Laima Laučkaitė LITHUANIAN INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE RESEARCH, VILNIUS

Crossing „Alien” National Boundaries: on the Research o f the Identity o f Vilnius A rt

The aim of this article is to analyze the cultural identity of Vilnius as an East European city and the construction of its identity during the twentieth century in the historiography of art. The article is based on my experience accumulated while writing the booker//« Vilnius igoo-igis *. The ideas o f the article grew out as a kind o f spin-off from my work on the book. I believe that in the context o f the issue targeted at the cultural identity of Eastern and Central Europe they can be case-fitting and topical. The article is directed at a short period in the art history o f the city of Vilnius - the beginning of the twentieth century and its interpretation in the Lithuanian historiography o f art. At the start of the twentieth century Vilnius belonged to the so-called Northwest Province of the Russian Empire since in 1795 the Commonwealth of the Two Nations ceased to exist as independent following its partition by Russia, Austria and Prussia. In the Lithuanian and Polish lands annexed by Russia the entire nineteenth century was marked by resistance move­ ments and uprisings which in their turn were followed by repres­ sion, deportations, political persecution and economic, religious and cultural reprisals. The early twentieth century witnessed dramatic changes in the life of the empire, and the year 1905 was critical. Russia’s protracted war against Japan and the revo­ lutionary situation within the country made Tsar Nicholas II sign his October Manifesto, promising the people civil rights based on the person s immunity, freedom of conscience, speech and association. A relatively liberal policy o f the Russian Empire after the October Manifesto stimulated the development o f the annexed areas of the empire. Consequently, the social, political, 1 Lauikaitė (2002); Lau Aaitė (2008).

Crossing “Alien" National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 119 religious, nacional, artistic, and scholarly life was released and various organizations and institutions sprang up, the previously forbidden and heavily censored press began to flourish. In Lithuania, the Manifesto enabled the liberation of the stifled initiative and self-awareness of nations. The Latin al­ phabet, banned in Polish and Lithuanian writings in 1864, ap­ peared again in public in Vilnius. Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish and Belarusian organizations, scientific, charitable, professional, cultural and religious societies, and political parties developed their activities. Newspapers, journals and books were published in local languages. Many private Jewish, Polish and Lithuanian primary and secondary schools were established. A l l this meant a sort o f national renaissance for the ethnic communities o f the city. In many cases, for the Lithuanians, Jews and Belarusians, these were their first societies, their first newspapers and maga­ zines, their first exhibitions and museums, and their first stage shows or concerts. True, this spell of liberalization was short­ lived, national suppression and persecution were renewed, but at that time they were less violent than before. The development of art was affected by the same political factors as that of culture in general. In the late eighteenth cen­ tury and in the first decades of the nineteenth century, artis­ tic activities centered around the University o f Vilnius, where professional artists worked as teachers in the Departments of painting, drawing and sculpture. However, in the aftermath of the uprising of 1831 the university was closed. Political repression led to the stagnation and decline of art in particular in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The general public showed lit­ tle interest in art, and artists could not subsist on their work. The situation began to change slowly in the late nineteenth century, and major changes occurred only in the early twentieth century, with the development of capitalism, the growth of the city, and political liberalization. National rebirth revived the cultural life of Vilnius. Young artists began to return to the city after their studies abroad, societies o f artists came into being, art: exhibitions were staged, and new schools of art were established. 2 According to statistics, in 1897 The rise of modern nationalism overwhelmed Vilnius. The Jews accounted for н0% of the city’s city was inhabited by various national communities: according population, but in 1933 this figure to the 1897 census Jews made up 40 per cent, Poles 30 per cent, stood at 29% (54,000) (Tarytu; Lietuvos enciklopedija, 1988: 566): Russians 10 per cent Belarusians 4.1, Lithuanians z.i per cent Święcicki (1933). of the population of the city2. The beginning of the twentieth

120 Laima Laučkaitė Century for the national communities was very important in de­ fining and consolidating their ethnic identity. Each community was engaged in its own political and cultural activities; it had its v M X. own writers, artists, exhibitions, critics and its own public and ar­ ČIURLIONIS tistic life. Vilnius art scene o f this period was comprised o f many agents; therefore it can be described as a complex multinational phenomenon. Meanwhile let us focus on the interpretation of this period o f art in the later historiography and subsequent pub­ lications. It is worth to take a glance at the art history research and survey of the period from 1919 to 1009: what we can learn about Vilnius art of the beginning of the twentieth century from the main stages of the later historiography.

