Donata Mitaitė

Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore

Letters from the Village 

In my personal archive, I still have about one hundred letters written to me by my mother Bronė Mitienė (1917–2012). The author of the letters lived in a rather secluded farmstead and did all the traditional chores of a rural woman, but she was interested in a lot of things, she was observant, witty, and a good storyteller. The letters narrate about everyday life, sometimes tragic, comic or absurd, rural work, and the people whom the author happened to meet. In my paper, I explore how the time of historical changes (at the boundary of 20th and 21st centuries) was seen through the eyes of a village woman.