Balio Sruogos laiškai Vandai Daugirdaitei-Sruogienei

ENThe article deals with the description of the letters of Balys Sruoga to Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė (1919-1946, 237 pieces) and letters from Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė to Sruoga (1920–1940, 50 pieces). It aims at (1) presenting the history of the corpus of letters to a broader audience, (2) examining the letters of Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė to Sruoga, (3) naming the peculiarities of the content, style, and composition of the letters by comparing them with the letters addressed to Valerija Čiurlionytė, a study friend in Russia, and Juozapas Sruoga, Balys' eldest brother, (4) examining the relationship of Sruoga's letters with the memoir material, journalistic texts, and epistolary literature, and (5) referring the textual peculiarities of this collection. The corpus of the letters addressed to Daugirdaitė is among the largest and most complicated ones in Sruoga's epistolary legacy from the reconstructive point of view (the entirely of his corpus becomes visible only by chronologically linking all of Sruoga's letters kept in the Archives of the Library of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature, and the house-museum of Balys and Vanda Sruoga in Kaunas, and by emplying extratextual materials from the USA, primarily from Kislak Center, the University of Pennsylvania, where Sruogienė's collection is stored. This collection of Sruoga's letters is also unique because of the remaining possibility to recover at least a part of the dialogue between the addresser and the addressee. Sruoga wrote the majority of the letters (173) before his marriage to Daugirdaitė; this part of the corpus is exceptional for its style (artistic actualisation), as well as the diversity of genres (letter-poems, impressions, miniatures inserted into a traditional narrative).The letters corpus of Sruoga to Daugirdaitė is similar to those addressed to Čiurlionytė in style (artistic fictional) and structure (several parts), characteristic to emotional expression and syntheis of poetic creation. Letters written after marriage (64) are of simpler stylistics. The simplification of style can be explained by the fact that the longing for an intimate during the Munich tinmes had become a source of inspiration, an impetus for creation wasc hanged by the fullness of daily life and living together. They contain more events from everyday life. Letters describing plans in clauses or detailing events resemble Sruoga's letters to his brother Juozapas. In letters of everyday and artistic (contamination) style, daily descriptions are expanded with the sensations of the addresser, creative inserts reflecting experiences, visions, dreams, travel impressions, and adventures. These letters are emotional, expressive, full of tropes, especially metaphors, symbols, and motifs. First and foremost, Sruoga's letters to Daugirdaitė are love letters, therefore the story of relationship between two individuals is revealed most intensely in its content (meeting, marriage, fatherhood and motherhood), states experienced (friendship, familiarity, love, loss), and emotions (longing, sadness, anxiety, envy, joy, pain). The letters do not go into detail of the lesser-known facts of Sruoga's biography. The content of Sruoga's letters addressed to Daugordaitė intensely reveal the maturity of personality, spiritual and psychological growth (Sruoga, an oversensitive and crying child, chaotic, "hardly ever knew what moderation is", a young man in search of himself, willful, dutiful, responsible, a loving husband and father).It is for the reason that later on Sruogienė claimed that once this corpus of letters was released, it could read a story with elements of plot, and not only as a romance or adventure novel but also as a unique Lithuanian epistolary novel and even a Bildungsroman.