

dans le cadre de la literature de voyage;• Identifier des marques de spiritualité.

JustificationL’importance de l’ouvrage dans la littérature portugaise du XVIe siè-

cle et le nombre réduit d’études qui lui sont consacrées explique l’option de cette étude.

MéthodologieAnalyse critique de l’itinéraire de la Terre Sainte.L’itinéraire de la Terre Sainte du moine franciscain, Pantaleão de

Aveiro, dont nous ignorons la date de naissance et de décès, est publié à Lisbonne chez l’éditeur Simão Lopes en 1593. Il s’agit d’un texte de proportions considérables (264 folios) qui a connu encore deux rééditions au XVIe siècle1. Ce genre de récit était attrayant et le voyage amenait aux sources de la chrétienté. À l’origine des récits de voyage, on peut situer ceux de pèlerinage qui, à partir du IVe siècle après la découverte du sé-pulcre de Jésus-Christ, du Golgotha et de la Croix, ont constitué un filon fleurissant pour ce type de littérature. Jérusalem devrait même à partir de la considération de son importance mythique et religieuse s’ériger au cen-tre de la cartographie européenne2. Le lecteur est ainsi invité à partager les joies spirituelles de l’écrivain-pèlerin, comme le sont «les dévots et dési-reux de visiter la Terre Sainte et ses endroits dans lesquels le Fils Unique du Père éternel Dieu et notre Seigneur a bien voulu naître et mourir»3.

Le titre, itinéraire, reflète ainsi un double voyage, mené dans l’espace et dans l’esprit. Au bout de ce voyage, et comme dans tous ces types de récits, auteur et lecteur auront pu enrichir leurs connaissances vis-à-vis de

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IV. TRAVEL LITERATURE

l’Autre, leur égal, ou de l’Autre, le Créateur. Abandonnons-nous avec eux dans ce voyage au départ de Venise passant par Corfou, Zante, Candia, Escarpanto, Paphos, Limisso, Salines, Nicosie, Japho, Rhama, Jérusalem, Belém, Biro, Cinyil, Damas, Baruch, Syro, Sydon, Zibileth, Tripoli, Fa-magouste et enfin Corfou.

Les motivations du voyage sont expliquées dès le début, dans une dédicace au lecteur. Longtemps tenus les propos de la visite à la Terre Sainte, l’obéissance due à l’ordre monastique ne l’avait pas encore rendu possible jusqu’à l’invitation du prêtre Bonifacio de Araguza.

L’écrit, dicté dès le premier moment, permettrait de soustraire à l’oubli les chemins parcourus, les expériences vécues, mais une réflexion plus profonde a voulu les faire partager avec tous ceux qui, désireux de partir en pèlerinage, n’auraient pas pu concrétiser leur dessein. La confirmation de la qualité du style fondé sur des «mots rudes et grossiers» suit le topos de la modestie.

Deux chapitres précèdent le voyage proprement dit. En effet, le récit commence déjà en Italie avec la réunion des moines, éparpillés dans diffé-rentes régions, pour remplacer, pendant une période de trois ans, ceux qui attendent à Jérusalem. C’est le moment où se réalise le Concile de Trente, sous le pontificat de Pie IV et Pantaleão d’Aveiro, accompagné du Prê-tre Gardien de Jérusalem, a le privilège de s’y rendre, ce qui fait retarder le voyage, les premiers cinquante-huit moines les ayant précédés de trois mois vers l’Orient. À Venise, lieu de départ, se rejoignaient les pèlerins et commerçants de diverses nationalités, tout en essayant de respecter les périodes comprises entre novembre et le huitième jour de l’Épiphanie, non conseillées à la navigation. Le Chapitre II – «De la façon d’embarquer» offre à profusion les détails qui concernent les préparatifs du voyage y com-pris les tarifs fixés selon les conditions d’embarquement – avec ou sans ali-mentation à bord, transport, assurance et charges dans la Terre Sainte.

Questions de méthodologieLa rédaction de l’itinéraire est ultérieure à la réalisation du voyage.

Nous pouvons très bien imaginer l’auteur muni d’un carnet de notes pour enregistrer les endroits visités, pour relater ses impressions, et surtout pour laisser des précisions importantes pour ceux qui plus tard prétendraient se rendre à la Terre Sainte. Dans ce sens, le récit pourrait ne pas respecter exactement l’ordre suivi dans les visites effectuées pour mieux accomplir son rôle de guide auprès du lecteur.

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Pour cette raison, le texte ne manque pas de consignes d’orientation: les points cardinaux trouvent leur complément dans les expressions «à droite/à gauche; montant/ descendant» ou encore dans la notation des es-paces à parcourir, recourant à l’imagerie des distances atteintes par un coup de feu ou par un tir à l’arc. Les pas et leur correspondance en miles sont aussi un important instrument de mesure. Pour que lecteur puisse juger de la souffrance de Jésus, sont indiqués les pas qu’il a dû parcourir entre la maison de Caïphe, celle de Pilate et le Calvaire. À Jérusalem, à l’intérieur de certains monuments, c’est la quantité de marches qui est in-diquée pour signaler la transition d’une pièce à l’autre.

Dans la dédicace, déjà l’auteur tenait des propos, répétés jusqu’à la satiété tout le long du récit, du respect de la vérité puisée dans le témoi-gnage de l’ouïe et de la vision.

Poursuivant cette cible nous le voyons écarter des opinions qui lui pa-raissent entrer en contradiction avec sa grande expérience vécue.

Le narrateur est extrêmement soucieux de l’authenticité des sources et la dévotion qu’il prête à un certain endroit est étroitement liée à la mé-moire perpétuée par les Écritures. La nature du récit et de son destinataire sont susceptibles d’imposer certaines contraintes à l’écrit. Il se peut ainsi, au nom de la vraisemblance, que l’auteur décide omettre des événements qui, malgré leur authenticité, pourraient ne pas être crus du lecteur. Cela arrive, par exemple, avec l’omission des détails concernant des événe-ments miraculeux survenus au Couvent du Sauveur. Sur le chemin de la Terre Sainte, à Corfou, le narrateur et ses compagnons, ayant été invités, cette fois-ci, par un groupe de Juifs, à assister à la circoncision d’un en-fant4, sont clairement mentionnés les motifs pour lesquels la cérémonie ne serait pas décrite, étant donné sa proscription après l’arrivée de la loi de la grâce. La décrire, pourrait en plus, éveiller la curiosité des Juifs de son époque, une affirmation qui nous laisse supposer que la lecture de l’itiné-raire par ce type de lecteur serait une possibilité envisagée par Pantaleão d’Aveiro. Une situation pareille, mais pensant maintenant aux lecteurs pieux chrétiens, évitant de les chagriner, consiste à élider le contenu des disputes théologiques produites à Damas, entre le narrateur et les Juifs portugais, le narrateur soulignant que l’histoire «prend un chemin un peu judaïsant»5. Ayant trouvé le moine franciscain qu’ils connaissaient du Por-tugal, et suite à de grandes manifestations de joie, les Juifs lui ont accordé une chaleureuse hospitalité, évitant toutefois d’évoquer les différences qui séparent les deux religions.

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Le Voyage et les périls de la merLe récit du voyage maritime met en relief les spécificités dominantes de

son genre: soit les routines à bord et les débarquements en fonction de l’ap-provisionnement d’eau et de nourriture ou les échanges commerciaux, soit les tempêtes inattendues qui font périr vies et embarcation. Reprenant les mots de l’ecclésiaste: «celui qui navigue dans la mer raconte ses dangers et nous nous émerveillons de les écouter»6 l’auteur évoque deux tempêtes. La première, survenue entre Zante et Candia7, a une durée de trois jours et trois nuits, la description mettant en relief l’impuissance de l´équipage et des voyageurs face à la furie des éléments. Craignant la mort, les hommes demandent la confession et appellent à la miséricorde du Seigneur.

La seconde, à Paphos, a des conséquences tragiques pour un navire français de grand calibre qui, après s’être fait écrasé contre les rochers, subit la cupidité des corsaires. Le contraste baroque entre le malheur des naufragés morts ou blessés et la splendeur ancienne du vaisseau ne laisse personne insensible8.

Les deux épisodes décrits montrent bien la profonde corrélation en-tre Dieu et la mer, et l’histoire racontée par un des passagers du bateau naufragé en est la preuve, imputant la faute du désastre aux péchés des hommes qui avaient construit l’embarcation grâce à la sueur des pauvres. Les voyageurs eux-mêmes étaient avides de richesses et parmi eux, il y en avait qui pratiquaient presque la sodomisation. Ignorant les deux aver-tissements envoyés par Dieu, les hommes persistaient dans le vice. Le récit, donnant à voir le spectacle des sinistrés, a des couleurs tragiques: les larmes affleurent aux yeux et le chagrin au cœur. Mais quand la vie se voit menacée, l’homme se sent plus proche du Créateur et fait, maintes fois, des promesses de changement de vie. Il ne manque au témoignage ni l’exemple de la conversion d’un jeune Juif ni le faux serment d’une femme juive. L’ayant trouvée plus tard, professant son ancien credo, elle répondrait que c’était son Dieu qui l’avait sauvée de périr dans la tempête.

La religion de «Franquia» et autresLe mot «Europe» dans le texte est la plupart du temps remplacé par

celui de «Franquia». Plutôt que la désignation d’un espace géographique, «Franquia» désigne le lieu d’où proviennent tous ceux qui obéissent à la Sainte Église et pratiquent la religion selon les rituels latins. «Franquia» est ainsi point de départ et de retour prenant comme référence la Terre Sainte et également une marque de distinction à l’Orient9.

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À Jérusalem, de visite à la Maison Sainte qui garde le Sépulcre de Jésus, les entrées se font en fonction de l’origine des pèlerins et de ceux de «Franquia» où l’on leur exige, en plus de l’identification, un paiement supérieur à tous les autres.

Franquia marque aussi le point de vue du sujet de l’énonciation. Nous pouvons dire ainsi que la perception du monde se fait selon l’idéologie de «Franquia», c’est-à-dire, selon les rites latins du christianisme institué comme paradigme.

Durant son séjour à la Palestine, le narrateur doit, pour des raisons multiples, et souvent contraignantes, contacter Juifs, Maures, Arabes, Turcs et les différentes communautés chrétiennes chargées de surveiller la Sainte Maison. Ces dernières méritent une attention particulière dans le récit qui s’en occupe le long de sept chapitres, selon l’ordre d’antiquité de leur mission: Grecs, Arméniens, Georgiens, Jacobites, Chrétiens de l’Abyssinie ou du Prêtre Jean des Indes, Chaldéens et Latins10. Définir chaque communauté correspond à la situer dans le contexte d’une prati-que idéologique conforme à celle de l’Église Catholique, celle qu’on suit à «Franquia» . Caractériser chacune de ces communautés consiste donc à la repérer face aux degrés des scissions par rapport aux rites occiden-taux. L’approche émotionnelle du narrateur vis-à-vis ces peuples s’attache beaucoup à leur éventuelle prédisposition de changement, allant à la ren-contre de la manière latine de vivre le christianisme.

Sans tenir compte de grandes dissemblances, le narrateur ne s’exempte cependant pas de réserver aux Grecs, qu’il accuse de haïr les Chrétiens la-tins, sentiment qu’ils partagent avec les Georgiens, toute sorte d’épithètes injurieuses, dénonçant même chez eux la pratique régulière du péché de simonie11.

Dès le départ de Venise, les pèlerins savaient déjà que, en arrivant à Jérusalem, ils seraient à la merci des Maures et des Turcs. En effet, il faudrait leur payer, de façon arbitraire totale, des sommes d’argent qui al-laient garantir simultanément leur sécurité et le droit d’accéder à certains endroits. L’itinéraire est assez prodigue en détails qui reflètent ce trafic d’influences qu’il faut gérer et savoir marchander. De ce type de contacts nés d’une convivialité toujours forcée pourraient déclencher des relations apparemment amicales comme celles qui s’instituent entre le narrateur et ses compagnons intégrés dans le cortège de la femme du vice-roi de Da-mas et son neveu, responsable de sa garde12.

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Le regard sur les infidèles n’est toujours pas négatif comme le prouve l’épisode ici brièvement raconté. Le monastère donnait directement sur la cour de la maison d’un Turc par une fenêtre dont les grilles étaient partiel-lement détruites. L’amitié entre les moines et cette famille, en particulier les femmes et les enfants, faisait que chaque jour le monastère recût des dons de nourriture. De peur que la communication entre les femmes et les moines pût acquérir des proportions nuisibles, les faisant tomber dans le péché, le Turc fut averti. Cependant, entièrement convaincu de l’honnê-teté de ses femmes et des moines, il refuse de faire disparaître la fenêtre, déclarant même son intention de la débarrasser du reste des grilles. Et ses arguments s’appuient sur des mots tellement sages, que son attitude convertit ce récit dans une véritable histoire exemplaire13.

ruines et mémoiresLa description de l’espace joue dès le début un rôle considérable dans

l’économie de l’itinéraire. La notoriété du site de Venise lui voit accorder tout un chapitre – le premier. Entamé le voyage vers la Terre Sainte, nous pouvons dire que, ce qui fait la progression du récit, c’est le changement des lieux, strictement liés à des manières distinctes de perception du sujet descripteur. Pendant la traversée des mers jusqu’à la Palestine, nous le voyons s’intéresser aux divers sites, aux gens et à leurs modes de vie. Ob-jet de caractérisation seraient ainsi les particularités physiques des diffé-rents peuples soit par leurs ressemblances, soit par leurs différences avec le réel connu. Sur la côte de la Dalmatie, le narrateur dirait par exemple avoir aimé la façon honnête des vêtements des gens en tout différents de ceux qu’il avait vu porter par les femmes en Italie et bien semblables à ceux des Portugais.

Digne de remarque serait également l’hospitalité de quelques-uns de ces peuples, ce qui permettrait la connaissance de leurs pratiques alimen-taires.

Le voyage maritime est susceptible d’évoquer par ci et par là les rap-ports que certains endroits ont avec certains épisodes de la mythologie qui ne sont cependant pas l’objet de grand développement, comme celui du dragon marin14. Il en va de même pour quelques notations d’ordre histo-rique. En fait la description du voyage maritime tient surtout au moment présent. En revanche, chacun des lieux de la Terre Sainte vit de la mé-moire, un mot récurrent dans l’écrit de l’itinéraire. La mémoire rattache le présent au passé et permet de remplir les trous:

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[…] bien que la Terre Sainte ait été entièrement détruite ou presque, on a une mémoire si étonnante des lieux et des choses de laquelle les Écritures Sacrées font écho parce qu’ils sont gravés comme sur des pierres vivantes qui ne se sont jamais tus du temps de Christ Notre Rédempteur et de ses Apôtres jusqu’à nos jours15.

La relation entre l’écrit du récit de la visite de la Terre Sainte et la Bi-ble est donc indispensable. Le texte sacré se constitue alors comme source textuelle qui vient au secours non seulement de ce qui a déjà disparu, mais aussi de ce qui existe avec de nouveaux traits.

La signification de chacun de ces endroits vaut ainsi par la capacité qu’il possède d’évoquer l’Histoire sacrée. La description ne se fait donc pas sans appeler au passé qu’on veut à tout prix présentier. Même lorsque les ruines sont les seules marques d’antan, le sentiment éprouvé devant une telle rencontre n’est jamais de dégoût, comme si le simple fait d’être là suffisait par lui-même. En effet, la constatation est que: «Le temps dé-truit tout, il n’y a que l’amour de Dieu qui est éternel»16.

La vérité est que le voyage à la Terre Sainte est un voyage d’amour, de rencontre avec le Créateur. Revoir les endroits qu’IL a parcourus et faire la prière, c’est pour pouvoir se rapprocher de LUI. Et l’itinéraire accom-plit aussi sa mission quand il propose des exemples de prières à l’usage des pèlerins, accompagnés de grâces (indulgences ou rémission des pé-chés) reçus lors de chaque visite. Le sentiment dont le narrateur nous fait part à plusieurs reprises est celui du soulagement, éprouvé au voisinage des espaces sacrés qui le rendent plus proche de Dieu.

Malgré toute la spiritualité inhérente à la construction de l’itinéraire, nous ne sommes pas devant un ouvrage de contemplation, constatation autorisée par le texte lui-même dans les mots que nous lui empruntons, écrits lors de la description de la crucifixion: «mon intention n’est pas d’écrire des méditations, ni de faire des exclamations, mais simplement de raconter et d’écrire ce que j’ai vu et j’ai marché, et de jouir d’avoir marché et d’avoir vu.»17

ConclusionLa Terre Sainte est un lieu de contradictions, où différents crédos sont

forcés de cohabiter, partageant un héritage dont chacun se réclame. La percevoir au gré de convictions individuelles pourrait invalider la rencon-tre avec l’autre. Mais l’expérience du sacré permet de dépasser la réalité sensible. Jouissant de l’amour de Dieu, le sujet peut accéder à l’insaisissa-

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ble et le voyage de pérégrination joue aussi le rôle d’une rencontre, qui ne se produit plus, comme au début, à l´égard de l’Autre, natif de ces endroits ou pèlerin étranger, mais préfigure la désirable union avec le Créateur.

Notes, bibliographie1 José Nunes Carreira mentionne l’intéret pour cette destination religieuse depuis

le siècle XV au Portugal. José Nunes Carreira, A Terra Santa em relatos Portugueses de Viagem (Séc. XVi-XVii)XVi-XVii), In: CADMO – Revista do InstitutoCADMO – Revista do Instituto Oriental, No. 13, Lisboa: Universidade de Lisboa, 2003, 55–78.

2 VideVide Fernando Cristóvão, Para uma Teoria da Literatura de Viagens, In: Fer-nando Cristóvão, coord. Condicionantes Culturais da Literatura de Viagem, Lisboa: Edições Cosmo, 1999, 13–52.

3 VideVide Dédicace au lecteur, in Fr. Pantaleão de Aveiro, itinerário da Terra Santa e Suas Particularidades, 7ªed. , Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 1927.

4 idem, Chap. IV, 13.5 idem, Chap. LXXXVI, 375.6 idem, Chap. V, 24.7 idem, Chap. V.8 Vide Chap. XI.Vide Chap. XI.9 L’explication du mot est donnée au Chapitre XVIII.L’explication du mot est donnée au Chapitre XVIII.10 Entre les Chapitres XXVIII et XXXIV.Entre les Chapitres XXVIII et XXXIV.11 idem, Chap. XVIII, 118.12 idem, Chap. LXXVI.13 idem, Chap. XXVI.XXVI.14 Vide Chapitre IX, 36. Maria Laura Monteiro Pereira mentionne le recours rela-Vide Chapitre IX, 36. Maria Laura Monteiro Pereira mentionne le recours rela-

tivement commun aux légendes par les auteurs des récits de pèlerinages. Maria Laura Monteiro Pereira, Viagens de Peregrinação à Terra Santa no século XVi: perspectiva de Frei Pantaleão de Aveiro, In: Ana Margarida Falcão, Maria Teresa Nascimento, Maria Luísa Leal, org., Literatura de Viagem. Narrativa.Narrativa.História e Mito, Lisboa:Edições Cosmos, 1997, 207–216.

