Literary debuts of lithuanian women in the 19th century (karolina praniauskaitė, marija pečkauskaitė–šatrijos ragana)

Literary Debuts of Lithuanian Women in the 19th century (Karolina Praniauskaitė, Marija Pečkauskaitė-Šatrijos Ragana) This bachelor thesis aims to present literary debuts of 19th century Lithuanian women and deals with two main debuts of women authors Karolina Praniauskaitė and Marija Pečkauskaitė-Šatrijos Ragana. It applies sociocritical theory of literature and theoretical concepts used by literature theoretician Dominique Maingueneau such as creative consciousness, the literary tribe, the family tree, rituals of writing, the scene of enunciation, the mediator, rituals of legalisation. By using this theoretical approach, situation and tendencies of developement of women literature in Lithuania in first half of 19th century are examined. Prehistory, circumstances and character of literary debuts of selected authors are explored together with their early writings (K. Praniauskaitė: a poem Festyna Wielkiej Kalwaryi na Żmudzi (1856), poetry from a book Piosneczki (1858), her translation of the fragment “Žalčio motė” of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s poem’s Anafielas part “Vitolio rauda” (1858); Marija Pečkauskaitė-Šatrijos Ragana: novelletes “Aukso valandėlė” and “Margi paveikslėliai”). The research of these debuts shows that writing women often faced some obstacles on writing and publishing their literary works in the 19th century. Due to the public opinion that tolerated only private action of women it was hard to get published, so often the so-called “mediator” was needed – a person, usually a man, that had influence in the cultural life and could help to deal with publishers. Also only at the second half of the 19th century, starting with poet K. Praniauskaitė, writing women began to identify themselfes as “writers” and as a part of existing field of literature. The research shows that the expansion of acceptable public activity of women allowed them to become accepted in the field of literature. It also signifies the impact of modernizing society on modernizing Lithuanian literature. This work could be actual for those who research or have interest in the Lithuanian literature in 19th century or the development of the women’s writing in Lithuania