Lithuanian contexts of Aspazija's historical drama Vaidelote

ENAspazija’s historical drama Vaidelote (Pagan Priestess; 1894), based on Lithuania’s early history, was translated into Lithuanian in 1908 and staged several times by diaspora Lithuanian theatre amateurs in Riga and Mitau (now Jelgava). This paper aims to determine how the Lithuanian audience perceived it. The translation and staging of Vaidelote is a good opportunity to consider the tradition of Lithuanian dramaturgy in the context of evaluating this Neo-romanticist drama by Aspazija, and the influence it may have had on the Lithuanian historical drama of the time. The methodological approaches used here include the notion of the horizon of expectation, which comes from literary hermeneutics, and the model of theatrical communication by Susan Bennett, who has adapted the active reader response to the theatrical situation. These theoretical tools are discussed in the first part of the paper. The second part presents the situation of early Lithuanian theatre and its dramaturgy at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The third part is devoted to the translation of Aspazija’s drama Vaidelote and its reception by Lithuanian audience. This paper concludes that Aspazija’s drama entered the Lithuanian theatre scene after having been simplified and adapted to the limited possibilities of the amateur theatre of that time. Therefore, its influence on Lithuanian historical dramaturgy was limited. Keywords: Lithuanian Evenings, amateur Lithuanian theatre, historical dramaturgy, theatrical communication structure, horizon of expectation.

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