Dvi rašytojos ir viena utopija ankstyvuoju sovietmečiu

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Sovietmetis; Sovietinė literatūra; Rašytojai; Moterys; Grožinė proza.

EN1907-1955) and Halina Korsakienė (1910-2003) - as well as works dealing with similar themes published during the mid- 1950s. These two women’s fates were very different. Although Valsiūnienė, a teacher, and her family were deported from Lithuania by the Soviets in 1941, she was able to regain her freedom. Today, however, the work of this woman who so energetically sought to establish herself as a writer is largely forgotten. On the other hand, Korsakienė was married to one of the most important post-war Lithuanian literary critics, and today is best appreciated as a memoirist. These different destinies make it possible to consider what kinds of possibilities were open to women trying to develop literary careers during the Soviet era. Each of these writers at one point published a more substantial work (at the time referred to as novellas, these pieces would today be considered novels) that depicted a young woman encountering forces hostile to the Soviet authorities. In Valsiūnienė’s Keliai keleliai (Roads and Paths, written originally as a film script in 1955; published in 1957), the heroine is a history student from a small town who has come to Vilnius University; in Korsakienė’s Gyvenimam išėjus (Off to Life, 1955), the main character is a young woman doctor sent by the government to work in a small town. While repeating formulaic subjects, these two Socialist Realist works reveal the Soviet regime’s attitudes towards women.Each focuses around a struggle for the woman’s worldview. Torn from their safe environments (home, groups of fellow students), the young women are easily tempted by “vestiges of bourgeois life.” The young Soviet woman lacks independence and is easily disoriented and drawn back to the past, but with the help of friends who have grasped the superiority of socialism, she eventually recognize her mistakes. This chapter asks how gender politics can be reconstructed from these works, how the gender politics they explore accord with officially proclaimed ideas about gender equality, and how they aspects of the Soviet emancipatory project. [From the publication]