Laisvė kaip atminties ir vietos sąsaja Antano Vaičiulaičio laiškuose
Freedom as a Relationship of Memory and Place in the Correspondence of Antanas Vaičiulaitis

Author(s): Gabija Bankauskaitė
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Latvian Literature, Lithuanian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Antanas Vaičiulaitis; freedom; memory; place; representation; letter
Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the relationship between freedom and memories as revealed in Antanas Vaičiulaitis’ (1906–1992) letters to his family and friends. In the memoirs, the connection is conveyed in a distinctive way through the places that were important for the writer. The analysis draws on two theories: Maurice Halbwachs’ memory categories and Edward S. Casey’s link between place and memory. Vaičiulaitis’ individual experience of memories is constructed in the foreground mostly by mentioning his native land and people who were important to him. They are actualised in the letters by a horizontal axis of representation – the landscape and natural objects that are significant to the writer are arranged according to the gaze and become the repositories of his memories. The second plane is related to vertical representation, where memories are used to convey the author’s sensual relationship to the place. The letters constantly recreate his habitus, the places that integrate the writer’s notion of freedom, and the customs that unite Lithuanians around the world. Thus, Vaičiulaitis’s constant nostalgia for freedom in his letters can be seen as a way of remembering, a unique sphere of experience, a world created through imagination, encompassing the feeling of being in a certain place.

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