Fig. 1. Cover of the book Mikalojus THE INTERWAR PERIOD Konstantinas Čiurlionis edited by Paulius Galaunė, Kaunas 1938 For the new born states of Eastern and Central Europe after the First World War - Poland and Lithuania among them - modern nationalism became a fundamental issue. The ideals o f a uniform nation-state, the ideology promoting the national homogeneous culture and art became predominant. These factors influenced the nature o f the historical research of art, too. In the interwar period professional Lithuanian art history was making its first steps, and art researches were few. The main publications on the art of the start of the twentieth century in the interwar years were scarce, as a rule these were books ded­ icated to the most prominent artists of the period. Homage to M. K. Čiurlionis was done by a publication in Kaunas on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his death in 19383 (Fig. 1). A kind of homage to Ferdynand Ruszczyć was paid in Vilnius just after his death in 1939 by the book entitled F erd y n a n d Ruszczyć: life and work4 (Fig. z), almost coinciding with the Fig. 2. Cover of the book Ferdynand

publication of the book on Čiurlionis. Both books were special Ruszczyc życic i ilzit lo. Ksicga ibio - luxury editions with numerous reproductions of the pictures row.i (Ferdynand Ruszczyc: Lite and work. Collective book) edited by Jan and articles written by the friends of the artists, most of them Bułhak, Vilnius 1939 from the Vilnius period. Čiurlionis was presented as a national genius of art: “For us, Lithuanians Čiurlionis is especially dear as a witness of Lithuanian national life and a herald of the re­ birth o f the national Lithuanian spirit”5, euphorically wrote the painter Vytautas Kairiūkštis, a representative o f Constructivism in Lithuanian art. In turn Ruszczyc was positioned in the book ' Galaunė (1938). Ferdynand Ruszczyc: życie i dzieło as an outstanding leader o f ' Bułhak (1939). Polish art, the tutor o f local artists and the cultivator of Vilnius s Kairiūkštis (1938: 66).

