Jonas Aistis

Jonas Aistis (as Jonas Aleksandravičius ; born November 7, 1904 in Kampiškės , today: Kaunas Rajongemeinde ; † June 13, 1973 in Washington, DC ) was a Lithuanian poet and essayist.

Life

Jonas Aleksandravičius was born on November 7th in Kampiškės, Panemunės District, Kaunas District. He gave up his birth name in 1952 and officially called himself Aistis. In 1927 he graduated from the Aušros High School in Kaunas . At the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas , he studied Lituanistik .

In 1936 he continued his studies at the University of Grenoble . In 1944 Aistis received his doctorate in Grenoble with a dissertation on the translation of biblical texts. He then worked for a short time as an archivist in Nice and then for the National Library of France in Paris until he emigrated to the USA in 1946 . There he taught Lithuanian and French at Marianapolis College in Thompson, Connecticut . From 1952 to 1958 he also worked for Radio Free Europe . In 1958 he finally moved to the Library of Congress , where he worked until his death.

poetry

Aistis dealt with folk songs and fairy tales (e.g. by Wilhelm Hauff ), and also with the poets Alexander Blok , Sergei Jessenin and Rainer Maria Rilke . He also orientated himself on the neo-romanticism and created melodic poems. He advocated the idea of catharsis as an enduring value of poetry .

Aistis received the State Prize from the Republic of Lithuania for his work "Užgese chimeros akys" ( The chimera eyes are extinguished ) (1937). According to Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas, no other book by a young poet had more influence on Lithuanian poetry apart from the work “Spring Voices” by Maironis . Aistis' poems were particularly popular with the youth.

After the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union in 1940 and again after 1944, Aistis' poems were forbidden and taboo because of their "anti-Soviet" content.

Works

Eilėraščiai (1932),
Imago mortis (1934),
Dievai ir smūtkeliai (1935),
Intymios giesmės (1935),
Užgesę chimeros akys (1937)
Be tėvynės brangios (1942),
Nemuno ilgesys (1947),
Sesuo buitis (1951),
Apie laiką ir žmones (1954),
Kristaliniam Karste (1957);
Laisvės kovų dainos (1962),
Milfordo gatvės elegijos (1969).

literature

Guesdon, Jolanta: Accent and meter using the example of Lithuanian syllabotonic poetry of the 20th century . Dissertation, LMU Munich, 2004, p. 110f. edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de (PDF; 2.1 MB)

Commons : Jonas Aistis - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Aistis, Jonas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Aleksandravičius, Jonas (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Lithuanian poet and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH	November 7, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kampiškės , today: Kaunas Rajong municipality
DATE OF DEATH	June 13, 1973
Place of death	Washington, DC