Poetry
Mužikas Žemaičių ir Lietuvos
Not translated into English
Dionizas Poška · 1815
Synopsis
The peasant of Samogitia and Lithuania: a dialogue between a peasant and a gentleman who speaks Lithuanian. The poem opens with praise of peasant labour: the peasant ploughs, reaps, threshes the grain, goes to the mill and hauls wood, he defends emperors and kings, and the whole of society rests on him. Next comes the account of the peasant's journey to his lord, where he meets the brutality of a steward, and the picture of his poor life without rights, at the mercy of the arbitrary will of masters and officials.
Context
Written between 1815 and 1825, the poem takes as its model an anonymous Polish text of the late eighteenth century, Chłop polski, which the author had copied into his manuscript collection; he turned it into a dialogue, longer and bolder on the social question, so that Lithuanian critics regard his poem as an original work. It remained in manuscript during its author's lifetime, like most of his writings, and appeared in 1886, slightly retouched, in the first issue of the journal Aušra.
Who it is for
Never translated into French; the language is that of Samogitia at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most important work, built on the contrast between the peasant's labour and the life that is made for him.
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