The Dedalus Book of Lithuianian Literature

by Almantas Samalavicius

  For most of the works created by emigré writers, the path back to Lithuania was difficult. A large part of their readership was in Lithuania and these works could only find domestic readers through illegal means. As a consequence, their impact on the literary consciousness forming in Soviet Lithuania was unavoidably limited. Works by emigré authors, for example, were not included in the literary programme at secondary schools or universities, and so an entire generation of readers only became acquainted with this part of Lithuanian literature after 1990. Eventually the production of émigré literature slowed, although the last few decades have witnessed the emergence of several prominent English-speaking Lithuanian writers in the United States and Canada.

  The Soviet period in Lithuania nurtured its own literary leaders who, regardless of certain controversies, played a meaningful role in the formation of Lithuanian historical consciousness and national identity. When discussing Lithuanian literature of the Soviet period, it is impossible to ignore the poet and dramatist Justinas Marcinkevicius and his historical trilogy Mindaugas (1968), Mazvydas (1977), and Cathedral (Katedra, 1971). These plays strengthened the foundations of national identity and pride despite the hostile environment created by Soviet ideology and cultural colonisation. As a writer recognised by the regime and awarded the most important literary prizes, he had a huge impact on several generations of readers and became an object of adoration for a large part of the public. Many Lithuanian authors explored the processes of destruction affecting traditional village structures and communities, describing the incremental loss of the traditional ways of life and examining the consequences of collectivisation. In the 1990s these literary themes were woven into Romualdas Granauskas’ literary opus. Granauskas presents an epitaph for the village epoch in Lithuanian culture, his realism tinged with more than a hint of sadness. His short story Life under the Maples (Gyvenimas po klevu), which was later made into a popular television film, showed the ideologies and political processes of the Soviet period irrevocably damaging the Lithuanian village. Characters in the village who are repositories of traditional wisdom end up disappearing, while the newly developing homo sovieticus is shown losing his cultural memory.

  As a result of rubbing up against the ideology and censorship of the Soviet regime, authors in the Soviet period perfected the Aesopian manner of speaking. This was the case not only for poets, who were used to juggling complex metaphors, but also for prose writers of that era who found individualistic ways of expressing encoded meanings in their texts. Some wrote about madness, split consciousness, and the development of dualism, while others skilfully wove ambiguous post-war episodes or historical dates important to Lithuanians into their stories. For example, in one of his stories Romualdas Lankauskas describes the dealings his character has with Satan: he is being pressured to accept huge material gains in exchange for altering the ending of the book he is writing. The reader, knowing how to read between the lines, no doubt understood that to use such a metaphor was to speak about the relationship between the writer and the KGB. Censorship stifled freedom of speech, but it also played a role in stimulating writers to perfect their artistic voice, to arm themselves with inventive modes of expression that would not be noticed by censors, and to create multiple meanings, the nuances of which were only revealed in the process of encoding and decoding.

  An important characteristic of late Soviet-era literature was the marked increase of women writers in a literary domain traditionally belonging to men, and along with them new themes pushed their way into the literary sphere. Women writers paid more attention to relationships, revealed the dominance of male philosophies and stereotypes, and wrote about the fate of women and other Soviet-era realities with a more subtle hand that sparkled with new colour. It is reflected in this anthology by the work of contemporary women writers such as Birute Jonuskaite and Giedra Radvilaviciute.

  In 1989, as the national reform movement, known as Sajudis in the West, was actively expressing its opinions – though no one had yet publicly dared to declare independence and most of the participants were still talking about supporting Gorbachev’s ‘reforms’ – Ricardas Gavelis’ novel Vilnius Poker (Vilniaus pokeris) appeared. It was destined to become the most significant late Soviet-era work of Lithuanian literature, crossing aesthetic and psychological thresholds as well as becoming a paradigm for post-modern discussion. The novel, which was written over nearly a decade and sections of which were hidden in the homes of the author’s most trusted friends, examines the nature and mechanisms of power and coercion. Gavelis writes about what he called eternal conspirators against humanity, who are found in various forms throughout all periods of history from the time of Plato onwards. The novel, which sought to solve the mysteries of power and mind control, also revealed a new type of human – homo lithuanicus – who, in his wretchedness, cowardice and duplicity, surpasses his older spiritual brother, homo sovieticus. In this gloomy, post-modern text, full of sexual coercion, moral perversions and images of violence, the author attempted to answer the question: what happened to this nation which had lost its dignity, and spiritual orientation, one which safeguarded only empty symbols of past greatness that had lost their essence? Gavelis was also the first Lithuanian novelist who, quite early on, openly discussed the experiences of Lithuanians in the Siberian gulags, specifically in his story Handless (Berankis). Vilnius Poker broke all the literary sales records set in the previous decade; when the novel was released, nearly 100,000 copies were printed at lightning speed. A comparable print-run has only been seen since with the publication of a poetry collection by the well-known, previously banned émigré poet, Bernardas Brazdzionis, and was released to mark his triumphant return to Lithuania on the eve of independence.

