Literary Vilnius

Ričardas Gavelis is one of the most prominent and provocative Lithuanian prose writers of the second half of the 20th century, known as the chronicler of Vilnius. The city and its neighbourhoods feature prominently in many of his texts. 

Novel: ‘Vilnius Poker’ (1989)

The main character Vytautas Vargalys is a middle-aged head of the library department, who had fought against the Soviet system in the past as a partisan, was tortured by the KGB, and lived in a prison camp. Vargalys feels hostage to the Soviet environment (alcohol, impending degradation), so his goal is to use the information stored in the library to expose and prove to everyone the existence of the totalitarian system (referred to as ‘They’ in the novel) that persecutes and destroys people. Vargalys walks through the streets of Vilnius, observes the city’s spaces, and admires and is disgusted by the city’s magnificent legends. The most likely prototype of Vargalys’ workplace is the former ‘Palace of Books’. From 1946 until 2015, the Church of St. George was the ‘Book Palace’ – home of a repository of old prints and a bibliographic centre with an impressive collection of books. Some of the books were hidden from the authorities in the recesses of the church. 

The blackish pavement tiles of the avenue reflect the women bent over from the weight of their shopping, the emptiness of the junk-laden shop windows, and the mouldings on the roof ledges. Vilnius convulses like a dying beast. It’s approaching three o’clock, the prime time of the day, so nobody is working: faceless human figures – I don’t want to call those skin-clad skulls faces – keep drifting by. […] They are all lost. All I have to do is to communicate with Vilnius itself – it understands me, and I sympathise with it.

Justinas Marcinkevičius was a prominent poet, playwright and translator of the second half of the 20th century and an honorary citizen of Vilnius. The central themes of his poems, especially of the dramatic trilogy ‘Mindaugas’, ‘Katedra’, and ‘Mažvydas’, are the Lithuanian nation, language, and state.

Drama: ‘Katedra’ (‘Cathedral’) (1971)

The poetic drama ‘Katedra’ is dedicated to the 650th anniversary of Vilnius. Set in 1782-1794, the architect Laurynas (Gucevičius) tries to rebuild the main church of Vilnius but faces moral dilemmas and doubts. The cathedral crypts and Cathedral Square are the setting for much of the drama, and the Cathedral itself symbolises the entire homeland.

LAURYNAS:

The comet shone… and oh, God!

I saw the Cathedral… I beheld it,

I can’t forget it to this day,

It’s stayed in my mind’s eye ever since

So sublime yet simple.

Ah, the vision! Vivid and brief,

It lives in me; it’s growing,

Overpowering my body and my soul

Like a great passion. I cannot

Disobey it. Bishop Masalski!

Let’s build a cathedral. Commission me to

Create the design. I will not sleep,

I will not eat… I will sit day and night…

And I will tear it out of me,

I’ll put all my heart into the square

Under the all-seeing eye of heaven – 

Let both man and God live.

Judita Vaičiūnaitė is the most important Vilnius poet of the second half of the 20th century: the city’s spaces, natural environment, and legends permeate all her collections. In her words, “Vilnius is full of historical reminiscences. […] The city I live in is like a living organism; I feel its daily life and being. I perceive Vilnius as a work of art, as a masterpiece”. Vaičiūnaitė’s poetry is full of important places in the city, and historical characters, nobles, and rulers – especially Barbara Radziwiłł (Barbora Radvilaitė) – are relevant to her.

‘VIII’ from the cycle ‘For the Only City’ (‘Spring Watercolours’, 1960)

Before she died, Barbara Radziwiłł

asked to be buried in Vilnius.

From the Chronicles

…And they pecked at her like a white crow* 

At the royal feast – black crows

The pearls of the crown were dripping with tears…

You mourn the splendour of the towers of Vilnius…

They stayed with you, Barbara Radziwiłł,

And sunny rooftops, and the crumbling side streets…

Here the squares have kept the echoes of your footsteps,

And you have merged into the very heart of the city.

So many royal names like chalk

Erased over time… But you have not been forgotten.

