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Donata Mitaitė Tomas Venclova: the Poet and Totalitarianism

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Donata Mitaitė Tomas Venclova: the Poet and Totalitarianism Donata Mitaitė Tomas Venclova: The Poet and Totalitarianism Tomas Vėmc/ova was born mfo (Ae /%mi/y o/ o Sowef wrMen ffiowgA Ak/af/igr was a» infefkcfwaf wAo was inferesW i» ivorf«/ cwffwre CM«f w« Weranf o/fAe cw7(wraf fm^ifioM; o/fAe pasf. The afmoipAerg «( Aomg /omie«/ an mfef/ecfwaf, ope» fo f/ie worftf cwkwre, w/:icfi, iimw/faMfowf/y eMgeM</ere(f (fuimfoM W/: ifafe 6aW so/e(y on Mcrxkf i&o/ogy. A$ a (fgm Tom« VkMcfova/bwnd /ite-mWe(f iM(/;vWwak Mvemf o/wAom were mof o»// recogfifzgff AwmaMiforfa»» m ffie 5ovie( t/nio», ffiff/owng af fAe (wie, c* Ywn ŁofmaM an^ Yė/ifM Eftin«/. W oko fAe popi//ar /»oek /o;e/ NoW/a CorbcMevfkaya, an«f of/iers. 7n Ak on/y f)oot o/poefry i" Sowef Lif/iHania, Kalbos ženklas (TTie Sign o/ Language. VgMc/ova ffaf« fAaf, fu a fofafifarfaM jocfef/, one can «kpena" on e, poafry, coMvawafiOM Aeanf by Go«f. /» /äcf, a poefk fp/iere o/ m an/sorf o/fockfy kpoefry The experience o/fofafifananbm (fiW iio( a//ovv VėMc/ovo (o accepf f/ie confemporari/y popw/ar vigv f/iaf o/f vafw« ore refaffve, ofW, asiWe/rom fAw, /ie encowrages «n«fmfy fo ofners wAo Aovg si/ßeretf or are sw^ering tecaw« o/a fofafffanan regime or some of/ier rafacfyim/c even* in nüfory. Tnk k gviWenf in nk poefry The life of poet, translator, and essayist Tomas Venclova (b. 1937), is quite unique in the history of Lithuanian culture. While he was raised in the family of a writer of the Soviet establishment who authored the Soviet Lithuanian anthem, Venclova has become not only an acclaimed poet and a professor at Yale University, but also a person who refused to obey and compromise with the totalitarian regime while living in the Soviet Union, as well as in immigration. Antanas Venclova (1906-1971), the father of Tomas, upheld leftist views from his young days. It may be alleged that he actually served 258 Donata Mitaitė the Soviet regime (he was a Minister, an elected representative in the Parliament, the head of the Writers Union, etc.) in his convictions (there is no evidence that he experienced any internal crises because of this); however, testimonies attest that he was sincerely interested in the development of Lithuanian culture and was tolerant towards the cultural traditions of the past. In any case, Antanas Venclova amassed an abundant library at home and, unlike his contemporaries, had opportunities to travel to and bring home books and modern art albums from foreign countries. Some books, not accessible to ordinary readers, ended up in Vilnius, in the hands of Antanas Venclova, who, according to the Soviet regime, was a reliable person and impossible "to spoil" by enemy ideology. So, this bookshelf, which "raised" Tomas, helped to shape an intellectual, one who was open to different global cultural phenomena and was pre-programmed to resist Soviet society and a State based on an isolated and solely Marxist ideology. Unlike many other patriotic Lithuanian intellectuals, who based their search for like-minded individuals on nationalism, Tomas Venclova forged relationships with people on a democratic and intellectual basis. From the early days, he traveled widely in the Soviet Union, and after graduating from Vilnius University, he lived in Moscow, Leningrad, as it was called at the time, or Tartu, where he was taken to by complications in his personal life or supplementary education, and even more so, because he was unable to secure permanent employment in Lithuania. He translated sporadically and sometimes substituted for absent lecturers at Vilnius University. For a few years, he worked as a literary consultant at the Šiauliai Drama Theatre and also at the Institute of History. Many local intellectuals opened their doors to the girted, curious young man, who had been raised with openness to different cultures; he also had an international circle of friends. This escalated the conflict not only with the Soviet government, which viewed with disdain Venclova's literary authorities - Anna Akhmatova or Boris Pasternak, his famous friends - the literary scholars Yuri Lotman and Yefim Etkind, the philosopher Grigori Pomerantz, and also new and up and coming literary figures such as Josef Brodsky, as well as his environment of democratic dissent, for example, the poet and human rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya, but TOMAS VENCLOVA: THE POET AND TOTALITARIANISM 259 also came into conflict with a large part of the Lithuanian intelligentsia who thought that the preservation of Lithuanian literature and culture required disassociation and isolation. Sometimes, for example, when Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize, or during the days of public condemnation, this disassociation took on very unpleasant forms. So, Venclovas views were shaped during his young days; in 