FROM MYTH TO HISTORY: VARIATIONS OF THE FOLK TALE “EGLE, THE QUEEN OF SERPENTS” IN LITHUANIAN SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET LITERATURE
Authors: Мачянскайте Л. 
Published: July 2024

В статье представлены произведения литовской литературы, варьирующиe мотивы архетипической сказки, которая гипотетически считается контрольным текстом для понимания литовской культуры. Материал исследования структурирован в соответствии с делением на четыре исторических периода: 1) начало советизации Литвы, 2) время «зрелого социализма», 3) последнее советское десятилетие, 4) этап восстановленной независимости и членства в ЕС. Выявляются семь парадигм отношений истории и мифа, поднимается вопрос о необходимости существования разных текстообразующих механизмов.

The idea for this article came from the hypothesis that the famous folk tale “Eglė, the Queen of Serpents” is a foundational text of Lithuanian culture, as it underpins many other works. According to Eleazar Meletinskij, the method of neo-mythologism helps us understand the chaos of cataclysms by giving form to historical experience in the current literature. The author approaches the work through Lithuanian-born American sociologist Vytautas Kavolis’ theory, which facilitates the tracing of internal changes in the history of Lithuanian cultural consciousness, while also studying the transformations of one important motive. Representative texts from the Soviet and post-Soviet era are examined: the poemtale “Eglė, the Queen of Serpents,” by Salomėja Nėris, the poem “Nine Brothers,” by Justinas Marcinkevičius, the short story “After They Became Trees,” by Kazys Saja, the play “The Daughter of the Earth,” by Marcelijus Martinaitis, as well as the production of the same title by Vilnius Theater Lele, by Vitalijus Mazuras, a few episodes from the novel “Vilnius Poker,” by Vytautas Gavelis, and finally, the plays “Madagascar” and “Expulsion,” by Marius Ivaškevičius. The analysis is divided by historical periods and compares these works to Christoph von FurerHaimendorf’s model of moral systems, which Kavolis proposed for a better understanding of historical processes in Eastern Europe. We come to the conclusion that seven paradigms of consciousness consecutively replace each other during the discussed period: 1) duplication, by the transition from a system of freedom to a system of rules and authority, selecting the vector of infantilization; 2) the idealization of national unity, the moral system of social harmony, and the tendency for hybridism or archaization; 3) the discovery of Aesopian language, which is an internal form of resistance to Totalitarianism; 4) the loss of connection with archaic culture and the destabilization of values; 5) the understanding of history as an eternal repetition of evil, and the critical evaluation of Lithuanian identity; 6) the transition from a system of rules to the paradigm of freedom, through the demythologization of history, and the unfolding of individual relations with historical figures; 7) fragmentation in the face of new emigration and the establishment of liquid identity in the contemporary world. This study reveals the emergence of a counter-mechanism capable of opposing the mythologizing and abstraction that are typical of patriarchal forms of consciousness, examples of which can be observed in emigre literature of the 1960s and onward, as well as in creative explorations since the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990.