Traveling women in modern Lithuanian literature

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Jurga Ivanauskaitė; Keliaujančios moterys; Kūryba; Literatūra; Zita Čepaitė; Jurga Ivanauskaitė; Lithuanian literature; Traveling women; Zita Čepaitė.

ENThe theme of travelling women in Lithuanian literature has been chosen because the author believes it to be one of the most interesting phenomena in contemporary Lithuanian literature. This chapter discusses works that have been published since 1990. This date is significant because it marks the formal beginning of a new historical and political life (1990 was the year Lithuania broke away from the Soviet Union). It was then that the system of ideological censorship came to an end, leading to a change in literary conventions as well as in means of communication. It is said that literature under censorship develops a complex communication system that allows it, through the use of various allusions and symbols, to address certain issues undetected by the vigilant eye of the censor. The reader, on the other hand, learns to read and decipher such messages with special alertness by so-called "reading between the lines". People living under totalitarian regimes were well-versed in using this particular system of communication, which should be regarded as a special phenomenon, the key to understanding the literatures of these nations.1 Post-censorship Lithuanian literature in the eyes of elite critics as well as traditional readers could not compare with the literature produced during the Soviet years: it was thought to deal with problems too directly and to lack refinement. Consequently, it generated discussion about the crisis of literature in times of public change. [Extract, p. 220]