Kuršu kāpas lietuviešu literatūrā: kultūras atmiņas paradigmas
ENThe article analyzes, how the landscape of the Curonian Spit was understood in Martynas Liudvikas Rėza's poetry book "Prutena", in the collection of Lithuanian "Dainos" and other literary works, what was most important to the writer. Rėza described the place, which was for him homeland. The Curonian Spit has very big significance for this author comparing with other writers of German and Lithuanian origin. The writer tried to express individual emotional and intellectual experience, and to revive the cultural memory of this place. His works were very significant stimulus for other Lithuanian authors who wrote about Curonian Spit later. Also the meanings of the Curonian spit in the Lithuanian literature during the interwar period are very important. Poetry, prose and travel essays indicate that this place becomes important in cultural memory of the Independent State of Lithuania. Curonian Spit was realized as a significant source of creative imagination: the writers tried to revive legends, history, and to fix the individual experience. Basic tendency: recognition of the Curonian Spit as very important place to Lithuanians. One of the most popular and original portraitist of people and nature of the Curonian Spit was Petras Babickas, who created the suggestive travel book "Amber Shore", which had even three editions.This article examines also the meanings of the Curonian spit in the Lithuanian exil literature during the postwar period. It is obvious, that The Curonian Spit has not so very big significance for the Lithuanian authors comparing with the writers of East Germany origin: very few literary works are devoted to this place. The exil writers tried to express individual memory and to reflect the distinctive culture of this place. Mostly the Curonian Spit was understood as a metaphor of existential experience. The prosaists described the nature and people stressing the otherness of this place and difficulties of understanding. The Curonian spit did not become the sign of nostalgia for homeland as Nemunas, Vilnius and other Lithuanian topographical names. The cultural memory of the Curonian Spit in the Lithuanian literature is contradictory: on the one hand, for many authors the Curonian Spit is as the Utopian place, on the other hand, we could recognize the traumatic memory, and the place was described not only as paradise, but also as purgatory or inferno. This evidences the current cultural self-awareness, the desire to cover a wide range of cultural meanings and meaningful symbols of the Baltic heritage.
