American Vilnius

The city wall with gates and towers was built in the early 16th century. The wall was used to defend the city in 1794 during the Kościuszko Uprising. The name of Tadeusz Kościuszko is well known not only in Lithuania, Poland and Belarus, but also in the United States.

Two bridges in New York, an island in Alaska, a city in Mississippi and a county in Indiana are named after Kościuszko. Monuments to the military leader stand in Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, and other American cities.

Born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to a noble family of old Lithuanian origin, Tadeusz Kościuszko, was supported by the influential Czartoryski family, and studied at the Warsaw Corps of Cadets (School of Chivalry), which educated the Polish and Lithuanian elite. Later, while studying artillery and arts in France, he was exposed to the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers.

In 1776, Kościuszko left to fight for American liberty. There, he became a colonel engineer, designed and built fortifications, commanded an infantry battalion, took part in battles, and was even wounded. For his bravery, he received the rank of Brigadier General. He also received a congressional commendation, a cash reward, and some land.

In 1784, Kościuszko returned to Lithuania.  Here he aspired to become a general in the Lithuanian army, but was appointed to command the Polish army. With the neighbouring empires dividing Lithuania and Poland, the commander looked for support for the uprising from abroad.

In 1794, Kościuszko became commander of the uprising. He read out the Act of Uprising in Krakow’s Market Square and swore to fight to the end for the independence of the Republic. During the uprising, he was given the powers of the Supreme Governor of the state. Many Lithuanian peasants went to the uprising chanting Kościuszko’s name, and it is not for nothing that this hero was celebrated in Lithuanian folk songs.

Both Byron and Jules Verne mentioned Kościuszko as a freedom-loving man in their works. During the Kościuszko Uprising in Lithuania against the Russian Empire in April 1794, Jakub Jasiński led the uprising, and with his troops attacked and managed to take Vilnius back. The next day, the Lithuanian National Supreme Council was elected to lead the uprising. Both nobles and commoners joined the defence of the city, and more than 2 000 volunteers gathered.

Later, General Michał Wielhorski, who was in charge of the uprising in Lithuania, pulled the Lithuanian army away from Vilnius for training exercises, and the Russians took advantage of this; they attacked the city at the beginning of June. For two days, the poorly armed citizens and the soldiers who remained in the city defended themselves against the much larger and better equipped Russian army; by taking advantage of the city wall, they managed to hold out. The Russians broke through Aušros Vartai, but were met with the rifles and pistols of the defenders, and even stones. The Russians and the Cossacks were challenged by Colonel Dejov of the Russian Empire to a decisive assault.  From the tower of the Pociej family chapel near Aušros Vartai, the Russian commander was shot down by a Carmelite monk and priest named Celica.

After the colonel was killed, the Russians and the Cossacks retreated. After ordering that a volley of cannons be fired, the brave defenders of the city were honoured in Warsaw by the leader of the uprising, Tadeusz Kościuszko.

This victory was important morally, but a few weeks later the Russians brought more troops and more guns. After heavy shelling, the city capitulated.

The current building of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, one of the most important examples of the historicist-style of architecture in Vilnius, was built in the early 20th century on the site of a former merchants’ house. At that time, the building was known as the City Hall for theatre performances and other events. The first Lithuanian opera ‘Birutė’ was performed in this hall, as were the first Lithuanian plays in the early 20th century. Not many people know that the very first Lithuanian play in the world was staged not in Lithuania, but in the United States of America. In 1889, the play by A. Turski, ‘Be sumnenes, arba Kejp taj ant svieto ejnasi’, was performed in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Maybe you would like to know the name of the first Lithuanian play produced and performed in Lithuania? It was Keturakis’ ‘Amerika pirtyje’, performed in Palanga in 1899. Later, this play was performed in other theatres. In 1905, ‘Amerika pirtyje was performed in Vilnius in the Pagiris Railway Hall (currently where the Vaidila Theatre is located – Jakšto g. 9), and it was the first official public Lithuanian performance in Vilnius. 

