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Balys Sruoga (February 2, 1896, near Biržai, Lithuania - October 16, 1947, Vilnius) was a Lithuanian poet, playwright, critic, 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 in St. Petersburg Russia, and later in Moscow, due to World War I and the Russian Revolution. In 1921 he enrolled in the University of Munich, where he received his Ph.D for a doctoral thesis on Lithuani
Balys Sruoga (February 2, 1896, near Biržai, Lithuania - October 16, 1947, Vilnius) was a Lithuanian poet, playwright, critic, 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 in St. Petersburg Russia, and later in Moscow, due to World War I and the Russian Revolution. 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 dramas, first Milžino paunksmė, later Radvila Perkūnas, Baisioji naktis and Aitvaras teisėjas. In 1939 he began teaching at Vilnius University.
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.[1] In 2005 film The Forest of Gods was produced based on the book.
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