15 idem, Chap. XVIII, 71.16 ibidem.17 idem, Chap. XXIV, 97.Chap. XXIV, 97.

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Encountering the Other in the Middle Ages: from Ibn Fadlan’s Account to Michael Crichton’s Fiction

Susitikimas su Kitu Viduramžiais: nuo Ibn Fadlano kelionių aprašymų iki Michaelio Crichton‘o mokslinės

fantastikos

Francesco GiuSTiSuM – università di roma “La Sapienza”[email protected]

SummaryThe Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, as we read it, is already the literary place

of a cultural encounter over centuries between an old Germanic heroic story and the Christian culture of the writer, a novel of our days which re-uses the story is the continuation of a tradition already inscribed in the old poem. But in the poem another main cultural encounter takes place. If a culture can, or can try to define himself and narrate its own survival through its hero, a hero needs an antagonist to define itself: Beowulf’s antagonist is the well-known monster called Grendel. The article focuses on the encounter with the otherness represented by Grendel in the original Beowulf and on how it changes in its rewriting in eater of the Dead by Michael Crichton (1997): from the threat morally and ethically posed of the medieval poem to the contemporary anthropological threat revealing our fear of stages of evolution. Crichton’s novel combines Beowulf’s story with Ibn Fadlan’s account of his journey among the Bulghars, which gives the novel a geographical and multi-cultural approach that was absent in the Anglo-Saxon poem. An epic poem is always a literary space where cultural encounters take place, but these encounters have to change their features to be felt as relevant in another time and in another culture.

Key words: Beowulf, reception, Michael Crichton, ibn Fadlan, rewriting.

Often epic poems contain a clearly stated wish, or a threat, of their own future survival, and this happens in Beowulf as well, when Whealte-ow expresses her wish to Beowulf, ll. 1215–12271:

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Wealhðēo maþelode, hēo fore þæm werede spræc:“Brūc ðisses bēages, Bēowulf lēofa,Hyse, mid hæle, ond þisses hrægles nēot,Þēo[d]-gestrēona, ond geþēoh tela ;Cen þec mid cræfte, ond þyssum cnyhtum wesLāra līðe; ic þē þæs lēan geman.Hafast þū gefēred, þæt ðē feor ond nēahealne wīde-ferhþ weras ehtigað,efne swā sīde swā sæ bebūgeðWind-geard, weallas. Wes, þenden þū lifige,Æþeling, ēadig! ic þē an telaSinc-gestrēona. Bēo þū suna mīnumDædum gedēfe, drēam-healdende!

Which in modern English translates to (my translation):

Wealhþēow spoke, before the company she said:“enjoy this necklace, Beowulf dear guy,with good luck, and use this cloak,from the treasures of the people, and have success;get well known for your strength, and be generous in advises to these boys; i will remember the reward.You gained that from near and far,men will praise you forever,as far as the sea, the house of the winds,surrounds the cliffs. Be blessed, prince,all life long! With justice i grant you precious treasures. Be good in deedsto my children, you who know the pleasures of the court. The success of this wish, its full realization, is guaranteed by the same

poem we are reading, which starts with the narrator’s words, ll. l–32:

Hwæt wē Gār-Dena in geār dagumþēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon,hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.

And in modern English, almost literally:

Listen! We have heard of the gloryof the kings of the Spear-Danes in former times,of the daring deeds those princes performed.

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The poem, as well as Beowulf’s tomb (or, according to Robinson, Be-owulf’s shrine3), is a monument to the hero’s memory. Beowulf wants and deserves a monument as a remembrance among his people, and he wishes to have it located on a cliff, so that seafarers will see it and, hearing that it is Beowulfes beorh, will carry his name to distant lands.

It could be that an epic poem is not a telling, but always a re-telling, and so it is the living-in-word evidence of its same assumption that the story which takes place in it is worth being re-told. And the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, as we read it, is already the literary place of a cultural encounter over centuries between an old Germanic heroic story and the Christian culture of the writer. The novel of our days which re-uses the story is the continuation of a tradition already inscribed in the old poem. But what is Crichton telling us? What is there to be shown to the reader?

What is meant to survive in the Anglo-Saxon poem besides Beowulf’s fascinating story, is a whole culture and the narrative of its definition. If a culture can, or can try to define itself and narrate its own survival through its hero, a hero needs an antagonist to define itself: Beowulf’s antagonist is the well-known monster called Grendel. Why a fantastic monster to define a culture?

It is well known that defining oneself is always a matter of position-ing. In order to know where we are culturally, morally, and ethically, we have to know that someone else is somewhere else, and that this “some-where” can only be the wrong place. This has always been usual in West-ern culture even geographically, Bernal suggests that the foundations of a topographic determinism can be traced back at least to Aristotle’s Politics (VII.7)4.

In Beowulf the main characterization of Grendel’s otherness, his mon-strosity, is expressed in religious and cultural terms which stress his anti-social behaviour. Throughout the poem he is called “Son of Cain”, and it must be remembered that by killing Abel, Cain destroyed his familial ties and subsequently, his ties with God; he is a “Wanderer”, someone who has no home and not even a proper family. He is described as someone who lives alone where no-one else can live. He is the exact opposite of the true nobleman living in the joys of the hall – all what Anglo-Saxons called dream: drinking, eating, music, story-telling – in the organized social life of the lord’s court. Grendel’s attacks of Heorot, at least before Beowulf’s arrival, are due to his hatred for the sounds of life in the court.

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At the same time, Grendel does not represent a far away otherness, a voyage is not required in order to meet his monstrosity; he is a menace to be found at one’s door, violating one’s home. Beowulf sails from Geat-land (in the south of Sweden) to Hrothgar’s court in Denmark with twelve fellows, looking for an adventure worthy of his strength, which is the hero’s usual quest for heroic deeds. Grendel is not his trouble, Beowulf is a stranger who comes to solve someone else’s problems. Nevertheless, he is a menace we are genetically tied with, as Cain is always Abel’s brother, and in the poem we are all Abel’s children5. This is a potentiality that can-not be dismissed when discussing Beowulf’s rewrites, a potentiality the novel tries to make use of.

Considering Kristeva’s concept of abjection, we can say that in the poem Grendel is a monster, that is to say a physical embodiment of the abjected, suitable for both cultures: the pagan warrior society of the An-glo-Saxons who created the story, and of the Danes whose story is nar-rated in it, because Grendel hates the dream, the highest achievement of that culture; and the Christian culture who gave a written text of this story, because of Grendel’s association with the evil counterpart of mankind, with Cain’s progeny6. To make use of this story in our contemporary cul-ture, to make Grendel be a monster for a contemporary audience some changes are required. If we want Grendel to be our abjected other, the object of our fear and rejection, something has to change in his cultural construction. Let us see how this aim is achieved by the American novel-ist Michael Crichton.

In order to write the first part of his fiction eaters of the Dead (1976)7, or better to say, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, Michael Crichton constructs a narrative what in Ibn Fadlan’s account of his journey among the Bulghars is just a description given by a curious observer of customs very different from his own, customs of people about whom he states: “I have never seen people with a more developed bodily stature than they”, but also “They are the dirtiest creatures of God” and “They are then like asses who have gone astray”8. In what in the foreword he declares to be a translation and reveals itself as a creative continuation of the medieval account9, Crichton creates characters (and cultural phenomena) to con-fer a fictional reality upon actions described by Ibn Fadlan, such as their manners when one of them falls ill, the funeral of one of the leading men of the Rus (or Rūsiyyah, as Ibn Fadlan calls them), their trading (mainly slave-girls), eating and drinking, wearing and washing, their sexual hab-

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its, their houses and boats. Mimicking the original, Crichton’s, Ibn Fadlan is continually concerned with telling the truth, giving an honest testimony of what he sees and what he has been told, so he often repeats: “I have seen with my own eyes” or, in the case, he honestly recognizes: “I do not know”10. In the beginning, in order to create his characters, Crichton takes names from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, then the story of Beowulf is taken to carry on his narration, obviously in a revised version, so from the Bulghar kingdom the Northmen (Crichton’s name for the Rus) move to Rothgar’s hall, first sailing the Volga northward and then sailing across the Baltic sea. To understand what happens in Crichton’s fiction we have to know more about Ibn Fadlan’s account and the occasion of its writing.

The early tenth century, when Ibn Fadlan lived, was the culmination of great changes in the Islamic world. Over a century had passed since the establishment of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate in 750, the Islamic religion was now firmly established from Spain to the frontiers of India and Is-lamic civilization had been transformed from a society bound to Bedouin tribal mores into a manifold international culture11. At that time Baghdad became the largest city in the world, with its densely populated urban area measuring about 10 kilometres by 9, roughly the same size as Paris within the outer boulevards12.

These are the features of the world in which Ibn Fadlan was born and lived as an Arab learned in the laws and customs of Islam and a confi-dant of the Caliph, so he probably felt he was bringing enlightenment, as well as a new faith to a region of backwardness and even savagery. Ibn Fadlan’s mission emerged in response to a message from the king of the Bulghars (whom he calls Saqaliba). He ruled a kingdom on the upper Volga River, roughly corresponding to modern Tataristan. His kingdom included many tribes who performed various pagan rites, as well as some Muslim converts, and it is likely that he sought to unite all of them under a single monotheistic faith, and thereby to consolidate his power by creat-ing, in effect, a state religion. Also, since he paid tribute to the Khazars (the principal hegemonic nation on the steppes of southern Russia) and wished to be free of this dependence, he sought the support of the en-emy of the Khazars to the south of their domains – the area ruled by the Caliph. The Bulghars’ king asked for aid in building a fortress and for instruction in the Islamic religion. The inhabitants of Baghdad at that time knew little about the north and, in a period of intense proselytizing of Is-lam, Ibn Fadlan was interested in what he saw and heard, as well as eager

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to instruct the king and his court in Islamic doctrines and practices. Ibn Fadlan started on Thursday, June 21, 921, following a route which veered from the well-known path called Silk Road (the main trade route between the Mediterranean and China’s rich northern plains) only to swing to the east of the Volga River, avoiding the domains of the Khazars.

In his journal Ibn Fadlan speaks about Islamic Arabs of the Caliphate, Turkic tribes, Bulghars, Khazars, but the most discussed section is that about the Rus. James Montgomery gives notes about this portion of the text, especially on the controversy over whether the Rus were only Swedes or a mixture of peoples engaged in trade with Bulghars and Khaz-ars13. Probably the Rus were mostly Scandinavian with Slavs and Finns joined to them over the course of years of settlement in today’s Russia, but the number of newcomers from Sweden probably was always small in relation to the native Slavs and Finno-Ugrian-speaking inhabitants. Sometimes the word “Viking”, “Varangian”, and “Rus” are used inter-changeably, but the first term was applied mainly to those Scandinavians from Norway and Denmark who behaved like pirates rather than mer-chants14. The Rus or Varangians, on the other hand, were primarily trad-ers, although not averse to plunder. Attempts to differentiate between the two designations have led nowhere, so we may consider the two as syn-onymous. The Rus had come to the east in the eighth century and had es-tablished themselves in Ladoga in the north as their principal settlement, but they later transferred to Novgorod. Then they moved south, and Kiev became their main town. By the time of Ibn Fadlan’s trip, the Rus had been well established in Novgorod, Kiev, and elsewhere, so those who came to the Bulghars to trade may have come from any Rus settlement, “although”, Frye writes, “those described by Ibn Fadlan, we may guess, came from the north down rivers from the Baltic”15. Those already settled in towns such as Novgorod probably would not have been so “wild” and “uncultured” as our author depicts them16.

Although the clothing, jewellery, and arms of the Rus interested Ibn Fadlan, our author was even more observant of and disgusted by the Rus practice of washing in a basin rather than having flowing water poured over their hands and face as the Muslims would do. The presumed supe-riority not only of the Islamic religion, but also of Islamic practices and customs over others makes the remarks of our author similar to the atti-tudes of many European travellers of the nineteenth century in Africa and Asia. Muslim ablutions and washing of the hands were contrasted with

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the uncleanliness of the Rus17. Among the customs of the Rus, the funeral rites made the deepest impression on our author, and Ibn Fadlan goes into detail about what he saw and what was explained to him by a translator. But he may have imported into the description Islamic ideas of paradise as a verdant garden where a dead person would meet relatives who had preceded him.

Frye comments that Ibn Fadlan’s mission was unsuccessful, the Bulghar king did not receive the money promised to him, and the fortress he wished to construct was not built. Close ties between the Caliphate and the Bulghars were not established. The members of the expedition re-mained in the bad graces of the Bulghar king, and they may have blamed their leader Ibn Fadlan for this enmity toward them. The latter did not succeed in converting the Bulghars from the Hanafi to the Shafi’I school of Islamic practices and law. In the end, even the book was forgotten, although excerpts from it were made by others writing about the north. No manuscripts of his account have survived, which is why the Meshhed manuscript was touted as unique, but it too was part of a later compila-tion.

Let us come back to Crichton’s fiction. Ibn Fadlan’s experiences with the Northmen, in Crichton’s version, involve him in being commandeered into joining, as the thirteenth warrior, the expedition of the Northmen leader Buliwyf in aid of King Rothgar and his people who are being be-leaguered by a seemingly-inhuman cannibalistic tribe, the “Wendol”. Af-ter the long journey across the North, Ibn Fadlan, Buliwyf and his war-riors arrive at the king’s hall, where they repel a ferocious night-attack by the Wendol. Subsequently, they ward off a further assault on Rothgar’s stronghold before braving the water-protected caves of the attackers. In the innermost cave Buliwyf kills the matriarch of the Wendol. Though fatally wounded by this “mother-creature”, he returns to the stronghold and in the hour before the next dawn stands with his men to face a final revenge attack from the Wendol, after which the man-eaters disappear into the mist, never to be seen again. The novel concludes with a descrip-tion of the ship funeral of Buliwyf and an account of preparations for the narrator’s departure to his own people.

Such as the Wendol are not a single monster but a tribe of anthro-pophagic primitive humans, and Grendel’s mother is a priestess and a god figure for the tribe, so the dragon is not a monster but a military formation of the Wendol when they are approaching for the final battle18. The battle

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for survival becomes a meeting and a struggle between cultures: the more developed heroic culture of the Northmen against the primitive culture of the Wendol, all witnessed by a third and self-presumed higher culture embodied by the Arab ambassador. The cultural impact is visible also in single confrontations, such as a monotheistic religion (Islam) against a polytheistic religion (Northmen) and writing against orality (with magic implications about writing).

Ibn Fadlan, as a mediating figure, functions as our educated guide and representative, and we, as readers, can identify with him and can sympa-thize with his responses as an un-heroic outsider on a heroic expedition. He is one of us, so when he is able to rise to the challenge we appreciate his bravery at a more human level than is possible with respect to Buliwyf who remains remote, inscrutable and heroic in the novel. So the location of the “exotic”, of the “other” in this western popular novel is not in the East but in the north, and the Arab is portrayed in a central positive role: he is a figure of sensitivity and rational enlightenment (that is why he gained the approval of the Arab-Americans), which also takes into the story the author’s rational mode. It is the Northmen who are presented as part brute and part noble savage. And, what is striking is that the unedify-ing details come directly from the original part of Ibn Fadlan’s report! In the novel as well as in the medieval account Ibn Fadlan is the bearer of a superior culture, and it is Crichton’s authorial will that in the end Ibn Fad-lan comes to respect his uncivilized companions.

About the monster, the Wendol, Crichton proposes an identity which is a scientific rationalization of Grendel and the dragon, and responds to his attempts to provide a believable basis for his story. The Wendol would be a group of Neanderthals, which somehow managed to survive alongside Homo sapiens down the millennia, and which wants its land back, the land taken by Rothgar’s people. If on the one hand this idea is a way of rationalising what is unknown and disturbing, giving a scientific explanation for its existence, on the other hand it causes an anthropologi-cal fear of a monster which is the evil side of mankind, such as Grendel in the poem, fear of something genetically tied with us. A monstrosity which reveals our inner fear of previous stages of our evolution and civilization: Ibn Fadlan hardly understands the uncivilized Northmen, the Northmen don’t understand the even less evolved Wendol. The result of incompre-hension is, with all probability, fear. Hugh Magennis is right in saying that “there is no psychological depth to the threat they pose”19, but not because

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they are not true evil or because they are existentially definite, as Magen-nis writes. The threat is not psychological because it is anthropological, which means that there is no moral distinction between good and evil, but between different states of evolution of the same species. The anthro-pological approach is made evident by the intense interest shown by Ibn Fadlan (and the author) in Wendol’s cultural features and products: small stone carvings in the shape of a pregnant woman with a bulging belly and breasts, skulls of giant bears mounted on stout poles to protect the borders of their land, the custom of collecting human bones and skulls, stone axes as weapons, bloody sacrifices.

This regressive travel along stages of evolution becomes a travel across geographical space and different cultures, whereas Beowulf’s sea-travel in the medieval poem is fundamentally a journey within the bound-aries of the same culture: Hrothgar is a representative of Beowulf’s cul-ture and Grendel is, of course a counterpart, but within the same culture. While the Anglo-Saxon poem offers Crichton a basic plot and some char-acters, Ibn Fadlan’s account gives Crichton the chance to turn a mono-cultural story into a true multi-cultural journey of discovery, using two sources written roughly in the same age.

Landscape has always some kind of charge in narration, and we can see a change in the descriptions of physical appearance and landscapes similar to the change we have just outlined in the monsters. In the medi-eval poem, Grendel’s inhospitable land and his mother’s cave under the water are morally charged by the Christian narrator, they are places where evil finds its home; in the novel, both the cold and windy North and the Wendol’s misty territory are seen from an anthropological point of view, that is to say as places where other peoples and cultures dwell, and they are constantly experienced, by the narrator and by the reader with him, as very different from the great City of Peace, Baghdad, where the narra-tor comes from. This interest in environments comes to Crichton’s novel directly from Ibn Fadlan’s original account and this special feature of the narrator’s voice is exploited by Crichton to carry on his imaginative continuation, also because it helps to create the effect of reality of the nar-ration to the reader who feels he is reading a true account of a journey of discovery turned by chance into a dangerous adventure.

While living together is possible for Ibn Fadlan and the Northmen, and in the end, a meeting place will be found, even if in hardship, and a kind of friendship will be born; it seems that the previous state of evolu-

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tion represented by the Wendol has to be rejected, literally defeated, in order to carry on one’s – properly human – life. It is worth noticing that Crichton somehow maintains another central point of the Anglo-Saxon poem: the reason why Grendel attacks Rothgar’s hall. In the poem Gren-del, in his anti-social attitude, hates the dream, the social pleasures of the court; in the novel Buliwyf and his company secretly believe the Wendol to be the right punishment for Rothgar’s pride, because he challenged the gods building such a great and rich hall as Hurot (Heorot in the poem). Again, it seems to be a battle in cultural terms, a battle against some kind of progress of civilization.

