Catastrophe of Lithuania in the poetry of émigrés: apocalyptic meaning of the Soviet occupation and the affected archetypes (the discourse between the works of B. Brazdzionis and A. Mackus)

ENLithuanian literature after the catastrophe of World War II unfolded the spirit of the deep self only among exiled poets on the other side of the Atlantic. Here it opened the whole drama and horror of the loss of statehood, a special confrontation of historic experience with the apocalypse of changing values. This could not happen inside Lithuania, which was virtually broken by its occupants. The Soviet occupation brought up the phenomenon of war crimes to a very different extent still inexperienced by humanity, and which could hardly be believed by the society of the Christian West, still lulled by romanticism and democracy. But the horror that caught Lithuanians in 1940 and returned in 1945 (massacres, tortures, mass deportations, burning of villages,) did not raise doubts for the intelligentsia whether to move to the West or stay. So they became "escapees" with their own mission for their homeland. The emigrants stayed free in their own creative way, in their works they could perceive and express the loss of their country, religion and pain. Therefore, on the other side of the Atlantic, the real Lithuanian literature emerged, like the lament breathing with the meaning of dimensions of the deep, the post-war literature of the emigrants, the so-called "apocalyptic modernism", the importance of which can now be compared only to the fight of the partisans in Lithuania and their input into the continuation of the state. This literature named the truth, the main presumption of historical freedom. This study will emphasise two poetical discourses of emigration: liberal, and traditional Christian Catholic, which are represented by two American Lithuanian poets - Bernardas Brazdzionis (1907-2002) and Algimantas Mackus (1932-1964). Their poetry revealed the real Lithuania's situation, with infinite dimensions of call from the depth - lament, although it was differently treated as the baseline in the sense of hope and despair.