Crossing “Alien” National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 121 artistic culture. Actually Čiurlionis and Ruszczyc were teacher and pupil4; and also colleagues who were on good terms living in Vilnius at the same period, but their presentations in the books were quite different. The book about Čiurlionis contained only few hints on the Vilnius period: in his biography his brother Stasys Čiurlionis wrote several sentences stating that during the Vilnius period he worked for the Lithuanian Art Society and met his future wife Sofija Kymantaitė. Not a single word about the context of Vilnius, its art scene or the meaning o f this city for Čiurlionis’ artistic biography can be found in the article. Other authors (composer Vladas Jakubėnas, painter Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, composer Juozas Tallat-Kelpša) did not mention the Vilnius period either; instead in their publications we learn much more about the Warsaw or St. Petersburg periods of the painter. Vilnius was absent in Čiurlionis’ biography and work in this 6 In 1904-1906 M. K. Čiurlionis stu­ book. "This issue disappeared from the discourse of Čiurlionis art died ас the Warsaw School of Art due to the historical trauma o f the loss o f Vilnius7. The situation and Ferdynand Ruszczyć was one of was diametrically opposite with Ferdynand Ruszczyc: the major his professors. Historical situation of Vilnius after part of the texts in the book, written by his friend and pho­ World War One was rather compli­ tographer Jan Bułhak, writer Wanda Dobaczewska and others, cated: after German army had with­ was dedicated to the Vilnius period and oeuvre of the master. drawn, the struggles for Vilnius star­ ted between the Poles, Lithuanians Ruszczyc was shown as the leader of the Vilnius art scene, but this and Bolsheviks. In February 1918, scene was presented as purely Polish and no hints on the other the Lithuanians declared the Act of national segments can be traced in the book. Thus the political the Establishment of the Independent situation divided the art history o f Vilnius into purely different State of Lithuania, with its capital in Vilnius. In January 1919, the Polish ’alien’ national territories that had nothing in common. When army entered into the city, several days one reads these interwar texts one has the feeling that they are later, it was occupied by the Red Army dealing with the art o f completely different cities, and that the and Bolsheviks announced it to be the capital of Litbel, the communist artistic life was taking place not in the same place and not at the Republic of Lithuania and Belarus. same time. The then political situation and national discourses Following a mutiny by the Polish Ge­ forced the authors to ignore the other alien’ culture and made neral Lucjan Żeligowski in October 1920 and the parliamentary elections its research a taboo subject. to the Diet of Wilno, the city was of­ ficially annexed by the reestablished THE SOVIET PERIOD state of Poland in 1922.1he Polish- The Second World War changed radically the geopolitical sit­ •Lithuanian conflict had worsened the relations between the two countries uation in Central and Eastern Europe, state independence was for decades to come. Kaunas became lost by the Baltic countries, Lithuania was annexed to the U SSR the temporary capital of Lithuania, and Poland became a part o f the Eastern Communist bloc. The but the loss of the historical capital was perceived by the society in an nation-state ideology was replaced by the communist ideology anguished way. based on the ideas o f class struggle, Lenin’s statements on the

122 Laima Laučkaitė .ŽMUIDZINAVIČIUS

Al«lV»IN» O O tlk l» UTIIATCIO» LIlBVKlk Fig. 3. Title page of the book Palete ir gyvenimas (Palette and life) by Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, Vilnius 1961

struggle between two cultures o f the exploiters and the exploited in the capitalist society, and on the slogans o f the proletarian in­ ternationalism. In the Lithuanian case these ideas were expressed by Svetlana Červonaja in her book Lithuanian Artistic Contacts8 introducing Lithuanian art into the development o f the interna­ tional art o f Soviet republics. It must be noticed that in the course of the Soviet period the enforcement of ideological postulates was not consistent: before Stalin’s death they had to be adhered to unconditionally for fear o f repression, in the ‘thaw’ period (in the late 1950s and early ‘60s) their imposition was less strict, and in the stagnation years they simply became formal cliches. Nevertheless the ideas of nationalism survived. Soviet ideo­ logues valued national, especially ethnographic heritage and boosted the myth of the flourishing of the Soviet nations (at the same time they prevented the research related to the sovereignty of nations, their historical statehood and religious traditions). Consequently, Lithuanian art historians managed to exploit the principle of the originality of Soviet nations for their purposes in the study o f national heritage. In the sixties Lithuanian publications dealing with Vilnius art at the beginning of the twentieth century were mainly Fig. *i. Title page of the book Petras memoirist. They were written by the artists and witnesses of Rimša pasakoja (Petras Rimtas stor)) by Juozas Rimantas, Vilnius 196*1 the period - the painter Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (his book P a lette лиг/Z,//epublished in 1961)’ (Fig. 3) and the sculptor *4 Červonaja (1977). Petras Rimša (his book Petras Rimša’Story published in 1964)10 9 Žmuidzinavičius (1961). (Pig- 4)- In comparison with pre-war editions, the art scene o f 10 Rimantas (196 i).

