| Abstract [eng] |
Since the Lithuanian national movement (which took place at a time when Europe was experiencing the so-called “memory crisis”) aimed to unite a national community, it needed to show the continuity of this community over time, to help it describe itself, in other words, to create its cultural memory necessary for its identity. This led to an increase in the volume of both Lithuanian historiography and historical literature, but since these two fields, as medias of cultural memory, theoretically have a somewhat different relationship with this memory, different ways of accessing the past, in this work the relations between these fields were chosen to study, hoping that these relations will help to highlight the features of the common nation’s memory and its changes over time. For this purpose, correspondences were sought (while assessing discrepancies) between the contents of the texts of historiography and historical literature, and the main ideas conveyed by them. The interweaving between these two fields in terms of style and genre was also taken into account. This also helped to determine the nature of Lithuanian historiography and historical literature themselves, as medias of memory, and the change of this nature during the time in question. The time period chosen for this work is from 1883 (the rise of the Lithuanian national movement and flourishment of historical writings) to 1918 (the establishment of an independent state). The works studied here were of two generations – the first (aušrininkai) generation, whose historiographical and literary writings had a noticeably close relation between each other; and the second generation, which sought to separate science of history and literature in order to make them more professional (therefore, interactions between this generation’s historiography and historical fiction, and their relationship with cultural memory have not been previously explored). It was found that during the most active period of the first generation (1883–1904), historiography and historical literature worked together to construct a certain mythical image of the nation’s history, seeking in the past for the most important elements of national identity, models of behavior, lifestyle, social structure, which were simultaneously idealized, adapted to the norms of the present, and served as an example for the future. The historical writings of the second generation (1904–1918), in turn, interacted by expanding or deepening the narrative of the past, created by the first generation, and at the same time, by aiming to deromanticize it. Also, although the historical writings of the first generation were oriented solely towards the nation, the second generation divided its gaze between the nation, all of humanity, and the individual. In theoretical studies literature is considered the most favorable medium for cultural memory due to prominent element of fiction in it, and this was already evident in the works of the first generation, since writers of literature were able to use their imagination more freely than historians and could change historical facts more boldly, thus “concentrating” more meaningful accents in their texts and making them more compelling to the people. On the other hand, the historiography of the first generation was the only one that comprehensively conveyed the “grand narrative” of the entire nation’s life, which is essential for cultural memory. In time of the second generation, as historical science purposely distanced itself from imagination, historiography lost the mythical worldview of cultural memory, but enriched memory with new archival data, while literature retained the mythical worldview, newly actualized the most important aspects of the first generation’s memory narative, was able to fully “reveal” in history at the time significant individual consciousness, and to reflect on cultural memory itself. |
