| Abstract [eng] |
The article analyses Lithuanian non-fictional children’s prose of the 19th–21stc. dealing with historical and cultural personalities. An important theoretical problem of such texts is being discussed: it is the interrelation between factual, documentary and artistic rendering. The chronological development of Lithuanian non-fictional children’s prose is overviewed. Hagiographic texts of Motiejus Valančius are considered to be the source of such literature. However, the essential popularisation of certain persons started much later when such authors as Petras Vileišis and Šatrijos Ragana, adherents of the philosophy of positivism, started writing. Pranas Mašiotas, whose works stimulated the appearance of such texts, has a particular place in this context. The spectrum of adored personalities in, for instance, Soviet Lithuania (the anthology “Čia užaugau”) and nowadays is different. Thus literature under analysis reflects the spirit of the times and ideological barriers well. Sets of books aimed at popularising famous people (“Tėviškė”, “Gyvenimas ir kūryba”) are important. Most texts are about 1) Lithuanian dukes, 2) writers. A new tendency has been noticed recently, and it is the fact that such literature is geared towards a small child, a primary school student (Rytis Daukantas). On the whole most books under analysis are oriented towards lower high school students. Texts about famous people of the native and other countries are indispensable means of moral education of children. They all perform the archaic function of example (Lat. exemplum). The cultural thesaurus of the child has to be composed of the tales about famous people, people to be followed. |
