Gabija Lunevičiūtė ‘VILNIAUS ATMINTIES PUNKTYRAI. Dvylika pasivaikščiojimų po XX amžiaus Vilnių – miestą, kokio jau nebėra’ (VILNIUS’ MEMORY POINTS. Twelve walks through 20th-century Vilnius – a city that no longer exists) (2020, Balto)
The book invites you to walk in the footsteps of the old inhabitants of Vilnius – each story is complemented by a wealth of information about the buildings, places and events mentioned, illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs, as well as by maps from the period.
„VILNIAUS ATMINTIES PUNKTYRAI. Dvylika pasivaikščiojimų po XX amžiaus Vilnių – miestą, kokio jau nebėra“
Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Gediminas Kulikauskas, Lina Kulikauskienė, Marius Skerniškis ‘Halė: Vilniaus turgaus istorija’ (‘Halės. The History of Halės Market in Vilnius’) (2016, Aukso žuvys)
Pylimo g. 58 / Bazilijonų g. 1 is the intersection of two streets in Vilnius, where markets have been held since the 15th century: for horses, cereals, food, household and other goods. It is a strategic location that to this day attracts Vilnius residents, visitors, travellers and oddballs. Today, the market building, with its impressive architecture, designed by Wacław Michniewicz, a Vilnius architect and engineer, and built with the help of entrepreneur Petras Vileišis, is now in its 110th year. The book ‘Halės. The History of Halės Market in Vilnius’ describes the history of the oldest marketplace in Vilnius that is still in operation, supplemented by interesting facts about the surroundings of the marketplace, the everyday life of Vilnius residents and their shopping habits over the years. Photographs, drawings and sketches from different eras illustrate the colourful and sometimes difficult everyday life of the market.
Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Gediminas Kulikauskas, Lina Kulikauskienė, Marius Skerniškis
„Halė. Vilniaus turgaus istorija“
Vidas Poškus ‘Nedingęs Vilnius: miesto akupunktūros’ (‘Vilnius that hasn’t been lost: the acupuncture of the city’) (2016, Tyto alba)
The author wanders around this city-body, telling stories: stories of art, architecture, his own. Vidas Poškus’ ‘Vilnius Undiscovered’ is a very personal, very subjective and very unexpected book that will surprise both those who think they know Vilnius like the back of their hand, and those who are just about to discover it.
„Nedingęs Vilnius: miesto akupunktūros“
Darius Pocevičius ‘100 istorinių Vilniaus reliktų’ (‘100 Historical Relics of Vilnius’) (2016, Kitos knygos)
Darius Pocevičius’ books about Vilnius have already become a phenomenon, they have created a subculture of city enthusiasts – they walk around the city not looking straight ahead, but looking up, at balconies or signs with construction dates, or looking down – at manhole covers or other historical relics that they have read about in the books of the city explorer.
Darius Pocevičius
‘Istoriniai Vilniaus reliktai 1944–1990, I dalis’ (‘Historical Relics of Vilnius 1944-1990, Part I’) (2018, Kitos knygos)
‘Istoriniai Vilniaus reliktai 1944–1990, II dalis’ (‘Historical Relics of Vilnius 1944-1990, Part II’) (forthcoming)
The success of ‘100 Historical Relics of Vilnius’ has inspired the city’s researcher Darius Pocevičius to explore the later period of 1944-1990, which is important not only for Vilnius, but also for the whole of Lithuania. The capital, which had emptied out during the war, grew fivefold and became home to almost 600,000 people. By turning the surrounding villages into residential districts, Vilnius grew about 30 times. For the first time in its century-long history, Lithuanians became the majority in the multilingual megalopolis.
Darius Pocevičius
„Istoriniai Vilniaus reliktai 1944–1990, I dalis“ (2018, Kitos knygos)
Tomas Venclova ‘Vilnius: asmeninė istorija’ (‘Vilnius: A Personal History’) (2011, R. Paknio leidykla)
A cultural history of Vilnius, covering the entire chronology of Vilnius – from its foundation to the tragic January 1991. The introductory chapter ‘Land and Peoples’ is mainly devoted to the eternal question of Vilnius’ ‘nationhood’, while the following chapters – ‘Paganism and Christianity’, ‘Renaissance and Baroque’, ‘The University and the Ghetto’, ‘The Sarmatians, the Classicists and the Romanticists’, etc. – deal with the fateful events, the causes and the impact of these events, and the personalities who made up the city’s history.
Juzefas Ignacas Kraševskis ‘Vilnius per amžius’, prepared by Kazys Uscila (Józef Ignacy Kraszewski ‘Vilnius through the Ages’) (2017, Briedis)
A richly illustrated album with detailed commentaries and old plans of Vilnius, taking the reader back to the romantic past of the Lithuanian capital. The book consists of reminiscences, diaries and fragments of novels by J.I. Kraszewiski, a famous Polish writer who lived and worked in Vilnius. The book depicts Lithuania, Vilnius, and the inhabitants of Vilnius from the end of the sixteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century and is based on documents and historical material.
Gražina Mareckaitė ‘Šiapus ir anapus Vilniaus vartų. Veidai ir vaizdai’ (‘On this Side of the Gates of Vilnius and Beyond: Faces and Images’) (2013, R. Paknio leidykla)
The book ‘On this Side of the Gates of Vilnius and Beyond: Faces and Images’ contains stories about life in pre-war and post-war Vilnius by Gražina Mareckaitė, a theatre critic and historian, playwright, and an active defender of Vilnius’ historical heritage, a representative of the third generation of Vilnius residents. These are stories heard from her parents or experienced by the author herself, from the lives of her family, neighbours, peers – known and unknown people – in the romantic suburbs of Vilnius and the picturesque surroundings of Rasos and Pavilnys. The book ‘On this Side of the Gates of Vilnius and Beyond: Faces and Images’ is illustrated with photographs from the author’s family album, as well as images taken by photographers in Vilnius, which depict and capture the familiar city and its people from s special angle.
