''Baltaragis's Mill'' (, "Baltaragis's Mill, or What Once Happened in the Paudruvės Land") is a 1945 fantasy novel by Lithuanian writer

Kazys Boruta Kazys Boruta (6 January 1905, in Kūlokai, near Marijampolė – 9 March 1965, in Vilnius) was a Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states an ...

.The story is about a pact of a miller with a devil, which includes a

rash promise The rash promise, also blind promise or rash boon is a promise given without considering its consequences. It is a common motif in medieval and folk literature, especially fairy tales. It is classified in the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' as ...

. It is based on Lithuanian folklore. Unlike most stories of the type, there was no happy end to anybody: the miller and most of main characters suffer or die and even the devil is killed by the pagan god Perkunas.С. В. Фишер
«МЕЛЬНИЦА БАЛТАРАГИСА»: ПОВЕСТЬ — МЮЗИКЛ — ФИЛЬМ — БАЛЕТ
Вестник Академии Русского балета им. А. Я. Вагановой. No 2 (43) 2016 In 1962 a revised version was published. The story was translated in several languages.

Plot

The plot includes the following

motif. The closest neighbor of Baltaragis Pinčiukas (Pinčukas), who is in fact the local devil and lives in the swamp, comes to Baltaragis and makes an offer to help Baltragis to marry a beautiful girl Marcelė, demanding in return something for himself that Baltaragis does not have today, but will have when he gets married. Baltragis and Marcelė have a beautiful daughter Jurga. Some time later Marcelė dies. Pinčiukas comes to demand his bounty: to marry Jurga. Baltragis decieves Pinčiukas: instead of Jurga he gives him Uršulė, his long-time demonstratively pious and superstitious servant, but Uršulė eventually manages to avoid this. Still, after this event, she is nicknamed "the devil's bride". Uršulė, taking revenge, tells the worst things about Baltaragis and his daughter Jurga in the village. After some time Pinčiukas sees beautiful Jurga and realizes he was deceived. After that he starts chasing off Jurga's suitors, so she cannot get married... There is no happy end to anybody in the end.

Adaptations

In 1973 Vyacheslav Ganelin wrote an opera based on it. The composer called the genre "rhythm-opera", a hint to the term "

rock opera A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas, although several have been ad ...

", bearing in mind ''

Jesus Christ Superstar ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' is a sung-through rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Loosely based on the Life of Jesus in the New Testament, Gospels' accounts of Passion of Jesus, the Passion, the work interprets ...

''. The verse for it was written by the Lithuanian poet

Sigitas Geda Sigitas Geda (full name - Sigitas Zigmas Geda; 4 February 1943 – 12 December 2008) was a Lithuanian poet, translator, playwright, essayist, critic and a member of the Lithuanian independence movement, Sąjūdis, and of the Lithuanian parliament, ...

. In 1974 in Lithuania the first Soviet

musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serv ...

'' Devil's Bride'' was produced which used Ganelin's music and which had become immensely popular. The plot of the musical was simplified compared to the original and less tragic. In 1979 staged a ballet in the Lithuanian SSR State Opera and Ballet Theatre based on Ganelin's rhythm-opera. In 2011 Brazdylis recreated his ballet to a minute detail including decorations, to be performed by the students of the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art.Minimas choreografo Vytauto Brazdylio jubiliejus
/ref>

References

External links

Kazys Boruta - ''Baltaragio malūnas arba kas dėjosi anuo metu Paudruvės krašte''
full text at the ''Anthology of Classical Lithuanian Literature'' Lithuanian speculative fiction novels 1945 fantasy novels {{authority control