Vyrų ir moterų patirtys XX amžiaus antrosios pusės išeivijos rašytojų memuaruose

Abstract

An analysis of the memoirs written by authors who had emigrated shows a turn toward subjectivity. The politics prevalent in earlier memoirs was replaced, in the period from 1950 to 1965, by reflections on the relationship between people and their times, their history; and by depictions of people in the face of war, of the establishment and loss of independence during the interwar period, and of their experiences in DP camps. In the second half of the 20th century (1965-2000), subjectivity becomes the principal attribute characterizing memoirs, as the latter move ever closer to literature and it often becomes difficult to distinguish them from fiction or autobiography. Many of these memoirs relate one’s own or somebody else’s life history together with the attendant personal experiences and emotions. It is often possible to identify some of these features with differences in the writing style of male and female authors. The purpose of this article is to discuss the memoirs written in the diaspora by Balys Gaidžiūnas, Stasys Yla, Mykolas Vaitkus, and Juozas Švaistras, all men; and Marija Aukš- taitė, Janina Narūnė, Magdalena Mykolaitytė-Slavėnienė, and Eglė Juodvalkė, all women; to bring forth the peculiarities of their texts; and to show how men prefer to reflect on time and people, and women concentrate on reflecting themselves and others. We may conclude that up to 1965 the majority of memoirs were authored by men. Their texts exhibit features of masculine writing: there’s less in the way of analyzing experiences and expressing emotion and more in the way of emphasizing the external world and describing the impact of historical events on human beings. Their purpose is to give witness to important historical processes that affect the Lithuanian nation. From 1965 onwards, however, we observe an increase in the number of texts written by women. We may call this the subjective feminine stage. [...]