Manifestations of Crisis: Melodramatic Culture in Lithuania at the Turn of the 20th Century

• In Event: Developments in Baltic Theater

Abstract

The paper aims to present current research on the melodramatic culture in Lithuania at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Different academic and cultural perspectives on melodrama have been present for several decades, whereas the Lithuanian academic discourse has barely touched upon the genre. Nevertheless, the melodramatic culture of the period mentioned above constituted an integral part of the then-developing Lithuanian literature and performing arts; therefore, its reconsideration would contribute to a broader understanding of this epoch and would enable the inclusion of Lithuanian cultural phenomena into the discussion of the global humanities.
While analyzing the melodramatic culture (including authors such as Aleksandras Fromas-Gužutis, Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, Liudas Gira, Ona Pleirytė-Puidienė, Konstantinas Jasiukaitis, Bronius Laucevičius-Vargšas) the following questions relating to the specifics of its various manifestations should be raised: what moments of political or social crisis did melodrama respond to? What needs did historical melodramas meet, and what made social melodramas stand out? The paper proposes to assess how learning more about the culture of the turbulent East Central Europe of the early 20th century could contribute to the knowledge of melodramatic vocabulary, expression, and its meaning in the Lithuanian context at the time.

Short Bio

Dr. Dalia Pauliukevičiūtė earned her Ph.D. in Lithuanian literature from the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. Since 2019, she has been working as a Junior Research Fellow at the Department of Modern Literature in the same institute. Additionally, she has also been serving as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Vilnius University since 2022. In 2019, she was awarded the Best Dissertation in Humanities and Social Sciences by The Lithuanian Society of Young Researchers for her dissertation, titled "Lazdynų Pelėda's Fiction: Problems and Contexts of Melodramatic Mode”. Dr. Dalia Pauliukevičiūtė’s research interests revolve around Lithuanian and Polish literature, literary history, melodrama studies, and the history of imperialism.

Latest publications:

“XX a. pradžios lietuvių savišvietos kanonas ir pirmosios rekomendacinės bibliografijos”, in: Lietuvių literatūros kanono dirbtuvės: XIX a. pabaiga–XX a. pirma pusė, a collective monograph, ed. by Viktorija Šeina, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2022. p. 127–205 ISBN 978-609-425-330-0

“Praeities tykojimas: medžioklė Józefo Weyssenhoffo romane Sabalas ir panelė”, in: Literatūra vol. 64 (1), 2022, p. 45–57. ISSN 1648-1143

Author

• Dalia Pauliukevičiūtė, Vilnius University