Algimantas Anicetas Bučys (born 19 September 1939) is a poet, prose writer, translator, literary theorist, historian and critic of Lithuanian literature, doctor of Humanities.
Early life Bučys was born in Kaunas, then the temporary capital of Lithuania. His father, Anicetas Bučys, began writing poetry while still a school student. His poetry was published in the press in interwar Lithuania (1918–1940), but at the end of World War II he found himself in exile in Britain. In London, he published plays and a book of poetry in Lithuanian,Encyclopedia of Lithuanian literature (in Lithuanian) - Lietuvių literatūros enciklopedija. Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas. – Vilnius, 2001, p.80. actively participated in the activities of the Lithuanian emigration in London and Bradford; for services to cultural activities elected to the British Union of Lithuanian honorary member,Barėnas Kazimieras. Britanijos lietuviai 1974–1994. – Published by Lithuanian Association in Great Britain. – London, 1997, p.6 returned to Lithuania before his death (1998).
In 1957, after graduating from high school, Bučys enrolled at the University of Vilnius, where he studied the Lithuanian language and literature. After graduation, he was appointed a teacher of Lithuanian in the eight-year school of , but also taught drawing and mathematics due to lack of teachers. At the same time, he wrote poems and critical articles on literature and published them in the Lithuanian press. In 1962, he published his first book of poems.
Scientific specialization In 1964, Bučys received an invitation from the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature to finish postgraduate studies at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow. In 1968, he defended his thesis The Problem of the Novel in Contemporary Lithuanian Literature and earned the degree of candidate of philology.
At that time, the Gorky Institute paid particular attention to the literary theory and historical development of national literature.Writers of Soviet Lithuania. T.1 (in Lithuanian) - Vilnius, 1977, p.120 This research was associated with the revival of the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin. In the book The Novel and Modernity (1973, re-edition 1977, in Russian, 1977), Bučys tried to apply the ideas of Bakhtin as far as possible on the material of the Lithuanian novels of the Soviet period (1940–1970).Romanenkova М. A. Bakhtinian Lesson, or the History of Lithuanian Soviet Novel as Described by Algimantas Bučys. — Societal Studies. Research journal. — Mykolas Romeris University. Vol 5, No 4 (2013), стр. 1076—1085. — https://www3.mruni.eu/ojs/societal-studies/issue/view/105
Literary activity In addition to works of literary criticism, Bučys has published two novels and four books of poetry. Since literary criticism was subject to the confines of Soviet ideology, Bučys turns to the more open-ended and multilevel medium of poetry. These are his "anti-moments”, as he says in the title of the present book.Silbajoris Rimvydas, Ohio State University, - World Literature Today (Books Abroad), 1978, vol.52, no.3 In his poetry "complex transmutations of object into spirit and spirit into object, the basic poetic principle remains the same: to fill reality physically with metaphors of thought and feeling for the purpose of giving real body and substance to the visions born in one's mind".Silbajoris. R.- World Literature Today (Books Abroad), 1968, vol.42, no.4.
His poems have been translated into Polish, Russian, and Serbian. In turn, he had translated into Lithuanian poetry of the Polish poets Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Julian Przyboś, Tadeusz Śliwiak, , stories by the Serbian writer Grozdana Olujić, plays of the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža and Polish writer Agnieszka Osiecka.
Creative work at home (1968–1998) from time to time was interrupted by work in various literary magazines of the Lithuanian Writers' Union (Bučys is a member of this union since 1968).
