"Swinging sixties" Sovietų Lietuvos vaikų knygų iliustracijose

LTStraipsnyje aptariama 6 dešimtmečio pabaigos – 7 dešimtmečio vaikų knygų leidybos ir iliustravimo istorija, atkreipiant dėmesį į modernizmo apraiškas ir ryškiausius novatorius. Leidybos strategijų apžvalga padeda suprasti modernėjimą skatinusias sąlygas, įvardyti kai kurių vietinių inovatyvių sprendimų galimus šaltinius ar net prototipus. Atskleidžiama, kad įdėmesnė vaikų knygų iliustracijų apžvalga galėtų suteikti impulsą ir pagrindą platesnei knygos bei skaitymo istorijai sovietų Lietuvoje, nes vaikų knygomis gyveno ne tik vaikai, bet ir suaugusieji, jos veikė suaugusiais tapusius vaikus, nepriklausomai nuo jų pasirinktos profesinės karjeros krypties. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Cenzūra; Iliustracija; Leidyba; Modernizmas; Sovietų Lietuva; Vaikų knyga; Censorship; Illustration; Publishing; Modernism; Soviet Lithuania; Children’s book.

ENThe author of the article discusses the history of the publishing and illustrations of Lithuanian children’s books from the late 1950s and 1960s, drawing attention to the expressions of modernism and the most distinct innovators. Beside the recognized authorities in this field, Rimtautas Gibavičius, Albina Makūnaitė, Algirdas Steponavičius, Aspazija Surgailienė and Birutė Žilytė, clearly innovative works by less known printmakers who made their debut in the late 1950s and 1960s, Lidija Glinskienė, Kastytis Juodikaitis, Arvydas Každailis, Emanuelis Katilius, Marija Ladigaitė-Vildžiūnienė, Adasa Skliutauskaitė and Arūnas Tarabilda are presented, and the reasons why these artists never made their way into the canonical narrative of the history of Soviet Lithuanian graphic arts created by their contemporaries are explained. In the article, the significance of illustrations of children’s books for the early artistic endeavours of Vincas Kisarauskas is revealed. It is shown how the relatively safe space of children’s books allowed this Lithuanian avant-gardist to publicize his relations with Russian underground artists, and the impact of the experiments undertaken in the period under discussion on the further development of Lithuanian graphic arts is discussed (for example, the influence of Steponavičius’s oeuvre on the work of Petras Repšys and Stasys Eidrigevičius is analyzed for the first time). Referring to several obvious cases of censorship, the author of the article shows to what extent the publishers of children’s books were free to disregard the limits drawn by censorship. The activity of the long-time head of the Children and Youth Literature Department of the monopolist of children’s book publishing, the State Publishing House of Belles-Lettres (Valstybinė grožinės literatūros leidykla), Aldona Liobytė is assessed in this context.An overview of publishing strategies helps understand the conditions that accelerated modernization and name the possible sources and even prototypes of some local innovative solutions. It is shown that a more attentive look into the illustrations of children’s books can provide a stimulus and basis for writing a more comprehensive history of books and reading in Soviet Lithuania, as children’s books were important not only for children, but also for adults, and continued to make an impact on the readers in their adult life regardless of their professional career. The author points out that the illustrations of children’s books can provide valuable information about the situation of art and artistic culture in general in Soviet Lithuania, but it is a source that has not received enough research attention. [From the publication]