Literatūra, mobilumas, imago : lietuvių ir latvių XXI a. (e)migracijos patirtys

LT(E)migracija yra dėsningas reiškinys nūdienos "takiosios modernybės" (liquid modernity) aplinkoje, kuri valdoma fragmentacijos, netvermės, trumpalaikiškumo dėsnių. Vis dėlto nereikia manyti, kad lietuviai ir latviai kada nors gyveno sėsliai; indoeuropiečiams priskiriamos aisčių gentys genetiškai buvo klajokliai, kuriems būdingas "aktyvus klajoklių genties mentalitetas"2. Sociologo Arvydo Matulionio pastebėjimu, mūsų protėvius aisčius, kaip klajoklių gentis, irgi galima laikyti migrantais, o žmonijos istorija nuo pat pirmykščių laikų buvo savanaudiškumo istorija ieškant geresnių medžioklės ar dirbamos žemės plotų3. Visais laikais būdami judrūs perėjūnai ir šimtmečiais gyvendami svetimų tautų įtakoje, jie išvystė adaptyvumo geną, mėgo vizionieriškai modeliuoti tėvynių iškeldinimą už geografinės teritorijos4. Lietuvai ir Latvijai atgavus nepriklausomybę, o ypač 2004 m. įstojus į Europos Sąjungą istorija darsyk apsuko ratą, ir pasikartojo demografinis lūžis - turime naują masinę emigraciją iš Baltijos šalių ir jos pagimdytą literatūrą. Lietuvių ir latvių politinė pokario išeivija pasklido ir bazavosi daugiau kaip dvidešimtyje pasaulio šalių, o dabartinė emigracija suteikia galimybę geografiškai plisti dar plačiau: baltiškąsias gimtines pasiekia literatūros tekstai iš Kinijos, Turkijos, Bosnijos, Gruzijos, Kipro ir kitų daugiau ar mažiau egzotiškų pasaulio kraštų. [Iš Įvado]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Literatūra; Latvių literatūra; Lyginamoji literatūra; Emigracija ir imigracija; Literatūrinis vaizdavimas; Istorija ir kritika; 21 amžius; Lithuanian literature; Latvian literature; Comparative literature; Emigration and immigration; Literary representation; History and criticism; 21st century.

EN(E)migration is a common phenomenon in the current environment of liquid modernity that is ruled by the laws of fragmentation, instability, and transience. However, one should not think that there was a time when Lithuanians and Latvians were sedentary: genetically, the Aestii tribes attributed to the Indo-Europeans were nomads and active vagabonds. In the course of centuries, the Balts lived under the influence of other nations and developed the genes of both resistance and adaptation; they entertained visionary models of moving their compatriots beyond the borders of their geographical territory. When Lithuania and Latvia re-established their independence, and especially when they accessed the European Union in 2004, history made a full circle and the demographic upheaval repeated itself: we are having new mass emigration from the Baltic countries and the literature it produces. As the emigrant becomes a significant personage of post-modernity and a protagonist of numerous (e)migration books, contemporary (e) migration literature deserves separate analysis as an abundant corps of information. Modern emigration differs from the Balts' earlier mass migration experiences in that it is a two-way street in which the agents are referred to as shuttle migrants. The terms used in the monograph - (e)migration and (e)migrants - distinguish modern moving subjects from other waves of emigration, which were mostly one-way and involved either economic migrants or post-war emigres. As a definition, (e)migration marks the circular nature of modern travelling, but at the same time it does not lock the moving subjects in strictly-defined category of 'migrants', which has acquired different nuances and associations of meaning since the migrant crisis of 2015.The monograph addresses the field of collective twenty-first- century (e)migration experiences in literary works and attempts to refine various cross-sections and models of argumentation. Efforts were made to include as broad a spectre of works about Lithuanian and Latvian emigration as possible. Research is focused on about fifty contemporary Lithuanian and Latvian texts about emigration that chronologically cover the period from 2000 to 2018, especially the years after the accession of the Baltic countries to the European Union, when the walls opened and both voluntary emigration and the amount of literature reflecting it increased. The ternary phrase Literatūra, mobilumas, imago (Literature, Mobility, Imago) was chosen for the title as the core of critical study. Mobility implies the movement of modern Lithuanians and Latvians and their representative flexibility, and the mobility of images; literature refers to their fictional (essayist, journalistic) realisation in texts, which is frequently imagined and condensed, because modern (e)migration literature has become the site of mobility narrative, or mutual influences and ethnic reflections of different nations. The imago component points to the methodological vector of the monograph, that is, to imagology, which helps to follow the unfolding relationship between the 1 imagined by oneself and others and the I depicted in (e)migration literature, to make the ethnic character of the Latvian/Lithuanian speak, and to assess the impact of the established attitudes and stereotypes on our imagination. Numerous Others - those to whom people emigrate and those with whom they emigrate (Russians, Poles, Latvians, and others) - found their way to the research lab.In the theoretical chapter 'Imagologija kaip instrumentas (e) migracinio identiteto specifikai tirti' (Imagology as an instrument of research into the specifics of (e)migration identity), the theoretical provisions underlying literary imagology are introduced into broader methodological circulation in Lithuania. Its essential concepts (self- image, hetero image, stereotype) are expounded, and the method is positioned in the field of other disciplines of literary theory and analysis. The concepts of imagology have been entrenched in contemporary literary theory since the appearance of the seminal works of the representatives of the so-called Aachen school, namely Hugo Dyserinck, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, Manfred Beller, as well as their recent successor Joep Leerssen, a professor at the University of Amsterdam. The introduction of a new point of view leads to the deliberation on what impulses imagology resources can provide to the analysis of the mobile images in the ever-growing Lithuanian and Latvian (e)migration literature and of the changing self-image of Lithuanians and Latvians. In (e)migration literature, imagology facilitates recognition of taxonomic knots in collisions and conflicts between different nations and offers an opportunity to take a look at how the writers convert themselves into the 'other' and what sort of 'Baltic' imagotopics they use. At this point, the capabilities of comparative imagology come to aid - not only as a possibility to compare Lithuanian and Latvian literatures, but also as distilling one's own national characterology through comparing (oneself) with other nations and absorbing the traits of their identity. Imagology is introduced as a method helpful for the analysis of the social-political legacy of the Soviet period as a code of experience (or memory) and for revealing the themes of changing identity, nomadic mentality, confrontation of values, and the like. [From the publication]