Jascha Heifetz, one of the world’s most famous violinists, performed at the city’s concert hall (now the Philharmonic Hall) as a child in 1909. Born in Vilnius and educated in St Petersburg, Heifetz quickly became known as a musical genius. In 1917, the violinist received an offer to perform in the USA. After a long journey lasting two months, the violin virtuoso reached New York. A concert at the prestigious Carnegie Hall made the violinist world famous. Arriving in America when he was only 16, Jascha Heifetz spent the rest of his life in America. He recalled Vilnius often and with nostalgia, as it was here that his childhood years were spent. That is why Jascha Heifetz became one of our city’s most famous ambassadors in the world. The violinist’s stories about Vilnius also made Vilnius seem close to other musicians who had contact with Heifetz. 

In 2002, the 43rd President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush, visited Lithuania. A crowd gathered in the Town Hall Square to listen to the President’s inspiring speech. Many good things were said, but one particularly inspiring quote in both Lithuanian and English was immortalised by Vilnius residents on a brass plaque hanging on the wall of Vilnius Town Hall.  Now all residents and visitors know that ‘anyone who chooses Lithuania as his enemy will become an enemy of the United States of America”. It was like a promise that Lithuania would become a NATO member in the future.  And indeed, in March 2004, Lithuania became part of this defence alliance.

Speaking of presidents and links to the United States, it must be pointed out that we also have Lithuanian presidents who have been linked to America in one way or another. One of them is Valdas Adamkus, a Lithuanian-American.

Antanas Smetona, the president of the inter-war period, also left for the USA. On 15 June 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, Smetona ended his 14-year rule and fled Lithuania. When the Red Army occupied Kaunas, Smetona and his family had already crossed the Lithuanian border. After surviving 8 months in Europe, Smetona fled to the USA, where he met the then US President Franklin Roosevelt. Both Presidents unanimously declared that Lithuania and other occupied nations must regain their independence. Smetona survived in America until his death in a fire in 1944.

The works of the Lithuanian-American painter and collector Kazys Varnelis can be found in various museums in the United States, including the Detroit and Akron Art Institutes, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art in New York, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and the University of Iowa, as well as in the collections of private collectors. But you don’t have to go that far to get to know his work better.

You can see the artist’s work at the Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, located next to Vilnius City Hall. The Museum of Kazys Varnelis, who was an unrivalled master of optical art with no counterparts in Lithuania, also displays the artist’s collection of historical prints, maps, Renaissance and Baroque furniture, sculptures, and works of applied art from various countries, including the Americas.

Born in Lithuania in 1917, Varnelis moved west in 1943. From 1949 he lived in Chicago. In the USA, the artist established a workshop for church art, painted, and taught at the University of Chicago. Kazys Varnelis won the Vielehr Prize of the Art Institute of Chicago twice. The artist believed that it was only a matter of time before Lithuania would regain its independence. In 1998, Kazys Varnelis and his wife returned to Lithuania and lived here until his death in 2010. The artist’s works and collection were shipped to Lithuania in five containers across the Atlantic Ocean.

Even in the Soviet era, Varnelis knew that he was assembling a collection for his homeland. The Varnelis House-Museum is housed in one of the oldest buildings in the Town Hall Square – the Little Guild House – and in 2003, it became a branch of the National Museum.

After the war, many famous and well-known Litvaks, or Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL), spread around the world. A large number of them now live or have lived in America. Who hasn’t heard of the singers Bob Dylan, Pink, Leonard Cohen, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, the actors Kirk Douglas and Sean Penn, or the violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz? It is also worth remembering the journalist Zev Hirsch Bernstein, the banker Solomon Levitan, the physicist and Nobel laureate David M. Lee, the biochemist Phoebus Levene, the actress Peggy Lipton, as well as many other scientists, politicians, rabbis, and artists with Litvak roots who lived and worked in the USA.  

