Culture & events

Oh, those old Lithuanian
wedding traditions

The article author, Kestutis Eidukonis, with the bride and her maids.

Marriage and death - these are the events to which ancient Lithuanian culture gave special attention to, and judging by the surviving customs and folklore, the most significant of these was the wedding, for it was on the family that the entire community depended on for survival, structure, and stability - not only of the community but of the whole nation. It is therefore understandable why the creation of a family - a wedding- receives so much attention in both ancient and present day Lithuanian culture.

One only needs to walk around old town Vilnius or Kaunas or any good size Lithuanian town on any given weekend to see wedding entourages accompanied by photographers posing for pictures at churches, bridges or any other landmark. These festivities occur everywhere in Lithuania. It is a wonderful sight for a country. It is usually a sign of confidence and hope in the future. Of course, traditions change and some people are reluctant to celebrate the wedding using some of these traditions but it was interesting to see them none the less and hope people continue to observe them.

I recently had the privilege of attending one of these special occasions in Žemaitiją in the wonderful towns of Veiverženai, and Švekšna I was invited to the wedding of Arturas and Žavinta, (her name means Enchanting) and I want to thank them and their families for sharing this beautiful experience with the me and the readers of VilNews.

At Žavinta's and Arturas's wedding, all the old traditions of a Lithuanian wedding came into play. All the actors, the matchmaker and his wife, the groom, the bride, the parents, bridesmaids, groomsmen, musician, large number of relatives and friends and most importantly, the children, had a part to play.

The day started at the bride's house with the bride getting dressed for the occasion being assisted by the brides maids. As the magic hour got close, the groom together with groomsmen arrived at the house, where, family and friends waited. The ceremonies began with the Matchmaker and Mrs Matchmaker (The matchmaker's wife) taking charge. The groomsmen are introduced to the bridesmaids. The boys tied flowers on the bridesmaids wrists and the girls in turn put a flower on the lapel of the boys. The future bride and groom in turn present a typical handwoven Lithuanian sash to the Matchmaker with the words Matchmaker - Liar.

The next part of the festivities was both comical and melancholic. The parents shared with everyone present their fondest memories of their children. Their first words, the lullabies they used to put them to sleep with and anything else memorable. The groom's mother then pinned a flower on her son's lapel, and in traditional Catholic families the couple is presented with a rosary as symbol of God's blessing. The bride and groom then bid farewell to their parents by kissing their hands. Tears flow copiously! Moms are usually very tearful - not so the fathers. Guests applaud and cry!

After this the couple proceed to the church where the mass is said and the couple exchange vows - pretty much like any other wedding ceremony. The couple also adopted the custom of releasing white turtle doves after the wedding ceremony outside the church.

After the church ceremonies the young couple along with their whole entourage hop into their cars and go on a noisy, horn blasting, few hour long trip. Photos are taken and rituals are performed. These combine a few old and new traditions - the old tradition consists of sorting through a bunch of stones labeled by the maid of honor with good and bad characteristics of the couple. Love jealousy, respect, hot temper, etc. The good stones are kept and put in a basket. The bad ones are tossed away. The stones have a special pagan significance - in old times they were considered messages to the gods. The newer tradition consists of locking two hearts together with a symbolic lock. The lock is often placed on a bridge and the key is discarded. Most Lithuanian bridges are covered with such locks. (I have also seen people removing their locks after a divorce or separation). The wedding party also uses this occasion to go visit close relatives who are ill or frail and could not make it to the festivities. The groom is also supposed to carry the bride across any and every bridge they come to.

Finally, according to old traditions it is time to go back to the house where the parents and the guests are eagerly awaiting. Weddings used to take place in one of parents' home. Now days, the celebrations are often held in a hall or in a place specially selected for its rural scenery or for the occasion. However, the decorations, like in the old days remain the same, the yard is decorated with birch branches flowers and other decorations. Our wedding took place in Alsė, a "kaimo sodyba" - a rural B & B.

After raising Cain on the roads and streets, the newly weds return to the hall where they are welcomed by their parents with the traditional gifts of bread and salt and water. (The bread symbolizes life, salt bitter moments and the water or wine to wash everything down) But before they are allowed to enter, they are required to undergo a variety of challenges. What would Lithuanian wedding be without jokes, and pranks? The organizer of all this is the irreplaceable wedding musician and the matchmakers who, up until the return of the young couple have been busy preparing for the first trials, an obstacle course for the groom to navigate while carrying his bride blindfolded - she is supposed to coach him where to walk. A baby doll for the bride to wash and diaper. Firewood for the groom to chop, a dish has to be broken and it will predict the number of children they will have, the bride will have to demonstrate that she knows how to peel potatoes. All this is accompanied with cat calls from the audience and commentary from the matchmakers as to how well or how ineptly the newly weds are performing their tasks. Upon completion of their tasks the newly weds request permission to enter the hall, but before the couple are allowed in they must get the approval of all the guests - who might want to challenge the couple. The maid of honor comes to the aid of the couple with a basket of candy and goodies to bribe the guests with. Many of the traditional matchmaker tasks have survived to this day but some are modified to fit the times. It is the matchmakers jobs to keep the evening flowing with toasts, songs, games and speeches. Everyone present is offered a chance to talk. The speeches have to be witty or sentimental, and they are always heartily applauded. The food was plentiful and delicious. Each table had official "bottle masters" and "happy attitude enforcers" assigned. The staff of the "Alsė" was great - pitchers were always full and platters of food just kept on coming. The place where the wedding took place was just outside the town of Švekšna it is a "Kaimo Turismo Sodyba" - a rural village garden type of an accommodation - with gazebos and other areas where guests young and old could socialize and imbibe. It also had places where everyone could rest, either in private rooms or communal bunk type accommodations. People with less stamina, were given semi-private accommodations - while the younger folks were provided with communal sleeping arrangements.

Around midnight - everyone was invited to a fire (normally a fireplace ) but in our case it was burning candles where everyone was asked to sprinkle amber dust on the flames and make a wish for the newly weds. Why Amber? Amber is considered to be the oldest, healing, spiritual rock with a large amount of organic energy. This magnetic stone, can still be found in the Baltic Sea, it is used for attracting love, carrying for and protecting happiness. It is symbolical invitation to an old Lithuanian ancestral spirit, to care for our young family and for our ancestors to reinforce the strength of the spirit of the family hearth fire. This magical fire now resides in Arturas and Zavinta and burns passionately within them.

The party continued till seven AM - With guests disappearing little by little till only the most energetic and hearty ones were left.

