Vladas Braziūnas’ collection of verse Vakar yra rytoj (Yesterday is Tomorrow) consists of new works, and verse selected from his eight books: from three collections from Soviet times (Slenka žaibas, 1983, Voro stulpas, 1986 and Suopiai gręžia dangų, 1988) and from Užkalbėti juodą sraują (1989), Alkanoji linksniuotė (1993), Užkalinėti (1998), Ant balto dugno (1999) and lėmeilėmeilėmeilė (2002). Though Braziūnas’ life (he was born in 1952) exteds across several “time zones”, which conditionally could be called Moscow, Lithuanian and European time, there are not many signs of historical time in his work, because he usually speaks about the past, unfinished poetic time, which goes back to mythology, to the archetypal beginnings of “Great Time”. Attention to ethnicity, the tradition of folk art, is one of the most individual components of this poetry, which in the present “European time” has acquired new colours and meanings.
The collection Vakar yra rytoj presents Braziūnas as a distinct poetic individuality, recognised since his very first collection. On the other hand, the spirit of time in this poetry is also alive: in the collections from Soviet times it was expressed in indirect language, during the years of the Sąjūdis movement in a polemical manner, and in the latest poems it is expressed in new themes, in a different model of verse, and even the metrics of the works. The places of many poems coincide with the spaces of international poetry forums (though a short time ago the poet said in an interview that he usually wrote verse in his own country, in his own environment). Does that mean that the “ethnographic” Braziūnas has started creating a “Euro-poem”? It is a paradox, but probably it is so, if we bear in mind that this is a good poem.
The prosesses of regional self-awareness that are intensifying in Europe inspire Braziūnas. He supports the idea of creating poetry not only in a literary language but also in separate dialects. At present, his collection of verse Saula prė laidos, written in his northern dialect from Panevėžys, with a translation in the Standard Lithuanian language and with a compact disc read by the author, are on their way to readers. Some time earlier, together with Markus Roduner, he translated the collection of verse by the Kurt Marti Štai eina žmogus (dialecticali Va ain žmogs, 2004), written in te Bern German dialect, into his own dialect. Braziūnas feels he is a fully fledged subject of the new West European space. In his presence, Cap à l'Est, an assocoation of West European poets, uniting creators speaking the French language, was born. Since Lithuania restored its independence, Braziūnas has declared the double “citizenship” of his verse. He is a citizen not only of the Lithuanian language, hence, a citizen of the ethnic cultural tradition, but also a citizen of the empire of poetry, acording to the specifity of melody covering the historical lands of not only the Balts but also the southeastern Slavs, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (from the 13th to the 16th century) and the Balkan lands. Many a sphere of Braziūnas’ activities is related to these geopoetical interests. Apart from translations, his latest idea is Magnus Ducatus Poesis (The Grand Duchy of Poetry), established at the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk in 2006, which brings together poets, musicians and other people involved in art from the nations which once lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was not a feeling for history that encouraged Braziūnas to create such a society. Translating a great amount of poetry fromdifferent languages, Latvian, French, Polish, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Russian and Serbian, he claims to have become convinced that the boundaries of melodious (hence, poetic as well) isoglosses do not coincide with state borders of different languages. According to the specifity of melody, the Balts, the southeastern Slavs and the Balkan lands should belong to the same geographical range.
Has the feeling of a citezen of the empire of poetry had any effect on Braziūnas’ new poetry? International poetry forums, in which he takes an active part, not only initiate new translations but to some extent change poetry itself. It is obvious that his verse has acquired more plot. More signs of the present, the realities of literary life, playfulnes and irony have appeared in it. For example, the 2007 almanac Magnus Ducatus Poesis: ribų įveika (published together with a compact audio and video disc), which was compiled by Braziūnas, who translated most of the verse, is a vivid example of the fact that poets of various nations are currently concerned about similar issues: they speak about an unusual general condition “in the backyard of our undefined Europe”, the general conditions on the border, and problems of identity.
I would explain the friendliness of “European time” to Braziūnas’ work as follows: the archetypicality of his poetic images corresponds in its own way with a collective, often theatricalised, process of art. His work suits poetry festivals, public readings of creative work. He improvises easily on a theme. In 2005 he won the Crystal Vilenica Prize at the Vilenica Literature Festival in Slovenia. In 2006 he won the Year of Latvian Literature Award for his achievements in translating literature, and the award of the Spring of Poetry (also for his translations of poetry). He has also received numerous prizes at the Druskininkai Poetic Fall, and the 2003 Yotvingiai Prize. Braziūnas makes use of the changes in the communications situation in a creative way. He orients his books not only towards the traditional readers of the book, but also towards the listener. The collection of verse Vakar yra rytoj is accompanied by two compact discs, where poems are read by the autor, his colleagues and friends. And the earlier composition Iš naminio audimo dainos (2005) is on the whole a manifold text. Apart from his poetry, it contains a musical component, quotations from folk songs, and autobiographical prose comment.
Creative experiments that catch the spirit of the times are an important thing; however, it is Braziūnas’ poetry itself that the main key to success is hidden. From the very first collection of verse, it did not comply with the concept of traditional psychological lyricism. It contains almost no lyrical, that is, egocentric, themes. The poet speaks about his creative work that “objectively” represents everything, about the archetypal nature of his images, and so on. The poetry is concerned with issues of the scope of the epic regarding the beginning of the ethnos, the nation and the state, about the memory of history, and the myth. His specific poetic language, whish is made archaic and is saturated with dialecticisms, Latvian įords and words from the other languages, corresponds with the themes taken from the past. Nonetheless, all linguistic innovation seems natural, organic, in his verse, as though it were produced by the very flow of the line, and poetic “reconstructions” are meaningful. Apart from all this, it is confirmed by the monograph Mė(lynojo)nulio lingvistika (2007) by the linguist and professor Skirmantas Valentas about Braziūnas’ and Sigitas Geda’s poetry. Gintaras Beresnevičius (1961–2006), a researcher into religion, an ethnographer, writer and essayist, referred to Braziūnas’ poetic language as the Baltic parent language, or the Rococo of barbarians. On the basis of the phonetic consonance of the words, the poet revels in the elements of the language, feeling free and creative. Because of the distinct linguistic, phonetic component of this poetry, it was thought that such poetry is to translate; however, Braziūnas’ work has already been published in separate books in French (2003, 2006 and 2007), Bulgarian (2005) and Slovakian (2006), and separate poems have also been translated into Latvian, Polish, Belarussian, Albanian, English, Italian, Georgian, Croatian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian, Swedish and German.
In summing up, we can state that opposite elements are paradoxically matched in Braziūnas’ work: the conservatism of the world outlook, a vocabulary that is made archaic: and a modern form expression; the rhymed, distincly phonetically instrumented quatrain and complicated rhythm; folk motives and postmodern creative projects; the energy of the poetic language and the indistinct subject (though the author is a highly sociable and active citizen, a student of local lore, history and economy, a green and Sąjūdis movement man, currently an initiator of and participant in various cultural campaigns); the “bottom” of the verse of archetypical images (an oak tree, a spring, a mountain, fire, water, a stone, bread). Howerer, individual “patterns” of sounds and meanings are built on it.
Vladas Braziūnas
Vakar yra rytoj
Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2007, 312 p.