1976, they brought him to the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, and it was because of these views that he was forced to emigrate. The Lithuanian poet Marcelijus Martinaitis, when speaking of Venclovas role in Lithuanian culture, once said that he was forced to leave Lithuania (this happened in 1977) not only by the Soviet government, but also because of the stereotypes of Lithuanian thought: "Tomas didn't care about who you were: a Russian, a Pole, or a Jew, because for him, the most important things was and is intellectual contact."' As time went on, Venclova's views changed very little, if at all. The only collection of poetry by Venclova published in Soviet Lithuania is Ka&K źent/as (The Sign of Language, 1972). This collection, like all the books published in the Soviet Union, was blessed by the censors. Before submitting the book for publication (to the Glavlit), the editor-in-chief eliminated four poems he (bund suspicious from the collection. Also, one of the eliminated poems - "Eilėraštis apie draugus" (A Poem about Friends), had already been published in 1969 in the Poezi/ospaiwarü (Poetry Spring) almanac. By the way, the poem was dedicated to an individual identified only by initials, while the full name, "For Natalya Gorbanevskaya," was disclosed much later, when the book was published in emigration.' The poem was written in 1968 as a tribute to those who dared to go to the Red Square of Moscow - Natalya Gorbanevskaya was one of the seven who protested the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia: And again it's autumn, full of lavish (oily. Inside (he city, which some souls have won, Above (he alien trolley cars and dwellings, A( (his very hour, September has begun. Imposing barges stand allixeü (0 piers. 260 Donata Mitaitė Since morning, every nerve is wound up tight, And, on the road, the first leaf that appears Is crooked, like the armour of a knight.^ (trans, by Diana Senechal) The editor-in-chief of the publishing house was very well aware that Venclovas poetry did not stray from reality; it was accused of this later. Its social character was just different from other books published by Soviet publishers. Sometimes, the external portrayal of the words misled the censors as well. In 1967, when presenting his translations of Osip Mandelstam to a Lithuanian audience, Venclova wrote: "He deeply understood the historical changes in his country, estimated them with real civic maturity."* This was the absolute truth. Mandelstam paid for his public spirit, and for expressing, in his poems, his thoughts about the "narrow necked" leaders and the "highlander" of the Kremlin, with his life. However, in the mind of the Soviet censor, civic maturity was only coupled with the development of communism and the sophisticated leadership of the Party; therefore, without knowing much about Mandelstam, the censor probably did not notice that Venclova imparted true meaning to his words. When Vitas Areška, one of the reviewers of Ka#os źeMJWaf, said that he missed the "real sense of history" in the book and encouraged the poet "to expand the boundaries of his work by imbuing it with more live reality,"* he demonstrated the meanings of the settled words in the new Soviet language. Not coincidentally, a few decades later, when reviewing Vencolova's book, the America critic Michael Scammell described Venclova, similar to Adam Zagajewski and Czesław Miłosz, as particularly "loyal toward reality."* Scammell, who also wrote a biography of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, had a good understanding of the realities of Eastern Europe. Venclova, in step with Modernist poetry, wherein the issue of language is one of the most essential, emphasized language in the title of his poetry collection KaM%» źent/os. Language, poetry, and conversation, heard by God, are the only things that one can depend on in the totalitarian winter: TOM*! VENCLOVA: THE POET AND TOTALITARIANISM 261 There where the capital turns in circles And the snow-games weary us, Where fog does not betray the things, Thank God there is still the dictionary. In the kingdom where a friend's hand Will never hurry to help Emptiness or the highest power Sends the angel - rhythm and language. (49; trans, by Jonas Zdanys) The collection Ka/6o; zemWa; opens with "Eilėraštis apie atmintį" (A Poem about Memory), and ends with - "Poeto atminimui. Variantas" (In Memory of the Poet. A Variation). So, the theme of memory frames the entire collection of poems. Human contact and relationships are particularly important to Venclova. People are connected both by "the depth of vocabulary," the language itself, noted in the book's title, and by telephone calls, letters, and telegrams - there are so many modes of communication between friends, colleagues, and lovers in the poetry collection. Memory is also the bond, perhaps even the most essential one, that creates connections between people.
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