by Kristina Sabaliauskaité

To mark the Lithuanian Presidency we will be holding a talk on 24th of September which will focus on literature, history and arts, but mostly – on Lithuania in Europe, and Europe in Lithuania.
Lithuania often prides itself being at the geographical centre of Europe, yet not many Europeans would locate it on the map straightaway. European cities are now abundantly populated by Lithuanians in search of a better life or wider possibilities, but do we know much of the cultural background they come from? Formerly Lithuania was much more related and belonging to Europe than, let us say, during the violent 20th century. I am finding endless inspiration for my fiction in exploring the multinational heritage of my country – whether for my Silva rerum novels set in the 17-18th centuries or for the short stories about the more recent past and contemporary times. I am also a firm believer that our history is of much in a wider European context. We have one of the earliest parliamentary systems and probably one of the first European Unions, between Poland and Lithuania, which, looking from a contemporary perspective, was formed in a surprisingly modern and voluntary way. There, in that huge and formerly glorious state, the biggest at the time in Europe, we had something truly unique and precious – voting rights for every noble, similar to contemporary democracies. They executed this right to elect their kings from local dynasties or European – French, Hungarian, Swedish, Saxon – courts.
Historically, though, Vilnius is also a city marked by tragedy and loss, and more recently – by ruthless Soviet social engineering and attempts to re-write the history of the city and to violently reshape living memory. It is also the testimony of the invincible struggle for freedom, of defiance and the survival, of renewal. The once-multicultural state, one of the first European Unions, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is now listed among the vanished kingdoms, but Lithuania is once again very much on the map and I am a firm believer this story of ours can teach a thing or two. Strangely, I still feel belonging to that lost kingdom, that realm of values – the European values of personal freedom and tolerance, of a possibility to coexist despite the differences – which still are relevant today and should never be taken for granted. Maybe many of us are still the citizens of that vanished kingdom as we shall never be subjects to any king or authority who would wish to rule our consciences.
Kristina Sabaliauskaité is a Lithuanian art historian and writer. She is the author of the prize-winning series of novels “Silva Rerum”. . |
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