The Reflection of National Historical Traumas in Selected Lithuanian Poetry

Dalia Čiočytė

doi:10.31648/pl.11263

Published: 2025-10-30

No. 13 (2025)

The Reflection of National Historical Traumas in Selected Lithuanian Poetry

Dalia Čiočytė

Papers in Literature

Section: Between countries

https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.11263

Abstract

This article examines how Lithuanian poetry reflects traumatic national experiences and contributes to the formation of national identity in the face of historical injustice. The central intertext of this literary interpretation is Christianity, with the Bible at its core. The theoretical framework guiding this analysis is the theology of literature, which explores the literary interpretation of the origin and sense of human existence.

Lithuanian poetry engages with the two periods of Russian occupation in the 19th and 20th centuries, attempting to explain the theodic problem of national history. The theodic thought in Lithuanian poetry reflects worldview challenges from both personal and national existential perspectives, focusing on the drama of seeking God and the weight of freedom of choice. By combining universal theodic reflections on free will and the mystery of God with the historical national experience, Lithuanian poetry underscores the primacy of the internal (moral and spiritual) sphere of both the individual and the nation in the contexts of occupation and genocide.

Keywords:

Lithuanian poetry, theology of literature, theodicy, political occupation

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Čiočytė, D. (2025). The Reflection of National Historical Traumas in Selected Lithuanian Poetry. Papers in Literature, (13), 201–213. https://doi.org/10.31648/pl.11263

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