Interstices of Meaning Within Meaninglessness
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DONATA MITAITĖ Lithuanian Literature in 1968: Interstices of Meaning within Meaninglessness ABSTRACT. For Lithuanian Soviet literature, which had struggled to recover from wartime and post-war losses (the Soviet invasion, the emigration of writers, deaths in the partisan resistance) and endured Soviet ideological coercion and repressions, 1968 was a good year. Although Lithuanian literature had not yet reached the level of creative output of the pre-war period or the emigre community, and though the Soviet context compromises the artistic value of some works, that year saw the publication of a number of important texts. Works by literary theorists indicate a clear desire to restore the continuity of a literary tradition which was fractured in the post-war years in order to clearly indicate that it did not emerge in tandem with Soviet power. Literary and cultural periodicals show a marked attention to creative work by Lithuanian emigres and to world culture, in particular Czechoslovakia's. With the exception of Tomas Venclovas poem "Eilėraštis apie draugus" (A Poem About Friends, dedicated to Natalia Gorbanevskaya), the Prague Spring repressions did not leave many traces in the Lithuanian literature of that time. Nevertheless, the increased feelings of despair and absurdity that are evident in works published in autumn 1968 and in 1969 can be indirectly linked to the events taking place in Czechoslovakia. In Lithuania, Soviet ideological control intensified not in 1968, but in 1972, after the self-immolation of Romas Kalanta in Kaunas. KEYWORDS: Prague Spring, literature of Soviet Lithuania, literary tradition, ideological coercion In 1968, waves of unrest rolled across the world. The first that comes to mind is the French student riots, which are sometimes referred to as a revolution. So as not to appear too Eurocentric, we should also remember the 1968 government massacre of Mexican students, where hundreds are said to have been killed. There was something in the air that seems to have triggered various protests against the existing order - something that inspired the hope that one's rights could be defended as well as the aggression that was often expressed while fighting for them. An aggression that, sadly, was often met with even greater force, smashing hopes that life might someday change for the better. 31 In Lithuania, the year 1968 was marked by the hope inspired by the Prague Spring as well as its tragic outcome. Under more favourable circumstances, that year could have seen the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment, in 1918, of the independent state of Lithuania, as well as those of Latvia and Estonia. Obviously, the official Lithuanian press spoke only of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Soviet power in Lithuania in 1918, and of the anniversaries of the Lithuanian Communist Party and the Komsomol (the Communist Youth League), which were established in the same year. These commemorations coincided, strangely, with the suppression of the Prague Spring; one might say that history was assisting editors who, as ideological control intensified, no longer had to rack their brains about how to fill the fall issues of their periodicals. Maria and Arkady Dubnov (those who listened to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty will recall these names) titled their book about life and the mood in Russia (mostly Moscow) in the sixties and seventies Tanki vPrage, Dzhokonda vMoskve: azart istydsemidesiatykh (Tanks in Prague, La Gioconda in Moscow: the Excitement and Shame of the 1970s).1 It goes without saying that, even though our countrymen were amongst those providing so-called "international support" to Czechoslovakia, people in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia identified with the Czechs - they felt anger, despair and perhaps other similar feelings, but not shame, about events taking place there. For most people living and doing creative work in Lithuania in the 1960s the situation must have looked quite dreary, and could be captured in the words "nothing will ever change here" (an exhibition with this title, and dedicated to the year 1968, was held in Warsaw several years ago). Nevertheless, there were some outstanding breakthroughs in different cultural spheres - though when we speak of these achievements we should almost always take note of official reactions to them. It was in 1968 that the ūlm Jausmai (Feelings; screenplay by Vytautas Žalakevičius, directed by Algirdas Dausa and Almantas Grikevičius), which was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the San Remo International Film Festival, was made. Soviet cinema functionaries tried to withhold the fact of the award from the creators of the film, which could only be shown in semi-exclusive film clubs in Lithuania, and was not shown anywhere else in the Soviet Union. In 1997, audiences and critics \otcdjausrnai the best Lithuanian film of all times. On