Like a dream – your Madonna face 

Sustained by the weathered brick of Vilnius.

You were the heartbeat of medieval silence.

You were the will-o’-the-wisp aglow amid the medieval darkness 

The lettering of ancient chronicles begins to shine,

When we unfold the page of your love.

*a Lithuanian idiom similar to ‘black sheep’

Interpreted by Hannah Shipman-Gricienė

Jurga Ivanauskaitė was one of the most popular Lithuanian writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Vilnius is the most frequent setting of her texts.

Novel: ‘Gardens of Hell’ (1992)

‘The Gardens of Hell is a novel with an experimental structure, depicting the lives of informal youth at the end of the Soviet era. The world of rock musicians (the band ‘Langas’) and their surroundings are shown from the perspectives of the characters Agnė, Roberta, Saulius Strazdas and Domantas. One of the meeting places for informal youth is the former ‘Vaiva’ café.

We both went into town. You put on your idiotic parade costume: black Galliffet trousers, knee-high boots with silver eyelets all the way up the leg, a leather jacket with 400 metal safety pins that somehow resembled a samurai’s armour, chained yourself up, hair-sprayed your stupid spiked Mohican, put a ring in your nose, looked in the mirror and said to me, with the bliss of an exhibitionist, ‘Bet I’m going to get nicked.’ The city vibrated and shuddered like window panes in an earthquake. Cathedral Square was utterly deserted, although the surrounding streets were more crowded than ever. We hung around for half an hour, wandered back and forth along Pilies Street so that everybody could look at you, and popped into the gateway in front of the ‘Vaiva’ café for a smoke. It was already packed, almost like a trolleybus at rush hour, and everyone was smoking. […] We rolled into ‘Vaiva’ and stood there and drank fifty grams of ‘Bočių’ liquor to take the edge off and relieve the tension. 

Vilnius University has been a mecca for writers in the city for centuries. A famous European professor of Vilnius University, Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, wrote poems in Latin here in the 17th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the stalwarts of Polish Romanticism –Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki – studied at Vilnius University, while in the 20th century, the well-trodden corridors of the University were graced by Czesław Miłosz, the pillars of Lithuanian literature – Balys Sruoga, Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, representatives of contemporary poetry – Tomas Venclova, Sigitas Geda, and others. The famous student literary societies founded in the time of A. Mickiewicz are still remembered today: the Philomaths, the Filarets, and the Society of Scoundrels (Towarzystwo Szubrawców). The University Library houses one of the two surviving originals of the first Lithuanian book, Martynas Mažvydas’ ‘Catechism’.

Literatų Street used brim full of real literary life with bustling bookshops and printing houses – the poet Adam Mickiewicz also briefly lived on this street. In 2009, a group of artists launched a project to revive the street with small-scale art inclusions commemorating the activities and personalities of writers, poets, translators, and promoters of the Lithuanian language and literature. The street wall – lined with miniature paintings, ceramics, and metalworks – is constantly being filled with new pieces. 

Kristina Sabaliauskaitė is an art historian and writer famous for her Silva Rerum series of novels (‘silva rerum’ – the forest of things). These are texts that recreate Baroque Vilnius in a vibrant and colourful way.

Novel: ‘Silva Rerum I’ (2008)

The first part of the historical novel tells the story of the Norvaiša family in the 17th century, focusing on the lives of the twins Kazimieras and Uršulė. Kazimieras is a student at Vilnius University, while Uršulė decides to live in a Claretian convent next to St. Michael the Archangel’s Church, but while there, she falls in love with her brother’s friend Jonas Kirdėjus Birontas, whom she marries towards the end of the novel. The Norvaiša family stay at Pilies g. 16, Delamars’ House. Much of the action in the first part of the novel takes place in the monastery and church.

