Balio Sruogos laiškų teksto ypatumai

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Balys Sruoga; Rašytojai; 20 amžius; Laiškai; Epistolika; Writers; 20th century; Letters; Epistolary.

ENThe article focuses on a collection of letters that Balys Sruoga, a classic of Lithuanian literature, wrote to various people between 1911 and 1947 and on the analysis of their textual specificity. Based on descriptive, empirical, analytical and synthetic, interpretative, and comparative methods, the aim is to: (1) distinguish and describe the types of letters and types of correspondence, (2) describe expressive peculiarities in groups of letters and the peculiarities of the way of their writing, and (3) describe the interrelationship between the letters and between the genres of other types of texts. The aspect characteristic of Sruoga’s letters to various people is the fusion of the epistolary and other genres, in particular, poems, articles, and reviews, and therefore the question of what can be considered a letter and what material should be included in the volumes of Sruoga’s academic letters is examined. Epistolary works include all texts that Sruoga wrote in the form of a letter or having the characteristics of a letter, which can be sent as fiction (e.g., poems), journalism (article, essay), literary and theatre criticism (reviews). Letters are also any other texts sent to another person or people, which do not take the form of a letter but which convey information and share experiences. The collection of Balys Sruoga’s letters to various individuals and institutions is distinguished not only by the wide range of topics covered but also by the different types of letters: private, confidential, and public. Private letters to friends and associates are letters of a personal nature written to maintain normal communication and to have a conversation. Confidential letters are written to colleagues who have an interest in the same issue or problem that needs to be resolved together. Such letters are often co-authored.Public letters are intended for the press; they provide a more in-depth account of current historical, political and cultural events, and their analysis is inseparable from the personality of the sender and their individual interests. There is a tendency of transformation (convergence and overlapping) of the types of letters, for example, private and confidential letters are transformed into public ones. However, there are also reverse cases when letters intended as public remain private or confidential due to a communication failure or unrealised epistolary intentions. The writer’s correspondence does not contain many letters of the standard form (address, message, signature, date, place) sent by the sender to the addressee but with no intention of publication. On the contrary, texts of the ‘unpublished’ genre stand out: open letters published by the author in the press, letters to editors from which he received public responses, letters of shared authorship, literary letters, letters-articles, and letters-reviews. Several factors help to decide whether to classify the texts that do not have the usual features of a letter as letters or whether they should be considered fiction, journalism, or literary or theatre criticism: the intention of the author, as revealed by the content of the text, the epistolary intent, the communication that had taken place, the surviving material features of the letter, and the autograph context. It is important to show not only the diversity, polarisation, and continuity of Balys Sruoga’s reconstructed epistolarium, but also the relationship between ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ letters. It is essential to publish all such texts traditionally and in a digital archive.Balys Sruoga’s letters to Valerija Čiurlionytė, Sruoga’s friend studying in Russia, and to his beloved Vanda Daugirdaitė are distinguished by a romantic world view and written in a lyrical confessional tone. In Sruoga’s letters to other people, there is a clear tendency towards a simplification of letters: there are far fewer literary letters and a more pronounced predominance of domestic, formal business letters. The letters take on aspects that were uncharacteristic before: sociability, collectivity, and polemics. In Balys Sruoga’s letters to various people, several types of expression stand out. The dominant type of expression is reflective (impressionistic), related to informative, communicative, and aesthetic functions. Formal and business letters are written in a neutral tone and are informative in function, convey knowledge, state facts, and make requests or reports. Letters of shared authorship (collective letters) are characterised by playfulness and self-expression. The open letters, which abound in polemics on topical issues in life, resemble dramas. The letters to the editors are reminiscent of both a chronicle and a novel: they review recent events and explain their causes and consequences, but the narrative is extremely vivid and graphic in order to convince and influence the reader. The confessional type of expression that dominates the previous collections is no longer evident. As the letters of Sruoga are eclectic, the types of expression are only relatively distinguishable, as they usually alternate and overlap. Comparison of the autographs shows that Balys Sruoga wrote his letters spontaneously, impulsively, in a hurry to express the thought that was pouring out, but without paying attention to its precise transcription, which is why the letters are characterised by colourful expression, periods, rhetorical figures, and exclamations. [...]. [From the publication]

• Literatūrologija / Literary Studies
• Istorija / History