International literary contacts Interest in the problems of national literatures amplified many literary acquaintances and connections, particularly with writers of the Caucasus and the Baltic States, as well as participation in literary conferences abroad. Trips and performances in Poland (1979, 1980), Yugoslavia (1989 at the Congress of PEN International in Slovenia), Romania (1981), East Germany (1983 in connection with the preparation and preface to the collection of Lithuanian short stories in German), in the United States (1985 to meet Lithuanian writers in exile), Italy (1987 as a member of the Editorial Board at the journal ), West Germany (1990 together with Chinghiz Aitmatov, Daniil Granin, Alexander Men, , etc.) was reflected in numerous literary articles. In 1962–2014, he published articles not only in Lithuanian, but also in Russian (84), English (4), German (4), Spanish (6) Polish (7), Estonian (2), Latvian (7), Armenian (3), Bulgarian (2), Georgian (1), French (2), and Japanese (1). ' Most of the articles present Lithuanian literature to foreign readers.Bučys Algimantas. Notes on Lithuanian Novel – Soviet Literature, 1969, Nr.10, p.160-166; Algimantas Bučys. Der Werdegang der litauishen Erzalung; in: Fishe haben kein Gedachtnis. Berlin, 1970, p. 383- 403; in German; Algimantas Bučys. Cesty litovskiej poviedky. In Jantarove brehy, Bratislava, 1974; in Slovak. One of the first (in 1969), Bučys began to write about the Lithuanian literature created in exile and banned in the Soviet Union; he prepared two volumes of the works of playwright, novelist Antanas Škėma, wrote the foreword to his novel Izaokas, first published in English.The Burden of the Genocide Era by Algimantas Bučys – in „The Vilnius review : new writings from Lithuania“ (Magazine of The Lithuanian Writers Union), Vol.8. No. 11/ Summer 2001, p. 9 – 15). After the restoration of independence of Lithuania, Bučys wrote the first essay on the history of the Lithuanian literature, where emigration literature is presented as an organic part of a single national literature.Bučys A. Lietutuan kurjallisuunden paradoksit. In: Dainojen henki: Latvian ja Liettuan kirjallisuudesta ja kulttuurista (compil. and editor Vento Urpo), Helsinki, 1990, 276 p., in Finnish; the same in English: A. Bučys . Paradoxes of Lithuanian Literature - The Vilnius review: new writings from Lithuania“, 1997, nr. 6;, the same in Swedish: Algimantas Bučys: Paradoxer i den litauiska litteraturen - Ariel. Tidskrift for literatur, 1998, nr. 5-6.
Comparative literature Since 2008, Bučys published three literary studies that emerged new methodological and cultural concepts.
Many years of close acquaintance with the writers of different nations and the works of various national literatures inevitably led to the need to find and develop new methods of studying the peculiarities of each national literature. Traditional comparative methodology, unfortunately, most often identified "similarity and resemblance" literary phenomena in different national literatures. It did not help to identify the individual identity of national literature, did not disclose its historical uniqueness. Structural comparison of very different historical experience of national literatures leads to the conclusion that the traditional "literary connections" represents only the outer side of the "invisible" internal typological interactions.Visible and Invisible Communication. With the writer Algimantas Bučys discusses literary critic Algis Kalėda (In Lithuanian) – Literatūra ir menas, 1981, spalio 31 d. (Literature and the arts, 1981, 31 October). A study similar ideological influence on national literature in the countries of the Soviet Union, the countries of post-war socialist camp in Europe has demonstrated the crisis of traditional comparative analysis by analogy. In these cases nothing is revealed except the statement that the monotony, the detection of the same trendy genre and stylistic standards in all of the compared national literatures (for example, a panoramic post-war novels in the manner of epic by Aleksey Tolstoy on the whole territory of the USSR and the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe).Bučys A. Deepening of the Image (About the hero contemporary Romanian and Lithuanian literature), in Russian. — Литва литературная, 1979, № 5; Бучис A . За подвига народен. (About the historical novels of Ivan Vazov and V. Mykolaitis) — Литературен фронт, 1980, 10 юли (in Bulgarian.); A.Bučys. The Inner Life of the Genre (On the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian novel), in Russian - Вопросы литературы, 1970, № 8, р. 17-27. In the discussion (1985 in Vilnius) Arthur Miller openly stated that the official ideology smooths the creative individuality of Soviet writers, "it becomes difficult to distinguish you. It is impossible to determine your personality".Bučys A. The Fate of National Identity in Modern Literature (in Russian) – Вопросы литературы, 1988, № 2, р. 12.
Cultural paradigms A new concept Bučys gradually developed in the articles on various national literatures (Armenian, Georgian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian), trying to prove that the traditional search of analogies in world literature often leaves out a proper evaluation of the most outstanding and original works of one or another national literature. That is, in his opinion, an unfortunate fate that is not deserved, for example, Lithuanian poet of the late 18th century Kristijonas Donelaitis or Croatian writer of the 20th century Miroslav Krleža. At the same time, Bučys began to form the concept of comparative literature in contrast, not only by analogy. The theoretical basis and possibilities of comparative literature to contrast he presented in different aspects in a special theoretical papers,Bučys A. In the Context of World Literature ( On the methodology of comparative interpretation of national literature), in Russian — Voprosy literatury, 1979, No. 12, p. 84-90 the article "National identity and the global context", translated into several languages.National Distinctiveness in the International Literary Context. – Soviet Literature, 1985, Nr. 1 (442), p. 144-153. Translated from Russian: National Identity and the Global Context (The background of the three problems) - Voprosy literatury, 1978, No. 12, p. 131-158; also this article was translated and published in different languages in the monthly journal of the Writers Union of the USSR: Lettres sovietiques. Oeuvres et opinions, 1985, No. 3, pp. 135-144); Literatura Sovietica, 1985, No. 1(439), pp. 140 — 148); also there in German, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Japanese.