One of the Lithuanian Jews who left Lithuania and settled in the USA is the painter Samuel Bak. In 2018, the Samuel Bak Museum opened its doors on Naugardukas Street in Vilnius. The opening was attended by the artist himself. Samuel Bak miraculously survived the Holocaust as a child.  At the age of 9, he was taken to the Vilnius Ghetto with his father and mother. There, the famous ghetto poets Abraham Sutzkever and Shmerke Kaczerginski noticed his talent. In the lobby of the ghetto theatre, these artists organised an exhibition of surviving Jewish artists. A large part of the exhibition consisted of sketches by the young genius, Samuel Bak. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1943, almost all of its inhabitants met their end in Paneriai, and only a few thousand temporarily escaped the same fate and were transported to the Nazi labour camp (HKP 562) on Subačius Hill. Bak and his parents ended up there too. In March 1944, the Nazis organised the so-called children’s action, after which there were no more children in the HKP camp, only the desperate wailing and moaning of fathers and mothers. Miraculously, young Samuel was saved by his parents. Pretending to carry a heavy load, his father carried him in a sack outside the camp and handed him over to a Catholic girl sent by his mother (who had already managed to escape the forced labour camp). In their distraction and attempt to hide, Samuel and his mother knocked on the door of the former convent, which at that time housed a centre for the collection of archives from conquered lands. Sister Maria Mikulska, a nun, was working there as a cleaner. She opened the gate and, recognising the Jews she had seen before, immediately invited them in. A hiding place had been set up in the premises – part of the corridor had been separated by a wall of books with a secret entrance. Confiscated property had been transported there since the inception of the ghetto. The nuns met many Jews who were sent from the ghetto to unload and bring thousands of documents and books into the corridors. A group of Jewish workers set up a hiding place there in case they needed to take refuge after the ghetto was abolished. Samuel and his mother were also given a place to hide. At that time, three Jewish families were already hiding there. It was not only the sisters who attended to those hiding, but Father Juozapas Stakauskas, a Catholic priest and former professor of history also looked after the food and their basic needs. The security of those in hiding was also taken care of by the director of the archives, Vladas Žemaitis. These people saved 12 lives, and in doing so, risked their own lives. The Nazis and their collaborators mercilessly dealt with the inhabitants of the town who tried to hide Jews.

In 2008, the staff of the then Modern Art Centre came up with the idea of commemorating Lithuanian writers on Literatų gatvė. The dedications to the writers were created by various artists, who attached the works made of clay, wood, plastic and metal directly to the wall. The project was carried out in several phases. There are now more than 200 of these artworks with writers’ names behind them across the street. Most of the artworks are dedicated to various Lithuanian writers, but there are also foreigners who are connected to Lithuania in one way or another. The artists remembered and dedicated this street to the American writer Thomas Harris, who wrote a series of psychological detective stories about Hannibal Lecter, who came from a family of Lithuanian aristocrats. The most famous film in the series, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, won five Oscars in 2001. In 2006, Tom Harris wrote a pre-history of Hannibal Lecter, ‘Hannibal Rising’, while  in 2007, the book was adapted into a film. The writer chose Lithuania as Hannibal’s homeland. The book mentions Lithuanian gateways and place names, but there are no real facts. In the film, the role of Hannibal’s mother was played by the Lithuanian actress Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė.

Thomas Harris was not the only American writer to mention Lithuania in his work. Jonathan Franzen, who is also the subject of a dedication on Literatų Street, also chose Lithuania to express his creative contribution. Although this author has never been here, he mentioned Lithuania in his 2001 novel ‘The Corrections’, which tells the story of a particular family and reveals the cultural problems of American society. The book does not mention Lithuania in a good light. One episode involves one of the family’s children, Chip Lambert, who wanders into a desolate part of Vilnius where sanitation is poor, unemployment is at 20%, electricity and water are intermittent, people eat horse-meat, passers-by are shot in the street, and the police are a gang of thugs. The Lithuanian-American community was not impressed with this portrayal of Lithuania. Vygaudas Ušackas, the then Lithuanian Ambassador to the USA, approached the author and invited him to visit our country. Jonathan Franzen declined the offer, implying that his description of Lithuania was just a figment of his imagination and a work of fiction that helped the writer express his literary idea. 