On the second day of the wedding - we were awakened by our colorful musician wearing a long wig. knocking on our door and insisting on us opening the door whilst he and his accordion serenaded us with his "wake up" song. Good natured threats were hurtled back and forth. Dire consequences were predicted for those who did not open up and wake up. Little by little, everyone woke up and gathered around for a breakfast of sour kraut soup served with potatoes and Kastynis ( A rich mix of butter and cream). This traditional hangover remedy , a visit to the sauna followed by a dip in the pond quickly revived everyone. The sauna and the dip in the pond was voluntary - though many took advantage of it.

Around noon - everyone was ready to start partying all over again. Everyone gathered at the banquet hall for second round of revelry. In the meantime, the bridal party decided that the matchmaker exaggerated the grooms qualities when he recommended the groom to the bride and her parents and that for being such a big liar, he needs to be strung up. The matchmaker at first tries to make excuses, but then when he sees that it is doing no good he starts to read his humorous last testament. This leaves everyone in stitches! The Matchmaker is than saved from hanging by the young bride - who ties her sash on him as a sign of respect and as sign of thanks for finding her a great husband. The wedding party goes along with the bride and decides that the matchmaker wasn't a liar, after all. He did match up these two wonderful young people and his services are still needed for the remaining large group of unmarried women. The matchmaker is allowed to live but now has to wear his matchmaker's sash around his neck as a reminder of the perils of his job.

Of course, there was still a lot of celebrating to do, games, dances and songs. The wedding went on till later that evening. But most importantly the Lithuanian Spirit was alive and well there. Happy guests, happy newly weds and most important of all - happy young eyes were watching all of this, for you see the young children were a part of this the whole time: This to them was a Fun Lithuanian Wedding!

By the end of the book, author Daiva Markelis discovers

Her own way to be both
Lithuanian and American.

Daiva Markelis interviewed by Ellen Cassedy

Daiva Markelis's memoir, White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life (University of Chicago Press, 2010), tells the story of her growing up as the daughter of postwar Lithuanian immigrants in the 1960's and '70's near Chicago.

The book alternates between the story of Markelis's youth – especially her struggle for cultural identity – and a series of touching later scenes with her octogenarian mother.  

We see Daiva and her sister begging for real American Halloween costumes and a plastic Christmas tree, while the parents insist on speaking Lithuanian and holding true to their traditions.   The descriptions of Catholic school, Lithuanian scout camp, and the family resort owned by Valdas Adamkus (who later returned to Lithuania and became its president) are tart and funny.  

Markelis reveals a culture as well as a personal history.  She writes affectionately about the streets, the buildings, even the tackiest billboards of her home town - while, at the same time, not shrinking from frank portrayals of racial tension and alcohol abuse.   The portraits of her parents are filled with a lovely tenderness, even as she pokes fun and reveals some of their failings.  

This tale of seeking cultural identity within an immigrant community comes to an uplifting conclusion. By the end of the book, Markelis has discovered her own way to be both Lithuanian and American.

Daiva, the title of your book comes from a riddle that your father posed to you when you were a child:

                Black sheep on a white field;
                He who knows them, leads them.

The answer is "letters on a page."  You are truly a "shepherd of words" – an eloquent, elegant writer.  Your love of both languages shines throughout your memoir.

Thanks for the kind words, Ellen. I'm going to start listing "shepherd" as my occupation!

I've always thought being bilingual is an advantage in so many ways. Growing up in a heavily Lithuanian culture and speaking Lithuanian as my first language have given me a different lens through which to observe American life. This has enriched me as a writer and as a human being.

My parents encouraged reading, both in Lithuanian and in English, and that has probably had the biggest impact in my wanting to be a writer and a teacher of literature.

A particularly touching part of the book, for me, was the brief section called "The Alphabet of Silence." You describe how, near the end of your mother's life, she presented you with a set of silverware that had been given to her family for safekeeping by a Jewish doctor, who then perished in the Holocaust. 

You challenge your mother, asking why the fate of Lithuania's Jews was not mentioned in the community when you were growing up.  On the verge of tears, she asks you to reassure her that she was a good mother. 

Your handling of this scene is so subtle and beautiful that I'm reluctant to ask you to say more.  But can you?  Is such a conversation between mother and daughter a common one in Lithuanian-American homes?

I'm so glad you liked this section, Ellen. I wanted to write more about the many silences I experienced growing up in a Lithuanian household, but I wasn't sure how to go about this. I didn't want to alienate Lithuanian readers, many of whom are still reluctant to discuss what happened during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. In retrospect I think I was being too subtle.

I was very close to my mother. We had many interesting conversations about a variety of topics – religion, politics, even sex. I think many Lithuanian-American daughters are close to their mothers – sometimes I think our mothers felt a bit lonely and misunderstood, and thus turned to their daughters for companionship. Of course, I thought my mother was special. She was a very outspoken, funny, and intelligent woman.

How has the book been received within the Lithuanian-American community?  How do you respond to people who worry that you've shown too much dirty Lithuanian-American laundry in public?

I've received many letters, emails, and phone calls from Lithuanian-Americans saying how much they loved the book. I really wasn't expecting that! The most positive responses have come from individuals my age who grew up in Chicago or Cicero, thanking me for writing a memoir that chronicles experiences they've gone through with parental expectations, Lithuanian Saturday School, and even drinking at the bars on 69th Street in Marquette Park.

Lithuanian-Americans from an earlier generation--those whose grandparents immigrated to this country at the turn of the last century--also seem to like the book. Friends tell me that some Lithuanians are angry that I emphasize drinking so much. But I wrote what I observed and lived through, and drinking was a part of that. As I grow older I care less about what people think--I tell my students that a growing indifference to the judgments of others is one of the advantages of aging.

Also, the idea of "dirty laundry" is, to some extent, subjective. I'm sure that some Lithuanians feel I've revealed too much. Yet one friend said that I held myself back too much. And non-Lithuanian friends and critics who've read my book have remarked on how strongly the emphasis on education and culture in Lithuanian life comes through.  

Books about the Lithuanian-American experience are few and far between.  Why do you think this is?

There aren't that many of us out there, at least compared to the Poles, who've written much more widely about their experiences as immigrants and children of immigrants. Also, Lithuanian-Americans of my parents' generation encouraged their children to go into practical fields such as engineering and nursing. Perhaps surprisingly – because there are fewer of them – Lithuanian-Canadians have led the literary way. Antanas Sileika's first novel, Buying on Time, is a wonderful and very funny book about growing up Lithuanian-Canadian. And Irene Guilford's The Embrace examines the complex relationships between Lithuanians in the homeland and the diaspora. Both authors have influenced my own writing.

