Buše and Her Sisters

This novel, published in 1953, is set in a rural community of the Klaipėda district of western Lithuania where the author grew up. The central character is Buše, one of four daughters of Mikšas Karnelis, a peasant farmer. From an early age she shows boorish determination to get her own way and has little respect for her sisters. When she marries Jokūbas Pikčiurna, she sets about transforming his small farm holding into a landed estate. At the end of novel, the author presents the anti-capitalist viewpoint on the legacy of Buše years after her death:
“Today there are no more masters in Benagiai. All trace of them is gone and their memory has faded. Today there are no more Pikčiurnas in Benagiai, even their name is gone, nobody remembers them or wishes to do so.”

The author, Ieva Simonaitytė (born 23 January 1897), grew up in a small village in the German-governed Klaipėda district of Lithuania. She was taught to read and write by her mother. In 1921 she moved to the city of Klaipėda and became involved in the fledgeling Lithuanian cultural movement. Her literary breakthrough came in 1935 with her award-winning historical novel on the Šimoniai family (Aukštujų Šimonių likimas). In old age, she returned to the district of her childhood every summer (her summer home is now a museum).

The central character, Buše Pikčiurnienė, has economic ambitions when the First World War breaks out but is furious when her elder son, patriotic for Germany due to his education, is the first to volunteer to serve in the German army:
“When war broke out in 1914 Pikčiurnienė rejoiced. She had debts and she felt war would be her salvation. And even more than that. People would be glad to work for a crust of bread now. Everyone knew that there was always hunger in war-time, and after it too!
There was only one fly in the ointment; her son Jurgis announced that he was going to volunteer for the army at once. Volunteer! He was barely 19, he would not be called up for some time yet.”
She tries to reason with Jurgis:
“D'you want to be killed like a dog out there? D'you want to have the crows pick out your eyes?”
Her predictions prove correct; Jurgis never returns.

The hero of the novel is Jurgis Būblys, husband of Trudė, one of Buše’s sisters. He comes home from the war discontent and speaking of revolution. His friend, Adomas, recalls his removal from the Western Front:
“I threw my gun away, Jurgis, in the Argonne Forest. There was a gas attack. When I came to, I knew I was in a dark forest but where I was or what had happened I could not remember...
But all the same, I felt sort of guilty. Maybe I ought to have done differently. But I didn't know how. We did know, all of us, what was happening in the East, over there in Russia. But we had nobody to start things. Only those that could talk and dream... And then when I came out of hospital, it was all over.”
Jurgis becomes the local Communist hero, people telling their grandchildren about him:
“how eagerly they listen to tales about Jurgis Būblys, who not only fought for all that the people of Benagiai now possess but gave his life for it!”