The Wendol are not one of Ibn Fadlan’s problems, he finds himself in-volved in someone else’s battle, but fighting together against this dark and incomprehensible primitive enemy he gets to know the Northmen and the Northmen get to know him better than before. Crichton’s pseudo-scien-tific writing creates a “realistic” cultural fight and consciously avoids the allegorical fight between good and evil which is usually seen in the poem.

Even if scientifically and not morally posed, the threat is not less radi-cal here. Reusing the old bound between Grendel and mankind, Crichton only updates this bound to bring it up to our contemporary culture. He introduces into the story our contemporary concern with almost-human, human-like or human-made beings, and our always problematic relation-ships with them. To make clear that this is a common trend, we can see that something similar happens in the recent Icelandic movie Beowulf & Grendel (Gunnarsson, Iceland, UK, Canada 2005). Another way to mod-ernize the story is to stress the sexual and genetic contact between Gren-del and Beowulf or Hrothgar, generically, speaking this is what happens in two other movies which rewrite the Anglo-Saxon poem: Beowulf (Graham Baker, USA 1999) and Beowulf (Zemeckis, USA 2007)20. Ruth Johnston Staver is substantially right when, stressing Crichton’s fictional elements, she writes: “Many readers will enjoy Crichton’s story , but it should be read with the understanding that it is not well-researched historical fiction, but rather fiction masquerading as history”21. But we should also say that the novel works perfectly as a rewriting of its sources and that Crichton’s fictional details (superstition about mist, treatment of slaves, sexual mat-ters, for instance) mixed up with historical truths contribute to the effect on the reader and to the success of the narrative22.

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References1 All quotations are from Beowulf. With the Finnesburg Fragment, edited by C.L.

Wrenn, fully revised by W. F. Bolton, London: Harrap, 1973.2 On Beowulf’s reception in general, see: Marijane Osborne, Translations, Ver-

sions, Illustrations. in: Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles eds., A Beowulf Handbook, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997, 341–72; Francesco Gius-ti, La ricezione contemporanea del Beowulf, intersezioni, December 2006, 3, 383–394, and Id., Il Beowulf nel Novecento: il fumetto e il romanzo, Linguis-tica e Filologia, 2006, 23, 211–229.

3 Fred C. Robinson, The Tomb of Beowulf. in: Fred C. Robinson, The Tomb of Beowulf and other essays on Old english, Oxford and Cambridge: Black-well, 1993, 3–19, where Robinson argues that Beowulf’s second funeral is an apotheosis, a ceremony of ritual deification.

4 Martin Bernal, Black Athena. The Afroasiatic roots of Classical Civilization, London: Vintage, 1987. In that passage Aristotle writes: “Having spoken of the number of citizens, we will proceed to speak of what should be their character. This is a subject which can be easily understood by anyone who casts his eye on the more celebrated states of Greece, and generally on the distribution of races in the habitable world. Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are fully of spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they retain comparative freedom, but have no political organization, and are incapable of ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but their era wanting of spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is like-wise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent. Hence it continues free, and is the best-governed of any nation, and, if it could be formed into one state, would be able to rule the world.”, Aristotle, The Politics, VII.7 (1327b, 19–33), ed. Stephen Everson, trans. Benjamin Jowett, revised by Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 165.

5 According to the story as narrated in the Bible we are all sons of Seth. Having Cain been killed before he could have children, God gave Eva another son, Seth, whose descendants were Noah and all the post-diluvian mankind.

6 Cfr. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror. An essay on Abjection, New York: Co-lumbia UP, 1982.

7 Michael Crichton, eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of ibn Fadlan, relat-ing His experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922, London: Vintage 1997, first published New York: Knopf 1976, with an Afterword by Crichton, “A Fac-tual Note on eaters of the Dead”, 182–6, 1993. Crichton’s novel was one of the two notable fictional rewritings of Beowulf in the 1970s, the other being John Gardner’s Grendel (New York: Knopf, 1971), which relates Grendel’s story from Grendel’s point of view, as a first-person narrative.

8 Richard Frye, ibn Fadlan’s Journey to russia, Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2005, 63–64.

9 Crichton adopts for himself the role of editor and scrupulous annotator of Ibn

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Fadlan’s sometimes puzzling account, supplying introduction, academic foot-notes and other documentations, some of which are real and some of which are made up. The author’s intention is not to engage in some kind of postmodern play with the possibilities of fictionality, but to transport the reader in a believ-able world making believable its words.

10 Commenting on Ibn Fadlan’s account Montgomery writes: “Perhaps, from an exclusively Arabic perspective, the most remarkable feature of this account of the Rūs is the impression it conveys of being essentially detached, indeed its almost scientific character, eschewing, by and large, the improbable, and blatantly fictitious, blemishes which loom all too large in the majority of the ac-counts of foreigners and foreign lands found in Arabic geographical and travel works. It is a consciously restrained narrative, which does not balk at the op-portunity to point to the cultural and religious superiority of Islam, but which is not drawn by this impulse into wildly extravagant tales, which often pruriently dwell on sexual improprieties. The account is not, with minor exceptions, a fusion of tall tales appropriate to a male assembly, the audience which proved very influential in shaping so much of the Arabic narrative style in the classical period, but is passably “ethnographic” observation, generally divested of rhe-torical filigree and of the propensity for risqué elaboration and the fantastic” in James Montgomery, ibn Fadlan and the rusiyyah, Journal of Arabic and is-lamic Studies, 2000, 3, available from www.uib.no/jais/content3.htm, 15 [July 2009].

11 Richard Frye, ibn Fadlan’s Journey to russia, Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2005, 3. Summaries of the work of Ibn fadlan exist, but this is the first com-plete English translation to be published of what we have of his account. A translation of the account up to the arrival in Bulghar was published by Robert P. Blake and Richard Frye, in 1949, Notes on the risala of ibn Fadlan, Byz-antina-Metabyzantina 1 (part 2), 7–37, and reproduced in Frye, islamic iran and Central Asia, London: Variorum Reprints, 1979, XXIX, 7–37.

12 Maurice Lombard, The Golden Age of islam, Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2004, 124–26.

13 “The Rūsiyyah in the passage which follows are a fine example of ethnic/social fluidity, combining, as Ibn Fadlān portrays them (assuming, of course, that he has not himself confused two distinct peoples, either with or without the ethno-nym Rūs), both essentially Varangian (costumary, among others) and Khazarian (regal) ethnic traits. It is quintessentially this fluidity that must be determined” and “Ibn Fadlān’s traders are the mercantile warrior elite who placed them-selves firmly at the top of the Slavic social scale, and his picture attests to the fluidity of the process of cultural and racial intermingling” in Montogomery, 3 and 14.

14 This is a much discussed identification among scholars. P. B. Golden writes: “The evidence is highly circumstantial at best. Given the complexities of their conjectured origins, it may, nonetheless, not be amiss to view the Rūs at this stage of their development, as they began to penetrate Eastern Europe, not as an ethnos, in the strict sense of the term, for this could shift as new ethnic elements

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were added, but rather as a commercial and political organisation. The term was certainly associated with maritime and riverine traders and merchant-mer-cenaries/pirates of “Sakāliba” stock (Northern and Eastern European, Scandi-navian, Slavic and Finnic)” in P. B. Golden., Rūs. in: encyclopaedia of islam, viii, Leiden: Brill, 1995, 618–29

15 Richard Frye, ibn Fadlan’s Journey to russia, Princeton: Markus Wiener 2005, 104–5.

16 “The developing society of the Mare Balticum region was certainly not a na-tional culture in the modern sense. The Danes, the Frisians, and the Rus op-erating there were a multiethnic, multilingual, and nonterritorial community composed of nomads of the sea and of urban dwellers in partly eastern, and partly polis towns and trading settlements. Confirming the theory that the mar-ket as an economic organization is the creation of traders and not of farmers or artisans, the Rus and Frisians appear as international merchants. In this kind of professional society of a “lower” culture, there is as yet no place for a literary or sacred language, the basis of a “higher” culture. In urban trading settlements, different languages served different functions. The vernacular was the medium of communication within the family and clan, while at least two or more ling-uae francae were reserved to referential usage. In short, a professional society developed a low-level, professional culture that was bound neither to a specific territory nor to a religion that might be expressed through a sacred, written lan-guage”, Omeljan Pritsak, The Origin of the rus’, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981, 27.

17 Discussing the writings of Ibn Fadlan and those of another Arab traveller, Ibn Rustah, Jaqueline Simpson comments: “The accounts of these Muslim writ-ers are tinged with the amused curiosity of men of an advanced civilization confronted with those they regard as barbarians, but on the whole they seem to present a reliable picture of the Scandinavian merchants plying their trade in Russia”, Jaqueline Simpson, everyday Life in the Viking Age, London: Bats-ford, 1967, 113.

18 The Wendol seems to be inspired to the berserkir, the bear-men of the legen-dary Germanic tradition.

19 Hugh Magennis, Micheal Crichton, ibn Fadlan Fantasy Cinema: Beowulf at the Movies, Old english Newsletter, Fall 2001, 35.1, 34-8, available from www.oenewsletter.org/OEN/archive.php/magennis35_1/essays/2/ [July 2009].

20 For a discussion of Beowulf by Graham Baker see my La ricezione contempo-ranea del Beowulf, intersezioni, December 2006, 3, 383-394,

21 Ruth Johnston Staver, A Companion to Beowulf, Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005, 191.

22 For a commentary on the truly Germanic material in Ibn Fadlan’s account and for a comparative view of this text and Beowulf see Hamilton Martin Smyser, ibn Fadlan’s Account of the rus with Some Commentary and Some Allusions to Beowulf. In: Jess B. Jr. Bessinger and Robert P. Creed, eds., Franciplegius. Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., London: Allen and Unwin, 1965, 92–119.

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The Immediacy of Reading Novels. Travel Fact and Fiction in André Gide’s Central Africa

Skaitymo betarpiškumas: Centrinė Afrika André Gide’o kūryboje –

faktai ir grožinė literatūra

Kai MiKKONeN P.O. Box 300014 university of [email protected]

SummaryAndré Gide’s departure for central Africa in the summer of 1926 followed

closely the finishing of his literary autobiography Si le grain ne meurt (1926) and the major novel Les Faux-Monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters, 1926). Some critics, thus, inspired by the implications that may be involved in this departure for his lit-erary career, have argued that Gide’s travel was in fact motivated by a wish to take distance from the limitations of the novel genre, not only from the Parisian literary establishment. The travel, consequently, would have been for Gide a means to turn away from the category of the novel, the genre with which he had recently, and amply, exposed his quarrel and dissatisfaction, especially in Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs. The writer-character Edouard’s journal, included in The Counterfeit-ers, also voices similar concerns about novelistic pretension and verisimilitude. However, the assumption that Gide travelled “away from” the novel is not easily reconcilable with the fact that the writer had in his baggage a number of novels and that during the journey he engaged in reading many of them with much pleas-ure, as reported in his travel journal from the former French Congo and Chad. The travelogue, published retrospectively in 1927 and 1928 as Voyage au Congo and Le retour du Tchad, was a continuation of the writer’s intimate Journal that he interrupted for the time of the travel. Frequently in these daily notes, the author points out not just the immersive qualities of fiction but structures much of his experience in Central Africa with the help of novels, especially in reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) and Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaf-ten (1809). Furthermore, Gide continues to interrogate in his entries the relation between mediated reality and the facts of reality, or between imagination, fiction and the resistance of facts — questions that are extensively developed in The Counterfeiters. Besides possible discontinuity, thus, there is compelling evidence for seeing continuity between the novel and the travel journal. In contrast to the “rejection of the novel” thesis, therefore, I develop in this article the idea that the

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germ of travel to Africa is already planted in fiction and that the travel journal reflects to a significant degree on the power and effects of fiction. In this regard, I will investigate the functions and uses of novel-reading in travel, with specific attention to Gide’s systematic exploitation of the novel as a structuring device of and for experience. The ultimate aim of the article is to illuminate the effects of complex games of generic mirroring, borrowing, and reversal between self-writ-ing and fiction.

Key words: André Gide, travel, novel-reading, fiction, genre, reality, media-tion, generic mirroring.

Reading is a central activity in André Gide’s novel Les faux-mon-nayeurs (1926) (The Counterfeiters), where almost everyone is an avid reader, if not also a writer. Reading literature, letters and journals struc-tures much of the characters’ experience. Reactions to books, journals and letters, and shared readings, have an important function in characteriza-tion, as they reveal the character’s inner thoughts, emotions and interests, and create relations and contrasts between different personalities. Reading can also play a significant role in terms of perspectival change. Reading someone’s journal or letter without permission, or as if by accident, which happens quite often in this novel, always reflects both the reader’s and the writer’s state of mind, and the nature of their emotional involvement. Such changes in perspective further mirror the novel’s larger structure in which excerpts from the writer-character Edouard’s journal are continu-ously interspersed in the narration, thus imposing on the text a sense of a criss-cross reading between the third-person narration and a first-person journal.

Besides serving important functions in presenting the characters’ minds or changes in focalization, the consequences of reading are part and parcel of the novel’s evolving plot, in which reading incites various departures and motivates key choices. Gerald Prince has in fact argued, in thinking of the impressive number of readers and scenes of reading in this novel, that they provide the novelist with a way to control and measure narrative voices, and to motivate the evolution of the story, adding to the complexity of narration in indirect exposition1. The structuring impor-tance of readings is also true in the sense that various scenes of reading in the novel are tragic, even fatal. The novel starts with Bernard finding letters from his mother’s lover, which make him decide to leave home; reading also inspires him later on to become Edouard’s secretary; a letter makes Olivier feel closer to comte de Passavant; and the reading of the

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five mysterious words of a talisman provokes the death of young Boris (or this is at least what those who believe in magic may think). The abil-ity to read and to estimate the full connotations of one’s reading is also highlighted in that the characters who spend the most time with literature, such as Edouard and Bernard, seem to be least likely to fall victim to evil, the demonic forces that are present everywhere – even if in some ways Edouard, being possessed by his novel-writing project, is also demonic.

But what if we turn our focus from The Counterfeiters to Gide’s Af-rican travel journal Voyage au Congo and Le retour du Tchad (translated into English as Travels in the Congo), which followed the finishing of this major novel, and think of the many scenes of reading embedded there? The writer had in fact planned to leave for Africa after finishing Les Faux-Monnayeurs, as is revealed in an entry from 1 November 1924 in Journal des faux-monnayeurs, a journal dedicated to the process of writing The Counterfeiters, which the writer kept from the summer of 1919 until May 1925. Gide noted that he had postponed his departure for Africa until the following June in the hope that he could finish the novel before that2. Another entry from his Journal at the end of May 1925 speaks further of his expectations of the Congo and of finding the means to fight the apathy that had recently taken over his life: “je ne compte plus que sur le Congo pour m’en sortir. La préparation de ce voyage et l’attente des pays nou-veaux a désenchanté le présent ; j’éprouve combien il était vrai de dire que le bonheur habite l’instant. rien ne me parait plus que provisoire.”3

As to his African travel journal that he kept between July 1925 and May 1926, it is important to note that Gide does not comment on his act of writing. The reader is not invited, as he or she is in The Counterfeiters, to assist in the different phases and hazards of writing, or to scrutinize the construction of a text, and indeed of a world, from a series of different perspectives and voices. But what is significant from the point of view of Gide’s poetics at the time is that the travel journal highlights the act of reception as immersion, the pleasures of observation and mental altera-tion, enabled by movement, the changing environment and reading. The various pleasures and displeasures of travel – and Gide’s early motivation for the journey, as he describes it in his first notes, is precisely “voyager pour le plaisir”4 – are frequently framed, complemented and to some ex-tent also controlled, by the pleasures of reading, as the traveller constantly dives into the classics of Western literature as he simultaneously moves into the centre of Africa.

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Reading accompanies Gide’s physical penetration into this “heart” of Africa as a joyful state of being embedded in a book5. Commentary on readings in Voyage au Congo and Le retour du Tchad is as frequent as in the writer’s Journal that he interrupted for the time of the travel, or per-haps even more regular, inviting the reader to share the intimate effects and pleasures of books that accompany various observations of flora and fauna, African people and spaces. Gide usually reads before and after the legs of his journey, in the evening, the morning and during pauses. The books that he has with him fill many boxes, including classics of French and English literature, such as the fables of La Fontaine, Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost and his Samson Agonistes, Shakespeare’s romeo and Julia, plays by Molière (Le Misantrophe), Corneille (Cinna, Horace), and Racine (iphigénie), poems by Robert Browning, and Chekhov’s travel story “The Steppe”. Among the novels are, most notably, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Goethe’s elective Affinities and Faust, the latter two includ-ed in a leather-bound Goethe collection in original German, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Master of Ballantrae. Gide also has with him a good number of nonfiction and philosophical texts, for instance, the classics like Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet’s writings (Traité de la concupiscence; Dis-cours sur la vie cachée en Dieu), or contemporary books like Cuthbert Christy’s travel book Big Game and Pigmies (1924) and André Cresson’s Position actuelle des problèmes philosophiques (1924), autobiographical fiction (The Autobiography of Mark rutherford), some literary periodicals and Parisian journals, and a Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Gide seems to spend an enormous amount of time in reading through-out the journey between July 1925 and June 1926. Commentary on lit-erature also marks the beginning of the travel journal. He praises here La Fontaine, calling his fables a miracle of culture, and wonders if they are indeed the best literature ever written. He rereads the fables in their entirety during the first half of his journey, starting on the boat to Dakar. La Fontaine’s stories point out for Gide, as he explains in the first entry of his travel journal, the importance of sensitivity in reading. The lightness of La Fontaine’s expression guarantees the richness of ideas and density of observation: “Celui qui sait bien voir peut y trouver trace de tout; mais il faut un oeil averti, tant la touché, souvent, est légère. C’est un mira-cle de culture. Sage comme Montaigne; sensible comme Mozart.”6 These remarks set up a kind of a model for sensitivity that the writer-traveller should emulate in his own observations7.

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To better explain the many meanings in Gide’s commentary on lit-erature and reading in travel, we can draw from David Scott, who has cogently formulated the basic functions of these readings in organizing the travel experience. Scott sees, first of all, that Gide’s travel book is profoundly marked by a “search for découpages that will cut the amor-phous mass of jungle experience into comprehensible units”8. The various scenes of reading respond to this need as types of framing devices that help the writer come to terms with the foreign reality around him. This framing and cutting-out process, Scott further argues, involves both the level of the sign, such as “clichés, instantanés and other images”, and the “interpretant”, meaning the mental process of interpreting the signs of African reality. These include “mental images, memories, associated ideas and taxonomies, whether personal, scientific or cultural”, and other materials derived from readings9. Literature thus serves Gide either as an underlying explanatory frame of experience, which helps him to heighten and detach a given image or experience from the context, or, what is more frequent, as an interlude between scene changes; as Scott puts it, as “a curtain to blot out the unfathomable monotony or impenetrability of the jungle scene”10.

