Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas', creative work: biblical memory in the reflection of the language

Referring to the tradition of the Christian theology, the reflection of the language (word) in Nyka- Niliūnas’ creative work has been analyzed in the article. It has been discussed, in which ways and by which means the poet transforms this image, and in what shape it emerges and reveals itself in his poetical discourse and in ‘The Fragments of the Diary” (“Dienoraščio fragmentai”). Firstly, the word is consicered by the poet as a destructive substance, destroying the essence of things. In the images of the Lord’s Supper and Resurrection the word is considered as God’s metonymy, and inability to perceive the word is considered as God’s incognizability. However, the figure of the Word-Creator, characteristic to the Christian tradition, functions in Nyka- Niliūnas’ creative work too. From the theological point of view the parallel between the word and flesh becomes especially important, where the word emerges in the shape of voice. Although the word disposes power to preserve the archetypes of things, it is still marked by the sign of lie and uncertainty, so in Nyka-Niliūnas’ poetry silence becomes the real nature and the essence of the language. The experience of silence in Nyka-Niliūnas’ creative work is close to the tradition of apophatic theology, according to which even denying the thesis of God’s existence we can perceive signs of respect to the divine cause, which even does not need “to be”. The isotopies of solitude and God’s dereliction also belong to the semantic horizon of silence, which from the perspective of mystical Christianity are perceived as forms of an authentical form of being in the presence of God