Balys Sruoga was a Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

, and literary theorist.

He contributed to cultural journals from his early youth. His works were published by the liberal wing of the Lithuanian cultural movement, and also in various Lithuanian newspapers and other outlets (such as Aušrinė, Rygos Naujienos etc.). In 1914 he began studying literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 in St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, and later in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, due to World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

. In 1921 he enrolled in the University of Munich, where he received his Ph.D for a doctoral thesis on Lithuanian folklore in 1924.

After returning to Lithuania, Sruoga taught at the University of Lithuania, and established a theater seminar that eventually became a course of study. He also wrote various articles on literature. From 1930 he beganwriting drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

s, first Milžino paunksmė, later Radvila Perkūnas, Baisioji naktis and Aitvaras teisėjas. In 1939 he began teaching at Vilnius University

Vilnius University

Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....

.

During occupations of Lithuania

He wrote many dramatic works poetry during his life, but his best known work is the novel "The Forest of Gods" (Dievų miškas), based on his own life experiences as a prisoner in Nazi German concentration camps, where he was sent in March 1943 together with other forty-seven Lithuanian intellectuals. Sruoga and the others were sent there after the Nazis had started a campaign against possible anti-Nazi agitation in occupied Lithuania. In The Forest of Gods Balys Sruoga revealed life in a concentration camp through the eyes of a man, whose only way to save his life and maintain his dignity was to look at all of that through irony and humor, where torturers and their victims are exposed as non-perfect human beings, being far removed from the false ideals of their political leaders. For example, "Human - is not a machine. Gets tired." - in regards to the guards beating prisoners. Originally the novel was forbidden to be published by Soviet officials, and was ultimately published posthumously ten years after the author's death, in 1957. In 1945 he returned to Vilnius and continued teaching at Vilnius University, where he wrote the dramas Pajūrio kurortas and Barbora Radvilaitė.

Refusal to publish The Forest of Gods, and weak health resulting from his time in concentration camps, led to his death October 16, 1947. In 2005 film Forest of the Gods

Forest of the Gods

Forest of the Gods is a 2005 film, directed by Algimantas Puipa, based on the Balys Sruoga novel of the same name....

was produced based on the book.

External links

• Bibliography