Antanas Sileika
Stories from behind
the iron curtain

I sit outside and drink coffee with Antanas Sileika this beautiful summer
morning in Vilnius, as he tells me about his latest novel, Underground.

By Aage Myhre
aage.myhre@VilNews.com 

I sit outside and drink coffee with Antanas Sileika this beautiful summer morning in Vilnius. The award-winning Canadian-Lithuanian writer is visiting the country his parents fled during the Second World War. He is here to promote his latest book, Underground, which probably also comes in Lithuanian edition this autumn. The novel, which can be bought through Amazon Canada, tells the problematic love story of Luke and Elena, two members of the Lithuanian partisan revolt against the Soviet Union in the middle of the 1940s.

His visit to the fatherland has also another purpose, namely to gather information for his next book, and he tells me that the new novel will have the early 1920's as backdrop, the years when Lithuania just had begun to re-develop the country after more than 100 years of occupation by Tsar Russia.

But this summer morning, we focus on the period after World War II. The below 5-chapter essay speaks for itself…

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Underground:
A Novel by Antanas Sileika

 
Book review by DONNA BAILEY NURSE
in Canadian ‘The Globe & Mail’ http://www.theglobeandmail.com

“How are we going to survive unless we turn our hearts to stone?” a comrade warns the hero of Antanas Sileika’s Underground. The question is an example of the elegant thinking that characterizes this rare and compelling chronicle of Lithuanian partisans and their violent struggle against Soviet occupation.

Sileika’s third novel follows the military career of Lukas Petronis, whose bravery and commitment to the cause elevate him to legendary status within the resistance movement. Despite his heroism, Lukas keeps his heart from growing hard by falling in love with Elena, the sister of a partisan.

Underground, by Antanas Sileika,
Thomas Allen, 305 pages, $24.95 Buy from: Amazon.ca Chapters Indigo

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Eva Stachniak is a Canadian and Polish novelist and short story writer. Her new novel "The Winter Palace" based on the life of Catherine the Great will be published in the fall of 2011. Her web site is: http://www.evastachniak.com

By Eva Stachniak

Antanas Sileika, a Canadian novelist and critic, a son of Lithuanian-born parents, is the author of two novels and one collection of linked short stories Buying on Time (nominated for both the City of Toronto Book Award and the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour). Underground, his newest novel, was published in March of 2011 by Thomas Allen. In the words of its publisher Underground “explores the narrow range of options open to men and women in desperate situations, when history crashes into personal desires and private life.” For me Underground is also one of the still rare Canadian novels which delve into the stories from behind the former Iron Curtain, a tempting topic of conversation with its author.

E.S. “Underground” begins with the poetic evocation of the borderline that “weaves around the middle of Europe.” How significant is this borderline for you, a Canadian writer with Lithuanian roots?

A.S.: The borderline at the center of Europe has been critical for me for most of my life. I felt for decades until the late eighties that I did not exist at all because I came from a place that did not exist at all.

In effect, there were two borderlines in Europe - first there were countries such as Poland and Hungary, which existed in the "other" Europe, and then there were places such as the Baltics or Ukraine which did not seem to exist at all. They were on no map of the time (unless the map displayed Soviet provinces). In my childhood, this was extremely confusing because my parents were filled with the melancholy of loss that their generation of refugees suffered from.  Yet the site of their loss existed only in stories that they told, and these stories were a cross between fairy tales and the Aeneid, as if they had fled from burning Troy.

In my adolescence, I was embarrassed by my origins because I came from a pre-multicultural generation, one whose ethnicity was complicated by invisibility. But in my first year of university I underwent some kind of dramatic transformation and I refused to answer to the name "Tony", which I had used until then. Everyone had to call me "Antanas."

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The oldest surviving manuscript in Lithuanian (around 1503),
rewritten from 15th century original text

Vin Karnila, Associate editor
vin.karnila@VilNews.com

There are many articles written about the Lithuanian language. Some of them focus on the Indo-European / Old Sanskrit origins of the language, some delve into the complexities of the language and some are written for the understanding of the linguists. What attracted my attention to this article was that this is one of the best articles I have come across that gives a clear and easy to understand report on how the Lithuanian language evolved into what it is today.

This article was written by Giedrius Subačius, who is a member of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language located in Vilnius. The Institute of the Lithuanian Language itself is something to take note of. The institute holds the high status of a state research institution of the Republic of Lithuania. It is the center for scientific research of the Lithuanian language. Currently it has over 100 employees with over 70 of them taking research positions.

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Lithuania’s great Maestro, Professor Donatas Katkus
Photo: Elena Petkauskiene 

Donatas Katkus interviewed by Aage Myhre

Here he is, Lithuania’s famous music professor, Maestro Donatas Katkus! The man behind the Christopher Summer Festival since its very beginning in 1995, the man who has spread the joy of music throughout the streets of Vilnius for a whole life, making this city one of the most attractive in the world for all music lovers!

The Christopher Summer Festival is all about music – mostly classical, but also jazz and other genres are featured. The festival takes place in Vilnius churches, courtyards and concert halls, and lasts throughout all the summer, from the 1st of June till the 28th of August, even if the ‘official’ part lasts ‘only’ from 1st of July till the 26th of August! This summer’s festival is the 17th – a fantastic achievement by the founder, leader and artistic director – the utterly famous professor Donatas Katkus – and his excellent team!

The professor is conducting music and music festivals more energetically than anybody else, and he also treats the very term music in an anything but traditional manner, for example when he conducts an acrobatic plane, doing its loops according to Bach’s “Ave Maria”, or when he conducts a complete “orchestra” of bulldozers and excavators.

- Bulldozer conduction is very sexual, says the professor, gesticulating and emphasizing the importance of his words, in his so typical manner - full of humor, intensity and warm enthusiasm.

Donatas Katkus was born in Kaunas 68 years ago, where his mother, an amateur actress, raised him alone. The professor was the outcome of a hectic love affair, and he never met his father.

-But, says the professor, I do not complain, because I am a very young and very nice man, and I am just happy my mother did not take the veil in a Belgian nunnery, as she planned to do before the war started.

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