Balys Sruoga

Born Feb. 2,1896, in the village of Baibokai, Panevézys District, Kovno Province, now Birzai Raion; died Oct. 16,1947, in Vilnius. Lithuanian writer, literary scholar, and theater critic. Doctor of philosophical sciences (1924).

From 1916 to 1918, Srüoga studied Russian literature at the faculty of history and philology of Moscow University. In 1924 he graduated from the University of Munich. He became a professor at the University of Kaunas in 1932.

Srüoga helped found the Vilkolakis Satire Theater (1919–25). From 1924 to 1943 and from 1945 to 1947 he taught at the universities of Kaunas and Vilnius. He was a prisoner in Hitler’s concentration camp at Stutthof from 1943 to 1945.

Srūoga began publishing in 1911. Muted atmosphere and emotional spontaneity predominate in his verse collections Sun and Sand (1920) and By the Paths of the Gods (1923). A lyric intonation is expressed in Srūoga’s historical dramas In the Shadow of the Giant (1932), A Terrible Night (1935), Radvila Perkūnas (1935), Fate Before Dawn (1945), and Kazimierz Sapieha (1947), which portray the life of the Lithuanian people at turning points in history. Srūoga’s ironical memoir of Stutthof, Forest of the Gods (Russian translation, 1957), depicts the tragedy of dehumanized man.

Srūoga also wrote a History of Russian Literature (vols. 1–2, 1931–33). His scholarly works laid the foundation of Lithuanian theater studies. He translated The Tale of Igor’s Campaign into Lithuanian (1952).