In addition to the general functions of reading as a semiotic frame or a kind of cognitive black-out, as shown by Scott, we may be able to tease out some even more precise functions of novel-reading in his travelogue. In relying on narrative fiction as a major point of reference, especially with regard to Heart of Darkness (1902) but also to some extent in rela-tion to Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809), Gide not only organ-izes the travel experience and manipulates the signs of his reality, but indirectly poses the questions of the reality of fiction and the fictionality of reality. We can phrase this latent question of the divide between fiction and reality (or non-fiction) as a problem of immediacy: How can fiction achieve immediacy and accuracy? Or how can immediate experience au-thenticate fiction? The reading and evaluation of Conrad and Goethe in the travel journal seems to suggest some answers to these questions.

On ConradIn his travelogue, which is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Conrad,

Gide does not merely use Conrad’s fiction as a major point of reference to frame and explain his impressions and perceptions of travel, but also to af-firm the reality of his perceptions. This is to say that the novella provides

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the traveller with a kind of global frame of reference that extends from the journal’s beginning to its end. The first of the Conrad references comes in the form of a long footnote, added to one of the first entries in the journal. The mention stands out from the other references as a significant met-acommentary on the reality of Conrad’s fiction, explaining the necessity to cite from Heart of Darkness and to resort to this novella as an authority on the Congo. Gide starts the note by explaining that the town of Pointe-Noire was the starting point of the Brazzaville-Océan railroad. This leads him then to mention Conrad’s earlier travels in the same region ten years prior to the railroad, and to underline the importance of Conrad’s “admi-rable” book that, as Gide writes, remains still “profondément vrai, j’ai pu m’en convaincre, et que j’aurai souvent à citer. Aucune outrance dans ses peintures : elles sont cruellement exactes ; mais ce qui les désassombrit, c’est la réussite de ce projet qui, dans son livre, parait si vain”.11

The statement suggests not only that Heart of Darkness is “profoundly real” but that, keeping in mind Conrad’s overall importance for the jour-nal, the novella acts as a guarantee for the reality of the travel experience, just as the travel guarantees the reality of the novella. This penchant for reading Conrad’s fiction as fact is repeated later on in an entry for 25 March 1926, when Gide, after reading Conrad for the fourth time, esti-mates that it is only after having seen the country that Conrad talks about that he is able to understand the excellence of the description12. The au-thority of this novella is perhaps equalled only by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s theory of the primitive mind featured in many notes; specifically, the idea that the so-called primitive mentality cannot differentiate the supernatural from reality. There is a difference in Gide’s use of these two authorities, however, in that he had not, in effect, read La Mentalité primitive (1922) before the journey, but mainly used Lévy-Bruhl’s formulations in hind-sight to “theoretically” explain his preconceived notions about the Afri-cans. The rereading of Heart of Darkness during the journey, in contrast, informs the very motivation for travel, many entries in the journal, as well as its notes. The book accompanied the traveller throughout his journey.

What is consistent in the references to Conrad’s fiction, mainly Heart of Darkness but also Typhoon, which Gide himself had translated, is Gide’s persistent view of them as nonfiction or, perhaps even more than this, as more accurate than the best nonfiction. In addition to the instances that I have already mentioned, Gide praises the description of a storm in Typhoon, that he thinks gives the reader full liberty to imagine the real

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horror of the event. In commenting on the division of the baggage by the carriers of his équipage, Gide notes a mistake in the French translation of Heart of Darkness (as Cœur de Ténèbres) in which the measure of half a kilo (livre) is confused with that of a kilo in reference to the average weight of one carrier’s load. The status of Conrad’s fiction as an authority against which interpretations can be adjusted and corrected, and realities checked, becomes evident also when Gide refers to Conrad’s “admira-ble” way of talking about the “extraordinary efforts of imagination” that have been required of Europeans wishing to see black Africans as their enemies13. In this footnote, Gide undermines certain hostile assumptions that Europeans have of the Africans’ difference, drawing from Conrad’s disclosure of such contradictions in his critique of colonialist rhetoric.

The passage from Heart of Darkness that Gide here quotes may, how-ever, be much more radical in its implications than the writer is ready to admit. The citation comes from Marlowe’s description of six chained black men who walk in file, passing him only within six inches: “but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea.”14 What follows, then, is Marlowe’s interpretation of the reaction of a “reclaimed” black man, who accompanies these prisoners and hoists his weapon to his shoulder in seeing a white European. The gesture makes Marlowe infer that: “This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who i might be.”15 Marlowe’s note indicates a complex un-derstanding of the racial situation where the African, wrongly perceived as an enemy, may see white men as a group without clear differentiation be-tween individuals, just as the colonials may see the Africans as one mass of people. This is diametrically opposed to Gide’s recurring lament about the terrible non-différenciation of the Africans, meaning his impression of the lack of individuality among the Africans, made about a month before the above citation16. Gide, thus, holds onto his preconceived ideas of the Africans while he undermines other racial stereotypes by way of Con-rad’s example. He cannot imagine the African’s perspective in the way that Marlowe suggests may be possible. In this respect, Conrad’s author-ity also helps Gide to blot out the disturbing possibility that the Africans could see him stereotypically or with hostility, identical to all white men.

In these references to Conrad’s fiction, real geography confirms liter-ary value, and vice versa. While Conrad’s novella serves Gide as a fram-

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ing device that guarantees the reality of the places of travel, the journey enables the writer to live out Marlowe’s adventure. In one of the most comprehensive discussions of the relation between Conrad’s fiction and Gide’s travel journal, Conrad and Gide: Translation, Transference and intertextuality (1996), Russell West offers an insightful but somewhat one-sided interpretation of Gide’s use of Heart of Darkness in his travel writing. The contradiction in West’s argument is that while he shows that Heart of Darkness thoroughly structures the travel journal, and that Gide seems to read the novel to a large extent as a documentary17, West si-multaneously assumes that Gide gives the novel a secondary status as nonfiction. In other words, it is not clear from this why the emphasis on Conrad’s novella as nonfiction would somehow be a sign of its secondary role, if the book so thoroughly informs the travel journal’s structure.

West argues, more precisely, that Gide reduces the status of Heart of Darkness to that of a documentary, relegating the novel thus “to a sec-ondary position, subordinated to the relentlessly ‘realist’ nature of Gide’s travel document”18. The argument might perhaps be supported by a psy-chologizing “anxiety of influence” thesis in the sense that perhaps Gide constantly re-evoked Conrad’s novel so that he could better negate its influence. Gide would thus have wished to show, in giving Conrad such an authoritative position, that he could outdo Conrad in Conrad’s own ter-ritory. Or we might want to suggest, as West does, that Gide remained ob-livious to the way Heart of Darkness informed his vision of Africa, that in a sense Conrad’s powerful presence in the journal was somehow a blind spot to the writer himself. It seems likely, however, keeping in mind that the travel journal is dedicated to Conrad’s memory, that the references to the novella are not oblivious or a simple corroboration of the traveller’s first-hand observations based on Conrad’s fiction, as West would have it. Gide’s use of Heart of Darkness is also clearly selective, as the above ex-ample about the question of hostile racial images shows.

As the references to Conrad in Gide’s journal confirm the reality of this fiction, the reliance on Conrad also relocates Heart of Darkness closer to the domain of travel writing and simultaneously approximates the trav-el journal to the reality of fiction. Reading the travel journal together with The Counterfeiters, we may see how the journal takes on and develops Conradian themes and imagery that are present in the novel. Voyage au Congo starts where The Counterfeiters closes, that is, with Vincent’s letter from Africa, the contents of which West appropriately calls a “treasure-

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trove of Conradian tropes”19: the madness-inducing forces of Africa, the scorching sun, the immense forest, identification with magic and demons, the wish to escape from civilization and rationalism, and amazing riches to be found. We may, moreover, ask whether the idea of the novella’s (nearly) documentary status was really a negative evaluation for Gide at this particular moment when he himself wished to report about colonial Africa’s realities, or whether it was rather another argument in favor of Conrad’s writing (as fiction that surpasses its limits as fiction and by so doing beats the truth of non-fiction). Voyage au Congo and Le retour du Tchad defictionalize Heart of Darkness. Gide reassesses Conrad’s novella in his travel journal, that is, he turns it into nonfiction, while his travel writing also testifies to the novella’s ability to create an accurate image of reality. The status that Gide gives to the novella, suggests, after all, that fiction (or what seems to be fiction) has a capacity to capture a sense of reality, not just create a reality of its own. This capacity was placed under serious doubt in The Counterfeiters, as well as in the journal that testifies to its writing, but seems now to have been restored. Gide’s poetics of the pure novel, as he developed it at this time prior to the African journey, was not interested in the representation of reality or the immersive quali-ties of fiction. His character Edouard, often a mouthpiece for the writer’s theory of fiction, even provocatively states that if there existed journals of the making of L’Éducation sentimentale or Frères Karamazov, this would be really exciting and more interesting than the novels themselves20.

on GoetheGide rereads Goethe’s elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaf-

ten) during his journey in late November and early December 1925, and writes about the pleasures of reading much for the same reasons as in relation to other texts that he reads. He starts the novel one night after finishing the rereading of Master of Ballantrae, surrounded by the sounds of drumming and dance that come from a nearby village. This takes place outdoors by a small table, in the insufficient light of a lan-tern, which accentuates Gide’s sense of the “strange immensity” of the night and the moon just above him (“Je sens m’environner de toutes parts l’étrange immensité de la nuit”)21. At this scene, typically, the text that is being read envelops the environment and the environment frames the reading, associating the page of the book with the qualities of the surrounding landscape and life.

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Later, in other notes about reading Goethe’s novel, Gide frequently notes how he finishes his day by “diving” and “diving again” into the novel, sometimes reading it in “rapture” (ravissement). The sense of im-mersion and embeddedness is central to the experience. These readings may follow an evening bath or are accompanied by reading lessons to an Arab “boy” called Adoum, one of Gide’s and Allégret’s assistants. Gide makes the joyful reading also coincide with remarks about the purity and gentleness of the air or, equally, he may explain how the reading helps him to forget the monotony of the road after completing the day’s leg. Gide also cites from this novel, using a famous proverb by the character Ottilie (“Durch nichts bezeichnen die Menschen mehr ihren Charakter als durch das, was sie lächerlich finden”), to comment ironically on a recent article by a critic who calls his fiction “abstruse” (abscons)22. Gide is, fur-ther, pleased with himself that he is able to read the novel easily in origi-nal German, without the help of a dictionary.

elective Affinities is one of the readings about which Gide writes most enthusiastically, also to emphasize or downplay certain travel experiences. However, I would like to entertain the idea that he draws some particular pleasures from rereading this novel as a novel in relation to the question of the nature of the novel, similarly to the questions posed in The Coun-terfeiters. Gide’s and Goethe’s novels have various structural resemblanc-es. An obvious relation is the double “elective affinity” between a married couple, Eduard (or Edward in the English translation) and Charlotte, and their two good friends, the Captain and Ottilie, in Goethe’s novel, and the intricate relations between the two boys, Bernard and Olivier, and the two writer figures, Edouard and Robert de Passavant, in The Counterfeiters. Another resemblance, and indeed an affinity, is the fact that elective Af-finities focuses on the act of reading on more than one important occasion, and that the scenes of reading serve important functions in characteriza-tion and plot development.

Reading in elective Affinities, as in The Counterfeiters, is always significant in terms of understanding the characters’ minds. Several dramatized scenes of reading in Goethe’s novel, as in The Counterfeit-ers, reveal the nature of the characters’ intimate thoughts, their under-lying emotional relations, and their distance from or closeness to each other, and thus move the story forward. To mention only two of these instances, Baron Eduard’s and his wife Charlotte’s lack of “affinity” with each other is revealed in a scene of reading early on in the novel.

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Here the narrator explains that Eduard cannot stand it if someone looks at the book he is reading (“eine seiner besonderen eigenheiten, die er jedoch vielleicht mit mehrern Menschen teilt, war die, daβ es ihm un-ertäglich fiel, wenn jemand ihm beim Lesen in das Buch sah”23). And when Charlotte does so, Eduard’s feels as if he were torn apart. Edu-ard’s anger, as we are told, is due to his emotional attachment to reading as a form of thinking: to him, reading the written text equals thinking, or it is like speaking to someone; the written word thus takes the place of his heart and mind. To intervene by looking at the book from behind his back, is not different from intruding upon the inner movements of his mind. Similarly, Ottilie’s love for Eduard, and the deep emotional close-ness of these two, becomes manifest in another scene of reading when Eduard realizes, upon reading a text that Ottilie has copied for him, that she has imitated his handwriting. This implies for Eduard, and for the reader, emotional involvement, or “affinity” to use Goethe’s pseudo-sci-entific concept, suggesting that Ottilie is not only able to understand his thoughts but shares them at a deeper level.

elective Affinities is mostly narrated from an external perspective with frequent narratorial reports about Eduard’s and his wife’s thoughts and feelings, but it includes alternation in modes of narration, a constant mov-ing from third to first-person narration, which is relevant here. Various let-ters are interspersed with the narration; they include those from Eduard to his wife and to Ottilie, and from Ottilie to her friends. The excerpts from Ottilie’s journal included in the second part of the novel create a further contrast with the third person narration. These entries, despite giving us momentary access to Ottilie’s subjective perspective, are atypical jour-nal notes in that they reveal relatively little of the journal-keeper’s inner thoughts and feelings. The excerpts are only loosely related to the events of the novel, consisting mostly of philosophical generalizations or com-monplaces, save perhaps the question of life without love, which carries a direct personal meaning to their writer. Some of these entries comprise aphorisms about the nature of art or human nature, including meditations on the development of natural science, moral questions or the passing of time. As the novel gives no account in third-person narration of Ottilie’s unspoken thoughts, neither through use of free indirect discourse nor by any other means, Ottilie’s mind seems to shun penetration, remaining a kind of mystery even when the reader seems to have access to her most intimate moment of writing.

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What I would like to specifically point out here is that Goethe’s novel is one of the first, if not the first, modern novels to systematically in-clude passages from a fictional intimate journal, as if in direct quotation. The frequent movement in the second part of elective Affinities between a third-person narration, with an omniscient narrator, and a first-person voice of the journal writer, creates the effect of juxtaposed perspectives, and suggests a prototype of a kind of generic blend that Gide employs and expands in The Counterfeiters. The effect of multiplied viewpoints is sig-nificant in terms of understanding the role of reading and fiction in Gide’s travel journal as well.

To read The Counterfeiters in an intelligent way, it is essential to fol-low similar changes in point of view, to process the meaning of the shifts between the third-person narration, Edouard’s journal, and the author’s interventions, or between the reality of the fictional world and what the novelist pretends to make of that reality, and integrate information com-ing from different sources. Discrepancies between the viewpoints may be significant insofar as such distortions require the integration of informa-tion, as an outcome of varying subjective visions of the same event. While the narrator’s report of the characters’ thoughts is frequent, free indirect discourse, in which the narrator can appropriate parts of the character’s speech or his interior world, is fairly rare. In the chapters in third-person narration, and often also in the excerpts from Edouard’s journal, dialogue and thought report dominate, thus leaving the boundaries between who says/thinks and who narrates relatively intact. The characters’ thoughts and intimate world remain in some sense a mystery unless, that is, they are revealed as if directly in the letters or, in Edouard’s case, in his jour-nal, or the movements of the inner world are reported by the narrator – as may happen, for instance, in relation to scenes of reading. As to dialogue, Gide often deletes the reporting verb of “saying” and conjunction. This gives the appearance of directness and the immediacy of the event, but also prompts the reader to pay careful attention to who is speaking and to be conscious of the changing perspectives in this way. In the travel jour-nal, on the contrary, there is hardly any direct dialogue, save some short direct citations. The perspective remains internal and fixed.

Poetics of the novelInspired by the biographical relation between the novel and the depar-

ture, Gérard Cogez has argued that Gide’s travel was in fact motivated by

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a wish to distance himself from the limitations of the novel genre: “Com-ment n’entendrait-on pas qu’il s’agit bien pour l’écrivain de se sortir du piège romanesque, de prendre avec le genre une salutaire, et peut-être définitive, distance critique?”.24 The journey, thus, would have been for Gide a means to turn away from the genre with which he had recent-ly, and amply, expressed his dissatisfaction, especially in Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs. The writer-character Edouard’s journal, included in The Counterfeiters, voices similar concerns about novelistic pretensions of verisimilitude, based on descriptive realism, the means to portray the characters’ state of mind and conventional dialogue. Gide seeks to find, instead, powerful verbal expressions, tones of voice or nuanced gestures, which in themselves would reveal the characters’ mind25.

My strategy in reading Gide’s travel book alongside his major novel has been partly complementary and partly contrary to this argument in that I have tried to show how a certain poetics of the novel, especially an interest in the multiplicity of individual perspectives and voices, pro-foundly informs Gide’s reading experiences during the travel. This is ex-emplified, among other ways, in how Gide writes about novels en route. The assumption that Gide travelled “away from” the novel or that he did so “in hatred of the novel”26 is not easily reconcilable with the fact that the writer had in his luggage a number of novels, and that during the journey he read them and commented on them with much pleasure. As I have shown above, the writer discusses in his notes not just the immersive qualities of fiction, but structures much of his experience in the Congo and Chad with the help of novels. Furthermore, there are some striking thematic affinities between The Counterfeiters and the travel journal. Gide continues in his travel notes to inquire into the relation between mediated reality and the facts of reality, or between imagination, fiction and the resistance of facts – questions that are central to The Counterfeiters and extensively developed in this novel.

Therefore, there is compelling textual and biographical evidence for seeing continuity between Gide’s novel and the travel journal. In his trav-el writing, Gide never poses the question of the genre of writing, which would, for instance, mean the question of what is proper to a travel jour-nal. In his commentary on literature, however, he postulates two versions of immediacy, the immediacy of travel and that of reading, which are intertwined while not altogether compatible with each other. These com-peting notions of immediacy involve the question of the effects and power

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of fiction and are reminiscent of the contradictions in Edouard’s theory of the novel as it is explained in The Counterfeiters. On the one hand, Gide focuses in his travelogue on the immediacy of the travel experience, the immediacy of life as the simultaneous flux of things and events. Such immediacy has the potential to rejuvenate the traveller, even renew him physically, putting an end to all apathy. Insofar as the travel experience is not told but directly sensed and felt, Gide conceives travel writing as a way of registering the action that is “close” to reality, the experience that imposes itself on the observer. This is evident in the writer’s wish to penetrate profoundly into Africa – “pénétrer profondément, intimement, dans le pays”27 – or in the many references to screens of civilization that tend to blur his vision. Gide is eager to leave behind the “French” Dakar, the “écran de la civilization” in Brazzaville”28 and his boat, since the boat makes the landscape seem like a décor and hardly real29, and he is irritated at the porters who deny him, by their mere presence, direct contact with African nature.

