Vaižganto asmuo ir kūryba: krikščionybės ir modernybės sąveika

LTMonografija „Vaižganto asmuo ir kūryba: krikščionybės ir modernybės sąveika“ remiasi jungties idėja tarp išskirtinai modernios, krikščioniškomis vertybėmis grįstos lietuvių literatūros klasiko Juozo Tumo-Vaižganto (1869–1933) asmens laikysenos ir pagal panašias nuostatas kuriamo žmogaus grožiniuose kūriniuose. Monografija parodo, kad lietuvių literatūros moksle įtvirtinta Vaižganto, kaip deimančiukų ieškotojo ar Vaižganto-legendos samprata, yra tik išorinės jo gyvenimo ir kūrybos istorijos dalis, dažnai užstojanti nuolatinę Vaižganto pastangą kurti savo vidaus pasaulį, rinktis vertybes, nuolat reflektuoti atliekamus įvairius vaidmenis, gebėti daug ko atsisakyti, todėl monografijoje dėmesys kreipiamas į vidinę istoriją, kurios gilusis prasmės lygmuo susijęs su krikščioniškomis nuostatomis. [Anotacija knygoje]

ENIn today’s world, marked by relativism, it is becoming ever more difficult to understand and explain Vaižgantas’s consciously chosen positionality and his decisive and purposeful life choices. On the other hand, modern persons must constantly shape and direct their own lives, make choices and decisions at every step of the way, reflexively question themselves, and make demands on themselves of one kind or another. If the path of life were conceived as a task, Vaižgantas offers a unique opportunity to closely observe the constant effort required to shape one’s life and selfhood. Not only that, but one of the fundamental attitudes in Vaižgantas’s life is renunciation and living a life based on silencing certain experiences that a priest is not allowed to talk about. But this renunciation of a complex nature is not oppressive or crushing. Rather, it is revelatory, positive, and joyful. According to Lithuanian language high school teachers, students no longer understand the choices of Mykolas, the protagonist of the short story "Dėdės ir dėdienės" [Uncles and Aunts], because they find it difficult to relate to the inner sense of fulfillment and the deep, pure joy of the elderly Mykolas, who is unloved, and not needed by anyone. Today’s everyday life, focused on the external world and fast results achieved with minimal effort, no longer recognizes the deeper reasons for such behaviors. Since there is no dialogue with such meanings, they become unrecognizable and, as such, they no longer circulate in the cultural sphere and disappear from the matrix of cultural meanings. The monograph Vaižgantas and his works: the interface of Christianity and Modernity is partly based on the initial research objective to highlight the inner links between the modern personal attitude of Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas and the representation of modern man in his works of fiction.However, over the course of the research, these initial ideas were expanded by values of the Christian faith that determined somewhat different meanings than imagined at the start of the research project. The modern stance is understood to be a necessity in response to the social and cultural changes of the times that constantly must delineate its interaction with other mutable values in order to forge its own identity. Such an understanding of the modern stance was expanded to include the existential significance of the Christian acceptance of one’s fate. This viewpoint was especially important in Vaižgantas’s manifestations of love for his native land and its people, which prevented him from feeling bitterness and resentment about the unfulfilled ideals of his youth. Crucial to understanding Vaižgantas’s identity and life choices is the modern national consciousness that began to emerge at the end of the 19th century, in which the mark of individuality is especially important, wherein imagination and fantasy emerge as essential supplements to lived reality. This reality-enhancing imagination is what brought forth new activities and programs in the social sphere and became the impetus for concrete actions toward liberation from the Tsarist empire. According to Kristupas Sabolius, imagination “is itself a way of understanding the world, acting as a kind of perception.” This imaginative representation of the existing reality, actualized “through the impulse of intentionality,” became the cultural program of Vaižgantas, detailed in the first part of his epic novel "Pragiedruliai" [Clearing Skies]. The monograph Vaižgantas and his work: the interface of Christianity and Modernity had several methodological starting points.The monograph Vaižgantas and his work: the interface of Christianity and Modernity had several methodological starting points. The method of New Historicism, which, although not discussed in detail, provides a cultural-historical perspective and enables a look at culture as an anthropological text, as a socially significant and effective human practice, in which the aspects of human activity and individual initiative are important, without which it would be impossible to study history, i. e. the change of specific cultural systems over time. The wide-ranging activities of Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries particularly highlight the moment of mutual influence so crucial for New Historicism: when literature not only emerges out of the social context, but also influences, creates, and shapes it. Moreover, New Historicism, which sees literature as part of cultural practice and its representation relates it to the subject’s position in the social field and to the construction of the subject’s identity. By denying the autonomy and immanence of the literary text, the new historicists have encouraged research to draw on a wide range of non-fiction or non-canonical documents and texts that provide the same important cultural information as the recognized texts. Therefore, following Stephen Greenblatt, this study makes extensive use of the journalistic and autobiographical writings of Vaižgantas as that which adds significance to the various references to extra-textual reality within the fictional work, or else as autobiographical existential experiences recorded in fictional works. [...]. [From the publication]

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