Lietuvių ir latvių istorinio romano perspektyvos: tarp tikrovės ir fikcijos
Perspectives of the Lithuanian and Latvian Historical Novel: Between Reality and Fiction

Summary/Abstract: Since ca. 1988, a historical novel has apparently strengthened its position in the changing Lithuanian prose. Petras Dirgėla, Rimantas Marčėnas, Jonas Užurka, and other authors embody and develop the topics of Lithuania’s past in their works as well as turn to the Baltic prehistory with the attempt to activate the Lithuanian national self-awareness and to appeal to our Baltic sub-consciousness. Historical events and personalities revive in their novels; the authors create convincing plots and the colour of a particular time. A free reading of history and the understanding of open history become pervasive. The relationship between Lithuanian writers and the historical truth may be of several kinds. First, the writers embody historical facts in their realistic prose; second, they interpret historical truths in order to deny the mimetic literary tradition, to rewrite the known events anew and to justify the new relationship with the past; third, they use historiographic metafictions common to postmodernism. A historical novel becomes especially popular in Latvian literature where new traditions and genres become prevalent. For example, awareness of the archaic Baltic pre-history and the destiny of the Curonian tribe are distinct in the novel “Curonian Vikings” by V. Rūmnieks and A. Migla. A modern and associative historical novel about the undivided relationship between the present and the past is created by Alberts Bels; stories about Riga city and the development of Catholicism in Latvia are presented in the cultural historical novel “Riga’s Mother of God Abbey” by Astrida Beinare. Lithuanian and Latvian literature are related by a genetic and typological relationship. Baltic writers also attempt to emphasise history as an important aspect in contemporary culture, to highlight their undivided relationship and the continuity of national ideas. In Lithuanian and Latvian literature one may notice similar artistic conceptions and types of a historical novel: in addition to the artistic interpretations of the historical truth, historiographic metafictions become more significant. The topicality of a historical novel proclaims a new period in the creative thinking of the Baltic nations, the new relationship between history and literature common to “the new historicism” period.

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