We come across the same hope of discovering some non-mediated re-ality in pure expression in The Counterfeiters in Edouard’s contradictory wish to let the reality “dictate” the novel to him instead of planning the composition, even if he simultaneously wants his novelist characters to abandon reality (in the sense of novelistic realism)30. The question of mi-mesis, as the outspoken subject of Edouard’s novel, involves essentially the relation between the reality as it appears to the writer and the reality that is translated as literature, or as he himself puts it, “la lutte entre les faits proposés par la réalité, et la réalité idéale”31. The author-narrator also refers to these ideas as the incompatible requirements in the writer-character’s thinking, which, however, does not make them less important in the world of the novel. For instance, Vincent, Lady Griffith and Alexan-dre Vedel, the characters who leave European civilization behind for Af-rica, seem to want to realize, even to the extent of self-destruction, the full potential of immediacy. Likewise, Bernard’s interest in Arthur Rimbaud as someone who presumably exits from literature via action is similarly motivated. In Gide’s travel writing, in turn, it seems that the writer-travel-ler has momentarily resolved the problem of mimesis since he projects an image of himself as someone who is by nature not a counterfeiter, a pro-ducer of factice (false, fake), but someone who is capable of immersing himself in the surrounding world. During the journey, the writer is able to see – despite the disappointments over the lack of differentiation or

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the harsh realities of colonial rule – more clearly and accurately, since the reality under observation is inevitably close. The travel experience is im-mediate, the world of travel is something that is seen rather than told.

On the other hand, however, we are left with the paradox that so much of Gide’s experience is mediated by literature and that at some level he has the most direct relation to the literature that he reads. The immediacy of reading is heightened by travel and we might even say that the travel experience helps Gide to pay better heed to how his imagination frames the way he sees things. The journey helps him to read more intensively, that is, closer to the world of fiction, which reveals its affinity with the real world, for instance, by appealing to his senses, as in the state of being immersed. However, Gide’s (re)readings, and especially novel-reading, also suggest that the experience of travel is lacking in some important way, and that journal-keeping is in need of another kind of immediacy, the immersion in the world of the text, and the text as a world. The readings thus not only blot out the monotony or the heterogeneity of his experi-ence, or guide him onto how to pay better attention to what he sees, but also affirm the reality around him, as a reality that to a significant degree is indebted to imaginary constructions.

References, literature1 Gerald Prince, Lecteurs et lectures dans Les Faux-Monnayeurs, in: Neophi-

lologus, January 1973, LVII.1, 20. As Prince further perceives, the ones who read the least or who never read, like lady Griffith or Vincent, are most likely to become the victims of forces that they cannot control, 22.

2 André Gide, Le Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs, Paris: Gallimard, 2008, 90. Gide, in fact, refers here to some other more important reason for postponing the journey, but does not give any details.

3 André Gide, Journal 1889-1939, Paris: Gallimard, Pléiade, 1951, 805–806. Furthermore, two brief subsequent entries suggest a necessary connection be-tween the finishing of the novel and the journey: “8 juin: Achevé les Faux-Monnayeurs; 14 juillet: Départ pour le Congo” (ibid).

4 André Gide, Voyage au Congo suivi de Le retour du Tchad. Carnets de route, Paris : Gallimard, 2002, 13.

5 Gide uses the metaphor of the heart (cœur) of Africa at the end of September in ways that reveal the intimate ties between this metaphor and the expectation of the exotic and the strange. First, entering an unnamed village in the forest, he writes that ”village si beau, si étrange qu’il nous semblait trouver ici la raison de notre voyage, entrer au cœur de son sujet”, and again the next day, feeling somewhat disappointed about the lack of strangeness / exotic, that “[a]rbustes et plantes d’aspect, à vrai dire, fort peu exotique et, sans un étrange îlot de pan-

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danus aux racines aériennes, un peu en amont de la chute, rien ne rappellerait ici qu’on est presque au cœur de l’Afrique” (65–66).

6 André Gide, 2002, 14.7 See also Marja warehime, exploring Connections and rediscovering Differ-

ence: Gide Au Congo, in: French Review, February 1995, 68:3, 459–460, who points out that La Fontaine is “the most obvious ‘internal’ model” for Gide as observer.

8 David Scott, Semiologies of Travel: From Gautier to Baudrillard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 164.

9 ibid.10 David Scott, 2004, 168.11 André Gide, 2002, 23n2.12 ibid., 399.13 ibid., 245n1.14 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, London: Penguin Books, 1994, 22.15 ibid., 23.16 See André Gide, 2002, 195, 220, and developed in 220n1.17 rusell west, Conrad and Gide: Translation, Transference and intertextuality,

Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996, 149.18 ibid., 142.19 ibid., 136.20 André Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs, Paris: Gallimard, 2002, 186.21 André Gide, 2002, 163.22 ibid., 200.23 J. W. Goethe, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, roman, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1965,

36–37.24 Gérard Cogez, Les écrivains voyageurs au XXe siècle, Paris: Éditions du

Seuil, 2004, 215.25 André Gide, 2008, 82–85.26 Gérard Cogez, 2004, 212.27 André Gide, 2002, 97.28 ibid., 30.29 ibid., 35.30 André Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs, 2002, 185; The Counterfeiters, trans. Dor-

othy Bussy, London: Penguin Books, 1966, 169.31 ibid: “the struggle between the facts presented by reality and the ideal real-

ity”.

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Travel Narratives in Latvian Literature of the Early XXIst Century

Kelionės pasakojimai XXI amžiaus pradžios latvių literatūroje

Maija BuriMAinstitute of Comparative StudiesDaugavpils universityVienības street 13–318, LV-5400, Daugavpils, [email protected]

SummaryTravel is a specific concept; by means of the description of its contents (the

route, participants, destination, places visited, people encountered, experiences received) it is possible to sketch out the “mental map” of an epoch – the attitude of the state, nation, and individual toward diverse spaces, the formation of spa-tial preferences and dislikes, the blank spots and shifts of attitude on the “men-tal map”. This essay takes into consideration a few texts of Latvian fiction and nonfiction: Inga Ābele’s diaries and travel descriptions “Austrumos no saules un ziemeļos no zemes” (“To the East from the Sun and to the North from the Earth”, 2005) and Liāna Langa’s travel essays “Es varēju nesteigties” (“I could have taken my Time”, 2008) as well as Elvita Ruka’s journalistic travel description “Sirsnīgie suņi” (“Kind Dogs”, 2006) – a documentary narrative on the expeditions of a Latvian filming group to Russia (Tofolaria and Yakutiya).

Key words: genre of travel narratives, mental maps, geographical discourse, literary compass, travel impressions.

The period of Soviet occupation and its political ideology made a pow-erful impact on the so-called “literary compass” or the selection of places and themes depicted in the genre of travel narratives in Soviet literature. The selection was strictly limited to the socialist states considered as “our own” space and the rest of the world, which was coded as either threaten-ing, e.g. the Western vector, or exotic, e.g. India, Africa. Mental maps project an associative perception of the surrounding world and its organi-zation in geographical discourse. They are constituted by subjective and stereotypical notions of geographical landmarks. Mental maps may entail very detailed and precise descriptions of individual spaces and at the same time also vast “blank spots” depending on the geographical experience

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of individuals or groups of individuals – their travels, investigation of the surrounding places as well as the socio-political situation. During the Soviet epoch, mental maps acquired different outlines as compared to the interbellum period. Hence, Latvian literature of the interbellum period identifies Scandinavia with the North, while in the Soviet literature the North is recognized as the north of the Soviet Union. The South in Latvi-an literature of the early 20th century is associated with Spain and Italy, whereas during the Soviet times – with the Crimea and the Black Sea re-gion. The Eastern vector that had previously been related to countries like India acquired a parallel semantic vector in the Soviet period related to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, etc. The Western vector remained the same, but it acquired a negative connotation and was supplemented by the stereotype of the Baltic region as the most Western part of the Soviet Union.

In the Soviet times, the genre of travel narratives, travel themes and images of other countries or regions were not very widespread in litera-ture. This may be accounted for by the suspicious attitude initiated by the Soviet ideology towards all regions that were not part of the socialist block. Therefore travel descriptions mostly cover either travels around the Soviet Union or socialist states and their partisans, e.g. Cuba, India. Writers were often invited to join the exchange visit delegations and their travel impressions inspired the descriptions of these travels.

After the Baltic States regained their independence in 1991, all taboos were lifted from the genre of travel narratives. Gradually, by acquiring the opportunities and financing for traveling, many people started traveling intensely and in different directions. Among them were many writers who conveyed their travel impressions in books. Besides, a number of TV and radio programs and TV shows appeared that focused on travel topics.

The genre of travel narratives is represented not only by profession-al writers but also by publicists, as suggested by the particularity of the genre of travel narratives, i.e. its intention to provide comments on new spatial experience. Writers, when explicating their experience, build the thematic standpoint by the equally important manner of literary expres-sion, narrative aesthetic, atmosphere, depiction of personal experience and feeling, thereby forming a dialogue with the depicted place. Publicists aim at partiality, revelations of striking details and their precise characteristics, representing themselves as mediators between the depicted place and the readers of their texts. Quite often readers of travel narratives are addressed not only by the text but also by the visual material.

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Looking at the quite narrow scope of travel narratives brings out sev-eral strategies of their formation.

I. After the regaining of independence, Latvian readers and writers got interested in the previously limited travel routes. First of all, they were related to Latvian émigrés. For many inhabitants of Latvia, going abroad after the regaining of independence was associated with the intention of meeting “their own people” in the direct and indirect sense: both relatives and spiritually related people. Travelers were guided by the desire to visit the places that had been marked as threatening by the Soviet ideology. The destinations of these travels were countries that had large diasporas of Baltic immigrants. The impressions of these travels were reflected in works of diverse genres and publicist notes in periodicals that dealt with Latvian émigré culture.

II. In the late 20th – early 21st century, travels and their descriptions are concerned with very distant and exotic countries, e.g. Australia. Journalist Ieva Puķe has provided an extended description of Australian aborigines in her travel description “Svētdienas sala” (“Sunday Island”, 2004).

III. Another strategic tendency of travel literature is related to the har-monization of historical memory and contemporary reality. Along with the boom of visiting Western and exotic countries and their depictions in travel narratives, Latvian literature of the late 20th and early 21st century reveals another tendency of describing the regions of the former Soviet Union in travel narratives. This shows that the relative barrier of psycho-logical resistance to the political past has been lifted.

IV. “Literary compass” as a particular geographical location of a lit-erary work in the texts by contemporary Latvian authors is related to economic emigration as a vast phenomenon of social and economic life that is depicted in literature. This is exemplified by Laima Muktupāvela’s novel “Šampinjonu derība” (“Champignon Testament”) that is set in the milieu of émigré workers in Ireland.

V. The genre of travel narratives in its diverse variations (essays, dia-ries, etc.) is focused on another thematic vector that develops the tradition initiated in the early 20th century Latvian literature by both fiction writ-ers and publicists traveling around their native land, especially its distant regions, marginal places or borderlands, in order to depict, systematical-ly or selectively, their travel impressions. E.g. Rimants Ziedonis’ book “Sarunās izstaigāta pierobeža” (“Touring Borderland with Talks”, 2008) describes walks along the eastern border of Latvia, starting from the point

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where Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus meet up to the place where Latvia, Estonia, and Russia meet.

VI. Another strategy is apparent in recent Latvian literature concerns the depictions of the Baltic States. They continue the tradition of the inter-bellum Latvian literature of respecting the national character and land-scape peculiarities of each Baltic country. This tradition was affected by the period of Soviet occupation when authors of travel narratives had to be very cautious about specifically national issues when depicting Lithua-nia or Estonia. In recent Latvian literature, a vivid depiction of Kesmu (Käsmu) has been produced by Inga Ābele in her diaries and travel de-scriptions “Austrumos no saules un ziemeļos no zemes” (“To the East from the Sun and to the North from the Earth”, 2005).

Further we will characterize some of the travel narratives that reflect one or several strategies of their formation sketched out above.

Inga Ābele’s diaries and travel descriptions “To the East from the Sun and to the North from the Earth” are structured in four parts, thus drawing several vectors in the literary compass of the writer.

In chapter 1 Inga Ābele represents some impressions of her travels around Germany. Instead of picturesque landscapes or comments on tra-ditions, she has selected everyday life details and extraordinary accom-plishments of technology that make human life easier and create a special sense of comfort. The author makes ironic comments about the fact that in a foreign land there are fewer realia that can really surprise or move one. This becomes possible through human communication, which is equally attractive and enriching whether it appears in one’s native land or abroad.

In chapter 2 the writer depicts Augšbebri village in Siberia. This vil-lage is populated by the descendants of Latvians who were deported to Si-beria in the Soviet period. Ābele visited it during the state visit of Latvian culture figures. Deportations of the people from the Baltic region to Sibe-ria are a dramatic episode of the 20th century history of the Baltic region. It has been explored in a number of books and research works after the re-construction of the independence. Special resonance in the world has been achieved by Sandra Kalniete’s book “Ar balles kurpēm Sibīrijas sniegos” (“With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows”, 2001), which has been translated into more than 10 languages and is one of the most translated works of Latvian literature to date. The book recounts the story of the deportation of Kalniete’s parents to Siberia and the striving of the family to return to Latvia. This book is a vivid testimony of Latvian history and personal ex-

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perience. Inga Ābele’s depiction of Siberia creates a powerful resonance with other books dedicated to the theme of Siberia. This is not just filling in the blank spots of history but fulfilling the desire to provide the writer’s subjective perspective on the current situation. She distances herself from the national sentiment or the condemnation of historical events; her depic-tion of people and events witnessed in Augšbebri is devoid of comments on assimilation, loss of identity, or other anthropological phenomena. For her, it was essential to create her own current image of Siberian Latvians, to characterize them as the phenomenon of the blending of diverse cul-tures, and to create a detachment from the past:

... gājām uz Jāņu vietu. Aizdedza milzīgus ugunskurus. Neticami skaists laiks – skaidrs, skaidrs. No visiem ciemiem bija sabraukuši cilvēki, kas sevi ap-zinās kā latviešus, igauņus, vāciešus vai somus. Visvairāk atmiņā viena veca sieviņa, kas ļoti skaisti dziedāja igauniski, kad viņu uzcēla uz skatuves. Viņas no darba izkropļotās rokas.Sievietes no Rižkovas ciema uzstājās kā latvietes tādos tērpos, kādi eskimo-siem varētu būt vai lapiem. Bet viņas bija dzirdējušas, ka latviešiem tādi varē-tu būt. Dziedāja „Kumeliņi, kumeliņi, tu man kaunu iešķiņķoji” – savādiem vārdiem. Utt.Ļoti skaisti spēlēja Kaspars ar Lielo ievu – ģitāru un vijoli. Īru tautas dziesmu, temperamentīgi.Tad sākās diskotēka. Aizdedza vēl ugunskurus. Dzirksteles gāja mākoņiem pār cilvēkiem. Es ar padejoju, tad gāju sēdēt uz kalna”1.

[... we went to the place of celebration of summer solstice. Huge fires were burned. The weather is unbelievably beautiful – very, very clear. People had come from all villages, who identify themselves as Latvians, Estonians, Ger-mans, or Finns. I recall best of all an old woman who sang in Estonian when she was lifted up on the stage. Her hands were rugged from hard labour.Latvian women from Rižkova village performed songs dressed in costumes that could belong to Eskimo or Lapp people. But they had heard that such costumes could have been Latvian as well. They sang a Latvian folk-song with slightly changed verse. Etc.Kaspars and Great Ieva played the guitar and violin – very nicely. It was an Irish folk-song, temperamental.Then a discotheque began. More fires were burned. Sparks went in clouds above the people. I also danced a little, and then I went to sit on the hill.]

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In chapter 3 Ābele depicts the impressions of her trip to Latgale. The region of Latgale stands out in the context of Latvia by the diversity of its specific dialects, nationalities, and religions – Catholic, Old Believer, and Orthodox. Ābele notices and describes these peculiarities in the context of everyday life. She depicts the kindness of Latgalians, the majority of non-Latvian nationalities in Daugavpils and her reserved attitude to this. She is especially moved by the motifs related to religious texts, churches and rituals of different religions.

In chapter 4 – “K-esmu”, Ābele depicts her impressions of the Writ-ers’ and Translator’ House in Käsmu. Estonia fascinates her with the op-portunity it provides for experiencing the long expected solitude, asperity of nature, and reserve of the people. She writes: “Here, in Kesmu, I have learned to freeze for hours, […] get immersed in myself.”2 More than in other chapters, in the depiction of Estonia appear landscape descrip-tions that echo the processes of the writer’s consciousness or are radi-cally opposite to them. The impetuousness of nature provides an impulse for Ābele to look into her own self, revising and transforming something there. Conversations with the local people are laconic, but inspiring of long reflections in the writer’s thoughts and imagination. The Estonian village indirectly gains the semantic connotation of a spiritually related and inspiring place.

The book of travel essays by the poetess Liāna Langa “Es varēju nesteigties” (“I could have taken my Time”, 2008) takes different direc-tions of the literary compass as compared to Inga Ābele’s book. Ābele recorded her travel impressions shortly after or during her travels, there-fore she takes an active narrative position. Liāna Langa’s mental map has been formed by a different strategy. Langa has described the events from a greater time distance (sometimes even more than ten years), with the most vivid impressions on the surface of her memory. These impres-sions, rather than the abundance of places, events, and details, are shared with the readers in the overall feeling and impulse. The writer points out her strategy in the introduction to her book: „Atmiņa ir īpatnējs filtrs. Tā saglabā smaržas, krāsas un ainavas nianses daudz labprātāk un biežāk nekā populārus tūristu apskates objektus. Kādēļ tā, nezinu, bet uz savas atmiņas filtru vēlos paļauties kā uz gana drošu datu glabātāju. Gan jau atmiņa ir gudra pati par sevi, un tā zina, ko dara.”3 [“Memory is a pecu-liar filter. It keeps scents, colors, and landscape details much more often than popular sightseeing objects. Why it is so, I have no idea, but I wish

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to trust my memory filter as a reliable depository of data. I suppose that memory is wise and knows what it is doing.”]

The writer’s destinations are rather proportional in marking her liter-ary compass: the West, the South, the East – American cities and coun-tryside, Florence, Israel, Istanbul as well as two days spent in Helsinki sketching out the northern vector. Only once does the writer step aside from her principle of trying to inspire people to travel instead of describ-ing tourist objects4.

Each chapter is rounded up by Langa with a concise summary of the most vivid associative travel impressions: visits of places that are not in-cluded in the popular tourist routes, scents and tastes sustained by mem-ory, unforgettable travel guides, e.g. “Latte mornings, espresso days, cy-press silhouettes against the stars” in Italy; the cult of carpets in Istan-bul; the constant aroma of oranges, seafood, humus, and camels in Israel; crowded museums in Helsinki.

Langa’s depictions are distanced from the socio-political details of the epoch, extracting the essence of the visited countries. She often depicts rigid, even clichéd impressions that are distracted from the historical con-text but are saturated with a rich lexical material. Her book is accompa-nied by colorful illustrations by the painter Alexei Naumov, who provides a visual dimension to her narrative.

