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Autobiographies are traditionally understood as means of self-redemption or self-validation of the respective autobiographers, but they seem to have become tools of self-assertion in the recent times. The writers of this paper noticed that the underlying patterns in major autobiographies of the respective centuries such as those of Augustine, Rousseau, Virginia Woolf, Han Suyin and other male or female autobiographers commonly evolve around one's ethical choices in response to the vices caused by one's natural will and when facing ethical dilemmas caused by life challenges. This paper examines the abovementioned autobiographies via the Ethical Literary Criticism (ELC). Developed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao since 2004, ELC is one of the most insightful critiques in expounding the relationship of the self with oneself, self with others, and self with the divine or higher moral order in the context of the literary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to offer a postcolonial reading of an un published autobiography Großmutters Erzählung (Grandmother's Story, 1869) by Christine Jencken. The author was born into a family of Baltic-German old nobility. The text is rather unusual because of the critical comments on the Baltic-German way of life. It can be stated that Baltic-German life-writing is in its majority forms in many aspects a monolithic body of collective memory which supported the Baltic-German hegemonic identity. It is therefore difficult to find texts which do not follow the usual line of argument which includes the "historical right" of Baltic-Germans to the land and the praise of the traditional family values. However, in every society there are people who do not agree with certain traditions or models of behaviour but they are hardly represented in Baltic-German autobiographical writing. In my search for alternative voices I have found Christine Jencken's unpublished autobiography, which offers a different insight into the Baltic-German everyday life compared to what we are used to in the autobiographies and literary texts written by the Baltic-Germans from that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autobiographies are traditionally understood as means of selfredemption or self-validation of the respective autobiographers, but they seem to have become tools of self-assertion in the recent times. The writers of this paper noticed that the underlying patterns in major autobiographies of the respective centuries such as those of Augustine, Rousseau, Virginia Woolf, Han Suyin and other male or female autobiographers commonly evolve around one’s ethical choices in response to the vices caused by one’s natural will and when facing ethical dilemmas caused by life challenges. This paper examines the abovementioned autobiographies via the Ethical Literary Criticism (ELC). Developed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao since 2004, ELC is one of the most insightful critiques in expounding the relationship of the self with oneself, self with others, and self with the divine or higher moral order in the context of the literary world.

Taking its cue from Juri Lotman’s essay “Pravo na biografiyu”, this paper re-formulates the categories proposed by Lotman in relation to the two models of the saint and the modern intellectual, the former exemplifying the perfect realization of the norm and the latter the rejection of the norm in the name of an individual rule. These two models are considered with reference to two case studies from contemporary culture, respectively provided by the Catholic saints and by intellectuals – especially semioticians. The argument in the former case, which also takes into consideration other fundamental essays by Lotman, shows that contemporary Catholic culture challenges the identification of sanctity with the ideal of perfect adhesion to the norm. This notion is apparently applicable only to hagiographies seen as part of a mechanism of stabilization by which the dominating religious culture tames the explosive potential of the saintly figure. In the latter case, reflection on the theoretical and autobiographical production of several authors related to the field of semiotics shows that a third model can be added to the two identified by Lotman. This third model consists in acquiring the right to biography and carrying out autobiography not in contrast with the norm, as the modern writers studied by Lotman did, nor by dissolving oneself into the norm, but rather by dissolving oneself into the Other, that is, by opening one’s mind so as to allow the Other to become an integral part of oneself. This model is exemplified by the work by Julia Kristeva, in particular Teresa, My Love (2008), in that it overcomes the distinction between biography and autobiography and describes an intellectual and a saint who become “roommates”.

The present study analyzes an autobiographical text with the title Anotationes, written in Tallinn in 1650-1659. The author of this text is David Gallus, who was born in Germany in 1603. He came to Tallinn in 1631 and became cantor of the Tallinn Gymnasium in 1634. In Anotationes he depicts his daily life, including the financial and bureaucratic problems related to his work. Gallus' text could also be read as "manifestation of a heterologous subjectivity" (Kormann 2004): the author portrays his life by describing mainly the relationships in the social groups to which he belongs or by analyzing certain events or incidents which he feels connected to, rather than by revealing his own feelings and opinions. Therefore, Anotationes gives us an overview of Gallus' personal life and, concurrently, an overview of the general conditions in the Tallinn Gymnasium and the city of Tallinn in the middle of the 17th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]