Ars longa, vita brevis
Art is long, Life is short.

Professor of Creative Writing and American Short Story at Concordia University, Canada,
the founder and main organizer of the SLS, and author Mikhail Iossel.
Photo: Kestutis Pleita

Professor Mikhail Iossel interviewed by Eglė Kačkutė

This summer, July 15-28 and August 29-12, the 14th edition of Summer Literary Festivals known as the SLS will be held in Vilnius for the 3rd time running. Literary workshops will be conducted by experienced and well known North American writers; famous photographers, artists and researchers will be taking part in the program. SLS is the biggest independent creative writing program in the world that brings together an impressive number of talented teachers and writers to be. The creative writing phenomenon is rife in Europe, too. The first British Creative Writing course graduate in the UK is legendary Ian McEwan who continues to reap the plentiful fruit of his studies at East Anglia University thirty odd years ago. Creative studies are known to be more that just a means to get better at writing, they also serve as an initiation into complex and competitive world of publishing, providing writers to be with much needed references.

Eglė Kačkutė is talking to professor of Creative Writing and American Short Story at Concordia University, Canada, the founder and main organizer of the SLS, and author Mikhail Iossel.

This year for the fourteenth time running, you’ll be organizing the biggest international creative writing program featuring North American and Canadian writers. You teach creative writing at Concordia University and are a writer yourself. What’s your story? How did you come to writing in English and especially teaching writing in English?

I came to the US in 1986, after five years of having my application for émigré visa turned down by the competent organs. Back in Leningrad, which is where I was born and raised, I was trained and for a few years worked (poorly and lackadaisically) as an electrical engineer, in the employ of the research institute charged with the task of lowering the electromagnetic fields radiated in the ocean by the outmoded Soviet submarines, so as to make the latter less detectable by the enemy radars (it was a hopeless enterprise, of course); and I also – especially since the beginning of the 80s -- was active in the city’s burgeoning underground (“samizdat”) literary community.

(Once I had become a “refusenik,” however, my line of occupation had changed quite drastically, and for the last couple of years of my “Soviet” life I worked as an alternate night-guard at Leningrad’s Central Park of Culture and Leisure, tasked with the responsibility of keeping an eye on the city’s only roller-coaster. I loved that job.)
My original “Plan-A” idea, before arriving in America, had been to make a living in the new world by continuing to write in Russian; and when, within the first day or two of my post-Soviet life, it was explained to me how and why that wouldn’t work, I found myself at a loss as to what to do next, for I had no Plan B. One thing I did know for certain, though: I didn’t want to be an engineer again – and in general, I had resolved for myself never to try and make a living by doing anything that, to me, felt like a waste of life.

I could read English well enough, at that point – back in Leningrad, I had translated some contemporary American prose and poetry for “samizdat” journals, including the one I co-published myself – and my spoken English was rather passable; but my oral comprehension, in the absence of any prior practice, was pretty abysmal, not to mention my ability to write in English, which was non-existent, for all intents and purposes.
In an effort to improve the quality of my English quickly – and because the idea of being surrounded by books was soothing and appealing to me, in my discombobulated state just then – I undertook a string of part-time jobs with some terrific bookstores: first around the Harvard Square and other parts of larger-Boston area – and then in Northern California, where my relatives on my father’s side lived.

Unfortunately, I was unable to keep any of those jobs for long. I was, at that point -- not atypically for many Soviet émigrés in those days (when one left the country, and one’s friends and family, forever, in the firm knowledge he would never be able to go back and see them again) -- in a fairly sorry state of mind and spirit: confused, depressed; in a word, sick. I had no clear personal strategy for survival. It was purely a day-by-day kind of existence.

I watched television for hours on end, cooped up in my tiny, overheated sixth-floor, rooftop room on the outskirts of Boston, in a large rambling walk-up apartment owned by a Russian émigré, where seven or eight other people (mostly, from Columbia, for some reason) lived; but my old, rabbit-ears TV, which I’d found on sitting on the sidewalk one day, only allowed me to watch one channel -- and it was the Boston Celtics, basketball channel. So I was mainly learning the basketball-related part of the language.

At some point during those months, in order to distract myself from the sheer uncertainty and sadness of my circumstances, sleepless and homebound and unemployable, I started trying to write sentences in English. Not stories, at that point, just yet – just the competent, authentic-looking sentences. It was, at first, a purely mechanical, self-therapeutic exercise: putting together the small blocks of short, direct sentences, one after another. It was indeed a comforting exercise for me: I was overwhelmed with nostalgia, you see, and my native language, Russian, would not allow me to write about my life objectively and dispassionately, with any degree of calm remove, for it was as natural to me as the very air I breathed and therefore offered no resistance in the process of writing; and as soon as I started writing in Russian, I immediately succumbed to sadness and depression and commenced to wallow in misery and self-pity. The very foreignness of a foreign language – English – afforded me the distance I needed to put between myself and my own life, my present circumstances and my memories. A foreign language one knows well enough to know he doesn’t know it well serve as a natur4al obstacle every writer needs to come up with for the purposes of his or her writing. I could not wax emotional in English, could not feel sorry for myself, could not write soulfully and beautifully about my nostalgia, about the friends I would never see again. I could do nothing but be adequate to the words I was trying to put on paper. English, then, served as a sort of Plexiglas wall standing between myself and my past, my very life. I only could be adequate, as I said, to any English sentence at hand.

One sentence, then another one, and another and soon enough, you have a paragraph. Then another paragraph, and then another. Every sentence had to make direct narrative sense, and every single paragraph had to work towards the telling of the story under writing. It was like walking a narrow path through the swampland: you don’t want to deviate from it at any point, or else you’ll get bogged down without a trace.

Incidentally, and a propos of what I am describing right now: when Samuel Beckett – perhaps the most linguistically gifted and prodigiously verbose (in his youth) writer in all of the 20th-century literature, was asked why, at the age of 46, he switched to writing in French (a language he was not perfect in)< he replied: “I know too many words in English.”

So it went. By that point – early 1987 – a friend at one of those bookstores I’d worked at had told me about the phenomenon of graduate creative writing programs in the US: you could apply there and, if accepted, you would get two year’s worth of time unobstructed by any other practical worries and considerations; they’d give you a place to live, if they liked your writing, and they might even waive your tuition, or you could apply for a student loan. All you had to do there was write.

So I applied to one of those programs – at the University of New Hampshire – and I was subsequently accepted, even despite the fact that I had not a single story in English finished by that time.