the last day of 1968, the Kaunas Drama Theatre premiered Kazys Sajas Mamutų medžioklė (The Hunt for the Mammoths, directed by Jonas Jurašas, 32 who would be forced to emigrate in 1974). "One might expect that this fresh and suggestive piece of theatre will attract strong audience support and extensive critical reaction,"2 wrote Eugenijus Ignatavičius immediately after the first performance. But though the production garnered high public and critical acclaim, it was banned after barely a year in the repertoire (it was performed about 70 times). Both the audience and the authorities were able to precisely decode the imagery in this grotesque drama, understanding the search, by the participants of an unreal feast who get stuck in tar, as the quest for a bright communist tomorrow. Visual artists who had distinguished themselves in Soviet years (Vincas Kisarauskas, Saulė Kisarauskienė, Linas Katinas, Aloyzas Stasiulevičius, Antanas Kmieliauskas) became the targets of party bailiffs. Inspired by the Prague Spring to tighten ideological censorship, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR passed a resolution on January 7, 1969, indicating that these artists and publications which reproduced their works had fallen out of favour with the authorities - their art was seen as "formalist and void of ideology" and as ignoring the educational purposes of socialist art.3 The philosopher Romualdas Ozolas (b. 1939) says that the years 1965 to 1968 saw the rise of the slogan "Let us think." Without a doubt the magazine Kultūros barai and its column "Round Table Conversations"4 were instrumental in this. The contribution of the emigre community to freeing the spirits of people living in Lithuania was increasingly recognized. The archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutienė (Marija Gimbutas, 1921-1994), who made her second visit to Lithuania in 1968 and gave a lecture at Vilnius University, described her impressions to the US-based emigre sociologist Vytautas Kavolis: [they] talk even too boldly, and the veins are just now opening up for an injection of new blood. [...] The Grand Hall of Columns at Vilnius University was packed. If anybody had wanted to do away with the entire artistic and intellectual elite of Lithuania in one full sweep, this was the opportunity: all the artists, writers and scientists were there, young and old, from Vilnius, Kaunas and elsewhere; but most of all there were many young students.5 In the same letter she emphasised that Metmenys (a literary and cultural magazine published in Chicago since 1959) was very important and eagerly 33 awaited in Lithuania, and was passed from one person to another like books during the period of the publication ban. The paths of other emigre publications and books were very similar. Because the marking of the fiftieth anniversary of Lithuania's independence was suppressed, a paper by the emigre historian Vincas Trumpa (1913-2002) in Metmenys played a very important role. In it he considered the idea of independence but also took a broader view: It is impossible to imagine a nations freedom without individual freedom. He who is against individual freedom is also against the freedom of a country. There is no other choice or path. It is good that today we are constantly speaking of alien tyrants, but we should, at least occasionally, keep in mind the danger of our own tyrants.6 Ideas like that were another type of injection that was badly needed in Lithuania at that time. But new ideas did not come exclusively from the emigre community. Yuri Lotman, who founded the world-renowned school of semiotics and was forced to leave Leningrad (St. Petersburg) for Tartu, gave a series of important lectures in Vilnius in 1968. Reaction to his lectures was mixed, ranging from high praise to doubt and hostility. In his attempts to justify the demand for a structuralist poetics, Tomas Venclova, who would soon emigrate himself, wrote a paper with a very academic title: "Poetinio komunikato konstruktas" (The Construct of Poetic Communication). In it, he directed his criticism not so much at traditional research methods in literary theory or in the humanities in general, as at the ideologically regulated state and the degradation of these disciplines in Soviet Lithuania in particular, and in the Soviet Union in general: It is uncommon to speak, in public or in private, of the backwardness that exists in the humanities, which generally attract the high school graduate who feels he lacks the talent or patience for other disciplines. Here, studies arc not difficult - or they are certainly easier than they were fifty or a hundred years ago. Not only it is not mandatory to delve into subjects like palaeography and hittitology, but even languages do not have to be learnt properly. Cleverly juggling a number of phrases suitable for any time and any place, the student can usually earn a degree, sometimes even cum laude? 34 Structural poetics and semiotics often helped critics to avoid using ideo- logical formulae and quoting Marxist classics.