The avant-garde movement "Four Winds" (1922–1928) appeared as a vital and radical innovation of Lithuanian literary tradition. Influenced by the avant-garde literary movements of futurism and Dadaism the writers of "Four Winds" experimented with poetic devices and narrative forms. The Lithuanian avant-garde literature borrowed the national folklore images as opposing to contemporary urban civilization and mode of speech. Among them appeared the figure of wild barbarian who became a symbol of the threat to the values and traditions of culture. Furthermore, the barbarian, a futuristic character in the avant-garde writing of Lithuanian writers, became an original interpretation of exotic past and a mock of patriotic images of popular romantic historical plays of that time. The barbarian, an avant-garde hero of ancient Lithuania, appears as a deheroized version of knights, personages of the parodised historical plays
