Kas (su)kūrė Vaižgantą? Autoriaus figūros interpretacijų apžvalga

LTStraipsnyje nagrinėjamas Juozo Tumo-Vaižganto figūros kūrimas(is), apžvelgiamos autoriaus užimamos pozicijos literatūros lauke bei vėlesnis rašytojo „ženklo“ formavimasis literatūros istorijos ir kritiniuose tekstuose. Remiantis Pierreʼo Bourdieu ir Dominique Maingueneau sociologine perspektyva, bandoma atskleisti, dėl kokių priežasčių susiklostė dar amžininkų įtvirtintos Tumo-rašytojo „etiketės“: tekstų nuobodumas, publicistiškumas, herojus nustelbiantis autorius. Svarstoma ir apie vėlesnėje recepcijoje prigijusias Vaižganto-sintetiko interpretacijas ir keblumus bandant autoriaus tekstus priskirti tiek kuriam nors žanrui, tiek ir literatūros kryptims. Daroma išvada, kad dviprasmiai Vaižganto suvokimo modeliai (jo tekstai – kanoniniai, tačiau nepopuliarūs; biografinis asmuo dominuoja tekstų ir herojų atžvilgiu) nulemti ne tik pačių tekstų savybių, bet ir su skirtingų pozicijų užėmimu susijusios ambivalentiškos autoriaus padėties literatūros lauke. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas; Pierre Bourdieu; Autoriaus figūra; Literatūros laukas; Sintetiškumas; Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas; Pierre Bourdieu; Literary figure; Literary field; Synthesis.

ENIn this article the author raises the question: who “created” the author Vaižgantas? Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas is a well-known but often ambivalently viewed Lithuanian writer and essayist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who is sometimes referred to as a cultural legend. Drawing on the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Dominique Maingueneau, the author of this article examines the interpretive models that have been applied in understanding Vaižgantas as a literary figure. Already amongst Vaižgantas’s contemporaries, the views that his texts are autobiographical, that he overwhelms his heroes, and that his writing is not true literature had become entrenched. This interpretation is understandable because of the biographical author’s – a well-known essayist’s – influence, and his confusion with the narrator of his own fictional texts. Vaižgantas began writing literature late, after becoming recognized as an authority on literary history and criticism. When he became established as a literary figure he combined two antithetical activities: his status and positions in the field of literature determined that he would be interpreted as a unique author. Vaižgantas reinforced this unique status, identifying himself as a nonfiction writer with a paratopical relationship to literature. As a literary actor, he also reinforced this adopted mission – of being an intermediary, a conduit, someone who prepares the ground for other writers – in his own literary texts. For this reason Vaižgantas’s position within literary history is usually seen as that of a synthesist (both in terms of style and in the way he created a synthesis of various literary trends) whose work it is difficult to classify in terms of genre or to identify clearly with any specific literary trend.The writer’s texts make it into the literary canon, but are not discussed in relation to general tendencies in the development of Lithuanian literature, even though, as a unique writer, Vaižgantas receives considerable critical attention. Although it would seem that these different interpretations of Vaižgantas as a literary figure were determined by the style of his texts, which move back and forth between fiction and nonfiction, it is also clear that they have been seen this way because of the different, sometimes contradictory, and mutually influencing positions held by Vaižgantas in the field of literature. [From the publication]