Wartime living of Salomėja Nėris. Lithuanian writers in Penza in 1941

Abstract

The article uses recently discovered memoirs to portray the everyday life of writers evacuated to Penza, including Salomėja Nėris, whose character and biographical events related to the early war period are the focus of this study. The poet’s daily life, view of current events, as well as her literary activities and family affairs are reconstructed based on the reminiscences of her husband P. Veržbilauskas. The article details the locals’ perception of the phenomenon of evacuees arriving from various Soviet republics, quoting common people as well as party bureaucrats. It investigates the creative crisis faced by the evacuated intelligentsia and their dealing with this through consolidating their writers’ community. The relevance of the study stems from the fact that the testimonies by members of artistic intelligentsia have considerable cognitive potential for reconstruction of Penza’s everyday life culture during the Great Patriotic War. The article introduces a body of archived sources subjected to scholarly analysis for the first time.