Elvita Ruka’s book „Sirsnīgie suņi“ (“Kind Dogs”, 2006) is dedi-cated to the trip of Latvian documentary cinema producers to Tofolaria in 2003–2004. This is the place inhabited by the smallest of Siberian peo-ples in a hardly accessible region of Russia. The desire to make the ad-venturous trip to the region with a poor infrastructure was determined by the searching spirit of the group participants and their wish to learn more about the peoples and nationalities silenced during the Soviet epoch: „[…]tā ir neizskaidrojamā, raupjā stīga, kas velk pie skarbiem apstākļiem un nenogludinātas dzīves. Pie cilvēkiem, kas ir tik labi vai tik slikti, kādi ir, un neizliekas citādi. Pie tiešuma savstarpējās attiecībās…”5. [“it is the mysterious, harsh string that attracts people to harsh conditions and rough life. To people who are as good or bad as they are and do not pretend to be different. To directness in mutual relations…”].

The conditions of human life affected by the harsh climate of Tofolaria and the directness in human relations explain the realistic and precise characters of these travel narratives. The objective depiction covers both the scarce descriptions of the traditions, crafts, and trades of this people

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(e.g. hunting, gold mining) and the transformations of the lifestyle initi-ated by the Soviet epoch – alcoholism, sloth and other vices. The book has an anthropological perspective, with precise descriptions of images and events supplemented by extensive visual material.

To sum up, it must be noted that the genre of travel narratives is not very rich in the 21st century Latvian literature; however it reveals diverse narrative strategies and represents all the projections of the literary com-pass.

References1 Inga Ābele, Sibīrija, Augšbebri, Austrumos no saules un ziemeļos no zemes.

Dienasgrāmatas un ceļojumu apraksti, Rīga: Atēna, 51. 2 Inga Ābele, K-esmu, Austrumos no saules un ziemeļos no zemes. Dienasgrā-

matas un ceļojumu apraksti, Rīga: Atēna, 146. 3 Liāna Langa, es varēju nesteigties. Ceļojuma esejas, Rīga: Lietusdārzs, 2008,

3. 4 ibid., 46. 5 Elvita Ruka. Sirsnīgie suņi, Rīga: Dienas Grāmata, 2006, 27.

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Travels of Lithuanians from Scandinavia: Searching for The Other

Lietuvių kelionės iš Skandinavijos: Kito beieškant

Sigutė rADZeVČieNėVilnius Pedagogical university T. Ševčenkos street 31, [email protected]

SummaryIn this conference report “Travels of Scandinavian Lithuanians: searching for

the other” using the cultural-historical survey method we will discuss how those Lithuanians, who lived and worked in Scandinavia, managed to understand and interpret literarily the realities of cultural geography. Retrospective analysis of the writers’ way of life and creative work will help us to evaluate the essence of national identity and these influences that – as one may surmise – may have determined its change. The material for analysis is taken from the Scandinavian archives and literary inheritance in Swedish and Danish languages. Contemplation evolves around the question, how the cultural landscape of the visited lands – dur-ing the travel of Scandinavian Lithuanians to strange countries – is expressed in their creative work and the wider context of literature. Concretizing the subject of this conference on the relevant issues of Lithuanian culture, I would formulate the problem raised in my article in the following way: is it possible while living in the foreign country and searching for the connection between that, which is one‘s own and noticing that, which is strange, to run away from one’s cultural nature?

Key words: Scandinavian Lithuanians, national identity, cultural lanscape, ignas Scheynius, Jurgis Savickis.

SantraukaKonferencijos pranešime „Lietuvių kelionės iš Skandinavijos: kito beieškant“

pasitelkus kultūrinės-istorinės žvalgos būdą bus siekiama aptarti Skandinavijoje gyvenusių ir kūrusių lietuvių pastangas suvokti, meniniu žodžiu interpretuoti kul-tūrinės geografijos realijas. Retrospekcinis žvilgsnis į rašytojų gyvenseną ir kūry-bą svetur padės mums įvertinti tautinės tapatybės esmę – spėjamą įtaką jos kaitai. Stebėjimų medžiaga imama iš Skandinavijos archyvų ir literatūros paveldo švedų bei danų kalbomis. Straipsnyje svarstoma, kaip aplankytų šalių kultūrinis krašto-vaizdis – savotiška Skandinavijos lietuvių gyvenimo kelionė svetur – reiškiasi jų kūryboje ir platesniame paraliteratūros kontekste. Konkretizuodama konferencijos

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temą lietuvių kultūros altualijomis, savo straipsnio problemą formuluočiau taip: ar įmanoma pabėgti nuo savo kultūrinės prigimties, svetimuose kraštuose dairantis giminystės tarp savo ir svetimo?

Kertiniai žodžiai: Skandinavijos lietuviai, tautinė tapatybė, kultūrinis krašto-vaizdis, ignas Šeinius, Jurgis Savickis.

Lithuanians and ScandinaviaLithuania and Scandinavia topographically are the closest neighbours,

which are supposed to have a similar geographical landscape and may be a related historical and cultural experience. However what is the reality? The question, to what extent we managed in our “Baltic-Scandinavian” space and time to look in the same direction or explore the world search-ing for similarities between our own and foreign things, still remains para-doxically open. In this article we will try to acquaint you with one of it‘s aspects, namely – to answer to the question: what kind of cultural (his-torical/social) landscape see Lithuanians, when they start out to the wide world (Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, African continent) from the Scandina-vian shores (Denmark and Sweden). Is their perspective of vision formed, predetermined by some accountability? If this is the case, the question rises: what is this accountability – genetically decided historial conscious-ness, mentality, which has matured in Lithuania, or the pragmatic system of values, adopted in the foreign countries, characteristic to Scandinavia. In short – we have a peculiar observer: a Lithuanian observing the exotic landscape not from his native place. What in such circumstances remains as one‘s own (if at all...) and what is understood as foreign?..

Though we have reliable historical facts about the contacts between Lithuanians and Scandinavians going back as far as the 12-th century and a little more of them – in the Middle Ages, also in an ever-growing abundance – in historically relevant 16-17th centuries, let us move to a much later time – the period between the two world wars of the 20-th century. The groundwork for our discussion will be taken from the two Scandinavian archyves: The Stockholm Baltic Archives1 ir Copenhagen State Archives2. However, despite the facts, found in these archives, it is known that two Lithuanian politicians, masters of a literary word: Jurgis Savickis and Ignas Jurkunas-Scheynius were destined to live and work in Scandinavian countries. From the very beginning of writing this article it was wonderful to see, how the parallels, connecting two writers‘ personal destinies, careers and insights, clearly stood out.

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Ignas Scheynius ir Jurgis Savickis – the parallels of their lives‘ journeys

First of all, when comparing the destinies of the two contemporaries, the careers of these Independent Lithuania‘s politicians arrest our atten-tion. Both approximately at the same time (J. Savickis – in the end of 1914, I Scheynius – in 1915) took part in the social activities and joined the Committee of Support to War Victims. Both were sent to Scandinavia to secure the financial support for this committee. Both participated ac-tively in the establishment of the Lithuanian Council in Stockholm (1917). After the formation of the Independent Lithuanian State, both started their careers as diplomats in Scandinavia: J. Savickis became the first repre-sentative of Lithuania in Denmark for the Scandinavian countries, a min-ister, and I. Scheynius – the first secretary. Later the position and rota-tion of both colleagues changed during a decade: J. Savickis represented Lithuania in Norway and Sweden up to 1923, 1923–1925 – in Holland, 1925–1927 – in Finland; whereas I. Scheynius worked in Sweden and Finland. Both men encountered with the similar political conflicts, expe-rienced the unpleasant feelings when they had to retire. Referring to the correspondence between J. Savickis and Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, kept in Copenhagen Archives, we can see, how in the end of 1926 the diplomat was “forced” by Lithuanian Government to transfer big sums of money, accumulated in 1922, from the Copenhagen bank to the bank of Lithuanian State. J. Savickis, having been the authoritative figure in The Board of Danske banken, managed to protest the demand of his direct authorities. I. Scheynius “disobeyed” in a different manner. After events, that happened in 1926, while living in Sweden, he started critisizing open-ly the totalitarian regime of the Lithuanian State and the situation, which emerged there, and fell into disfavour of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Augustinas Voldemaras, the then Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, officially closed the embassies in Finland and Sweden in 1927. Yet J. Savickis, a man of a more temperate character, got the job: he was appointed the director of Lithuania’s State Theatre and the direc-tor of Rights and Administration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later returned to his diplomatic work in Scandinavia. Whereas I. Scheynius was forced to suppress his resentfulness and work as a journalist, translator and agent for Swedish business-men. One way or another, the decade, that passed in Scandinavian countries, could not remain without an imprint in the consciousness of those two writers and diplomats. They not only got

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acquainted with the Scandinavian reality in a perfect way – more than often cautiously approving the positiveness of the pragmatic world under-standing – but publicly stated that it should be adopted by Lithuanians in their lives. From the standpoint of the system of values, the foreign by the right of authority was often imagined as one’s own... However we should not leave out of consideration one important issue: even if the foreign experience, acquired not in one’s native “landscape”, transformed into a virtual aspiration, the object of value itself remained the same, namely – Lithuania and it‘s multifarious, spiritual and material image. According to Augustinas Savickas, the writer’s son, his father treasured his love for Lithuania inwardly and expressed it in his creative work, avoiding the pseudo-patriotic pose, which was characteristic to some officially propa-gated Lithuanian writers and officials3.

The parallels of the mentioned writers Jurgis Savickis and Ignas Scheynius’ personalities, pointing to their restless lives, full of continu-al impressions and changes, are really wonderful. Their intelectual and spiritual searchings started already in youth when they studied Arts and similar subjects. J. Savickis, after leaving the higher agricultural course in Sankt Peterburg, that was financed by his parents, focussed on studying painting. I. Scheynius graduated from Shaniavsky university in Moscow, where he studed Arts philosophy.

The principles of the world-view, not accidentally formed in these schools, were already revealed in the first travel sketches, written by those young writers in Danish and Swedish. J. Savickis’ “Travelling in Lithua-nia” (en rejse gennem Litauen)4 is not a common travel guide, full of geographical, factographic information, but rather an expressive render-ing of Lithuanian cultural landscape, considering the fact, that Danish people knew not much about it and their cultural experience was different. Emotionally rich, conveyed in an expressive artistic scenary Lithuanian geographical picture is revealed in the semantics of the sketch by the eas-ily recognizable Lithuanian national identity. Even if you can not always perceive it actually, but it is felt and implied in the writer‘s consciously formed, created images. The Lithuanian cultural landscape is presented in a similar way in I. Scheynius‘ cultural study “Lithuanian culture” (Li-tauisk kultur)5, in which he emphasizes the observer’s feeling and spir-itual outlook. By the way, the introduction and the finishing word of the latter book is composed of two philosophical chapters about what Art and nature means to a Lithuanian – in what cultural landscape distance he is

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inclined to search for them. I. Scheynius, when writing about Lithuanian culture in Sweden, considered the Scandinavian perception of the world – which is rational, concrete, palpable. His notice, that Lithuanian Art is “absolutely anti-utilitarian”, – which is in fact its biggest value, – con-firms the author’s actual need to question, even if it is done indirectly, the pragmatism of Swedish mentality, cultural attitude, which during those fifty years, spent in Sweden, he could not accept as his own.

Summarising all this, we can state in short: the perspective of the de-picted landscape in the first J. Savickis ir I. Scheynius’ travel books is be-ing based on the exceptionally Lithuanian viewpoint, protecting it as one’s own and “defending” it from the implied Scandinavian rational practi-cism...

Proceeding with the search for the personal parallels in J. Savickis’ and I. Scheynius’ lives, may be it might not be too trivial to affirm that the mentioned authors chose their spouses impulsively: I. Scheynius married a Swedish woman Gertrud von Sydoff in 1917. She soon helped him to find a place and may be even anchor in the Swedish Writers’ Parnassus. J. Savickis was married three times: in Copenhagen he met an extraordi-narily beautiful jew from Petrograd, named Ida Trakiner, but divorced her and married a Danish woman, Inge Persen, and in the end of his life – a Dutch woman, Maria Kock (who is believed to have burnt her husband’s manuscripts after his death). It would be appropriate to speak about these women’s contribution (not only in the positive sense) separately, because they really wanted to shape those Lithuanian talented men according to their own understanding, their Scandinavian taste and cultural scale. Let us remember I. Scheynius’ collection of poems and novelletes “Night and Sun” (Natt och Sol)6 in which the spiritual poet’s landscape, illuminated by Lithuanian impressionism, is apparently different from the manneristic narrativeness of the stylistics of Swedish novelletes’.

J. Savickis’ restfulness, characteristic to his travelling nature, was mentioned by quite a number of contemporaries. Besides, J. Savickis in his diary-like sketch-book, written in Danish, mentioned: “It is difficult for me to remain at home, even if there is Ida there. May be because of inspiration, drawn from Nansen and Hedin, I am haunted by Capri, Tu-nisia, Marroco“ (Savickis, 1925). Also he writes somewhere else: „The book about San Michele – i.e. the novel by Axel Munthes – awfully good book! I must find these places.” And Jurgis Savickis did it – he visited the remote exotic countries: Tunisia and Marocco and wrote a book „A

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little bit of Africa“ (Litet af Afrika)7. If we tried to describe the observ-er’s way of looking at the exotic landscape, we could probably call it a vigilant observing of the other. Nothing reminded the details of one’s own landscape – even the contrasts. Exotic views, the evidence of exception-ally different civilisation eliminated even the smallest possibility to evoke the familiar feelings. Even if this could happen, it would be unnatural, nonsensical or ridiculous... Views of the milieu, rendered in a pictorially “african” stylistics of the artistic language, create unique images in the man’s northen consciousness. They are sparing and psychologically sensi-tive in “Savickis” manner (though we should not forget that in Savickis case – usually expressionistic). They alone are the significant signs of Baltic “landscape”.

Ignas Scheynius was sedentary, as befits a family man. However – ac-cording to his contemporaries’ notice – I. Scheynius „hardly ever“ went to Lithuania with his wife, he preferred staying in Scandinavia. Having emigrated in 1940 from Lithuania, he did not return back and did not go to any other country of the world. There are no documents in Stockholm archives about him being an ardent traveller before 1940 as well. Except his studies in Moscow and travelling as a journalist in the Soviet Union in the thirties, he did not go anywhere in the world. The writer’s son Irvis Scheynius’ (he died this autumn) in his authentic book of short stories “The Northen Lotinia” (Norra Latin)8 wrote about his family’s travels to Lithuania in the period between two wars – to the Baltic seashore and Sheynunai. One can notice that the author of the book is a man of Swed-ish mindset, but the Lithuanian geographical and spiritual landscape is presented in his work as the greatest ethical and esthetical aspiration, as the search for one’s own identity and the inner emotional longing...

Ignas Scheynius’ visiting together with Lithuanian journalists’ group the Soviet Russia, Georgia and Ukraine in 1934 may be the only exception in his travels. It was described only after nine years! I. Scheynius’ “The red journey” (Den röda resan)9 most probably was a peculiar “political project”, which had to sober down the heads of Swedish people who were duped by neutrality during the World War Two. He also had to maintain his literary qualification as a publicist. Let us remember, that his book of historical reminiscences “The red flood” about the Soviet invasion into Lithuania, published in 1940 in Sweden (soon afterwards in Denmark and Finland), scored a great success. Yet “The red journey” is not a typical travel sketch. Though the information here is really very interesting and

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rich, illustrated by photographs from the travels (giving knowledge about the geography of these countries, picturesque landscape views, etc.), the tone of narration is determined by journalistic discourse. The authentic-ity of material is supported by real people (in Russia often – from the opposite political side, in Georgia – from „the accidental“ passers-by or sellers in a market). They provide the opportunity to understand, what is one‘s own and what is foreign to the writer-narrator. The cultural land-scape is being revealed in detail in “The red journey”. The authenticity of the facts is most interesting. In quite a number of episodes the author tells thoroughly about his communication with the minister of Lithuania, writer Jurgis Baltrušaitis and his wife Maria – this was one of the most beautiful visits in Moscow. One can feel the spirit of old Moscow‘s intel-ligentsia, dramatic, though temperately critical relationship to the history, which changed. Yet there is not much of spiritual landscape in this travel sketch – it is replaced most often by a socially and politically engaged informative discourse. It seems that the author of the „The red journey“ strives to maintain a balance between the objective publicistics and the subjective text of fiction. Having in mind such way of narrative, we can group the episodes of „The red journey“ in the following way: the geogra-phy of travels itself (Moscow, Kharkov Rostov on Don, the Crimea, Cau-casus), the survey of political life and the analitical notes of a diplomat fall into the publicistic field. Whereas the authentic telling about the visits to the Tretjakov gallery, The Bolshoi Theatre and other places reflect the author‘s impressions on cultural experience. The attention paied to the human values reveal what it means to live as a guest in a foreign country. Analysing these three aspects of the travelling, we can not avoid relating them to the personal I. Scheynius‘ experience. They are especially evident and often being consciously individualized in the narrative on cultural and human value themes. The author of a sketch often remembers the cultural life in Moscow, which he got to know in his youth, ceaselessly comparing the old Russia, that was up to 1915, with the new Russia of the late pre-war period.

What conclusions could be drawn?1. The authors, remaining in their historical consciuosness flow, can

draw a line between that, which is one‘s own and that, which is foreign in a remote (different) landscape.

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2. The author, even if he is evaluating the object of the foreign land-scape from a different space, can not help noticing the signs of his natural historical consciousness.

3. Any effort to „objectively“ show the foreign, unfamiliar landscape to a person of a different nature is doomed to a factographical dis-course.

4. The artistic narrative of an un-known land during the travels is ensured only by the authentic – and in an artistic sense: genetic – feeling, which is the touch-stone of evaluation.

References1 Baltiska arkivet, vol. 1–16, Stockholm: Riksarkivet.Baltiska arkivet, vol. 1–16, Stockholm: Riksarkivet. 2 Statsarkiv, Balt., vol. 24, København.3 Augustinas Savickas, „Svajojęs apie Lietuvą“, in: Gimtasis kraštas, 1980,

balandžio 24, nr. 17. (A. Savickas, “Dreaming about Lithuania”, in: Gimtasis krastas, 24 april, 1980, no. 17).

4 Jurgis Savickis, en rejse gennem Litauen: København, 1919. 5 Ignas Jurkunas Scheynius, Litauisk kultur. Stockholm: Ord och Bild, 1917.6 Ignas Jurkunas Scheynius,Jurkunas Scheynius, Natt och Sol. Stockholm: Svenska Andelsförlaget,

1918.7 Jurgis Savickis, Litet af Afrika. København: Pløjning, 1929.8 Ignas Scheynius Norra Latin. Stockholm: Fingraf, 1999. 9 Ignas Jurkunas Scheynius, Den röda resanröda resan. Stockholm: Fahlcrantz & Gumæ-

lius, 1943.

