Poetry
Biruta
Not translated into English
Silvestras Valiūnas · 1828
Synopsis
On the Baltic coast, at Palanga, stands a high hill that bears the name of Birutė. The song tells how this poor girl of the town, modest and hard-working, meets Grand Duke Kęstutis one day when she is carrying a meal to her brothers, who have gone fishing. The prince notices her and asks for her hand, though she is bound by a vow to the god Perkūnas. The narrative, in short stanzas, borrows its language and images from folk songs.
Context
The song, written a few years before being printed, appeared for the first time in 1828, without an author's name, in the Polish journal Kolumb; no manuscript in the poet's hand survives. Dionizas Poška made a reworked version of it, in which the heroine becomes a nobleman's daughter, and Simonas Daukantas collected the most widespread variant, published in 1846. Having passed into folk song, it has more than a hundred variants; set to music in the nineteenth century, it is still sung throughout the country.
Who it is for
A short poem in Lithuanian, in a language close to folk song; no French translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Lithuanian literary ballad and as one of the earliest manifestations of Romanticism in the country's letters.