[…] The convent, although still under reconstruction, seemed to be in good order – not impoverished; the refectory was clean, the library large and varied, and the garden and orchard well kept. […So, after a few breaks, a few more days of back and forth along the street of St. Michael the Archangel between the Delamars’ house and the convent of the Clares, all the necessary papers and pledges of intent had been signed, the transcripts of which had been put in the ‘silva’ – the family scrapbook handed down from generation to generation. Ursula’s essentials had already been packed, and she was in the house for the last time in her life – provided that all went well and she passed both probation and novitiate. She was wearing the clothes of a laywoman, the same blue dress, still without the trimmings, but now with the collar of Dutch lace sewn back on. She went out into the street as the noon bells rang: walking the three hundred steps to the gates of the convent, gates which, if all goes well for her, will close and shut her off forever from the world until the very end of her earthly life and will become a temporary porch to the eternal heavenly life. 

Jurgis Kunčinas – poet, prose writer, and translator of the second half of the 20th century. His texts often depict bohemian Vilnius. 

Novel: ‘Tūla’ (1993)

The nameless narrator wanders the streets, boozes in cafés, and constantly keeps ending up in a mental hospital (which he calls the ‘Drunkards’ Hospital’). He is obsessed with his love for Tūla, a young girl who has graduated from the Art Institute. This one-week adventure in the past is recalled and replayed. ‘Tūla’ is a poetic love story, but it is also a novel that reflects on the constraints and alienation of the Soviet era. The protagonist of the novel, Tūla, lives at Malūnų g. 3.

At that time, Tūla lived between two small bridges – a covered, modern one leading to the door of the former Tūla’s Institute, and a functional, concrete one, at the old Bernardine Monastery. Tūla used the latter to get to both her rented accommodation and the city, as she no longer had any business at the Institute. And I was drawn to the dark womb of Užupis only by the concrete one – for a long time, I didn’t suspect that she, Tūla, was nestled in the only building with an apse between the two sturdy, relatively brand-new bridges – this was her haunt in the mornings and evenings, bringing guests – shaved-headed and side-whiskered painters or pals resembling peeling frescoes who were also fans of art… […] Something always twinges in me – stirring even today – whenever I see again the bridges, the long Bernardine Monastery, the narrow gap in the enfilade of small yards – the tiny gateway, beyond which the intestines and cloacae of the real Užupis emerge – how many times have I been wandering around here with my clomping feet, not with Tūla, without Tūla, still without having known Tūla, and then afterwards… how many times have I swayed and staggered unsteadily tackling the dawn.

Leonardas Gutauskas is a painter, poet, prose writer, and children’s book author. The most important place in the author’s work is the district of Vilnius – Užupis and its bohemian life.

Novel: ‘A Wolf Tooth Necklace’, Part I (1990)

This autobiographical three-part novel tells the story of Šimo Tadas’ childhood and youth, a large part of which was spent in Užupis. The life of Užupis is depicted vividly, with all the realities of that time. Algimantas Puipa made a film based on the novel, ‘A Wolf Tooth Necklace’ (1997). The address of the house where the main character of the novel lives is Užupio g. 2. Although it is not specified in the novel, we can reconstruct the location from descriptions and information provided by the author. The building is currently occupied by the Užupis Art Incubator.

Black night, the Vilnelė River gurgles outside the windows, a family sitting in a dark room at dusk, someone scolding behind the wall, suddenly a deafening siren, a terrible howl, and people rushing down the stairs of the house, a flock of people huddled in a heap, dashing through the snow on the ice of the river, everyone falls down, the explosions going on all around them (Tadas already knows today: it was towards the end of the war, when Vilnius was bombed by the attacking Red Army, the house from which people were fleeing is still standing to this day, it is the same yellow two-storey house on Užupis Street, where after the war, I think it was in 1952, the family moved in (returned) from Kaunas, only a few years before, a teddy bear, finally torn to pieces, remembers those nights – a bomb fragment broke through the wall and hit the toy that had been sitting on the wardrobe, and for all those 35 years the fine pre-war sawdust has been crumbling through the ‘wound’ on the side, crumbling like sand.