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Border State Traveller in Europe

Pasienio valstybės keliautojas Europoje

Anneli KÕVAMeeSTallinn university, institute of estonian Language and CultureNarva road 29, 10120 [email protected]

AbstractEstonia can be determined as a border-state, which in different eras and times

has been a part of the west or the east. Considering both the physical and mental geography, the article tries to find out how the authors from Estonia have depicted one of the centre-points of Europe – Italy. The travelogues of Estonian authors of the 20th and 21st centuries being written in different times and different ideo-logical conditions are under observation, whereas the author has tried to find out how Italy has been depicted, which repetitious patterns of structure and stere-otypical pictures appear in these very travelogues, so in short, the hetero-image, Italian image, will be under observation. The aim of the article is to bring out the general directions of Estonian authors in their Italian travelogues. The construc-tion of one’s own and that of other is under observation, as in depicting other country, one’s own country is depicted too. The theoretical framework for dealing with the present notion is the branch research what in the literal sciences is called imagology or image studies, concentrating on the research of depicting countries and nationalities in literary works. In travelogues there will draw out a map with different crossings and borders: from the border-state Estonia, being located in Eastern Europe, the traveller’s movements into the West, whereas in case of Italy, the movement from North to South is additionally included. The travelogues will reveal the stereotypical contrast between the North and the South, where they depict Italy with the characteristics typical of the south; and accordingly, from the periphery to the centre – if you consider Italy/Rome as one central point of Europe – as the cradle of the Western culture and the centre of the Catholic world. As to the Soviet authors, there is an additional value of movement in the opposite direction: from the communist centre (the Soviet Union/Moscow) to its periphery (the capitalist west). Italian travelogues present a characteristic example how from one object authors can create many different texts and make them serve different ideologies. Most of the Soviet authors write for the Soviet people, for them it is important to bring forth the drawbacks of the capitalist world, non-Soviet authors on the contrary, concentrate on the historical-cultural heritage and personal experi-ence.

Key words: estonian literature, travelogues, national images, stereotypes, italy.

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1. Introduction: Of Borders and Travellers In different times Estonia has been a different border: at the beginning

of the 20th century the western border for the Imperial Russia, in the time of the Republic of Estonia (1918–1940) the eastern border of Europe, in the Soviet times (1940–1941, 1944–1991) the western border of the So-viet Union. In those days Estonia was called “Sovetski zapad” / the Soviet West, for the living standard there was much better in comparison with the rest of the Soviet Union. Since the end of the 20th century Estonia has again been the eastern border of Europe/the European Union. “It has been notified that Estonians have lived and are living in an interesting geo-graphical space: once behind the barrier and then again straight in front of it. A number of things have happened in living either in front of or behind the barrier, which they never have built themselves.”1

Estonian writer Emil Tode has stated Estonia as a border state in his novel Piiririik (Border State) (1993). The term border-state is also a refer-ence to the undetermined state of those (Eastern European) countries – they have once been themselves, but throughout most of the known his-tory they have existed under the influence of somebody else or at least it has been so for the majority of the last century 2.

Considering the previous physical and mental geography, the article is observing how the authors from Estonia determined as a border-state have depicted one of the central points of Europe, Italy. Under the observation are the travelogues published in the 20th and 21st centuries by the fol-lowing Estonian authors3: Ants Laikmaa Teelt (From the road) (1996)4, Friedebert Tuglas esimene välisreis (My First Trip Abroad) (1945), Jo-hannes Semper risti-rästi läbi euroopa (Criss-Cross Through europe) (1935), Karl Ristikivi “Itaalia capriccio” (“Italian Capriccio”) (1958), Valev Uibopuu “Lõuna poole” (“Towards the South”) (1958), Volde-mar Panso Laevaga Leningradist Odessasse ehk Miks otse minna, kui ringi saab (By Boat from Leningrad to Odessa or Why Go Straight if You Can Go Around) (1957), Max Laosson NATO blokk turisti blokknoodis (NATO-Block in the Tourist Notebook) (1962), Aimeé Beekman Plastmas-sist südamega Madonna (Madonna With a Plastic Heart ) (1963), Debora Vaarandi Välja õuest ja väravast (Out of the Yard and the Gate) (1970), Juhan Kahk Alpide taga on moonpunane itaalia (Behind the Alps is the Poppy-red italy) (1967), Artur Vader itaalia päikese all (under the italian Sun) (1973), Olev Remsu Kuidas rikkuda piiri? (How to Violate the Bor-der?) (1997), Viivi Luik “Esimene tervitus Roomast” (“The First Greet-

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ing from Rome”) (2005), Kalev Kesküla “Unistus Toscanast” (“Dream of Tuscany”) (2005), Harry Liivrand “Tintorettoga Veneetsias” (“In Venice with Tintoretto”) (2005), Kai-Mai Olbri inspireeriv itaalia (inspiring ita-ly) (2008) and Kristiina Praakli Minu itaalia (My italy) (2009).

2. About imagology and travelogues The methodological basis for the article is imagology (or image studies),

which deals with the research of national images and their manifestations in literature. One of the basic terms in imagology is image: “The mental or discursive representation or reputation of a person, group, ethnicity or “na-tion”. […] A fundamental distinction is the one between the auto-image (or “self-image”) and the hetero-image: the referring to a characterological reputation current within and shared by a group, the latter to the opinion that others have about a group’s purported character.”5 One of the most impor-tant principles of the method is that the aim of this research – how the coun-tries and the people are depicted in literature – is not to ensure whether what is claimed by the author corresponds to the reality or not. The emphasis lies on the question how and why the authors use the national stereotypes, which texts have influenced them on it, whether they use the stereotype in an ironical or a serious way, etc.6 Simultaneously with the verbal text under attention, the historical context is also considered.

One of the spheres where imagological approach is used is the litera-ture of travelogues. For clarification, it must be added that travel-litera-ture is the most general term, which in the largest meaning comprises travel-guides, novels on travel as well as travelogues. There is a distinc-tion between a travelogue (reisebuch or reisebericht, récit de voyage, travel book, travelogue) as a dominative (and presumably) nonfiction genre and travel literature (reiseliteratur, la littérature de voyage, travel writing, travel literature, the literature of travel) as a general topical category (not a genre), comprising both fiction and nonfiction works and what is the general name for the texts, the main theme of which is travelling7.

In determining the travelogue, Borm has introduced the aspect of dom-inance: some genres contain a mixture of different kinds of genres and forms of writing, they can be determined from the aspect of dominance. A travelogue has been determined by him as follows: “any narrative charac-terized by a non-fiction dominant that relates (almost always) in the first person a journey or journeys that the reader supposes to have taken place

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in reality while assuming or presupposing that author, narrator, and princi-pal character are but one or identical.”8

“Travel writing has built into its very existence a notion of otherness. It is premised on a binary opposition between home and elsewhere, and however fuzzy ideas of “home” might be, ideas of otherness are invari-ably present regardless of the ideological stance of the writer. Writing about other places, other contexts, involves writing (albeit implicitly) about one’s own context, about oneself. Hence, all travel writing exists in a dialectical relationship between two distinct places – that designated by the writer and perhaps by readers as “home,” and that designated as the cultural other”9.

Relying on the theory of imagology and travel literature the author takes under observation the travelogues of different Estonian writers writ-ten in different times and ideological conditions, researches how Italy has been depicted, which repetitious patterns of structure and stereotypical pictures occur in the travelogues, in other words, the hetero-image of the texts, Italy’s depiction, is under observation. The aim of the article is to bring out the general directions of the travelogues by Estonian authors. Travellers depict another country at the same time describing their own country, therefore the construction of the other as well as oneself is under observation.

Estonian literary theories of imagology and travel literature in analys-ing travelogues on the topic of Italy have been employed earlier in the following works: Anneli Kõvamees “Karl Ristikivi reisikiri “Itaalia capr-iccio”” (“Karl Ristikivi’s Travelogue Italian Capriccio”) (2005)10, itaalia eesti reisikirjades: Karl ristikivi “itaalia capriccio” ja Aimée Beekmani “Plastmassist südamega Madonna” (italy in estonian travelogues: “ital-ian Capriccio” by Karl ristikivi and “Madonna with a Plastic Heart” by Aimée Beekman) (2008),11 „Moscow to Rome: From One Centre to An-other“ (2008)12 and “Johannes Semperi rännakutest Itaalias” (“Travels of Johannes Semper in Italy”) (2009)13.

3. Italy in Estonian traveloguesWhile looking at the depiction of Italy in the 20th century and at the

beginning of the 21st century, one of the main factors influencing the cog-nition and construction of the country, is the way of travelling. Whether they travel on their own or with a group, whether they are a single travel-ler or a tourist, what means of transport they use (bus, plane, walking, etc)

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and whether they favour or hinder a social contact with the country. Only the central places, the so-called tourist traps are visited, or whether some remote corners are paid a visit too.14 Therefore, the majority of travelogues of the first half of the 20th century and those of the 21st century have been written on the basis of individual trips. However, those published in Soviet Estonia were mainly written on the basis of tourist trips. We must make a distinction between a tourist and a traveller: “Tourism as not self-directed but externally directed. You go not where you want to go but where the industry has decreed that you shall go. Tourism soothes you by comfort and familiarity and shields you from the shocks of novelty and oddity. It con-firms your prior view of the world instead of shaking it up.”15

The authors who have been under observation here look at Italy with the eyes of an outsider. Considering that most of the works have been written outside Italy, we can speak about double outside-look: it is possi-ble to write as an outsider but on spot (as done by Laikmaa, who wrote his travelogue Teelt while being in Italy not later at home). The self-stranger problem-area is also added to the outsider’s glance. For the authors men-tioned here Italy has been marked with strangeness as Estonian authors come from a different cultural environment. The aspect of strangeness emerges especially clearly in the earlier travelogues on Italy; when little-travelled and little-seen Estonians who, coming from peripheral and prov-ince-like Estonia as compared to Europe, still see Italy as totally differ-ent. Everything should be conveyed to the reader through the travelogue, hence the concentration of the earlier travelogues on the objects is seen; less on the personal emotions and experiences of the writer. In the middle of the 20th century the difference between Italy and Estonia is not so big, the well-organised sewage system or paved streets did not attract such ad-miration. It can be said that from that level Italy seems less strange today. At the same time it should be mentioned that Italy has never been and is not strange in the way like, for example, any African tribe practicing can-nibalism could be for the writer used to the European-like evaluations and esteem. Both Italy as well as Estonia belong to the common cultural space, they both have a certain common share of values and principles. While getting higher from the national level the writers are connected by belonging to one (European) cultural space, a single unified our-group is formed.

In case of the so-called our-groups and our-strange marking a lot de-pends on the level at which the differentiation occurs, whether it is nation-

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al, general-cultural, political, etc. Therefore, the travelogues by A. Beek-man and many other Soviet authors paint Italy less strange by the fact that during the time these trips took place the communist party held quite a strong position, and the attitude of the people to it was positive. The trav-elogues written by the writers of Soviet Estonia contain a filter between the so-called clean Italy as seen by the Estonian look and the Soviet filter, identifying oneself on several occasions belonging to the soviet space, not just to Estonia. Concerning Beekman, but also other Soviet authors, another level of identification emerges: there is a notable compassion and sympathy, mental unification with the working class; their aspects are shared etc. However, the writer also represents that part of the society who has a better living standard, as one can stay at good hotels, etc., i.e. the writer does not belong to the class of the workers towards who the our-feeling is felt. An example of a more complex self-identification could be brought forward – Ristikivi, having lived in Sweden, mostly identifies himself as a person of Swedish origin, while contacting with Italians. This is the case of a writer whose auto-image has split or at least is not fixed as very unified (Estonia – Sweden, Estonian – Swedish), which can be as an example of double-glance: an Estonian writer living in Sweden depicts Italy, there is a Swedish filter between the clear Estonian-Italian vision.

An important place is taken by the preliminary image of the country, the writer is not a tabula rasa, from the earlier texts they have obtained some idea what the real Italy could be like. In imagology they speak about special or cultural couleur locale; about literary geography with their moods and connections and emotional charm, which in literature is stronger than the historical reality16. It has a large effect on the basis the traveller can make decisions on realistic places. Whether something is so to say real or not, the argumentations on the real or existing Italy could be found. See e.g. “the traveller coming from the northern side step-by-step into Italy thinks on every stage he/she has come closer to the South that here the real Italy is beginning. The nature becoming more “Italian”, i.e. becoming more similar to the images we have painted ourselves into our minds by readings and pictures and photos”17.

Laikmaa’s Capri becomes the quintessence of Italian-like. For Ris-tikivi the precondition to see real-Italy is the real seeing of it, which “is a direct contact with all the senses, this presumes becoming a real citizen for however short a period. Here belongs an unconditional presumption of strolling on the streets, orientation in the zigzag of street-names, going as

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a usual passenger in public transport, or even the sound of one’s own feet on the empty pavement”18. The similar trail of thought can also be found, for example, in the travelogue Minu itaalia by Kristiina Praakli19.

Concerning the real or realistic Italy, the travelogues published by the authors of Soviet Estonia are separated from others mentioned distinctly. The Soviet-like, antagonistic to capitalism, the authors consider the real essence of the country in everything concerning workers, their living con-ditions, salaries, etc. In the Soviet travelogues, they split Italy into two: the capitalistic side, which receives a negative attitude, and workers, the so-called real Italy, who receive support. Therefore we can say, for exam-ple, that the title of the travelogue by J. Kahk Alpide taga on moonpunane itaalia can be considered as metaphorical, Italy being a red, communist-minded country. The fact, which may arise questions to the reader – why does the country, where there are so many communist-minded people, still have people who go to monasteries (Italy significantly is a catholic country) – has been explained by the fact that “Capitalist society with its noise and cruelty, deception and hypocrisy may frighten and suppress a weaker person. Finally, the only way out is to hide in a small garden [a cloister] where there is always silence and peace.”20 At the same time he writes about a boy who runs away from a monastery and later becomes one of the founders of the Communist party21. Therefore, those who stay in a cloister are weak, but the stronger ones use the benefits of the cloister to get an education and later use it for progressive purposes.

It can be assumed from the aforementioned that the depiction of Italy by Estonian authors, the hetero-image, has strongly been influenced by the historical-political context and the writer’s auto-image. In case of the latter, the travelogues by Soviet authors were loaded with ideological ex-pressions of ideas. Now and again, it is brought out how good it is for a Soviet worker to live, see the travelogue of Vader (the former key person in the communist party of Estonia, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Estonia and the first deputy of the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union between 1970–1978); where there are traffic-jams and the shortage of public transport22, by which he tried to hint how good it is for the Soviet person not to have a private car; therefore there is no need to be kept stuck in traffic jams and breathe in the fumes. In those kinds of texts we can talk about the antithesis born from the mirror-reflection23: bringing forth the unemployment of a capitalist country, the poor condi-tions of the working class, etc. at the same time hinting that in the Soviet

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Union everything is quite the opposite concerning these problems, i.e. in the very best situation. (In the Soviet travelogues Estonia has often been replaced by the Soviet Union or Russia).

There can be brought out several stereotypes and stereotypical con-structions in the travelogues. Nearly all the travelogues contain a contrast between the south and the north, which activates a number of charac-teristic features, dominating irresponsible of the country or the people. The northern part of the country is described as having a “cooler” tem-perament which is opposed to a “warmer” south. The contrasting of cool north-warm south also comprises such characteristic features like: more mysterious, more individualistic, rougher, more powerful, less favourable, but more reliable and more responsible than the southern part, which is more sensual, collective, etc. democracy business management, the lack of imagination and introspection, and slow-starting are the characteristic features of the north. Aristocracy, hierarchy, imagination and extravert spontaneity are the features characterizing the south24. (The fact that the “south” of one country is the “north” of another is a short-circuit, which proves the unreliability of the existence of being taking-for-granted but has not affected the existence of these principles 25).

The geographical contrasting in the travelogues is supported by his-torical, social and cultural contrasts, which often come along with geog-raphy. The depressed, sad, serious, order-loving and melancholic north-erner has been described stereotypically (here we can also talk about the writer’s auto-image), whereas the southerner as a free, joyful person who does not fuss about a mess (a hetero-image in relation to auto-image). In his travelogue “Unistus Toscanast” Kesküla paints a map resulting from contrasting the north-south. By stereotypic contrasting the north-south contrast comes out: firstly, the climate of north European (what is called cold-sluggish) and cosily warm (not the heat like in Africa) South Euro-pean (Tuscany) climate. The juxtaposition here actually has three stages: north and south and south-south. The north and south and both the souths enter the comparison, i.e. northern Europe has juxtaposition with southern Europe, the latter with Africa. In addition, northern and southern Italy have been contrasted, the mild climate of Tuscany and the unusual for the northern European the heat of Sicily. The literal aspect has been added to the climatic one: the author contrasts southern Italy with its criminal side, referring to Stendhal’s italian Chronicles, where assassinators always originate from about and around Naples26. In this very travelogue there

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has been mentioned a familiar and repetitious picture from Naples (south-ern Italy) as an area with dubious reputation, which also characterises the depictions of Italy by foreign authors27. The similar multilevel contrasting we find for example from the travelogue of Semper, where the south (It-aly) and the north (Germany) have clearly been separated, characterising Germany with the attributes that of north: extreme organisation, realistic, cold-heartedness. Berlin, accordingly, contrasts Munich28. The contrasting and juxtaposition emerge in contrasting and juxtaposition: Germany vs. Italy (north vs. south), at the same time inside Germany Berlin contrasting to Munich (north vs. south, one of the cities lies to the south of the other, here is also felt the contrasting Prussian-Bayern, which is not only geo-graphical or climatic but also historical, cultural and social).

In contrasting north and south there can be brought out the contrasting of Catholicism and Lutheranism. They often compare Roman St. Peter’s church with the royal palace, sermons with theatre29. While in case of the above-mentioned there can be an uneasy moment, from the travelogue-writers from the Soviet aspect the reader often finds more or less rhetori-cally decorated speeches on the negative influence of religion on people and the Vatican as the centre of the machinations of the church. It can be said that in the works of the non-soviet authors there predominates the contrasting of Catholicism and Lutheranism, whereas it does not always mean a negative attitude towards Catholicism, but rather the juxtaposition and the feeling of strangeness resulting from there, the Soviet authors re-flect the contrasting religion vs atheism.

The travelogue of the Soviet social activist Laosson has the prevail-ing negative attitude towards religion. The Vatican with its St. Peter’s church as the centre of the Catholic world is not simply strange with its gorgeousness, but the writer’s attempt is to make the reader sick and tired both of the Vatican and religion in general, so Laosson describes the Vati-can trading with children30. The writing addresses the audience trying to convince them of the negative influence on a person and by strengthening an atheistic way of life, which was prevailing in the Soviet Union. For the soviet travellers Italy/the west is the periphery of the communist world, the centre of the communist world, however, being Moscow. In the Soviet travelogues there can be noticed a movement from the centre of the com-munist world into its periphery (the west), which is also the centre of the catholic world (Italy/the Vatican). The travelogues also reveal the clash of two ideologies31.

