Novel
Žemė maitintoja
Not translated into English
Petras Cvirka · 1935
Synopsis
The Nourishing Land: Juras Tarutis, a former volunteer in the fighting for independence, receives through land reform a plot taken from an estate, and believes he is finally becoming his own master. He teaches his wife, Monika, to read, so that ignorance will not decide their children's future, takes part in village meetings and takes his wife to the theatre in Kaunas. But bad harvests and the whims of the weather beset the household, which has to go into debt.
Context
The novel appeared in 1935 in Kaunas, from Sakalas, in one hundred and fifty-six pages. Its author was then writing in Trečias frontas, a journal of the literary left supported by the clandestine Communist Party, and the book bears the mark of those years: the VLE sees in it a eulogy of hard rural labour placed at the service of Communist propaganda, and it is also seen as a striking example of Lithuanian socialist realism. Its style, for its part, combines realism with lyricism, humour and images of nature.
Who it is for
A medium-length novel, lyrical and thesis-driven; it helps to know that the agrarian reform of the twenties divided up the great estates. No French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of its author's principal novels; a Russian edition of 1971 altered its ending.
Sources for this page 2
The pages consulted to check this page.