The rest was more or less clear sailing: I kept on writing in English, gradually getting better at it (as you get better at anything you do stubbornly and consistently and with passion); and eventually, one story got accepted for publication in a literary journal, and then another – and I was on my way, by and large.

Within a few months, an editor with a large publishing house had contacted me and asked if I might have enough stories for a collection, so I told her I’d have the needed number of stories by the time she needed them.¨

In due time, the book of my stories got published, I went to Stanford University on a post-graduate writing fellowship (the Wallace Stegner Fellowship); then I applied for a teaching job at the University of Minnesota, where there was an opening; I was hired by it for a two-year stint. Then I was lucky enough to have been awarded the prestigious Guggenheim fellowship in writing, which indeed is a coveted distinction to get, and one that makes getting jobs easier. I subsequently went on to teach at a number of colleges and universities, in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs (New York University, St. Lawrence University, Union College), before settling permanently  in Montreal, which is home now.
That’s the whole story, in a nutshell.            

As an émigré and especially as a native Russian language speaker writing in English you probably have to do a lot of cultural translation and adapting from one culture to another. How do you go about it? How do you feel about it?

I don’t think I do much of any such translation anymore, be it in the metaphoric or literal sense. (This, quite apart from the fact that the two languages are not compatible enough structurally to lend themselves easily to the process of instantaneous translation by the translation engine of one’s mind. To me, the oft-asked question, “What language do you think in?” – doesn’t really make much sense, since I don’t really think in words, as most people do not, either. The language of thought is separate from the language of words, thought made word.) I believe -- which is to say, I feel – I have found a place of balance for myself -- or rather, the process of my life itself has found such a place of psychological and intellectual balance for me.

I may, fancifully speaking, be suspended between two worlds, the old and the new one: the world of my past and that of my present, with one foot planted in the present and one in the past; and the past, of course, is also the present.

I feel that my first several years in the new world, which were quite hard and difficult, filled with doubt and nostalgia and despair – those were the years when this process of dividing myself into two selves was taking place. Which, basically, may be a way of me saying that there are two people cohabitating inside me: one belonging in the world of Russia, the other -- citizen of the larger, broader world.

I am very plugged in to the current developments in Russia, I follow them closely, I spend quite a bit of time every day on the Russian websites, I read the new literary publications in Russia, I speak to some very close friends from Russia, both living there and abroad; I still feel that Russia is home for me, in some esoteric way: and when I’m back in Russia, I understand the code of people’s living there, I feel that I belong there – although I no longer live and could never live there again. But my life’s center of gravity has long shifted towards the broader, larger world of my post-Soviet existence, my home is the world outside Russia. I am a citizen of the US and a permanent resident of Canada, but I feel that I live in a larger world than just that of North America.

That having been said, I am a professor of English who teaches the university-level creative writing and American short story; I read lots of contemporary American literature (albeit not as much as I would like perhaps), as well as my students and other young writers’ stories – hundreds of stories every year. Somehow, I manage to stay in one piece and not feel torn or conflicted within my own head and my own heart – but, again, this did not happen quickly or easily; as nothing really good ever happens in life quickly and easily, without some serious work one does, often unbeknownst to himself, to prepare himself for the kind of life that he feels makes sense.    

Who are the star participants among this year’s faculty members?

All of them are stars in my book, as well as by the lights of great many readers in north America and abroad – although not in the same sense or scope as, say, Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lopez or the authors of mega-bestsellers on The New York Times bestseller list are stars. The literary world, at least in North America, is not about starship – there’re not enough readers of serious literature in modern world to make them stars in the commonplace meaning of the term – but it is, rather, about being consistently interesting and thoughtful and contemporary and doing meaningful things with one’s writing, charting new literary routes, taking reader to the place where serious questions about the serious life’s issues get asked… and not necessarily answered, because life itself is an open-ended proposition, with no ready-made answers or recipes for happiness on the offer.

One of the great advantages of being an independent literary program run by writers is that we’re free in our choice of invited faculty. Over the fourteen years of SLS’s existence, we’ve brought to our programs the veritable Who’s Who of the North American and international letters: people who are innately curious about the different paradigms of life in various places and who – although they easily could afford to come to those places on their own – Russia, Lithuania, Kenya -- wouldn’t be content with status of the mere tourists, which they inevitably would be without the familiarity with and immersion in the local literary and arts scene.

Another very distinct feature of SLS separating it from any other program of its kind: we draw no dividing lines between the well-known, famous and accomplished writers on the faculty -- and the beginning writers constituting the bulk of the program participants. Everyone’s in the same boat on the SLS programs; everyone’s in on the same type of discovery. Our programs are about shifting and accelerating the paradigm of one’s literary practice, and so we put people in highly unfamiliar (although on the surface recognizable) settings – and everyone is lost there in the company of other writers; everyone is lost within a findable context. Everyone is brought together by the pressure of the sheer strangeness, unfamiliarity of the surroundings. A very famous writer therefore can drink beer till two in the morning in the company of twenty-year-old undergraduate students of creative writing and talk to them as equals about literature… or whatever else people talk about at two in the morning while drinking beer Writing is an enterprise where the rank has no meaning. A famous writer is nothing but yesterday’s novice. Over the course of my teaching career, I’ve seen enough talented but not necessarily hard-working people, and enough not too brightly gifted (on the surface) yet extremely ambitious and serious and diligent your writers, to know that in writing, dedication to the process and practice of literature inevitably trumps the bright but sometimes shallow flame of natural talent. Talent is not always to be found on the surface of one’s early writing. People come into the possession of their talent, their true literary voices, over the long period of hard work.

This is the third time that you run the program in Vilnius. Why?

I am very glad we’re holding SLS programs in Lithuania now,. The idea to open one came after we had decided to suspend our sessions in St. Petersburg, which we ran for 10 years straight and brought roughly a thousand students to the city on the Neva. The constraints of available space would preclude me at this point from talking about the reasons why I’ve always found Lithuania fascinating – going back to the early years of my Soviet adolescence. But those reasons were indeed numerous, and memorable.
So I decided to see if we could hold a program in a place which, unlike St. Petersburg, Russia, is not that easily and readily recognizable to the North American literary community; does not hold the same kind of raw mystique perhaps that Russia possesses – not to mention Kenya, which is the site of another one of our long-running programs.

Lithuania, of course, is the geographic heart of Europe – but more than that, it is the spot where the tectonic plates of European history have clashed over the centuries, and currently are clashing as well; it is a place of transition from the old, divided Europe, to the new, unified yet still painfully unequal one.

