„A Case of Identity“: Contemporary Lithuanian Essay

The given dissertation is centered around the genre of the essay that, during the last three decades, has gained significant prevalence in Lithuanian culture. The research presented here was fuelled by many interrelated questions, all of them driven by wonder as to why a genre that is generally known as “peripheral” or “liminal” has enjoyed such acclaim. This research has also made use of an insight by Vytautas Kavolis that the texts written in the first person usually reflect the main changes in a given state of culture. Therefore the essay is believed to carry evident marks of various dominant cultural identities prevalent in a given culture at a given time. Having read through the body of Lithuanian essayistic texts, I have chosen the ones that best outline the dominant mode of self-perception and cultural identity. The texts vary in style and literary quality, yet all of them work together to show that the contemporary cultural identity in Lithuania is mostly built around questions about the body and bodily experience. In spite of that, all the essays demonstrate a frantic reach for community, as if one’s own body itself would to too frightful to endure