BARANAUSKŲ SILVA RERUM
Silva rerum of the Baranauskas family

Summary/Abstract: This article describes a manuscript book Ułamki..., dated to 1855. This silva rerum, created in a rural environment, continues in a peculiar way the tradition of manuscripts prepared outside the limits of official institutions. Ułamki... was prepared within the textual community of the Baranauskas family. This community encompasses the Baranauskas family, and its structure repeats the patriarchic model of a family. Antanas and Anupras Baranauskas – authors of Ułamki... – dedicate this silva rerum to Jonas Baranauskas – the central figure of this textual community as well as the head of the family. The part prepared by Anupras Baranauskas is composed of texts and drawings (sketches for art lessons and maps) which come from his school years. The part by Antanas Baranauskas is composed of poems authored by himself, which might be read as a story of his attempts to secure a position of a scribe as close to home as possible. Both parts include variations on the theme of tension between estrangement and identity. The book itself is understood as an effort to overcome this opposition by means of a written text as well as to vindicate identity and extant links within the textual community and at the same time the family. It is this effort that provides unity to this book, which prima facie seems rather diffuse.

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