'Dritte Räume'in der litauischen Literatur? Eine Entgegnung zur Diskussion um den 'Baltischen Postkolonialismus'
'Third Rooms' in Lithuanian Literature. A Reply to the Discussions on 'Baltic Postcolonialism'

Summary/Abstract: This paper views the position of the American professor of Lithuanian Studies, Violeta Kelertas, to Lithuanian literature's postcolonial situation to discuss it in context of Homi Bhabha's postcolonial theory. Although Kelertas refers to Bhabha in her analyses, she does not include the 'third Room' de-scribed by him in its real meaning. The West as well as the 'Western values' appear as stabile and mature preconditions, while the Baltic states are the 'East' in its immature understanding. The protagonists in Post-soviet Lithuanian literature are described as having the characteristics of Postcolonial migrants - in the facets of refusal, mimicry or presumption. The 'migrant's' own voice, based in his/her own history and culture and, at the same time, knowing another culture as well and in this way being able to enrich another, is not reflected. The opportunity arising from the interweaving of both histories and cultures, the 'own' and the 'other', for something third, "neither One nor the Other but something else besides" (Bhabha) is not perceived. In modern Lithuanian literatures' examples (Ga¬velis, Ivaškevičius) our paper explores third spaces' existence and inquires about hybrid arrangements of new spiritual and spatial forms.

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