The street also commemorates the Lithuanian and Polish writer and Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz. The writer lived in Lithuania, as well as in Poland and France. In 1961 he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1970 he became a naturalised US citizen. 

Tomas Venclova, a well-known Lithuanian writer, also has links to the USA. In 1977, he went to live in the USA at the invitation of University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley and Ohio Universities, and later worked at Yale University, where he received a doctorate in philosophy. In 2019, T. Venclova returned to Vilnius.

Užupis is not the only such place on earth revitalised by artists; there are many more in the world. New York’s famous Soho district, once an undervalued working-class neighbourhood, was revived thanks to Jonas Mačiūnas, the Lithuanian avant-gardist and founder and godfather of the ‘Fluxus’ movement. Mačiūnas and his family came to New York after World War II. He studied architecture, graphic design, and the history of culture and art. In 1960, Mačiūnas studied music composition with Richard Maxfield, an experimental and innovative electronic music composer and pupil of the renowned composer John Cage. In this way, Mačiūnas found a group of like-minded artists with whom he would later develop an avant-garde movement, a group of artists he called ‘Fluxus’, formed in 1962. The movement Mačiūnas started was directed against the stagnant norms of art, academia, excessive seriousness, and commercialisation. ‘Fluxus’ sought to break down the boundaries between art and everyday life. This included various performances, jokes, films, actions and manifestos. Mačiūnas argued that anyone can make art. By rejecting clichés and norms, the ‘Fluxus’ movement tried to give life back to art in the post-war world. Mačiūnas was not only changing art, he was also responsible for giving the Soho district in New York a new lease of life. Realising that artists needed a special space for their work, he and other artists illegally took up residence in abandoned industrial buildings and set up studio-lofts to give the neighbourhood a distinctive and vibrant character and to preserve the old buildings. Soho has become a symbol of the city. 

When Mačiūnas died, the funeral was held according to his own script. The artist’s ashes were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean. The writer Tomas Venclova was asked to draw water from the same place where they were scattered. It is believed that Mačiūnas’ atoms remained in the water. The water was brought back to Lithuania and poured into the Vilnelė River at the Užupis Bridge, and the spirit of Mačiūnas now lives in Užupis. In 1997, an official reburial ceremony was held in Lithuania.

Jonas Mekas, a writer and avant-garde filmmaker, who was a member of the ‘Fluxus’ movement, emigrated to the USA in 1949 and settled in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Two weeks later, after borrowing money, the artist bought a 16 mm film camera and began to record his surroundings. Mekas became interested in avant-garde cinema, and by 1956, he was making his own films. He published and edited the film magazine ‘Film Culture’ and later the art newspaper ‘Intro Bulletin’, and wrote articles on film-making for his own and other publications. Jonas Mekas and his brother founded ‘Anthology Film Archives’, one of the world’s largest archives of American avant-garde film. The Lithuanian thus became the godfather of American avant-garde cinema. Jonas Mekas is listed among the world’s 80 most famous American artists. The Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Centre features works by Mekas, Mačiūnas, and others, and here you can learn more about the ‘Fluxus’ movement. The visual arts creations will allow you to experience the spirit of New York at that time. Take a stroll through the courtyard of the Užupis Art Incubator. After Lithuania regained its independence, artists illegally took up residence in the buildings now belonging to the art incubator, sparking the rebirth of the Užupis district. The same thing happened in the aforementioned Soho district in New York, just a little earlier.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland commemorates the famous singer and writer Leonard Cohen of Litvak origin alongside the most famous performers.

