Balio Sruogos laiškai įvairiems asmenims: "Sursum corda!"

ENThe article presents a corpus of classic formal letters written by the Lithuanian writer Balys Sruoga to various individuals between 1911 and 1947. In this article, (1) the corpus of the letters is discussed, (2) topics of the letters are described, (3) the links between sruoga’s letters and the addressees’ recollections about him are highlighted providing newly-found details and yet unknown or insufficiently actualised facts about the writer’s personality, his work, and his life, (4) the fragments of Sruoga’s works of fiction that are relevant from the point of view of genesis and reception are accentuated, and (5) textological issues are pointed out. Up to now, Sruoga’s letters to various people have not been collected and chronologically linked; as a result, their corpus has been neither subjected to analysis nor published yet. Examining the corpus of Sruoga’s letters to various individuals and institutions suggests that it is the largest epistolary collection (more than 400 extant letters). In terms of the range of subjects, the corpus of letters is the most comprehensive and at the same time the most problematic as regards the restoration of the whole corpus (single letters are stored at storage institutions in Lithuania, Russia, and the USA) if compared with other letters by Sruoga. Sruoga’s letters to various individuals provide valuable information on various periods of the writer’s life: before the war (activities at the realgymnasium in Panevėžys), the First World War (after his studies in Russia), during the interwar period (journalistic work in Kaunas and later in Klaipėda, studies at the University of Munich, teaching at the University of Lithuania), during the second World War (occupational Soviet and Nazi regimes, imprisonment in Stutthof concentration camp, separation from the family, the camp in Torun), and post-war years (life in Soviet-reoccupied Vilnius and Kaunas).The letters reveal several completely new episodes of Sruoga’s biography (the writer’s difficult path to the Lithuanian press, his striving to become disciple of the Russian poet symbolist Fyodor Sologub, his dreams of gaining access to the poet’s literary salon, his wish to leave Lithuania for Sweden in 1919; after the war, his determination to have his family, who had been migrated to the West, back; also, the paradoxical result of the Soviet ideological pressure (Sruoga was forced to admit that writing "Dievų miškas" (Forest of the Gods), which did not meet the requirements of Socialist realism, was a mistake, although he still thought of it as a global masterpiece); the rejected unique opportunity to inform the world about political repression at general meeting of Soviet Lithuanian writers in 1946, the efforts of the Soviet authorities to show Sruoga, who opposed the system, as a typical Soviet writer). These letters are the best reflection of Sruoga’s relations with his corres pondents: literary authorities (especially Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Jurgis Baltrušaitis), friends (Ignas Šeinius, Juozas Urbšys, Albinas Rimka, Vincas Krėvė, Vladimiras Šilkarskis), Soviet Lithuanian officials (Antanas Sniečkus, Justas Paleckis, Mečislovas Gedvilas, Antanas Venclova, Petras Cvirka). The letters reveal his inner world (each historical period unfolds through his individual sensations, states, experiences, and reflections) and his values (Sruoga’s implicit wish to help people, to save them when politically trapped by various occupation regimes, his invitation to endure all difficulties with dignity when confronted with occupation regimes, to have the courage to remain himself, not to break, and to be the example of faith and hope that all the hardships would retreat). [From the publication]

• Literatūrologija / Literary Studies
• Istorija / History