  The final years of the Soviet Union are often referred to as a period of ‘stagnation’. It was during this time that I, having become a literary critic, encountered a strange and especially paradoxical situation: though the intellectual atmosphere of the time was gloomy and grim, with no prospect of changes to freedom of expression in sight, the regime’s facade was manifesting signs of weakness. At that time I had published several critical reviews of the literary press and the literary situation in Lithuania, and I was scolded and accused of ‘slandering Soviet Lithuanian literature’ at the official annual meetings of the Writers’ Union (ironically, an organization I was invited to join just a few years later). However, unlike the bravest critics of previous generations who in earlier decades, after similar public condemnations, had lost their right to publish for a few years or sometimes more, no one even tried to block my career. An obvious lack of vigilance in censorship was also apparent in the fact that in 1988, the popular weekly Literature and Art (Literatura ir menas) quoted insights from Encounter magazine, which was widely known to be a Western, anti-Soviet magazine. The regime had wasted away from the inside and, as demonstrated by the bloody events of January 1991 in Vilnius, was desperately relying on its military strength. Its days were numbered.

  This anthology attempts, admittedly fragmentally and without laying claim to any panoramic vision, to convey the more essential developments in Lithuanian literature over the last few centuries, a period that was closely connected to the evolution of statehood – its creation and loss – and the quest for freedom and independence. In the last century Lithuanian prose was dominated by themes related to agrarian life, bearing witness to the social and cultural developments taking place on the colonised edges of Europe. Many prominent writers of the past century observed, reflected on and wrote about the fate of traditional village culture in a modernising society (this view is exceptionally rendered in the work of one of the most prominent modern Lithuanian writers, Vincas Kreve). They responded sensitively to the historical calamities that tormented the country – both of the world wars, the Holocaust, the Soviet occupation, the gulags and exile as well as the Sovietisation of the nation’s identity and the controversies created in a late-forming urban culture. Under these circumstances, many writers
, even into the present day, have used their work to examine both the distant and the not-so-distant past because it is connected not only with individual existential experience but also with questions about the future of society. Clearly, literature has many different objectives; it should not and cannot be reduced merely to elementary social commentary. However, keeping in mind the copious complicated historical changes that are a part of Lithuania’s cultural development, one can see that it is entirely natural that writers often seek answers to the questions that eternally plague literary creators: Who are we? Where did we come from? And where are we going? It is my hope that the works published in this anthology will help make comprehensible the value and meaning behind these questions.

  Translated by Medeine Tribinevicius

  The Cane

  (As told to me by my good friend)

  Jonas Biliunas

  Today the farmstead of my birth stands on a hill in the barren, sandy, windswept lands not far from the Sventoji River. Forests can be found only far to the north of the land, and only tiny pine saplings dot the east and the west. As I recall, not that long ago the entire farmstead was buried in deep, rich forest. Beyond these forests and stretching amongst scattered quagmires to the very banks of the Sventoji were the splendid pastures, shaded by oak trees, belonging to the people. The fields are no less splendid today, but the forests that once girdled them are long gone. They disappeared like the fairy tales we forget as we grow up, but which continue to inhabit our memory like distant, seductive images.

  Those beautiful forests were the property of ‘our lord’.

  Don’t laugh at me for saying ‘our lord’. I, too, could never understand why my father called that lord ‘our lord’ even though he lived far away from us – two miles away. Later I understood that he collected a tithe from my parents and that’s why my father, according to tradition, called him that. He must have had good reason to call him thus because for years the lord exploited the people of our farmstead, claiming rights to their pastures and forests. A forester had been assigned to guard the forests; he lived adjacent to our farmstead at the very edge of the forest in large, dilapidated quarters. The forester took pleasure in reporting on us to the lord, and my father, who lived closest, was often called upon to hear out the lord’s grumblings.

  There’s one incident I will never forget…

  One day the lord came to our farmstead to hunt; a large party of guests accompanied him and they took many deer, rabbits and birds. Their large bounty of game was laid out on the road near the forester’s cottage. Uninvited, we young parasites swarmed in from all sides, picking our noses and gaping at the game and the gentry. The gentlemen were seated in their carriages, preparing to travel home. My father, who’d been working his harrows near the pile of wood, was also on his way to have a look. As he walked over, he overheard the forester lodging a complaint to the lord about the villagers’ use of the pastures. Frightened, he hid behind the barn.

  ‘Get me one of the peasants!’ the lord bellowed from his carriage.

  The forester told him that my father was nearby.