To me, of course, it matters a great deal that this is a post-Soviet space – and of course, and very meaningfully, it is of essential importance to me that Lithuania was the place of the greatest concentration of Jewish people in Europe relative to the native population, for centuries and immediately prior to the WWII, and then became the site of the greatest tragedy in the history of the Jewish people. My ancestry, originally, is from the larger Litvak area: Belarussian border with Lithuania, and Latvia. There is a large agglomeration of factor that have caused me to want to hold the program here, both personal and intensely objective ones

One of the aims of the program is to set in motion a cultural, literary and, most importantly, creative exchange between the visiting established authors and writers to be and the local literary community. Based on previous SLS Vilnius, how does that work, does that collaboration bare any fruit?

We’re working on it. SLS, basically, over the years, without setting this as a major goal expressly, has positioned itself as a moveable platform of sorts upon which the North American and the international literary communities can meet. Over time, we have had lots of former SLS participants collaborating on literary projects with their counterparts from Russia and Kenya and Canada; and we‘re intent on seeing the same happen in the case of the Lithuanian literary community. There have already been some poetry translations of contemporary Lithuanian poetry done by our program participants, on a fairly significant scale, and some work already has been published. We’re looking to expand that effort further still, and on a considerable scale. We are bringing to Lithuania some of the leading publishing-house and literary-magazine editors, who always are interested in discovering the new voices from a variety of places. Ask me the same question in a year: after all, we have only just started our program in Lithuania: three years is a short time. Ars longa, vita brevis.

The medals of
Petras Rimsa

Lithuanian medallic art is an especially interesting area of study in the numismatic hobby. Individual medals struck by various persons or groups convey the specifics of the history of Lithuania and its people.

Petras Rimsa in 1957

VilNews is in Azerbaijan to cover the 57th European Song Contest!

By Arvydas Arnasius

Azerbaijan is neither Europe nor Asia and this country has an incredible tangle of contradictions and contrasts. It’s fascinating nexus of ancient historical empires going back centuries ago. 

Until the 20^th century the ancient term Azerbaijan applies largely to ethnical territory centered on Tabriz and Ardabil in Iran. Over the last two thousand years it’s not just a country name and rules that have changed but also its religion, language and its ethnicity. Having spent most of that time straddling its territories of competing empires, understanding this extraordinary saga really requires understanding of the Persian, Arab, Turkish and Russian histories.

Today Azerbaijan is a new and dynamic nation finding its way from the emergencies from war-torn post-Soviet times on petroleum funded explosion of optimism. Surrounded by the semi-desert on the oil rich Caspian Sea, the nation’s cosmopolitan capital – Baku, is a dynamic boom-town, where flashy limousines and mushrooming skyscrapers sweep around the picturesque old town. Yet barely few hours’ drive away there is another reality - entirely different world: timeless villages with their people and soaring high Caucasus mountains.

The Azeri capital is Caucasus largest and most cosmopolitan city. Few cities in the world are as quickly and nowhere else in Caucasus do East and West blend as seamlessly or as chaotically. Beat up Ladas race shiny Mercedes past illuminated stone mansions, shiny glass towers and tatty old Soviet apartment blocks. Fascinating Old City surrounded by the medieval fortress wal I protected by Unesco World Heritage Foundation. The name Baku is derived from the Persian bad cube (city of winds) with the gale force winds coming from the Caspian once or twice a month.

Baku is hosting 2012 Eurovision Song Contest which will be the 57th annual Eurovision Song Contest. It is held in Baku, Azerbaijan, following Azerbaijan's win in the 2011 Contest. The two semi-finals will be held on 22 May and 24 May 2012, and the final on 26 May 2012.Ten countries from each semi-final will qualify for the final and will be joined by Azerbaijan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Forty-two countries is participating in this event.

The country took this challenge very seriously with the big development project - the venue Baku Crystal Hall in the Azerbaijani capital. On 16 May 2011, it was announced that a special concert complex with 23,000 seats for the 2012 Contest was to be built near National Flag Square in Baku. The foundations were completed on 14 October 2011 and now the hall is completely finished. There is no official information released on the cost involved in developing the infrastructure and the venue yet but, according to experts, they can easily reach over a couple of billion euros.

2012 Eurovision song contest is considered to be a major rehearsal for the Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, plans to bid for the Olympics, with initial studies suggesting that the cost of hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic Games may be $20 billion.

Azerbaijan with its booming capital and strive to be part of Europe accompanied by its people positive attitude and deeply inherited sense of hospitality is standing a good chance winning this Olympic bid and always be enjoyable and highly memorable places to visit. 

Key Facts on Azerbaijan
Area: 86,600 sq km.
Capital: Baku
Famous for: Oil, saffron, caviar
Official name: Azarbaycan Respublikasi
Population: 7,830,000 

Adomas Varnas (1879-1979).
“Artist and beggar”,  1906-1908, oil on canvas, 115x80. 
Čiurlionis National Art Museum

By Frank Passic, Albion, Michigan, USA

A few weeks ago in Vilnews there was an article about Lithuanian artist Adomas Varnas (1879-1979), which included an illustration of his 1953 masterpiece entitled “The Coronation of King Mindaugas.” Varnas’ lifespan far surpassed those of his counterparts, and his biography is extensive. Varnas was co-founder and the first president (1920) of the Association of Creative Artists, and helped organize Lithuanian art schools and galleries. He became well known for his collection of ethnographic material, particularly the wayside crosses. He also designed various Lithuanian stamps and banknotes.

Varnas escaped to the West during the summer of 1944, and in 1949 settled in Chicago, Illinois. Despite his old age, he remained active until the time of his death. He celebrated his upcoming 100^th birthday on December 8, 1978 and was able to speak briefly at a banquet held in his honor in Chicago at the time.

In a bit of irony, the Lithuanian numismatist Dr. Aleksandras Rackus (1893-1965) wrote in 1949:

 “Adomas Varnas, the famous Lithuanian artist…is coming to the U.S. He fled from the Bolsheviks in his old age and lived as a refugee in a D.P. camp in Germany. He is more than 70 years old and malnutrition made him physically weak. Stamp collectors undoubtedly will want his autograph and other favors, but they should remember that he won’t live very long, so try to reciprocate. At least buy from him a painting.”

Not only did Varnas live a long life of 100 years, he lived for more than thirty years after Rackus’ statement! Rackus died in 1965.

The focus of this article concerns Varnas’ role in designing the so-called permanent banknotes of the Bank of Lithuania, dated November 16, 1922.  These replaced the so-called temporary notes that were dated September 10, 1922 and printed in Berlin. The Bank of Lithuania was still in the process of being organized in September, 1922, and was located on the first floor of the Finance Ministry building. The building was located at the corner of Donelaitis and Maironis Sts. in Kaunas.