Born and raised in Canada, Cohen moved to New York and spent part of his life in America. The world’s first sculpture commemorating Leonard Cohen was recently unveiled in Vilnius. Cohen’s mother, Masha Klonicky, was the daughter of the famous Vilnius rabbi Solomon Klonicky, and his paternal grandfather, Lyon Cohen, the founder of the Canadian Jewish Congress, was born in Budviečiai in Vilkaviškis District, Lithuania. The singer didn’t ever manage to visit Lithuania. A few years ago, Leonard Cohen was invited to perform in Lithuania. Initially, the response was positive, but later he was unfortunately too weak to travel far. Soon after, in 2016, the singer died. Leonard Cohen’s life was full of everything: bohemian exuberance and the search for spirituality. In his youth, Cohen was known as a writer. In 1966, his novel ‘Beautiful Losers’ was translated into Lithuanian. Later, Cohen became famous for his music – he wrote and performed many songs. His best-known work is the ballad ‘Hallelujah’. In 2010, Leonard Cohen received a ‘Grammy’  Lifetime Achievement Award.

When we look at the building of the President of the Republic of Lithuania today and when we recall the former leaders of the country, we inevitably remember the Lithuanian diaspora in America. Its representative, Stasys Lozoraitis, ran for President of the Republic of Lithuania in 1993. Another Lithuanian-American, Valdas Adamkus, was elected President in 1998. Stasys Lozoraitis worked at the Lithuanian Mission in Washington from 1983, and from 1991, he was the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Lithuania to the USA. After losing the election, he continued to serve as Ambassador. Valdas Adamkus lived, studied, and worked in the USA from 1949, and has always been active in the social and political life of the Lithuanian diaspora.  

During the years of the occupation, Lithuanian-Americans have always made a significant contribution to Lithuania’s independence and to fostering Lithuanian identity through various kinds of support:  financial, political, diplomatic, and cultural. Donations were collected, items and goods were sent, demonstrations and rallies were organised, speeches were distributed in the press, on radio and television, and meetings with US politicians were organised. The community donated works of art to Lithuania, set up societies and organisations, and organised national evenings.

It is widely known that American film studios have filmed a number of films in Lithuania. These include the famous mini-series ‘Chernobyl’, ‘The New Adventures of Robin Hood’ amongst other films. In 2018, HBO produced the mini-series ‘Catherine the Great’ in Vilnius. Part of the series was also filmed here, in the Smuglevičius Hall, which belongs to the Vilnius University Library. The main role in the series was played by the legendary English actress Helen Mirren. During the meeting, the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė presented the actress with honey from her own bees.

You may be surprised to learn that the famous American actor Charles Bronson has Lithuanian Tatar blood. Bronson was born in America to immigrants from Lithuania. His real name is Karolis Bučinskis. The Tatars were invited to Lithuania 600 years ago by Grand Duke Vytautas who settled the Tatars in Trakai, Vilnius, and the settlements around these two cities to protect them. The Tatars were good soldiers, so they also served in the ranks of Vytautas’ personal guard. They were renowned for their bravery and loyalty, and it was said that they were impossible to bribe. Vytautas is still held in high esteem by the Lithuanian Tatars, as well as the Karaites. The Tatars were known as good gardeners, growing cucumbers and other vegetables brought to Lithuania from their own countries on the lands they received from the Duke. In Vilnius, the Tatars settled in the area behind what is now Lukiškių Square, next to the Neris River. As early as the 19th century, there were many of their houses, a cemetery with standing stones, a tiny wooden mosque with a surrounding carved gallery and a pointed minaret with a crescent moon – the emblem of the Muslims –glistening on the top of it. Nearby was the house of the Mullah, a Muslim priest. About 3,000 Tatars now live in Lithuania. One of the oldest Tatar settlements in Lithuania, the village of Forty Tatars, is located near Vilnius. The Tatars who fought alongside Vytautas in the Battle of Žalgiris are still defending Lithuania today. Loreta Asanavičiūtė, the daughter of a Lithuanian Tatar, sacrificed her life for the freedom of Lithuania on 13 January 1991.

Daniel Libeskind, an American architect of Polish-Jewish descent and a world-famous architect, left his mark in Vilnius. In 2018, the American-designed MO Museum opened its doors on Pylimo Street. Daniel Libeskind’s works include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, the Jewish Museum in San Francisco, the Military History Museum in Dresden, and he also contributed to the development of the Denver Museum. 