Crossing “Alien" National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 123 big. 5. Cover oi the book Л’Л'a. lie­ this period in Vilnius was discussed in greater detail, but the tuvių dailės istorija (History of the memory of the authors was very selective - they remembered 20th century Lithuanian art), vol. 1 edited by Ingrida Korsakaitė and Irena only the Lithuanian story of Vilnius, the engagement of art­ Kostkeviciūtė. Vilnius 1982 ists in the national movement, the birth of the Lithuanian art Fig. 6. Cover of the book Lietuvių society, and its exhibitions in the city. According to the Soviet tapybos raida / 900- Į 940. Srovės ir rhetoric both authors emphasized their folk descent and ties tendencijos (History of Lithuanian painting 1900-1940. Trends and with the traditional peasant culture, ignoring the urban milieu tendencies) by Jonas Umbrasas, to which they actually belonged. Vilnius 1987 In the eighties a kind o f the synthesis o f the first h alf of the twentieth century art was made by Lithuanian art historians. History o f the 20 th Century Lithuanian A rt'1 was issued by a collective o f authors working at the Institute o f History o f the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Its first volume published in 1981 covered the beginningof the twentieth century (Fig. 5). The art scene o f Vilnius here was dealt with more comprehensively, including the social and cultural situation, the founding o f the Lithuanian art society, the members o f the first Lithuanian exhi­ bitions, the process o f cultural life and art critique. Nevertheless it was again limited to the Lithuanian art scene o f Vilnius and in the frames o f Soviet ideology conceived as a part o f Lithuanian 11 Korsakaitė. Kostkevičifite (1982). “democratic and progressive” culture.

124 Laima Laučkaitė A similar approach is observed in the book L ith u a n ia n Organizations o f Artists IQ00-IQ40 published in 1980 by Jonas Umbrasas and Eglė Kunčiuvienė and focused on the institutional aspect o f the artistic life and oeuvre of the artists belonging to various art societies and groups12. Until today this book is valued by art historians as a reliable documentation of the activities of artistic institutions. However it covers only the Lithuanian art societies in the vast panorama of the artist organizations in Vilnius. In 1987 the art historian Jonas Umbrasas issued History o f Lithuanian Paintingigoo-ięĄO. Trends and Tendencies (Fig. б)13. This study was dedicated to the stylistic development o f painting. Like the above mentioned academic volume, the book by Umbrasas presented the painting o f artists engaged only in the Lithuanian national movement. However it must be admitted that already in these studies some other non-Lithuanian Vilnius artists appeared, for instance the director of the Vilnius School of Drawing, Russian painter Ivan Trutnev. In Soviet period he was treated as a representative of “progressive” democratic Russian realism, absolutely disre­ garding his academic portraits and Orthodox icons. The inclu­ sion of Polish artists in the book by Umbrasas on Lithuanian painting was motivated as exemplifying the artistic trends and movements - e.g. Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzeńcewicz was men­ tioned as a representative o f Realism and Ferdynand Ruszczyć as a representative o f Neo-romanticism. Nevertheless they emerged in the study as figures without context and their place in the Vilnius art scene, and for me, studying art history, they seemed rather enigmatic, because their works were displayed in the per­ manent exhibition of Vilnius Art Museum but one could not get any information or publications about them. Incidentally, it must also be taken into consideration that all non-Soviet books and periodicals published before 1944 were kept in Lithuanian libraries in the so called special reserves o f forbidden books and were not accessible to the general public.

THE PERIOD OF INDEPENDENT LITHUANIA

It began in the last decade of the twentieth century and was marked by the struggle for the liberation from the Soviet Union, the declaration of an independent state and restitution o f a na­ tional state. Nation-state and its institutions became legitimated 12 Uml.«M,,Ku,u'i..viW,0(19x0). in the constitution o f the Republic o f Lithuania. The issues o f 13 UmErjus (1987).

