Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius

Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius

Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius (born October 19, 1882 in Subartonys , Wolost Merkinė , Alytus District , † July 17, 1954 in Broomall ( Pennsylvania )) was a Lithuanian writer , philologist , Soviet-Lithuanian politician and Prime Minister of Soviet Lithuania .

Life

University professor and independence of Lithuania

Born as Vincas Mickevičius, the son of small farmers in southern Lithuania ( Dzūkija ) began studying at the Roman Catholic Seminary in Vilnius in 1898 , which he left in 1900. He later added his family's nickname, Krėvė, to his original name. In 1904 he began studying philology at the University of Kiev . As this a year later temporarily because of the events of the Russian Revolution was closed, he continued his studies at the University of Lviv in what was then to Austria-Hungary belonging Galicia continued. In 1908 he received his doctorate in philology. In the same year he was awarded a gold medal by the University of Kiev for his thesis on the original origin of the Indo-European languages .

After completing his studies in 1909 he became a teacher at a school in Baku ( Azerbaijan ). In 1912 he was one of the founders of the Baku People's University, where he worked as a lecturer for several years . In 1913 he was awarded a Masters degree in Comparative Linguistics from the University of Kiev for his dissertation on the origin of the names Buddha and Pratyekabuddha .

A year after Lithuania's declaration of independence on November 2, 1918, he became consul of the Republic of Lithuania in Azerbaijan . In 1920, however, he went back to Lithuania and settled in the then provisional capital Kaunas , where he worked as secretary of the book publication commission of the Ministry of Education.

After the founding of the Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas in 1922 he was appointed professor for Slavic languages and literature and remained in this office until 1940. Between 1925 and 1937 he was also dean of the faculty of humanities .

World War II and post-war period

After the occupation of Lithuania by the Red Army , he was a member of the Soviet People's Government of Lithuania, chaired by Justas Paleckis , which was founded by the Soviet occupying powers on June 17, 1940 . He was not only deputy of Paleckis, but also took over the office of Soviet-Lithuanian Foreign Minister . This government was under the firm control of the Council of People's Commissars in Moscow . On June 24, 1940, he finally became chairman of this Soviet people's government. In this capacity he went with other representatives of the Communist Party of Lithuania on June 30, 1940 to visit the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov to request the full annexation of Lithuania by the USSR . The minutes of the conversation were later used as a foreword to the annexation carried out on August 3, 1940, although the occupation of Lithuania and the establishment of the people's government had already meant the de facto annexation.

After his return from Moscow, he offered to resign as chairman of the people's government, which was initially not accepted. On August 25, 1940, however, he was replaced by Mečislovas Gedvilas , who was now Prime Minister of the Lithuanian SSR as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars .

After retiring from politics, he became a professor at Vilnius University and president of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1940 .

After the occupation of Lithuania by the German Wehrmacht in June 1941 and the closure of the universities in 1943, he went underground. After the reconquest by the Red Army in autumn 1944, however, he fled Lithuania and first went to the Glasenbach refugee camp near Salzburg , where he became a teacher at the camp's secondary school.

In 1947 he was appointed to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia , where he was assistant professor for Slavic languages and literature until his retirement in 1953 .

writer

Literary creation and style

Krėvė-Mickevičius began his first literary attempts with work in Polish and Russian at the age of 15. After 1902 he wrote his works mainly in Lithuanian , whereby the customs and traditions of his southern Lithuanian homeland were a constant inspiration for his literary work. In 1921 the first volume of his collected works was published. At that time he was already a well-known and respected figure as the editor of several academic and literary magazines.

The literary work of Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, who only used the name Krėvė in the last years of his life in the USA , is extensive and varied and includes historical dramas , folkloric collections, short stories , character depictions of village life, novels and short stories about contemporary problems and oriental ones Theme based fables . His works, which contained romantic impulses and paid attention to rural life, are written partly as realistic narratives, partly as descriptions. His work contributed decisively to the development of a national consciousness. At the same time, his literary work is characterized by an incredibly large vocabulary with remarkable clarity. Some scholars claimed that the Lithuanian language gained an extension of its expressive power through his works, surpassed only by the works of ancient Greece .

In addition, he maintained close relationships with other writers such as the Russian poet Konstantin Dmitrijewitsch Balmont . In his work Šarūnas, Dainavos kunigaikštis , comparisons with William Shakespeare were seen.

At the time of his death he was in the process of creating a major work entitled Sons of Heaven and Earth , which was partly drama and partly account of biblical subjects in Palestine at the time of Christ .

At times he was seen as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature . Today there is a museum in the house where he was born in Subartonys and a memorial in his house in Vilnius , where he lived until he emigrated in 1943.

Works

• Šarūnas, Dainavos kunigaikštis . 1911 (Šarūnas, Duke of Dainava )
• Dainavos šalies senų žmonių padavimai . 1912 (The legends of the old people myths from the land of Dainava)
• Žentas . 1922 (son-in-law)
• Šiaudinėj pastogėj . 1922 (under the thatched roof)
• Skirgaila . 1922 ( Skirgaila )
• Dainavos krašto liaudies dainos . 1924 (folk songs from the Dainava region)
• Likimo keliais . 1926–1929 (Along the Paths of Fate)
• Rytų pasakos . 1930 (Fables from the Orient )
• Sparnuočiai liaudies padavimuose . 1933 (Winged Beings in Popular Myths)
• Karaliaus Mindaugo mirtis . 1935 (the death of King Mindaugas )
• Patarlės ir priežodžiai . 1934-1937
• Raganius . 1939 (The Warlock)
• Miglose . 1940 (In the Mists)
• Dangaus ir žemės sūnūs . 1949 (Sons of Heaven and Earth)
• Bolševikų invazija ir liaudies viriausybė . Posthumous 1992 (memories of the negotiations with the Soviet Union in 1940)

Honor

• 1938: Honorary doctorate from the University of Latvia

Web links

• Biography in the Lithuanian Classic Literature Anthology
• Biographical information in rulers.org
• Obituary in TIME magazine on July 19, 1954

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christel Baumert: The fate of Lithuania after the Hitler-Stalin pact . ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The political events in Lithuania from 1986-1991 in the mirror of the Soviet and German press . Diploma thesis, University of Mainz, 1997. 
2. ↑ Romuald Misiunas, Rein Taagepera: So, what were the facts surrounding the loss of Baltic independence?
3. ^ Liane Klein: Introduction to the Lithuanian Literature of the 20th Century . (PDF; 176 kB) 1995.
4. ↑ Kristina Sakalavičiūtė: Literary Relations of Constantine Balmont and Vincas Krėvė . 2006.
5. ↑ Alfonsas Šešplaukis: Shakespearean Traits In Lithuanian Literature . In: LITUANUS Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences , 1970.
6. ↑ Krėvė Subartonys Museum
7. ↑ Vincas Krėvė Mickevičius Memorial

predecessor	Office	successor
Justas Paleckis	Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic June 24, 1940 - August 25, 1940	Mečislovas Gedvilas