Tragiškasis civilizacijos punktyras Antano Škėmos romane "Balta drobulė"

LTAntanas Škėma (1910–1961) yra ryškiausias išeivijos moderniosios prozos kūrėjų, perteikęs literatūroje katastrofistines XX a. nuotaikas ir dramatišką žmogaus būseną didžiųjų sukrėtimų metu. Romanu „Balta drobulė“ (1958) jis paliudijo epochos totalitarizmo formas: ideologinį komunistinį ir ekonominį kapitalistinį. Šiame romane apmąstoma Vakarų civilizacijos raida, kuri prasideda aukštu idėjų polėkiu ir baigiasi ideologinėmis prievartomis. Dėmesio centre – dramatiškai kintanti žmogaus tapatybė ir tragiškas humanistinių vertybių likimas naujajame technologinės bei vartotojiškos kultūros pasaulyje. Ekspresionizmo stilistika ir siurrealizmo vaizdais demonstruojama blogio epocha, plėtojamos žmogaus vienišumo ir visuomenės susvetimėjimo temos, išreiškiamas gyvenimo beprasmybės jausmas, atskleidžiamas laipsniškas asmenybės suirimo procesas. Romanas Vakarų civilizaciją parodo kaip ciklinį istorinį laiką, kuris visuomenę atbloškia atgal į pirmykščių primityvių laikų būklę, kurioje klesti kapitalas ir technologijos, bet miršta žmogaus dvasia.

ENThe most important work by the émigré prose writer and playwright Antanas Škėma (1910-1961) - the novel "Balta drobulė" (The White Shroud) - expresses the collective experiences of the Lithuanian nation: the attempts of the Lithuanians, who had lost their homeland due to the Bolshevist occupation of Lithuania, to adapt to life in America. The writer chooses a character of dramatic nature, the poet and intellectual Antanas Garšva, who resorts to the principle of contrast to compare the two worlds he knew: the old humanistic Europe and the technological consumerist civilization of the New World. He compares two forms of totalitarianism: an ideological communism and an economic capitalism. Through the intense reflections of the protagonist, the novel considers the evolution of Western civilization which begins with a high flight of ideas and ends in ideological coercion. In Lithuanian literature, Škėma creates probably the most authentic modernist character, through which he reflects on the disastrous forces of time. History as such is like a nervous and excited fabric of living cells - people. Due to historical experiences, the twentieth-century history of Lithuanian literature has been politically infected, and especially the modernist history of literature, which reflects on the evils of political and power structures and defends the European idea of the free individual. The main character is created as an individual who is in search of his cultural identity.As a lonely rebel who has risen against the world of evil, he is exalted through an analogy to the myth of Jesus Christ’s Passion; as one experiencing a fatal defeat, he is compared to the symbolic figure of Sisyphus. Through this character, Škėma depicts the evolution of Western civilisation: the mind that represses human nature and ignores the voice of life turns into madness, although the human is not annihilated in this system as capitalism needs a living labour-force. Therefore the human is simply remade and changed: his spiritual self-awareness, which is directly linked to the principle of life, is removed. The grandeur of Škėma’s hero - just like that of another Lithuanian writer, Ričardas Gavelis - rises from his passionate hatred for the structures of power. These characters are in a dialectic relationship with the metaphysical idea of evil, thus, paradoxically, they are as though infected with evil themselves. That is why in the texts of both these writers-critics of totalitarianism history is perceived as a continuous, unstoppable degradation, as a shift from the golden age towards a catastrophic finale in which the human is sacrificed. Škėma’s novel as though portends the death of Christian humanistic culture and stands out as a dramatic search for identity of an individual of the Western world at a time of epistemic crisis.