Relationship among egodocuments by Šatrijos Ragana: letters and memoirs

The article aims to analyze the egodocuments by Šatrijos Ragana. Using categories defined by Philipe Lejeune which determine autobiography as a genre, Ragana‘ s letters written from 1895 to 1930 (about 400 letters in total) are investigated. The results of the research enables us to speak about an interim genre, i.e. The letter-autobiography, or the sub-genre of the letter; i.e. the epistolar biography. The authenticity of another egodocumentic genre (reminiscences about the author) also relates to letters by Šatrijos Ragana. Egodocumentic texts are written by different people: the letters are written in the first person, and the reminiscences are presented from the perspective of other people. As a genre the letter shows great flexibility. It might interact with both fiction (e.g. The writer‘s letter-autobiography to Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas demonstrates that the novella Sename dvare [In the Old Manor] has clear autobiographical motifs) and other egodocumentic genres, memories in this case, in order to specify some parts of an epistolary text or artistic factography. The autobiographical data of the writer’s life denotes certain experiences in works of fiction. Šatrijos Ragana’s letters provide not only factual life information, but are also valuable as the story of a personality. Memoirs also supplement the image of the personality revealed in letters. Writer‘s letters are considered to be the unique egodocuments which demonstrate not only the history of an individual and a nation, but also provide proof for the argument that there are theoretical interfaces between genres in egodocuments