Judita Vaičiūnaitė

Judita Vaičiūnaitė
Born	July 12, 1937 Kaunas, Lithuania
Died	February 11, 2001(2001-02-11) (aged 63) Vilnius, Lithuania
Occupation	Poet
Alma mater	Vilnius University
Subject	Mythology, Vilnius, the lives of women
Spouse	Hermanis Marģers Majevskis

Judita Vaičiūnaitė (July 12, 1937 – February 11, 2001) was a Lithuanian writer. Best known for her poetic exploration of urban settings and mythological women, she is one of Lithuania's most famous 20th-century poets.^[1][2][3]

Judita Vaičiūnaitė was born in 1937 in Kaunas, Lithuania.^[4][5] Her father was a professor of psychiatry, and her mother was a nurse. She was particularly close with her sister Dalia.^[4]

After World War II, she moved to Vilnius with her family.^[3] There, she studied at Vilnius University, graduating in 1959.^[6] Vaičiūnaitė would live in Vilnius for the rest of her life, making the city a central subject of her work.^[1][4]

She was married to the famous Latvian poet and translator Hermanis Margeris Majevskis [lt].^[7]

Vaičiūnaitė's first poetry collection, Pavasario akvarelės ("Spring Watercolors"), was published in 1960.^[2] She went on to publish new collections frequently, producing more than 20 books of poetry.^[2][6] She also wrote fairy tales and poems for children.^[2][4]

Vaičiūnaitė worked as an editor for several literary journals in Lithuania.^[6] She also completed translations of other poets into Lithuanian, notably the work of Anna Akhmatova.^[8][9] In 1978, she was named the laureate of the Lithuanian Poetry Spring [lt] festival.^[4]

In 1996, she was awarded the Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature, the Arts and Science for her collection Žemynos vainikai ("Wreaths of Zemyna").^[4] That year, she published the memoir Vaikystės veidrody, a series of essays about her own life.^[4][10] She was issued the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas in 1997, and the Lithuanian Writers' Union Prize in 2000.^[6]

Vaičiūnaitė's poetry dealt with a wide range of subjects and themes, including Lithuanian and Greek mythology, modern jazz, history, and contemporary city life.^[1][3][11] Her urban-centered poetry, frequently set in Vilnius' Old Town, is perhaps her best known.^[1][2] It came at a time when most other Lithuanian poets were from the countryside and focused on the natural world in their work.^[12][13] She also incorporated the city's multicultural history into her poems.^[3][14]

She frequently employed dramatic monologue in her work, often from the point of view of female historical and mythological figures.^[1][14] Her poetry was influenced by the neo-romantic work of Salomėja Nėris, the first prominent Lithuanian woman poet.^[15] Alongside Marcelijus Martinaitis, Sigitas Geda, and others, she was part of a generation that quietly revolutionized Lithuanian poetry as dissatisfaction grew with Soviet rule, but the neo-romantic strains persisted.^{[3][4][14][10]}

Vaičiūnaitė was a highly independent single mother, but she was also convinced of the importance of romantic love. She wrote with a feminist realism, narrating the lives of single women in the city.^[4][3][12]

Judita Vaičiūnaitė died in Vilnius in 2001.^[4][5][16] A 2010 posthumous collection of selections from her work, Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė, was published by the Lithuanian Writers' Union.^[6][14] In 2018, a collection of her work in English translation was published as Vagabond Sun: Selected Poems.^[3]

A monument to her stands near the Church of St. Catherine in Vilnius.^[4]

• Pavasario akvarelės (1960)
• Kaip žalias vynas (1962)
• Per saulėtą gaublį (1964)
• Vėtrungės (1966)
• Po šiaurės herbais (1968)
• Žiemos lietus (1987)
• Žemynos vainikai (1995)
• Seno paveikslo šviesa (1998)
• Debesų arka (2000)
• Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė (posthumous, 2010)

• Pavasario fleita (collection, 1980)

• Vaikystės veidrody (1996)