Seventeenth-century Lithuania in the Latest Lithuanian Prose On Kristina Sabaliauskaitė’s Novel Silva rerum

Abstract

The novel Silva rerum has become a bestseller in Lithuania, although it seems that – as a work contesting the Lithuanian national myth – it did not stand a chance to gain such popularity. It was issued for the first time in 2008 and several re-editions have been released so far. The story of the noble family of Narwojsz, presented in Silva rerum covering the years 1659–1667, turned out to be extremely attractive not only for the Lithuanian reader. The novel has become a bestseller also in Latvia and Estonia. In Poland, it did not get such a large publicity, however – perfectly translated into Polish by Izabela Korybut-Daszkiewicz and published in 2015 – it gained great attention of readers and critics. The author of the article wonders what features decided about the reading success of Silva rerum. She analyzes the baroque stylization of the novel, in which, on many levels, the excess meets with asceticism. She looks at the phenomenon of micro-history, which consequently pushes the “great history” to the background (which is unprecedented in the tradition of the Lithuanian historical novel). She shows how Kristina Sabaliauskaitė transforms the authentic space of Vilnius, capturing the specific genius loci of this city and masterfully combining fiction with geographical and historical reality.