- Home
- Fiction
- Lithuanian Writers' Works
- The Ballads of Kukutis
-10
%
The Ballads of Kukutis
ISBN: 9781906570262
Author : Marcelijus Martinaitis
Published: 2011
Publisher: Arc Publications
Number of pages: 160
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Author : Marcelijus Martinaitis
Published: 2011
Publisher: Arc Publications
Number of pages: 160
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Description
Kukutis made his appearance in the Stalinist era, at the height of the forced collectivization of Lithuanian farming by the occupying Soviet forces which saw the obliteration of whole rural communities, and the introduction of oppressive laws and regulations. Completely incapable of understanding, let alone abiding by, these strictures, Kukutis – the outsider, the trickster – functioned outside of regulation and moved between different worlds, unhindered by borders and limits. In creating the character of Kukutis, Marcelijus Martinaitis found a voice which could articulate the anger, frustration and passions of the Lithuanian people, a voice which, contrary to all expectations, managed to escape the Soviet censor’s pen and which, a decade after publication of ‘The Ballads of Kukutis’, was to become the catalyst for revolution in the Baltics. Indeed, during the mass political rallies of the late 1980s and early ’90s, poems from ‘The Ballads’ were chanted, sung and performed everywhere. In this volume, Martinaitis’s witty, ironic and incisive poems are published together, in English in Laima Vince’s superb translation, as a single collection for the first time.
Reviews (0)
Write a review
