Baltaragis's Mill

Baltaragis's Mill (Lithuanian: Baltaragio malūnas) is a 1945 fantasy novel by Lithuanian writer Kazys Boruta.The story is about a pact of a miller with a devil, which includes a rash promise. 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. In 1962 a revised version was published.

The story was translated in several languages.

Plot

Baltrus Baltaragis, a miller, tries to marry off Uršulė , his long-time demonstratively pious and superstitious servant. He arranges a fiancé, Pinčiukas , his closest neighbor, who is in fact the local devil, but Uršulė manages to avoid this. After this event, she is nicknamed "the devil's fiancée". Uršulė, taking revenge, tells the worst things about Baltaragis and his daughter Jurga in the village. Pinčiukas comes to Baltaragis and makes an offer of help, demanding in return something for himself that Baltaragis does not have today, but will have when he gets married...

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", bearing in mind Jesus Christ Superstar. In 1974 in Lithuania the first Soviet musical film 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 Vytautas Brazdylis 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.

External links

• Kazys Boruta - Baltaragio malūnas arba kas dėjosi anuo metu Paudruvės krašte, full text at the Anthology of Classical Lithuanian Literature