Temporary Capital in Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas’s "Altorių šešėly"

The author of this article explores the symbolic manifestations of the temporary capital of Kaunas in the third part of Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas’s "Altorių šešėly" (In the Shadow of the Altars, 1933). The author borrows the methodological framework of Vladimir Toporov’s studies of cities, which focus largely on the spatial structure of the text and the resulting semantic polarization of the artistic text as a whole. Drawing on the city’s landscape-architectural substratum, Putinas establishes a field of symbolic images of interwar Kaunas. In the third part of the novel, Kaunas – with its unique, low, three-story architecture; a narrow piece of land squeezed into a river valley, hugged by a confluence – appears as a spiritually parched space, one lacking a sacral, mythical vertical axis. The opposition low vs. high acquires axiological meanings in the text and structures its artistic, creative space. The low space is inhabited by the petty bourgeoisie, with its base instincts, envy, gossip, hypocrisies, and conventional morality. The individual is also brought down by contemporary urban civilization, which loosens moral norms and eliminates spirituality. In the meantime, the subject of the novel escapes from the ruinous pit of his surroundings by establishing himself in a higher sphere – in the world of the spirit, of creativity, and art