Solveiga Daugirdaitė

Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore

Motherhood in the Autobiographies of Lithuanian Women Writers of the 20th Century

The report focuses on the maternity representation in the autobiographies of Lithuanian women writers. Julia Kristeva noted that most women writers do not talk about their own motherhood, perhaps because most of them are not mothers, whereas those women who are mothers tend to write in order to escape the motherly world. However, the autobiography is a genre in which women can touch upon this subject from the daughter’s or mother’s perspective. The feminist debates of the 20th century challenged the concept of motherhood, and, in the 20th century, feminist debates challenged the concept of motherhood, but Soviet women did not have the opportunity to learn about the movements in the West, nor could they question their own situation. Thus, for most of the 20th century, Lithuanian women writers were forced to censor their own narratives. The research material consists of collections of autobiographies of Soviet Lithuanian writers (1957, 1967, 1977, 1989), autobiographies of emigration writers, as well as autobiographies of various other writers (Žemaitė, Janina Degutytė). The research is based on feminist critique, autobiography and motherhood studies