The Topos of Watching from Afar in Selected Works of Classical and Contemporary Lithuanian Literature

In classical Lithuanian literature, a person who is far from his/her homeland is presented in the archetypal situation of Paradise lost. An aesthetic distance is created: the loss of the homeland enables one to grasp its essence. Lithuania is seen through the eyes of a Siberian exile or quasi-exile, and this literary technique (to use Bakhtin’s term) deautomatizes poetic perception. In the context of the Soviet occupation of the twentieth century, a Lithuanian far from his/her homeland was a Siberian exile (again) or a refugee to the West. However, the writers and poets of the Lithuanian Exodus, in a way, essentially did not leave Lithuania; as can be seen from their works, Lithuania was the center of their literary worldview. When the country regained independence and the Iron Curtain fell, there was a wave of emigration of writers. This migration is quite different from the Lithuanian Exodus: a modern writer emigrates with a high degree of freedom. The topos of watching from afar has changed: in classical literature to leave the homeland means to understand it and its profound beauty (Paradise lost), while in contemporary literature – to leave the homeland means to look at oneself from the outside and thus understand oneself.