Alfonsas Maldonis

Maldonis, Al’fonsas Moteevich 

(Alfonsas Maldōnis). Born Aug. 22, 1929, in Naujaplenta, present-day Alytus Raion. Soviet Lithuanian poet. Member of the CPSU (1961).

Maldonis was the son of a peasant. In 1954 he graduated from the department of history and philology at the University of Vilnius. From 1962 to 1970 he served as the editor in chief of the Vaga Publishing House in Vilnius. His works began to appear in print in 1956. His first collection of verses, Midsummer, was published in 1958. Maldonis’ later collections include The Wind Drives Away the Cloud (1960), A Sun Shower (1962; State Prize of the Lithuanian SSR, 1965), The Trees Are Growing (1965), These Years (1966), and Watermarks (1969).

His profound concentration on the spiritual life of his contemporaries, his acute sense of time, and the loftiness of his moral ideals make Maldonis’ lyric poetry a significant phenomenon in Soviet Lithuanian poetry.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Vysokie noty. Moscow, 1963.
Stikhi. Introductory article by V. Ognev. Moscow, 1971.

REFERENCES

Lesnevskii, S. “Zhazhda svetit’.” Literaturnaia gazeta, Aug. 27, 1964.
Vetrova, E. “Dal’nie orbity i kaplia rosy.” Druzhba narodov, 1965, no. 3.
Pakal’nishkis, R. “Dve knigi liriki.” Druzhba narodov, 1971, no. 3.
Grinberg, I. “Osoznanie sily.” Znamia, 1971, no. 8.