The Bank of Lithuania was first headquartered in the Lithuanian Finance
Ministry building, located at the corner of Donelaitis and
Maironis Sts. in Kaunas, in the fall of 1922. 

The permanent notes were printed at the firm of Andreas Haase in Prague, Czechoslovakia.  The designs on the smaller denominations in various centas values were produced mechanically by the printing firm. Those notes beginning with the denomination of 1 litas and higher were specifically designed by Varnas. Research by collector John Glynn and published in The Knight in 1984 3 reveals some intriguing details concerning Varnas’ role in the banknote process.

When Varnas was informed by Lithuanian Finance Minister Vytautas Petrulis in 1922 that he was assigned to supervise the printing of the new banknotes, he was given only twenty-four hours to pack his luggage and board the train to Prague. At the train station, Petrulis gave Varnas his ticket and a sealed envelope in which the artist thought were the instructions about the printing of the notes.

During the train journey, Varnas opened the envelope to become familiar with the instructions the government had outlined for the job. Neither the government nor Varnas had any say on the type of paper, ink, lettering, or printing which was to be used. Varnas became so angry with the arrangement that he almost turned back to Kaunas where he had caught the train. He changed his mind about resigning however as he felt many people would be angered by such a move.

When Varnas arrived at the printing plant, the production of the minor centas denominations was already in progress. There were three shifts working around the clock, and to Varnas’ surprise, the centas designs had already been formulated and engraved by the printers. This left only the various litas denominations for Varnas to work on.

The work shifts were broken into three groups. Two shifts were supervised by two Lithuanian Finance Ministry officials, with Varnas working the third shift. He would sometimes work double shifts in order to work on the designs. All the drawing and assembly work was done at night between 10 pm and 2 am, and the printing firm was on a strict timetable. Once a design was prepared by Varnas, he was unable to change it, even if he was not satisfied with it. This happened once as Varnas tried to hold up a printing project in order to improve the Vytis emblem, but because of the tight schedule he had to keep the original design.

Each note design consisted of two parts: 1) a screen background with two interlacing security designs created mechanically, and 2) the top artistic theme design drawn by hand. Varnas inserted a secret mark in his designs so that counterfeit notes could be detected. He included a triangle in one design, an elongated slot in another, and so forth.

The Bank of Lithuania was very pleased with the work of the printing firm. Bank of Lithuania governor Vladas Jurgutis showed his appreciation by awarding the workforce a week’s salary as a Christmas bonus. Varnas remained in Prague for a total of fourteen months. Twelve months were spent on the printing and engraving assignment, while the other two were for a vacation before returning to Kaunas. Varnas was paid 15,000 litai (U.S. $1,500) for the assignment.

The text on the face of the permanent banknote series translates, “Bank of Lithuania, Kaunas, November 16, 1922, Bank of Lithuania. XX Litas. One Litas contains 0.150462 grams of pure gold.” Based on the gold standard, the litas at the time was worth U.S. 10¢. Also contained on the face are the signatures of the officials of the Bank of Lithuania for the denominations 2 litas and higher: “V. Jurgutis, A. Prusas, P. Grajauskas, J. Paknys, and Julius Kaupas.” The various centas denominations and the 1 litas note were ordered by the Finance Ministry before the Bank of Lithuania was organized, and so contain Finance Ministry signatures. In addition to the denomination designations, the backs of the 1922 series carry the warning which translates “Counterfeiting Banknotes is Punishable by Law.”

Each denomination has its own designs and historical images associated with it, and these will be discussed in future articles. Our specific focus for this article however, is the 50 litas note (Pick-19) designed by Adomas Varnas. It is illustrated here. The note measures 150 x 78 mm. with the watermark in the paper consisting of ovals. This is one of the most colorful and beautiful notes of the 1922 permanent series. Major colors include green, aqua, and yellowish-brown. The note is decorated throughout with various Lithuanian folk motifs. At the time it was placed into circulation in March, 1923, it had a face value of U.S. $5.00. It is known only with a prefix serial letter of A. The serial numbers are printed in red ink.  This note was withdrawn from circulation when a new 50 litas note was issued in November 1928.

The face of the note features the coats-of-arms of Lithuania’s three major cities: Kaunas, Vilnius, and Klaipeda. As an assertion of territorial and national integrity, Lithuania made several references to Polish-occupied Vilnius on its banknotes. In addition, the port city of Klaipeda was still in the hands of the Allied Powers  when this note was dated (1922), until the insurrection of January, 1923 brought the city and environs into Lithuanian hands. On the left the arms of Kaunas depicts a wild ox with a cross between its horns. The arms of Vilnius depicts St. Christopher carrying the baby Jesus. The arms of Klaipeda, known as Memel in German, depicts a fortified castle with a small boat resting in the water below.

On the right portion of the face is the image of Grand Duke Gediminas, founder of the capital city of Vilnius. A Caduceus emblem (snakes) representing commerce appears in the center. The back of the note displays an intricate ornate design which forms a huge Columns of Gediminas emblem. In the center can be seen the Hill of Gediminas,  the Cathedral of Vilnius, and the nearby Bell Tower.

While studying the details of this 50 litas note, this writer became intrigued by the image of Gediminas found on the face. “Where have I seen this image before?,” I thought to myself. I looked through the 1921 “Lietuvos Albumas” book 4 which contained the photographs of prominent Lithuanians during that period, and discovered something quite incredible. Based upon the photo of Adomas Varnas in that book, I surmise that Adomas Varnas used his own facial image to portray Grand Duke Gediminas on the 50 litas note!

Pictured here for our readers is a flipped-image of Varnas facing left, and next to it the image of Grand Duke Gediminas on the 1922 50 litas note. Compare the two images carefully. I conclude this article by asking our readers:  Did he, or didn’t he? You decide.

 Pictured here for our readers is a flipped-image of Varnas facing left, and next to it the image of Grand Duke Gediminas
on the 1922 50 litas note. Compare the two images carefully. I conclude this article by asking our readers: 
Did he, or didn’t he? You decide.

FOOTNOTES

Dr. Aleksandras M. Rackus. “Adomas Varnas.” American-Lithuanian Philatelic Specialist, June, 1949, pg. 18.

Karys, Jonas. Nepriklausomos Lietuvos Pinigai, (New York, Aukeslis, 1953), pg. 139.

John Glynn. “Adomas Varnas: Artist, Banknote Designer.” The Knight, August-September 1984, pp. 1, 2, 4.

Lietuvos Albumas. Berlin: Otto Elsner, 1921.