  Hearing that he was the object of discussion and aware that there was no way for him to extricate himself, my father emerged from behind the barn. A hundred steps away he removed his hat and bowed deeply. Frightened and miserable, he rushed over to kiss the lord’s hand. The lord, with a voice not his own, began screeching at my father, threatening to send him and the entire village to beg in the street. With pale lips and a palpitating heart I witnessed this scene, noting the forester’s face beaming with satisfaction. Some of the guests watched with pity, and others with disdain. After he concluded his rant, and paying no heed to my father’s excuses, the lord whipped his horses and rattled off.

  Father, hatless, stood for a few moments. Then he called me over. Agitated and trembling, he instructed: ‘Run over to the river to see whether it’s true that the shepherd is grazing his livestock on the lord’s lands.’

  I rushed over with my friends and found the animals grazing ever so peacefully in their own fields, while the shepherds taunted the village dunce. I returned home and described everything to my father. Shaking his head he sat in silence.

  But my mother, hearing that the shepherds were innocent, said accusingly: ‘Didn’t I tell you? Like master, like servant. Any reason to stab you in the back.’

  ‘Don’t be angry, mother. Our lord is a good man,’ father said, laughing softly and sadly as he often did.

  ‘Enough is enough,’ mother snapped. ‘Have you forgotten how he exploits the people? Have you forgotten the cane?’

  I must admit that although she never said a bad word against the lords, my mother had no warm feelings for them. She often remembered the old days, telling us about events from the distant past, her voice sorrowful as she described the suffering of the serfs under their masters. As usual, father tried to apologise for the lords to mother, but he did this so timidly and then laughed so sadly that his voice betrayed resignation, not truth and conviction. But father’s apologies for the lords sometimes annoyed mother and that’s when she would remind him: ‘Enough already, father. Have you forgotten the cane?’

  Father would not respond to this; he would only laugh sadly and, picking up the Book, he would read aloud to us about the life of Christ. For a long time I had no idea which cane mother was referring to and why father would always laugh so sadly whenever he defended the lords. But finally one day he took it upon himself to tell us the story.

  Along with the forester, there was a man, one Dumbrauckas, who lived with him in the same quarters. He was a tall man, old, completely grey and alone, with no family. He had never been married but he was father to an adult son; that son lived somewhere deep in Russia and he visited his father infrequently. They said that once upon a time Dumbrauckas had been very wealthy but that he had lost all his wealth and property in a game of cards. How much of this was true, it’s hard to say. Only this is known: in my father’s memory he had become overseer under our lord.

  After serfdom was abolished, Dumbrauckas lost his position and thus inexplicably came to live on our homestead with the forester. He lived there for many years, rarely venturing outside, spending all his time inside his room. He would either pace the room or sit at his little table at the window. As small children, seeing from a distance his grey head in the window, always in the same spot, we imagined some strange, incomprehensible and not necessarily benevolent creature, and we were afraid to get too close. Perhaps Dumbrauckas might have even died in that nest of his at the forester’s if it hadn’t been for unusual circumstances.

  It must be said that our lord’s power and wealth were on the decline. The lovely forests surrounding our homestead had been bought up by Jews. The people had cut down the forest, transported the logs to the Sventoji and floated them down the river. All that remained were clearings littered with stray branches. On a hot summer’s day some fool from our village, while carting hay along the scarred lands, suddenly felt the urge to smoke. As he lit his pipe, the dry branches went up in flames. In an instant a fire was raging and the clearings were crackling… The entire homestead would have been destroyed if the villagers hadn’t banded together with pitchforks and rakes. After two hours all that lay alongside the homestead was a wide expanse of flat land, blackened and smelling of charred wood. The village later bought up this land from the lord for a trifle.

  In this way, the lord’s power ended along with the forests. The village no longer needed to fear his threats. The forester was now expendable. Appropriately, the house he lived in collapsed. Water poured in through the roof, the winds whistled through the walls. And one fine day the forester disappeared without a trace. Dumbrauckas had to move somewhere as well. I don’t know if it was his idea or my parents’ suggestion, but Dumbrauckas moved into the living room of our house. He brought with him his little table, a few books, and his cow. Nothing else.

  And as before, Dumbrauckas spent his time pacing the expanse of the living roo
m, or sitting at his table by the window. He lived with us for two years and – in my opinion, very unexpectedly – became my teacher. He placed the largest Polish book possible into my hands, stood next to me and ordered me to read. He would stand there all day, and all day I would read. And so it went all summer and all winter long. I had great difficulty with the Polish language: I lisped and there were many words I could not pronounce. But my teacher was ruthless. He obliged me to exercise my tongue in all sorts of directions, to repeat the same word up to a hundred times – I would break out in a sweat and my eyes would flood with tears as a result. I would see Dumbrauckas’s fingers quivering – that’s how badly he wanted to box my ears or punch me in the nose. I got to know those hands quite well! They were the hands of an overseer – hard as steel. But when I heard he was leaving us – no one knew why – I became sad; I pitied him. That was in the autumn. An unfamiliar ‘gentleman’ arrived and drove him away.