Crossing “Alien" National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 125 Fig. 7. Cover of the book I'ifniaus meno mokykla ir jos tradicijos - Kształcenie artystyczne w Wilnie i jego tradycje (Fine arts education in Vilnius and its tradition) edited bvjcrzy enoir jos tradicijos Malinowski. Michał Woźniak, and Rūta Janonienė, Vilnius 1996

F'ig. 8. Cover of the book Dailės istorijos studijos, vok I: XXamžiaus pradžios Vilnius: modcrnėjancios VILNIAUS kultūros židinys. Wilno początku XX D A It t S AKADEMIJA wieku: ognisko modernizującej się TOKO n ES SKITUS ______kultury (Iiarly 20th century Vilnius: MUZIEJUS The centre of cultural modernization) t o k On č s " " " " " MIKALOJAUS edited by Laima Laučkaitč), Vilnius K O F K K N 1 K O 2004 UNIVERSITETAS

national identity, national culture, and national heritage again became fundamental; the first years of independence were espe­ cially marked by the return to pre-war ideals and slogans, and national approach dominated in the humanities including art history research. To sum up, the historical, political and ideo­ logical situation changed radically during the entire century, but the main national pattern remained the same throughout the twentieth century. During the last decade o f the century the attitudes began to change with the fall o f the Iron Curtain, the opening o f the boundaries between states and the opening to the world. New cultural links and outlooks appeared, particularly important for Lithuanian art historians were the possibilities o f new contacts with the neighbours, including Polish art historians. The first joint conference of Lithuanian and Polish art historians, enti­ tled The A rt o f Vilniusfrom the End ofthe igth Century to ig4$ was held in Warsaw in 1989. Here Lithuanian and Polish art historians shared their knowledge of Vilnius art of this period and mutually discovered a lot of new interesting things. The end of the twentieth century was full of this kind of discov­ eries due to close cooperation in the research of the common artistic heritage including joint exhibitions, c.g. Vilnius Art School and its Traditions, held in Vilnius and Torun in 1996 by the Vilnius Academy of Art together with the Torun Nicolaus Copernicus University and the Torun Regional Museum14 11 Kształcenie (1996). (Fig. 7), the conference Vilnius in the Early 20th Century: A Center

126 Laima Laučkaitč ofModernizing Culture held in Vilnius in 10 0 1 by Lithuanian art historians of the Institute of Culture, Philosophy and the histo­ rians o f art o f the Cracow Jagiellonian University (Fig. 8)15. These undertakings were co-operative initiatives; neverthe­ less they had strict rules o f the play: The Lithuanians were deal­ ing with the Lithuanian part o f Vilnius heritage, the Poles with Polish and the demarcation line between the national segments was drawn very clearly. It was evident that everyone who stepped into the past of Vilnius trespassed, albeit unwillingly, on ethni­ cally alien territories. In such lands the researcher did not feel secure, as if being involved in an invisible war, silently fought against the background of magnificent Vilnius architecture. Hence, everyone chose the safest strategy, to research his or her own “piece” of Vilnius, turning, at the same time, into a sharer who is not aware, or maybe unwilling to be aware, o f the whole. After the joint conference in Warsaw in 1989 I wrote an article entitled “Vilnius, Unknown to us” reflecting the new discoveries and raising the question: the Lithuanians are researching their piece of Vilnius, the Poles - their piece, and so should behave the Russians and the Jews, but who will collect the entire city?16 Certainly art historians are limited by objective circumstances - accessibility o f the sources, language barriers, etc. Nevertheless for me the challenge was posed, although at the beginning of the nineties it seemed a purely rhetorical question. M y book Art in Vilnius 1900-ięis had two main goals: to research the art scene of the city and the emergence of Early Modernism in it (Fig. 9). I endeavored to reconstruct the artistic scene of the city in its artistic and national complexity, begin­ ning with the identity of the artists, their oeuvre and views on art and ending with the writing o f their names in the authentic forms which they themselves used. Thus the main object of the research was the social aspect of art - the functioning of art in society, the artistic life of Vilnius - exhibitions, collections, art societies, art schools, art ideologies, leaders, art criticism, etc. The study revealed a complicated, controversial, dynamic and multinational art scene, comprised o f four main ethnic groups - Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish and Russian. At the beginning of the twentieth century Vilnius inhab­ itants defined their identity challenge and rivalries as follows: who can lay claim to the title o f “real Vilniusitcs” ?: (a) the Poles, n Laiu'kaitė (2001). whose culture had dominated in the city in the last centuries?, ,f Uuikaitė( 1989:12-15).

