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Tomas Venclova was born into the family of a renowned Lithuanian Soviet writer, though his father was an intellectual who was interested in world culture and was tolerant of the cultural traditions of the past. The atmosphere at home formed an intellectual, open to the phenomena of world culture, which, simultaneously engendered disunion with the Soviet state based solely on Marxist ideology. As a democrat and an intellectual, Tomas Venclova found like-minded individuals, several of whom were not only recognized humanitarians in the Soviet Union, still young at the time, such as Yuri Lotman and Yefim Etkind, but also the popular poets Josef Brodsky, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, and others. In his only book of poetry published in Soviet , Kalbos ženklas (The Sign of Language, 1972), Venclova states that, in a totalitarian society, one can depend on language, poetry, conversation heard by God. In fact, a poet’s sphere of freedom in any sort of society is poetry. The experience of totalitarianism did not allow Venclova to accept the contemporarily popular view that all values are relative, and, aside from this, he encourages sensitivity to others who have suffered or are suffering because of a totalitarian regime or some other cataclysmic event in history. This is evident in his poetry and journalism.

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 , 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  'RQDWD0LWDLWť 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 , 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 , 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 gifted, 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 – or , 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