Laisvės (at)mintis DP stovyklų literatūros vadovėliuose
The Recollection of Freedom in Literature Textbooks Used in DP Camps

Author(s): Jurga Dzikaitė
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Latvian Literature, Lithuanian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: literature textbooks; literature history; freedom; memory
Summary/Abstract: "The Conspectus of Lithuanian Literature" (1946), edited by Petronėlė Janutienė, "The History of Lithuanian Literature" (1947), edited by Juozas Masilionis, and "The Lithuanian Literature" (1948), edited by Pranas Naujokaitis, are three textbooks originally prepared and published in DP camps. The authors of these textbooks point out that due to the lack of resources and living literary examples, they often had to be guided by memory alone. This raises a question how, in the postwar era, consciousness, guided mostly by memory, tells the history of literature and speaks about freedom to a child who lives in exile; what it says about a free human being. A textual analysis offers an answer that the textbooks coveyed an understanding of freedom as a power uniting a community into a nation. At the same time, freedom is not a gift to the community but a task. The community lives in between two states: freedom is what community has, defends, and maintains, or loses and regains. Both are impossible without a fight. In addition to this, a refugee camp student using the textbook is taught that personal freedom is defined by choices which bring a person closer to the nation.

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