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4. Summary In the travelogues a map with different crossings and borders draws out:

the movements of the traveller from Estonia, determined as the border-state of Eastern Europe, into the west, in case of Italy the movement from north to south is added. Also, from the periphery to the centre, if to consider Italy / Rome as one of the centres of Europe – the cradle of the western culture and the centre of the Catholic world. In connection with the Soviet authors, an extra value will be the diverse movement, from the communist centre of the world – the Soviet Union/Moscow – to its periphery. The background has played an important role in depicting another country and in construct-ing the self and the other. The Italian travelogues are vivid examples that “it is possible to create extremely different texts about one and the same object and to apply them to serve different ideologies”32.

It is important for the soviet authors to bring out the drawbacks of the capitalist world, the travelogues being written according to those princi-ples. Other travel writers concentrate more on the historical-cultural herit-age and on personal experience. “Travellers write about what they see, and their perceptions are shaped by the cultural context from which they come and by all that they have read and experienced in that culture.”33

Notes, litterature1 Paatsi, Vello, Maateadusraamat, maakaart ja reisiraamat rahva silmaringi ava-

rdamas. in: Tõnu Tender, ed. raamatu osa eesti arengus. Tartu: Ilmamaa, 2001, 241.

2 Saar, Maris, Oma ja võõra piiril: enesemääratlemise küsimused Emil Tode romaanis “Piiriik”. in: Tuuli Raudla, Leene Korp, eds. Hortus semioticus, Tartu: Tartu ülikool, 2006, 1, 149.

3 Under observation are the travelogues being published as a separate book or in a book.

4 The travelogues were first published in the newspaper Päevaleht in 1910–1911, this article has relied on the collection “Teelt. Maailmakodaniku reisikirjad Vi-inist, Veneetsiast, Firenzest, Roomast, Caprilt, Sitsiiliast, Vesuuvi tipust, Tunis-est jm.”. Compiled by V. Tiik and published in 1996.

5 Joep Leerssen, image, in: Manfred Beller, Joep Leerssen, eds. imagology. The Cultural Construction and Literary representation of National Charac-ters. A Critical Survey, Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2007, 342–343.

6 Lachlan R. Moyle, Drawing Conclusions: An imagological survey of Britain and the British and Germany and the Germans in German and British cartoons and caricatures, 1945–2000, 2004. Available from: http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=974194158&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=974194158.pdf [17.10.2009]

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7 Jan Borm, Defining Travel: On the Travel Book, Travel Writing and Termi-nology, in: Glenn Hooper, Tim Youngs, eds. Perspectives on Travel Writing. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, 18–19.

8 Borm, 17.9 Susan Bassnett, introduction, in: Jennifer Speake, ed. Literature of travel and

exploration: an encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2003, xi.10 Anneli Kõvamess, Karl ristikivi reisikiri “itaalia capriccio”, Keel ja Kirjan-

dus, 2005, 11, 901–912.11 Anneli Kõvamess, itaalia eesti reisikirjades: Karl ristikivi “itaalia capric-

cio” ja Aimée Beekmani “Plastmassist südamega madonna”, Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikooli kirjastus, 2008.

12 Anneli Kõvamess, Moscow to Rome: From One Centre to Another. in: Eva Eglāja-Kristsone, Benedikts Kalnačs, eds. Back to Baltic Memory: Lost and Found in Literature 1940–1968. Riga: Latvijas Universitātes, Literatūras, folk-loras un mākslas institūts, 2008, 219–233.

13 Anneli Kõvamess, Johannes Semperi rännakutest itaalias, in: Elo Lindsalu, Jaanus Vaiksoo, eds. uurimusi 1920.-1930. eesti kirjandusest, Tallinn: TLÜ kirjastus, 2009, 75–195.

14 Manfred Pfister, introduction, in: Manfred Pfister, ed. The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The italies of British Travellers. An Annotated Anthology. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996, 7.

15 Bassnett, xii. See also: “The glance of a tourist largely depends on the profes-sion, tendencies, preliminary education. In general, it is something where a heavy dose of naivety is mixed with superficiality and the joy of the holiday and the romantic aspect of the trip add optimism. The tourist does not have a day of the week; the tourist is happy and jolly. He does not go, he is taken somewhere, he does not look - he is shown everything. The tourist believes in everything they tell him, or else he has resolved beforehand that he will not believe anything. He often makes a general conclusion out of a casual detail; after a five-minute talk with a random citizen he is ready to give the economical summary of the country”. Voldemar Panso, Laevaga Leningradist Odessasse ehk Miks otse minna, kui ringi saab. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus, 1957, 51.

16 Karl Ulrich Syndram, The Aesthetics of Alterity: Literature and the imago-logical Approach, in: Joseph Theodoor Leersen, Menno Spiering, eds. Na-tional identity – Symbol and representation. Yearbook of european Studies, 4. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 1991, 187.

17 Ants Laimaa, Teelt. Maailmakodaniku reisikirjad Viinist, Veneetsiast, Firenz-est, roomast, Caprilt, Sitsiiliast, Vesuuvi tipust, Tunisest jm. Tallinn: Kunst, 1996, 203.

18 Karl Ristikivi, Itaalia capriccio. in: Üle maa ja mere. Matkakirju kaheksalt autorilt. Lund: Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv, 1958, 221.

19 Kristiina Praakli, Minu itaalia, Tartu: Petrone Print, 2009, 23.20 Juhan Kahk, Alpide taga on moonpunane itaalia. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1967,

40.21 Kahk, 42.

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22 Artur Vader, itaalia päikese all. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1973, 22-23.23 Peet Lepik, Antikultuuri fenomen Nõukogude kultuuris, in: Akadeemia, 2000,

4, 742.24 Joep Leersen, The rhetoric of National Character: A Programmatic Survey,

in: Poetics Today, 2000, 21, 275–276.25 Joep Leersen, National identity and National Stereotype. Available from:

http://cf.hum.uva.nl/images/info/leers.html [25.01.2006]26 Kalev Kesküla, unistus Toscanast, in: Krister Kivi, ed. Maailm. eesti ekspressi

reisiraamat. Tallinn: Eesti Ekspressi Kirjastus, 2005, 174.27 Manfred Beller, italians, in: Manfred Beller, Joep Leersen, eds. imagology.

The Cultural Construction and Literary representation of National Charac-ters. A Critical Survey. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2007, 197–198.

28 Johannes Semper, risti-rästi läbi euroopa. Tartu: Noor-Eesti, 1935, 11–12.29 See Fiedebert Tuglas, esimene välisreis. Pagulasmälestusi Prantsusmaalt ja

itaaliast 1909–1910. Tallinn: Ilukirjandus ja Kunst, 1945, 92, 103.30 Max Laosson, Nato-blokk turisti bloknoodis. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus,

1962, 27.31 See more Anneli Kõvamess, Moscow to rome: From One Centre to Another,

219–233.32 Anneli Mihkelev, Texts of Tallinn and Tartu in estonian Poetry, in: Virve Sar-

apik, Kadri Tüür, Mari Laanemets, eds. Koht ja paik. Place and Location II. Tallinn: Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, 2002, 431.

33 Bassnett, xi.

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VIeToj IŠVADŲ BY wAY oF CoNCLUSIoN

The Achievements of this Congress will be Measured by Time…

The third International Congress of the European Network for Com-parative Literary Studies (REELC-ENCLS)) “Transformations of the european Landscape: encounters Between the Self and the Other” was organised by a joined effort of the Lithuanian Comparative Literature As-sociation, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore and Vilnius Pedagogical University. This was the first time when Lithuanian scholars did not initiate an international conference themselves, but at the Second Congress of the European Network for Comparative Literary Studies won the right to organise a global international forum of comparativists in Vil-nius. To make this event happen we worked hard for two years. When the time came we welcomed scholars of comparative literature from 22 coun-tries, European and American continents.

The plenary session was opened by the President of the Estonian Com-parative Literature Association and “godfather” of our Association, Pro-fessor Jüri Talvet, who read an intriguing paper “Western Humanism and the Concept of the Other”. The session continued with the presentation of one of our most honourable guests, a reputable European comparativist and former President of the French Comparative Literature Association, Professor Alain Montadon, who read a paper “The Metamorphoses of European Spaces in the 19th century”. Among other plenary speakers were the President of the International Comparative Literature Association, Professor Manfred Schmeling from Germany, who extended ideas about humanism and post-humanism in Europe, one of the most active creators of our network, Marko Juvan from the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, who focused on the relationship between the so-called “central” and “peripheral” literatures, Professor Ekkehard Bornträger from the Uni-versity of Freiburg, who talked about the impact of globalisation on the development of languages and was the only foreign speaker to answer questions in Lithuanian, the eminent Lithuanian scholar from Vilnius Uni-

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BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

versity, Professor Viktorija Daujotytė-Pakerienė, who explored the arche-types and universals in the poetic landscapes of Strazdas, Baranauskas and Geda, and Assoc. Professor Nijolė Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė, who applied the precepts of imagology in her analysis of the image of Paris in Lithuanian literature.

After the plenary presentations the participants went on to work in parallel sections, of which there were even eight: Methodological prob-lems (chaired by dr. Lucia Boldrini and prof. Aušra Jurgutienė), Trav-el Narratives (chaired by Prof. Isabel Cristina do Valle Lages Trabu-cho and Assoc. Prof. Kai Mikkonen, next day – Assoc. Prof. Sigutė Radzevičienė and Prof. Roland Lysell), Shifts in the european Cultur-al Map (chaired by Prof. Rennie Yotova and Assoc. Prof. Genovaitė Dručkutė), Museum of images (chaired by Prof. Vytautas Martinkus and Prof. Benedikts Kalnačs, next day – dr. Laurynas Katkus, Assoc. Prof. David Adams), The rhetoric of identity (chaired by Prof. Christina Par-nell, dr. Dan Landmark; next day – dr. Gintarė Bernotienė, Assoc. Prof. Dainius Vaitiekūnas), Female Spaces (chaired by Eglė Kačkutė and dr. Solveiga Daugirdaitė), Challenges of the Centre-Periphery (chaired by Prof. Andrew John Ginger and Prof. Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser), and the always-intriguing section Aspects of intermediality (chaired by Assoc. Prof. Loreta Mačianskaitė and dr. Beata Waligorska-Olejniczak, next day – Assoc. Prof. Natalija Arlauskaitė and Aleš Vaupotič). We hold it an important achievement that our scholars found a comfortable place among the notable European researchers of comparative literature: they read interesting papers, chaired the sections and actively participated in the discussions.

Fiery discussions set off already on the first day with Farouk Y Seif, Kai Mikkonen, and Laurynas Katkus often springing from their seats to make a comment. Last day’s round table discussions chaired by the most notable professors of the Congress Kęstutis Nastopka, Alain Montandon, and Jüri Talvet aimed to sum up the work in the sections, point out the most urgent problems and the most recurrent questions as well as to indi-cate the positive and negative aspects of the conference. Everyone present had the opportunity to ask questions they had not been able to ask be-fore. Especially so since there was no language barrier: at the round table, like during the plenary sessions, the participants were helped by expe-rienced interpreters: Assoc. Prof. Birutė Bersėnienė from Vilnius Peda-gogical University, who interpreted from and to English, and Assoc. Prof.

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VIETOJ IŠVADŲ

Genovaitė Dručkutė from Vilnius University, who interpreted from and to French.

After the fruitful discussion, the last comments were extended by the newly-elected Head of the European Network for Comparative Lit-erary Studies, Prof. Karl Zieger from France. He introduced the new coordinator of the Network Nele Bemong (Research Foundation Flan-ders, K.U.Leuven, Belgium), and announced that Olga Romanova from Ukraine is to be responsible for the matters related to PhD students, their connections, bilateral and university exchanges.

The achievements of this forum will be measured by time. We may say that this was the first time the dialogue of this scale took place in Lithuania, which made us see ourselves as part of a serious international organisation and helped us gain more confidence.

Nijolė Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė

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ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION / TABLE RONDE FINALE

Contribution de Karl ZieGer (université de Valenciennes, Société Française de Littérature générale et comparée, SFLGC)

Au début de cette brève intervention je tiens à remercier les organisa-teurs et organisatrices de ce congrès ainsi que tous les intervenants pour les trois passionnantes journées qu’ils nous ont offertes ici. Dès le premier jour, nous avons tous senti – je crois pouvoir le dire – que Vilnius était un de ces lieux qui semblent prédestinés à une réflexion approfondie sur la transformation du paysage (littéraire) européen et sur les différentes for-mes de rencontre entre le MOi et l’AuTre.

Personnellement, j’ai assisté le vendredi après-midi à un passionnant atelier («The Changing Cultural Map of Europe») qui a rendu palpable, à quel point l’Histoire, la Politique, le déplacement des frontières, le vécu d’un groupe et le vécu individuel sont étroitement liés et se reflètent dans les œuvres littéraires; tous les participants à cet atelier ont montré com-ment la recherche d’identité a partie liée avec l’interculturalité, comment cette identité se révèle parfois (voire même souvent) hybride, mais en-richie justement par les traces qu’ont laissées différentes cultures.

Je pense que l’un des intérêts d’un tel congrès, l’un des défis lancés à la Littérature comparée aujourd’hui est justement de faire découvrir et de mettre en valeur des créations dites «régionales», des créations consi-dérées (autrefois) comme «mineures» et d’étudier leurs relations avec les «grandes littératures / cultures canonisées». On peut partir de l’hypothèse que ce rapport à la fois complexe et fructueux ne dépend pas uniquement du statut de la langue. Même à l’intérieur de grandes aires linguistiques, on connaît de tels rapports de «dominant» à «dominé», des œuvres et des auteurs qui sont l’expression d’une minorité ou des témoignages d’une vie entre deux (ou plusieurs) cultures. En dehors de tous les exemples présentés ici, lors de ce congrès, je pense, dans le domaine germanique par exemple, à des écrivains comme Joseph Zoderer, qui, originaire du Südtirol / Alto Adige, se définit comme un «écrivain de langue allemande, fortement marqué par la culture autrichienne et ayant un passeport ita-lien», et on pourrait évidemment aussi penser à la récente lauréate de Prix Nobel de littérature, Herta Müller, qui représente la minorité allemande de Roumanie…

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VIETOJ IŠVADŲ

Le paysage géographique et intellectuel de l’Europe n’a cependant pas seulement été changé par l’Histoire et la Politique. Nous avons assisté ici à des conférences et à des ateliers qui ont mis en lumière les consé-quences du progrès technique et des nouvelles technologies pour la créa-tion littéraire et artistique. Je pense à ce propos à la conférence plénière d’Alain Montandon («Progrès techniques et métamorphoses des espaces européens au XIXe siècle») et aux interventions dans l’atelier «Aspects of Intermediality» (samedi après-midi).

De manière plus générale, je crois que nous avons pu nous rendre compte que des domaines plus ou moins «classiques» du comparatisme gagnent en actualité et en pertinence grâce à des approches et des pers-pectives inhabituelles, grâce à des points de vue nouveaux: je pense à ce que nous avons pu entendre lors de ce congrès à propos de la littérature de voyage, à propos de l’imagologie (qui me semble connaître un renouvel-lement intéressant), à propos des questions posées par l’intermédialité et, bien entendu, à propos de l’éternelle (et inévitable) question des rapports entre Centre et Périphérie. Cette dernière nous amène d’ailleurs à nous poser la question de savoir où se trouve, aujourd’hui, le centre et où la pé-riphérie: le centre, est-il la culture anglo-saxonne vers laquelle tout sem-ble s’orienter , qui semble tout écraser? Ou alors, l’anglais, permet-il aux cultures «périphériques» de mieux se faire connaître et de mieux exister? Je crois que nous sommes tous conscients de l’importance de la plura-lité linguistique et culturelle évoquée par Manfred Schmeling à propos de Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, mais aussi des menaces et des dangers qui pèsent sur elle.

Cela m’amène à terminer ma brève intervention par une réflexion sur une question qui n’a pas fait explicitement l’objet d’un atelier, mais qui a été inévitablement présente dès le premier jour: celle des traductions. Précisons tout de suite, que, du point de vue pratique, ce problème a été maîtrisé par les organisatrices avec beaucoup de talent et de sensibilité et qu’elles ont trouvé quelques solutions qui me paraissent praticables dans d’autres congrès de notre réseau (notamment la diffusion de traductions de langues autres que l’anglais via «powerpoint», ce qui revient à une sor-te de «sur-titrage» comme on le pratique à l’opéra). – Mais le problème de traduction ne se pose évidemment pas seulement pour des interventions universitaires et des congrès comme le nôtre: il se pose aussi et surtout pour une bonne partie des œuvres avec lesquelles nous confrontons nos étudiants, quand on les fait lire en traduction, ce qui arrive, soyons hon-

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nêtes, assez fréquemment. On connaît bien la distinction entre traductions dites «dynamiques» ou «ciblistes» et traductions «adéquates», «sourciè-res». Dans la pratique concrète, les choses sont, bien sûr, plus complexes et la question de la traduction se révèle cruciale pour le comparatisme. Nous aurons bien besoin non pas d’un, mais de plusieurs congrès et col-loques pour évaluer les avantages, mais aussi les éventuels inconvénients des unes (des traductions «adéquates») et les méfaits, mais aussi les éven-tuels bienfaits des autres pour la réception de l’œuvre littéraire dans un contexte culturel qui lui est étranger et pour la découverte de l’autre.

Le congrès du «Réseau européen d’études littéraires comparées» à Vilnius a soulevé des questions et suggéré des idées qui devraient fructi-fier dans le travail de recherche de chacun(e) d’entre nous.

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Acta litteraria comparativa. Europos kraštovaizdžio trans-formacijos: savo ir svetimo susitikimai. Transformations of the European landscape: Encounters between the self and the other. Mokslo darbai 5/2010–2011. – Vilnius: Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto leidykla, 2011. – 444 p.

Tęstiniame Lietuvos lyginamosios literatūros asociacijos lei-dinyje spausdinami tyrinėjimai skirti tiek kintančios bendrosios Europos kultūros tapatybės, tiek nacionalinių literatūrų savivo-kos problemoms. Žymių komparatyvistų ir jaunųjų mokslininkų straipsniuose aptariami centro ir periferijos santykiai, gvildenami „nepažįstamųjų“ iš Rytų Europos pakraščio sugrįžimo į bendruo-sius Europos namus klausimai, apmąstomi itin aktualūs migracijos ir globalizacijos mesti iššūkiai.

Redagavo Daina Miniotaitė, Rūta Šlapkauskaitė, Dalia KaladinskienėMaketavo Donaldas Petrauskas

Viršelio autorė Dalia Raicevičiūtė

SL 605. 27,75 sp. l. Tir. 150 egz. Užsak. Nr. 011-084Išleido ir spausdino VPU leidykla, T. Ševčenkos g. 31, LT-03111 Vilnius

Tel. +370 5 233 3593, el. p. [email protected]

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