Crossing “Alien” National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 127 (b) the Lithuanians, who had historical rights to Vilnius as the capital o f their lost state and who became very active in recover­ ing it?, (c) the Russians, who held absolute political power and did their best to prove its legality? or (d) the Jews, who made up the demographic majority o f the city’s population? These were the main players on the art scene o f Vilnius and the firsc part o f the book is structured as a display of national art segments and their complex interrelations. The study revealed the main tensions and collisions between these players. Their contests played a catalyst role in the development o f art and actually nobody was “alien” in that city. W hile building up this controversial picture I tried to be as precise as possible, exploiting sources and avoiding bias, and not taking any sides. I showed that alongside the national engagement, there were multi-cultural activities, for example the Vilnius society of art which united artists o f various ethnic groups. However, the initiatives of this kind, e.g. the Vilnius art society uniting artists o f different nationalities, were mistrusted by the contemporaries and ignored in later, aforementioned his­ toriography. Art in Vilnius igoo-igis marked a shift from the national to multinational approach in describing the cultural and artistic identity o f Vilnius. This shift was stimulated not only by common researches of neighbouring art historians in the nineties. Extremely important was the resurrecting of the mentality of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made by two world famous Polish emigre writers - Nobel Prize - winning poet Czeslaw Milosz (born in Lithuania) andjerzy Giedroyc in the nineties. Especially the works o f Milosz translated into Lithuanian encouraged national isolation, and promoted common points o f reference between Lithuanian and Polish cultural identities17. One of the topics in the ЬоокЛг/ in Vilnius igoo-igu is dedicated to the vestiges of this duality in the Vilnius art scene - to the heritage of local artists of gentry’ origins who perceived themselves as successors of the legacy of the Grand Duchy o f Lithuania. A shift from the national to multinational approach in recon­ structing the cultural identity of Vilnius appeared in numerous h Lithuanian translation of Czeslaw Milosz Isos slėnis (Ihc Issa Valley! publications in the last decade o f the twentieth century and the appeared in 1991, Pitvergt.is pra­ first decade o f the twenty-first century. Czeslaw Milosz’s friend, u s (Hie Captive Mind) in 1995, the poet and essayist Tomas Venclova, was one of the first to Tėvynės M kojwus (In Search of a Homeland) in 1995, Viro iemė argue the point o f national stereotypes and cross the “alien” na­ ('The Land of Ulro) in 1996, tional boundaries. In his articles and books he advocated the

128 Laima Laučkaitė multinational history of Vilnius and popularized it18. The liter­ ary historian Mindaugas Kvietkauskas published a study on the multi-lingual - Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Belorussian - Vilnius literature of the beginning of the twentieth century in the context of Early Modernism19. The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore organized a series of conferences and published collections of papers on the multinational Vilnius in the first half of the twentieth century; they were devoted to various issues, such as the role of the patrons of arts, cultural societies, women, clergymen, etc. in the cultural development of the city20. The Canadian cultural geographer of Lithuanian origin Laimonas Briedis published the book Vilnius: the City o f Strangers11 presenting the views on Vilnius put forward by the foreigners - travelers, writers who had visited the city on various occasions during the fifteenth to twentieth centuries. Multi-culturalism appeared to be the most striking feature of Vilnius in the eyes o f the foreigners. During the twentieth century the Eastern and Central European cultural identity was correlated with the national state and national culture but this identity can also be inter­ preted as a result o f urban culture. It is plausible that changing the point of view - from the homogeneous national identity, national state and its culture to the urban perspective - would allow us to reveal a much more complicated and more believable picture. It would be especially beneficial in the investigation of the culture and art o f Central or Eastern European cities, because historically they are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, inhabited by various nations (be it Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Vienna, Helsinki, Lvov, Budapest, Torun, most probably Warsaw and Cracow, too). Multi-culturalism has to be viewed as a value, the rich­ ness o f the heritage of the city or country, not vice versa. When I read today in the publications that the art o f a certain region, 18 Venclova (1989: 8): Venclova state, city in the twentieth century was pure and homogeneous (1981); Venclova (2002); Venclova (be it Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Latvian, etc.) I suspect that (2006). something is hidden and suppressed, that the assimilation of 19 Kvietkauskas (2007). ln Lapinskienė (1998); Lapinskienė different identities into the culture and customs o f the majority (2001); Lapinskienė (2005); Lap­ has taken place or that different cultural groups are integrated inskienė (2006); Lapinskienė into the ‘mainstream’. In these cases the national issue becomes (2007); Lapinskienė (2012). These an instrument of the implementation of power, privilege and books were published by the Insti­ tute of Lithuanian Literature and oppression - this negative aspect of nationalism was frequently Folklore in Vilnius. observed in the European countries in the twentieth century. 21 Briedis (2008).

