Laikysena ir jos dividendai: Justino Marcinkevičiaus laikysena (iki 1965 metų)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Sovietmetis; Laikysena; Menininkai; Poetai; Lojalumas; Kompromisai; Kartos.

ENThis study examines new archival material and describes how one of the most important figures of Lithuanian literature, Justinas Marcinkevičius (1930-2011), established himself within the literary field. Marcinkevičius shaped his position within the literary field at the beginning of the Thaw, taking advantage of the possibilities that emerged with that period of political warming. His early works represent the Party’s policies after the 20th Congress of the CPSU - they shape the worldview of the New Man (especially in Publicistinė poema/Publicist Poem, 1961) and illustrate his contemporaries’ correct choices (the book-length poem Dvidešimtas pavasaris/Twentieth Spring, 1956, and the novel Pušis, kuri juokėsi/The Pine That Laughed, 1961). This makes it possible to question ideas that dominated around reception of the author - how Marcinkevičius was seen as a writer who did not alter his principles, who in his early years protected himself with only the most necessary lightening rods. At that time Marcinkevičius was working with full conviction in the potential of Soviet literature. The themes and genres of his writing focused attention on the Soviet historical narrative and the Soviet person’s worldview, and the positions he held in the Writers’ Union allowed him to have considerable influence upon the literary field. Marcinkevičius represented a position of confronting the generation of older writers who dominated during the Stalinist period. He also had tense relations with younger colleagues and some of his peers, who maintained a more careful distance from literary processes.The comparisons made in this study reveal how Marcinkevičius’s contemporaries demonstrate that several alternatives to official public discourse were available to writers of this period: armed resistance, working with the partisan press, delaying one’s literary debut to a later age, or remaining on the literary margins. This analysis of Marcinkevičius’s position within the literary field makes it possible to see that while the writer’s administrative responsibilities and implementation of the Party line guaranteed his political credibility, it also constrained him, forcing to constantly defend his loyalty. The political, social, and symbolic capital he later accrued allowed him to take a more autonomous position. [From the publication]