The architect has said that the museum in Vilnius is one of his favourite projects. For the opportunity to design the museum, Daniel Libeskind is grateful to the initiators of the project, Danguolė and Viktoras Butkus. The architect has said that the MO Museum is the smallest building he has ever designed. The Museum of Contemporary Art was created following the vision of the scientists Danguolė and Viktoras Butkus. These art patrons sold their biotechnology company and used part of the money to acquire works by Lithuanian artists from 1960 to the present day; they also financed the construction of the museum building. The art collection has been curated with the oversight of art experts since 2008.

The American musician Frank Zappa had no connection with Lithuania, so many people wonder who erected his statue in Vilnius and why. In 1991, the photographer Saulius Paukštys visited Los Angeles, where Zappa was living and working at the time. When he returned to Vilnius, Saulius and his friend, the art historian Ernestas Parulskis, created and spread the story of how Saulius met the famous musician Zappa in America. They even printed the story in the literature and art magazine ‘Literatūra ir Menas’, where they described how Paukštys allegedly just dropped by Zappa’s place to discuss music. Zappa allegedly suggested writing a new Lithuanian national anthem, which Lithuanians could sing during national baseball games. After the rumour spread, the artists continued with the project and put up posters in the city with Zappa’s greetings to Lithuania. A few years later, when Saulius was on a holiday in Juodkrantė and saw a modest bust of Liudvikas Reza on a column, the idea of erecting a similar monument to Zappa was born. The artist became obsessed with this idea and, together with the art critic Saulius Pilinkis, he set out to make it a reality. The friends bought the steel pipe for the column from the Achema factory, and the famous sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas agreed to create the bust. The city municipality allocated a place for the monument – a patch of grass next to the M. K. Čiurlionis School on Kosciuškos g. Initially, everything went according to plan with the cementing of the column and the preparation of the bust. The cost of the casting was 1,500 LTL, which the artists did not have at the time. Hubertas Grušnys, the founder of M-1, the first private entertainment radio station in Lithuania, agreed to support the project. Then other complications arose. An art teacher at the Čiurlionis School – arguing that it would be difficult for him to explain to the children why there was a monument to, in his words, a ‘drug addict’ in front of the school – started digging a hole next to the pillar and forcing the artwork into it. In fairness, Zappa didn’t take drugs; he said that his only habits were coffee and cigarettes. The artists did not get into a confrontation and agreed to erect the monument in a different place, and so it was unveiled in 1995 in its current place in the square by Kalinausko g. The Lithuanians later made and sent a copy of the sculpture to Baltimore, Zappa’s hometown in the USA.

The Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights is housed in a late 19th-century building. During the Soviet era, it was the headquarters of the KGB. At that time, the basement of the building housed a prison where partisans were tortured and killed; political prisoners were also incarcerated here. In the 1950s, during the armed resistance in occupied Lithuania, it was possible to hear radio broadcasts from the west. In Lithuania, it was possible to catch the BBC, Radio Free Europe, Vatican Radio, Radio Liberty, and the Voice of America. The Lithuanian partisans also listened to radio stations broadcast from the free world, hoping in vain that they would receive help from the west.  In 1951, the Voice of America began broadcasting in Lithuanian. The American radio station was an important source of information for the people behind the Iron Curtain. 

The Lithuanian exiles are described in the novel ‘Between Shades of Grey’ by Rūta Šepetys, a Lithuanian writer born in the USA. The novel tells the story of the Lithuanian deportations to Siberia. The work is important because it made the tragedy of the Lithuanian nation known to those who had never heard of it. ‘Between Shades of Grey’ has been translated into 27 languages around the world and has been on the ‘New York Times’ bestseller list.

For a taste of the American pop culture spirit, take a stroll along Gedimino pr. Here you will find several fast-food restaurants, mostly serving burgers. These include KFC and McDonald’s. The McDonald’s concept is linked specifically to the gastronomic traditions of the USA. The first McDonald’s restaurants in Vilnius were opened in 1996. The restaurant on Gedimino pr. was the most popular. At that time, it was not cheap for Lithuanians to buy a burger’; nevertheless, the queues at the newly opened McDonald’s were long.