Juozas Kėkštas’s Existential Fight for Freedom and the Musicality of His Poetry

Abstract

Lithuanian émigré poet Juozas Kėkštas (Adomavičius, 1915–1981) lived across Europe and South America, experiencing repeated arrests, Soviet imprisonment, and wartime service in Anders’ army, later organizing Lithuanian periodicals in Rome and Buenos Aires. This paper examines the stages of his emig­ration and focuses on the peculiarities and musicality of his poetry using comparative methodology and exis­ting scholarship. It argues that his work blends rebellious expressionism, avant-garde poetics, existen­tialism, and žemininkai ideas, unified by themes of freedom and solitude, while extensive musical imagery and formal analogues (variations, rondo, compound forms) shape its emotional dramaturgy.