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Justinas Marcinkevičius (10 March 1930 – 16 February 2011) was a Lithuanian poet and playwright.
Marcinkevičius was born in 1930 in Važatkiemis,Prienai District. In 1954, he graduated from the Faculty of History andPhilology ofVilnius University with a degree inLithuanian language andliterature. He joined theCommunist Party of Lithuania in 1957. He worked for a number of years as vice-chairman of the board of theUnion of Lithuanian Writers. Marcinkevičius is regarded as one of the most prominent members ofSąjūdis. He died inVilnius.
Having grown up during the post-war period, Marcinkevičius evokes in his poetry a romanticized version of childhood spent in the Lithuanian countryside, of first love, of man's relationship with nature. In his poetry specific and solid peasant thinking is combined with a mind seeking to draw broad general conclusions, and the tradition of Lithuanian poetry singing the Earth's praises with contemporary modes of poetic thought. As a poet, he has sought to grasp the essence of national experience and give it fresh artistic expression. In his lyrical verse Marcinkevičius strives to comprehend the real meaning of what is going on inside man and society and moves the reader with his ardent lyrical confessions.
For most his life Justinas Marcinkevičius lived and wrote during the complex times ofSoviettotalitarianism. He defended the cultural self-awareness of his nation. The poet brought back humanistic idea in describing a man, continued on theromantic andlyric poetry tradition, valued the aesthetic side of literature, as opposed to the heroic and propagandistic style ofsocialist realism. Marcinkevičius wrote poems in a romantic and modern style.
After the emergence of Marcinkevičius' first bookI Plead for a Word in 1955, he has published fourteen collections of poetry, three historical plays, two collections of essays, a novella and various translations into Lithuanian.
He has also translated into Lithuanian works ofAdam Mickiewicz,Alexandr Pushkin,Sergei Yesenin,Mikhail Lermontov, and the FinnishKalevala legend.