Czesław Miłosz is a Polish poet, essayist, and literary researcher, who was the 1980 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature; he was born in Lithuania and spent his youth here. One of the most famous Vilnius poets of all time, together with Tomas Venclova, he is called the ‘citizen of Vilnius’. The Miłosz staircase in Vilnius, with fragments of his poems engraved on it, was created in his memory. 

‘Never you, the city’ from the collection ‘The Enchanted Gucio’ (1965)

I could never leave you, the city, 

The miles were long, but they pushed me back like a chess piece. 

I ran on the earth, which spun faster and faster, 

But I always got there: with my books in a small linen bag, 

With my eyes fixed on the bronze hills behind St. Jacob’s Towers

Where a poor horse moves and a down-to-earth man follows the plough, 

Dead – both the horse and the man.

Yes, it’s true; no one grasped the community or the town, 

The Lux and Helios cinemas, the signboards of Halpern and Segal, 

The walks along St. George’s Avenue, named Mickiewicza. 

No, nobody got it. No one was meant to understand. 

But when life feeds on hope alone, 

That the day will dawn sharp and transparent, 

Then often, a painful pity remains. 

Berkeley, 1963

The translation by Rolandas Rastauskas from Polish into Lithuanian has been interpreted by Vitas Gricius.

Adam Mickiewicz – the most famous representative of Polish Romanticism, who lived in Vilnius from 1815 to 1819. While studying at Vilnius University, he and his fellow students founded the Philomath Society, for whose activities they were prosecuted: in 1823, Mickiewicz was imprisoned for six months in a cell at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and later exiled to Russia.

Dramatic poem: ‘Forefathers’ Eve’ (‘Dziady’ in Polish), Part III (1832)

The third part of the work recreates the events of 1823-1824: the monastery’s ‘bard’ Konrad (in other parts, his name is Gustaw) urges people not to surrender to the Tsarist oppression, to rebel. The main purpose of this part of ‘Forefatheres’ Eve’ is to honour the memory of the ‘martyrs of the nation’, Mickiewicz’s fellow students. Part of the action takes place in Konrad’s cell.

KONRAD:

I see you too, and Rolison – my brother!

And you’re in prison? Looking into the sad distance – 

God has abandoned you – you have lost hope 

And try to smash your head into the stones:

‘Help!’ – I don’t want heaven; I don’t know how,

I have strong eyes – I can kill with a look –

No, just to show – to take under the window,

More than one has jumped on the stones through it

And it ended like this.’ (Scene 3)

Translated from Polish by Justinas Marcinkevičius and interpreted from the Lithuanian by Vitas Gricius

Marius Burokas – poet, translator, editor-in-chief of Vilnius Review. ‘I am interested in the border where the city ends, how the environment swallows it up,’ says Burokas. The cover of his latest book of poetry ‘Clean Presence’ (2018) is a map of Vilnius:

‘Vilnius. July’

a spacious Sunday before the rain. only the lime trees are quietly shedding their blossoms,

and an ice-cream vendor’s cart glows red in the park’s haze.

and the first cats quietly step out of the staircases of the old town.

a child who has woken up early yawns on the sand. Peace

will retreat soon. Bells will ring, spoons will clink in cafes and

a curious stranger will enter through the Gates of Dawn.

Taras Shevchenko is recognised as the national poet of Ukraine. In his youth, he served Pavlo Engelgardt, a landowner with whom he lived in Vilnius from 1829 to 1831. Shevchenko later wrote to his friend: ‘Vilnius is as dear to my heart in memories as it is to yours… ‘It is believed that the city was also important to the poet because of his first love. The poem ‘In the famous Vilnius, the…’ (1848) was probably prompted by the closure of Vilnius University in 1832.

***

In the renowned city of Vilnius. 

Not too long ago, terrible things occurred. 

Back then, still open was… 

That word

Cannot fit in a line, perhaps…

To raise the health of the land, 

A hospital was opened there. 

And the bachelors and students. 

They’re chased away: at the Gates of Dawn. 

Supposedly, they don’t take off their hats. 

A fool is recognised from half a word. 

But cannot identify that student as a fool.

