Journeys of Lithuanian Émigrés to Lithuania: Topics in 1914–1989 Travelogues

Abstract

Encountering the other and otherness is one of the main conditions of a journey. Travellers are only visitors in a foreign land; they are always on the move and at the end of the journey they come back to their own safe space. The divide between the familiar and the unfamiliar can be shown directly in the travel text or be embodied in the travellers themselves. However, not all journeys and their depictions in literature obey this formula. The journeys of the Lithuanian émigrés to Lithuania should be treated as a separate object of literary study. Using the tools of rhetorical topoi analysis, the research is focused on the study of the topoi of time, place and comparison and on their actualization in the chosen travel texts by Julė Pranaitytė (Iš kelionės po Europą ir Aziją 1914; From the Tour of Europe and Asia), Pranciškus Vaitukaitis (Kelionė po Europą ir įspūdžiai, 1928; The Journey Around Europe and Its Impressions), and Alė Rūta (Tarp ilgesio ir tėviškės, 1987; Between the Longing and the Homeland). The traveller’s connection with the other and the place is taken into consideration as well.