Crossing “Alien" National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 129 Finally, an intriguing question: can art, art hist ory and art criticism create a platform for the discussions between different world views, in our case between different national groups in the contemporary society? Undoubtedly the ideas o f multi-eth­ nicity, based on historical experience, could contribute to the balanced coexistence of different nations and defuse tensions existing today in the post-communist societies in Eastern and Central Europe. But on the other hand, one must also be aware o f the limited possibilities of humanitarians to create a platform for negotiations between different national groups in the con­ temporary society. The studies o f humanitarians, their researches and publications are elitist, read by a limited number of readers and do not make a wider social impact. One should take into account the stratification o f the society (at least in Lithuania, but supposedly in Poland and other Eastern and Central European countries as well) into different strata with quite different atti­ tudes: on the one side, the academic public, humanitarians, the younger generation, students who welcome and appreciate the ideas o f the multi-cultural identity, and on the other the majority of the society which naturally is rather conservative and nation- alistically oriented. Therefore nationalism should be treated as a trump card used by politicians, it is also a trump card of the mass-media, often creating and escalating scandals and profiting from nationalistic collisions and frictions.

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Crossing “Alien” National Boundaries: on the Research of the Identity of Vilnius Art 131 Przekraczając „obce” granice narodowe: 0 badaniach tożsamości sztuki wileńskiej

STRESZCZENIE

Artykuł dotyczy tożsamości kulturowej Wilna jako wschod­ nioeuropejskiego miasta i konstrukcji tej tożsamości w ciągu X X wieku. Tekst oparty jest na badawczych doświadczeniach autorki, zgromadzonych podczas pisania książki Sztuka iv Wil­ nie ięoo-igis (wydanie w wersji litewskiej zooz; w wersji an­ gielskiej zoo8). Tematyka sztuki wileńskiej byla przedmiotem zainteresowania litewskich i polskich historyków sztuki w ciągu całego X X stulecia. Niemniej koncentrowali się oni na swych „własnych”, narodowych elementach sztuki wileńskiej. Naj­ dziwniejsze jest to, że teksty powstałe w zupełnie odmiennych okresach historycznych, politycznych i ideologicznych (w cza­ sach międzywojennych, komunistycznych i postkomunistycz­ nych) ugruntowane były w tej samej nacjonalistycznej ideolo­ gii. Sytuacja zmieniła się znacząco dopiero w ostatniej dekadzie X X wieku, gdy nacjonalistyczna narracja została zast ąpiona wie­ lonarodowościowym dyskursem. Koncepcja wielokulturowej tożsamości W ilna pozwala na ukazanie artystycznej sceny tego miasta na początku X X stulecia jako skomplikowanej konfigu­ racji litewskich, polskich, żydowskich i rosyjskich segmentów. W artykule przeanalizowana została ta teoretyczna reorientacja 1 jej oddziaływanie na współczesne społeczeństwo na Litwie.

Tłumaczyła Irena Kossowska