Text and photos: Diana Koval

An annual cultural refreshment weekend for all those who cannot imagine their life without books finally happened and as always it was fabulous. Vilnius International Book Fair for the 13th time opened its doors to the numerous visitors from all over the country. Last year there were about 60 thousands of them, and about the same amount of guests are expected to visit Litexpo exhibition center during this last weekend of February.

What may one find here? There are 5 exhibition halls, creative studios, workshops and discussion clubs. Also, an enormous variety of books and magazines on different subjects from science and technology to art albums and children literature for a reasonable price. Every year thousands of guests are coming here looking for favorite novels, dictionaries, textbooks or any other books, which are presented by country’s major publishing houses as well as independent bookstores and vintage or collectable rare book sellers.

Among the highlights of the event were discussion forums with famous Lithuanian writers, scholars and politicians as well. On a Friday evening an American writer of Lithuanian ancestry Ruta Sepetys visited the Fair as an honorary guest of the event. She discussed her debut novel Between Shades of Grey and her own literary experiences which she gained in Lithuania during the process of writing. Among the writers there also was the former president Valdas Adamkus, who was signing his book “Last Cadence”.

On the second floor there was an exhibition of artwork by deceased Lithuanian writer and artist Jurga Ivanauskaite, which was made in early 90’s during her visits to India and Nepal.  Also some posters from Soviet era and paintings from contemporary Lithuanian artists were portrayed at the Book Fair as well.

The Book Fair still gives people that nice and memorable experience. It is an enjoyable event and another opportunity to meet old long lost people, renew contacts, or simply meet with friends and family. This is not a Frankfurt Buchmesse type of book fair, less busy but still very much enjoyable and interesting event, which attracts many visitors and aims to attract even more guests from all over the Baltic countries year by year. In a digital book era the destiny of traditional book may be questionable, but this time International Book Fair in Vilnius has proved that books are still popular and important part of everyday life.

 
Kerry Shawn Keys
kerrykeys@yahoo.com

Kerry Shawn Keys’ roots are in the Appalachian Mountains (eastern North America). From 1998 to 2000, he taught translation theory and creative composition as a Fulbright Associate Professor at Vilnius University. He has dozens of books to his credit, including translations from Portuguese and Lithuanian, and his own poems informed by rural America and Europe, and Brazil and India (Peace Corps) where he lived for considerable time. His work ranges from theatre-dance pieces to flamenco songs to meditations on the Tao Te Ching, and is often lyrical with intense ontological concerns. Of late, he has been writing prose wonderscripts, and monologues for the stage. A children’s book, The Land of People, received a Lithuanian laureate in 2008 for artwork he co-authored. He performs with the free jazz percussionist and sound-constellation artist, Vladimir Tarasov – Prior Records released their CD in 2006. His most recent book is Transporting, a cloak of rhapsodies (2010). Keys received the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America in 1992, and in 2005 a National Endowment For The Arts Literature Fellowship. He received a Translation Laureate Award from the Lithuanian Writers Union in 2003. He was a Senior Fulbright Research grantee for African-Brazilian studies, and is a member of the Lithuanian Writers Union and PEN. Selected poems have appeared in Czech, English, and Lithuanian. Currently, Keys is Poet-in-Residence for Summer Literary Seminars Lithuania (SLS Lithuania). He also writes a bi-monthly column, Letter From Vilnius: Eastern/Central Europe and Excursions Elsewhere for Poetry International, San Diego State University.

from the Dais
in memory of Cicero

this is my tongue
this is my left hand
I wasn’t much for speaking
my syllables weren’t pebbles
I was a poet
made to sing

nonetheless
They impaled these here
my body’s vestigial and elsewhere
my right hand’s an organ donation of a kind
I’m trying to say as much as I can
(it’s difficult) before my tongue gets eaten
by the tiniest of birds and the silence of the sun

soon all that remains
will be the sign language of bone
around the imagined palm

and what has been
and will be
written

The Gorge

Grapes feed the gorge,
unforaged wine of the sun’s forge,
and wormy apples, dandelion and feed corn.
And all that grows near or in the gorge,
or pours down from overhead to deluge
the coal-mine Franz Klein darkness,
also feeds the shipwrecked Minotaur
that lies in wait there.
It eats nearly everything
that tumbles and tosses
into the main of its inarticulate throat.
This is what a gorge does best,
turning all that’s green and crimson
into powdery carapace
and the muddy mask of compost.
It will eat you, too, like the papier-mâché pâté
of imprisoned gutturals that spill from your pen.
You won’t get away as the gorgeous, gray heron
I saw one day rising in a pterodactyl-deadly
Icarian arabesque
back into the breath of its own creation.
Disgorged and godlike, and glad to fall victim
to the ferocious rays of the sun.

Sugar

Sugar. Ice-cream...look at all these old people. At the round-table. I want to go. I never thought I’d end up in one of these. Home. O’! cake. Sugar. I don’t want that. Greens, no. Ha, can I take the dessert to my room. Goody. For later. If you don’t finish your meal you can’t...doesn’t mean I can’t. Not my last time, or first. God, how sweet. Sweets. How many years. Chocolate, boy, you always liked chocolate. Goody. God. Death should be fed. Me. And I don’t...when i fell, they gave me sugar. In my blood. Night night sweetheart your nana said. Her last words. Heart. Corason. Kore. Karen. You are still allergic to apples. Sweetheart, take care, the ice-cream will melt. I’ll drink it. A shake. Do you know, sweet, I’ve lost my mind. My memory’s gone. Sure, I remember her name. Her names. Ann. Joy. It’s snowing. Look. Gone. Who’s gone. Me. Him. It’s so hot, snowing, in here. Ice-cream. The window, open. I never thought I would have a picture-window. All those sleigh scenes on the dinner plates. Remember. I remember you. What’s your name. I’m just kidding. It’s cold. But I can look out the window. See the snow. And you can look in. A real picture-window. Pictures on both sides. My hair, I didn’t comb. I want some ice-cream, a cone, a snow-cone. So sweet. I didn’t think I’d live this long. The pain is gone. Remember, I used to wish I was dead. So much pain. Here, have some. Where are you. It’s time for bed. You can stay here. They changed the sheets. It’s so cold. With the window open, are there still pictures on both sides. Sugar sheets. Sweet. Pillows. See my bears. When I fell, it was at the pictures. I remember that. I was leaving. I never left though. I’m here. It’s cold. Sleeping on sugar. Remember the sugar-plum fairy. And the tooth-fairy. You’ve always had a sweet-tooth, too. Did you see the pictures. Both sides. None from below. You can sleep under the bed. Or the pillow with the tooth-fairy. No one will see you. Like snow on TV. There must be a picture from above. The man upstairs. That’s what your father used to say, the man upstairs. Sweet, tuck me in. One more year, and then another. It’s snowing. The ice-cream truck. Can you hear the bells.