He was the son of a Lithuanian woman, 

A noble countess. 

He was serious and intelligent. 

An only son hers.  

He did not study like a lounging lordling. 

Took off his cap before the Gates of Dawn. Disaster

Struck out of the blue.

[…]

Translated into from Ukrainian by Vytautas P. Bložė. The Lithuanian translation was interpreted by Vitas Gricius.

Yitzchok Meras is a Lithuanian writer of Jewish origin. Although he moved to Israel in 1972, Yitzchok Meras wrote his entire oeuvre in Lithuanian. ‘A Stalemate Lasts But a Moment’ is a Lithuanian novel that has been translated into more foreign languages than any other Lithuanian novel. The main theme is the tragic fate of Lithuanian Jews in the mid-20th century.

Novel: ‘A Stalemate Lasts But a Moment’ (1963)

The novel is set in the Vilna Ghetto. The three intertwining narrative lines of the teenager Isaac and his family sensitively reveal the everyday life of the ghetto, humanity, and heroism under tragic circumstances. The story develops alongside a chess game between Isaac and the ghetto commandant Shoger – the lives of the ghetto children and Isaac depend on the outcome of the game. 

‘In our ghetto, there are no flowers anywhere.

Flowers are banned.

You can’t bring them with you.

Prohibited.

Why are flowers banned?

I’ve been thinking for a long time, but I can’t understand. If I were the greatest scoundrel, I would still allow people to grow flowers. […] Even if I were the worst scoundrel and did not allow people to grow flowers, I would still not prevent people from bringing them from the fields and meadows when they come back from the labour camps. The escorted procession would stream wearily through the city, but nobody would see their drooping heads turned downwards. 

I forget everything. I wish so much that we could go out into the wide meadow, sit on the soft grass, and there would be nothing else around.

Forbidden.

The ghetto is fenced.

There is a gate.

There are guards at the gate.

Forbidden.

Avrom Suckever is one of the most important Jewish modernist poets, writing in Yiddish. He was born in the Vilnius region, lived with his parents in Siberia as a child, and later returned to Vilnius. After escaping from the ghetto, he fought against the Nazis with partisans.

‘Green Aquarium’ (1975)

The collection of poetic prose captures many places in Vilnius: Šnipiškės, the Green Bridge, Šeškinė Hill, Vingis Park, etc. The text ‘The First City Wedding’ tells the story of the chimney sweep Dondelė, reminiscent of the author’s biography: when the Nazis invaded the town in 1941, the poet hid for several weeks in a chimney and, having drilled a small hole, he created a small hiding place under the roof where he penned poems. There were other such shelters that were hiding places; on one occasion, Suckever lay in a coffin all night in the courtyard of the first Judenrat (the ghetto council located in the same building as the ghetto library).

‘Dondelė was only 16 when he was taken with his mother to Seven Streets Prison. He carried on his shoulder his small bucket shaped like a half-moon, with a rope, a brush and a lead plumb line, and his mother, Asna, carried under her arm a prayer book for women, soaked with tears and full of God’s sweetest, most pleasing prayers. […] When the hunt for the old people began, Dondelė hid his mother by bricking her into the chimney of an alley. When she was pulled out later, Asna was so shrunken and blackened that she looked like charcoal. Dondelė barely recognised her. A few days later, she had to go into hiding ahead – bricked up once more because children were being rounded up, and his mother had become so similar to a child. ‘

Translated from Yiddish into Lithuanian by Mindaugas Kvietkauskas and into English by Vitas Gricius

Anna Halberstadt is a psychologist and poet, born and raised in a Jewish family in Vilnius. She lives in the USA. Anna Halberstadt’s poetry is imbued with the nostalgia of old Vilnius. The collection of poems’ Vilnius Diary’ (published in English in 2014 and translated into Lithuanian by Marius Burokas in 2017) repeatedly mentions the childhood house of the lyrical subject – and the poet herself – located at the intersection of Pylimo Street and Vingrių Street.

