Particularly public and very private
EN[...] Middle Europe is now into the third decade of an intensive programme to publish texts retrieved “from the drawer” – either by the authors themselves, or by their heirs. Books printed in the West by emigrant writers are read and distributed en masse. Archival materials and manuscripts that had ended up in the KGB archives after raids on the flats of "untrustworthy" authors are rapidly being made public. A question arises from this publication boom: has the indiscriminate publication of certain personal writings led in some cases to an over-stepping of the subtle margin of privacy? The subject of this paper, however, is almost the exact opposite. It concerns literary works that were accessible to the public in a totalitarian society and have become concealed in an environment of democratic openness. Among them are texts that fifty years ago were published in thousands of copies, the re-printing of which now raises issues regarding the violation of authors’ rights and ethical responsibility. I will open up this paradox by the example of an important Lithuanian writer who has been included in school curricula and and whose Rastai [Writings] have now been published in a complete edition. (Mykolaitis-Putinas 1989-2009). [...].