Dog

The little bastard was yapping and biting at my pant legs. I took the plastic bag of pampers I was carrying to the dumpster and whacked him over the head. But then I lost my balance and fell on the icy sidewalk into a coma. When I came to, I had the smelly pampers all over and around me. A spiteful dog. He must have torn into the bag and decorated me with them. There he was, under a nearby tree still yapping at me. I picked up a pamper and threw it at him. Then another and another and another and another and another and another and another…finally keeping one for myself as protection. This was the first battle. War was looming. I went back to my flat to develop a strategy. I put the stinking pamper on the table next to my compass and pen and paper. Opening the window for some fresh air, I saw the dog sniffing the pampers. He was wagging his tail as if gloating. Getting my smell I guess. He too was making plans. I would fool him and change my diet – no more dairy products!  I put the pamper in the freezer as a souvenir of the first skirmish. A matter of life and death. Purple hearts. For the moment, neither of us had triumphed.

Vilniaus Kamerinis Teatras, October – December: 

When Men Played God!
The Story of Anne Frank

A conversation with Alicia Gian, co-director of Kai žmonės vaidino Dievą!
Emily Šaras, Associate Editor 

October 21, 22, 23, 28, 29.  November 11, 12.  December 20.  18:30
Vilniaus Kamerinis Teatras (Vilnius Chamber Theatre)
TICKETS: www.bilietai.lt
Sponsored by the United States Embassy, Vilnius

Anne Frank, the girl who has been the voice for millions of unheard voices from the Holocaust, is being heard in Vilnius for the first time in Lithuania’s history.  In a newly adapted script by Mr. Marius Mačiulis, nine of Vilnius Chamber Theatre's actors will tell the story of family, hope, death and most importantly love.  Co-Director of the production, Ms. Alicia Gian, hopes for the audience to be emotionally moved by the production, and seeks to inspire viewers to “be moved to action - moved to talk about and act upon social injustices that are occurring in our neighborhoods, cities, countries and world today.”  In the words of Anne herself, "How wonderful it is that nobody has to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world" – and the Vilnius Chamber Theatre eagerly anticipates the October 21st  premiere of the production.

Although Ms. Gian has called Vilnius her home for the past four years and is serving as the Artistic Director for the Vilnius Chamber Theatre, she is currently completing her Master’s Degree in Directing and Actor Training at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.  She has won several grants from the United States Embassy in Vilnius for her theatre productions – a Fulbright Grant for her production of Kanarėlė (the story of American singer Peggy Lee) and the prestigious Smith-Mundt Grant for her production of Meilė be akcento (Love Without Accent).  This experience in directing the story of Anne Frank in Vilnius, however, marks a new highlight of her career.  Ms. Gian recalls her experience reading The Diary of Anne Frank as a 13 year-old girl, and to this day she remembers it as “one of the most memorable and moving literary experiences” of her entire life.  “I felt that I was reading the diary of a friend, and now I feel as if I am telling the story of a friend.  I am not the only one who has had such an experience.”  And she is absolutely right: The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most widely read books internationally, second only to the Bible, and it is inarguably the most well-known piece of literature about the Holocaust.

The conceptualization of this production began to formulate almost a year and a half ago when Ms. Gian was approached by the American Center at the United States Embassy to direct a Jewish Heritage theatre project, in commemoration of the proclamation of 2011 as the year of Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Remembrance in Lithuania by the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas).  “The idea was to create a piece of theatre that would pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust as well as serve as an educational tool to promote further discourse on the topic of tolerance” says Ms. Gian.  “As a person of non-Jewish heritage, I felt that it was very important to choose a play with which I had a very personal connection.” 

The most intriguing thing about this production, however, is that the themes behind Ms. Gian’s and Mr. Mačiulis’s realization of Anne Frank’s story is that the work extends into a realm of human rights and compassion, beyond the obvious themes race and tolerance.  Ms. Gian notes,

“Anne Frank wrote in her diary, ‘…if we were liberated today, I would go back to school and I'd hope that they would see me as just a girl and not just Jewish.’  I think this is one of the most poignant lines in the entire book.  Yes, this is a story about what happened to a group of people who happened to be Jewish. The fierce documentation by the Jewish people of these crimes against humanity has enabled the global community to recognize and confront acts of injustice.”  When history is forgotten, it tends to repeat itself.  Productions like The Diary of Anne Frank are what I consider to be preventative productions - productions which stay in the social consciousness in order to inspire a sense of social responsibility, so that the subject matter may never be forgotten and never repeated.  Within that mindset, our vision is to share this story with as many communities as possible in Lithuania and in the Spring of 2012, the first national tour of "The Diary of Anne Frank" will take place in five different cities across the nation.

Unfortunately, we cannot say that since the Holocaust that genocide has not has not occurred. It has happened recently in places such as Cambodia, North Korea, Tibet, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, and Rwanda to name just a few. It is even happening right now in Somalia. Lithuanians themselves have also been the victims of genocide.”

The title of the production, literally translated as “When Men Played God,” was the brilliant result of a collaboration between the co-directors.  “In the beginning stages of rehearsal,” remembers Ms. Gian, “I felt that the play was more of a drama than a tragicomedy and he felt otherwise.  I also had reservations about using the word comedy next to the word Holocaust.”  But Ms. Gian’s research into the origins of the genre revealed the basis of the tragicocomedia genre, a term defined Roman playwright Plataus as a play in which gods and men or masters and slaves change places.  “When Hilter and the Nazi party decided that certain people were worthy of life and others were not,” says Ms. Gian, “and they controlled others on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual-orientation, or physical and mental limitations, they assumed the role of God.” 

“Also, in more modern interpretations of the word, tragicomedy, it is often described as a play in which laughter is the last human response left to an absurd or despairing fate” says Ms. Gian.  “The element of humor in this production is very important.  Humor is a survival tactic.  The brain actually pauses during laughter, functioning as an automatic stress-management tool.  This is the body's way of keeping mental balance.  For two years, these people hid in an attic in Nazi-occupied Holland.  The stress that they were living in was unimaginable and they used laughter and humor to help each other survive each and every day.”

The Vilnius Chamber Theatre promises to take us on a mental voyage of two hours and thirty minutes into the life of a terror that most of us escaped...to share an important part of history in a powerful and accessible way.