An excerpt from ‘The Secret Garden’

[…]

A few minutes away 

on Strašhūno
now Žemaitiyos street
where my childless aunt Alta lived
her six year old Sara shot in the ghetto nothing seems to have changed
except for a few foreign cars
parked between decrepit wooden storages with rusting locks
pots with camomile and geraniums and a couple of lazily stretching cats.

[…]

Vilnius, my Vilne,
my innocent Catholic bride
in a white lace and taffeta
shimmering dress
with a blood stained slip
held by rusted pins
peering from underneath. 

With thanks to Anna Halberstadt for sharing her poems.

Romain Gary (real name Roman Kacew) is a famous French writer of Jewish origin, twice winner of the ‘Prix Goncourt’. During his childhood, he lived for five years (1917-1923) in Vilnius, in a house at J. Basanavičiaus g. 18.

Novel: ‘The Promise at Dawn’ (1960)

The autobiographical text describes the different stages of Romain’s life, from his childhood in Vilnius to his World War II experiences in the Air Force. Vilnius and the early impressions of the child are given a lot of attention in the novel. The sculpture ‘Boy with a Galosh’ refers to a striking episode when Romain, at the age of nine, wants to impress his first love Valentina, who is ‘of insatiable nature’ and eats his own rubber galosh.

I sat down in the grass and took off my galosh, feeling amorous at the height of my erotic frenzy.

“Do you want me to eat it for you?”

Did she want me to? Ha! “Of course, feel free – go ahead!” She was a real woman.

She put her hand on the ground and squatted down. I thought I saw a flash of respect in her eyes. I needed nothing more. I took out my pocket knife and started cutting the rubber. She watched me cut it.

“Will you eat it raw?”

“Yes”.

I swallowed one piece, then another. At last, her eyes lit up with admiration, and I felt like a real man. And I wasn’t wrong. Here I was, fresh out of manhood school. I chewed that gum even more vigorously, with short breaks between bites, and that lasted for a good hour until, finally, my forehead broke out in cold sweat. Even after that, I chewed, straining every sinew and nerve, fighting back the nausea, doing everything I could to hold on, as I had to do many times afterwards, in the exercise of my duty as a man. I became very ill; I was taken to hospital, my mother wailed, Aniela roared, and the seamstresses lamented as they lifted me onto the ambulance stretcher. I was very proud of myself. ‘

Tomas Venclova is an important Lithuanian poet, essayist, literary critic and translator of the second half of the 20th century. Although he lived in the USA for four decades, Vilnius is the central theme of his reflections, which are embedded in many of his works. ‘Vilnius as a Form of Spiritual Life’ presents the correspondence between Czesław Miłosz and Tomas Venclova that focuses on the history and culture of the city. The poet is an honorary doctor of Vilnius University, and since 2013 he has been an honorary citizen of Vilnius City. The Venclova House-Museum, established in the apartment of the author’s father, writer Antanas Venclova, houses the poet’s library.

‘Ode to the City’

Although I won’t be able

To lose you, yet I will,

I’ll put out every taper:

The tower and the bell,

The stony streets, the shore

Bespeckled with tar and even

My soul, though I’m not sure

It counts among the living.

Here, underneath my feet,

The shaky roadway crumbles.

The shooting range, unlit,

Conceals a dark-voiced rumble

Of waves, a vast expanse,

And, from the days of Noah,

Above the depths, the dance

Of Aquilon and Notus.

[…]

Will you disappear or wallow?

In my eyelids’ darker side?

Having closed my eyes, I follow.

The final splash of light.

Eternity will flood us,

But under my hand these stall:

The patience of your garden,

The weight of your stone walls.

No fortresses, no laurels  

Adorn the trampled wild,

The grass that poked the holes in

The tense magnetic field,

The void dripping, decaying,

Soaking the head in the chill,

And frenzied Boreas flaying

Beyond the nameless hill.

With thanks to the Venclova House-Museum for providing this poem by Tomas Venclova from the collection ‘Winter Dialogue’ translated into English by Diana Senechal.