Narratives of identity: a postcolonial rereading of Dalia Grinkevičiūtė's "Lithuanians by the Laptev sea"

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Tapatybės pasakojimai; Postkolonijinė teorija; Dalia Grinkevičiūtė; Narratives of identity; Postcolonial theory; Dalia Grinkevičiūtė.

ENAs discussed above, the unhomely moment is characterized by the morphing of the familiar into the unfamiliar, by a moment of distancing from what one previously thought to be ones own. In returning to Lithuania and daring to return to the home that the family had built, both Dalia and her mother know that they arc entering a sphere of increasing danger rather than a safe return home to rest. The secret grave in the cellar becomes a symbol of the rejection of Grinkevičiūtė's mother by her homeland. Can one, however, argue that this unhomely moment in Grinkevičiūtė's text is more than just a painful alienation from her home country and her own home in Kaunas? Significantly, Grinkevičiūtė's use of the present tense in this later 1988 version of her memoirs is one key indication that she has wtittcn these memoirs as a way to work out how her own identity has been influenced by her experiences during deportation. In the act of writing, and in the decision to engage the present tense at key points throughout the text, she is most certainly pausing to consider who she has become as a result of these experiences. In addition to her concern for her own story, however, she also reminds the reader that her experiences have an impact far beyond her own self. The history of oppression and deportation is continually resurfacing in private and personal spaces, and this history is making itself felt in continually new moments, including each moment in which Grinkevičiūtė's memoirs arc read. [Extract, p. 102]

• Literatūrologija / Literary Studies
• Istorija / History