Antanas Rimvydas Čaplinskas ‘Vilniaus istorija: Legendos ir tikrovė’ (‘History of Vilnius: Legends and Reality’) (2015, Charibdė)
Antanas Rimvydas Čaplinskas has devoted almost all of his working life – 40 years – to researching the history of Vilnius, and from 1939 to 2011, he collected a great deal of material from the archives and people’s memoirs; most of this material has been compiled into the book ‘The History of Vilnius: Legends and Reality’. Čaplinskas’ book covers the development of Vilnius from the first mention of the city to the present day. It deals with different topics that have left their mark on the city’s history, such as the wars that devastated Vilnius, the city’s self-government, handicrafts, trade, industry, the city’s development, population, transport, water supply and fires. Nonetheless, the most important for the author are the inhabitants of Vilnius, of whom the book mentions a great many. One could say that the history of the city of Vilnius is revealed in the book by telling the story of the inhabitants of Vilnius and the history of the institutions, buildings and objects around them. The wealth of information gathered, its simple presentation and interesting writing style will attract many readers to become interested in the history of Vilnius.
Antanas Rimvydas Čaplinskas. „Vilniaus istorija. Legendos ir tikrovė“
Compiled by Vida Girininkienė ‘Vilniaus Bernardinų kapinės 1810-2010’ (‘Vilnius Bernardine Cemetery 1810-2010’) (2010, Versus Aureus)
The publication provides a detailed analysis of the history of the Bernardine Cemetery, discussing the burial of the townspeople and burial traditions. It also describes the valuable and rare decoration of sacral buildings and tomb inscriptions in Lithuania from the 1820s. The authors draw on various sources to provide, for the first time, a detailed list of the people buried in the Bernardine Cemetery and to assess the experience of the restoration of the cemetery. The publication is supplemented by a list of restored monuments and biographies of famous people from the region of Vilnius.
Liuda Matonienė ‘Vilnius: meilės stotelės. Romantiškasis miesto žemėlapis’ (‘Vilnius: love stops. A Romantic Map of the City’) (2017, Tyto alba)
More than 20 romantic stories – 20 ‘love stops’ on the old map of Vilnius. The author takes the reader from house to house and tells the most beautiful love stories that started and developed in Vilnius, but became famous far beyond the city and even the country. The fascinating and intriguing stories about the love of famous and not-so-famous people who lived here for their chosen ones reveal the historical details of the city’s development, and at times, allow us to look at the personalities described in a different way.
Liuda Matonienė „Vilnius: meilės stotelės. Romantiškasis miesto žemėlapis“
Laimonas Briedis ‘Vilnius – savas ir svetimas’ (‘Vilnius: City of Strangers’) (2015, Baltos lankos)
Every reader is familiar with the Lithuanian narrative of Vilnius, but the book ‘Vilnius: City of Strangers’ takes the city’s history in a completely different, unprecedented direction. This book is a biography of the city, not based on Lithuanian history, but as if written on a multi-coloured map of Europe. The story of Vilnius unfolds as if it were a journey of geographical discovery, and Vilnius appears before us like a foreign city in an unknown land. The aim of such a narrative has a pilgrimage – a personal one – and this aspiration is why the book is first and foremost a return to Vilnius: a search for what has been lost, forgotten, or overlooked there.
„Vilnius – savas ir svetimas“
Adam Honory Kirkor ‘Przechadzki po Wilnie i jego okolicach’ in Polish, translated into Lithuanian ‘Pasivaikščiojimai po Vilnių ir jo apylinkes’ (‘Walks around Vilnius and its Surroundings’) (2012, Mintis)
Written in Polish in 1856, this book by the famous 19th-century printer, publisher, publicist, archaeologist, ethnographer, and historian Adam Honory Kirkor was the first and perhaps the most sincere and emotional guide to the city of Vilnius and its history.
It is both the testimony of a contemporary and the study of a historian. It contains a wealth of material about the people of Vilnius who have left traces of their presence and activities here. A. H. Kirkor’s guide brings Vilnius alive, like a person who is born, grows and matures. The author’s thoughts on the harmony between the city and the landscape are still very relevant today.
Tomas Sakalauskas ‘Missa Vilnensis. Susitikimai su Vilniaus kūrėjais’ (‘Missa Vilnensis. Meetings with Vilnius Creators’) (2006, Baltos lankos)
Tomas Sakalauskas invites the reader to travel together through old Vilnius, to explore and engage with its cultural heritage and creators – ‘Creation is a never-ending mass,’ the author recalls the words of Jonas Mekas. ‘Missa Vilnensis’ is a dialogue between different creators; it documents the encounters occurring at cultural crossroads and is offered as a sacred sacrifice to Vilnius by one of its creators.
Sonata Šulcė ‘Vilniaus istorijos’ (‘Vilnius Stories’) (2019, Tyto alba)
The story of Vilnius is not complete, it can never be told in full, because there is no single narrative. There are many different narratives and many different ways of conveying them. This book is a collection of unheard and unrecorded stories of the city in the 18th century, uncovering a layer of the city’s past that you won’t find in any travel guide. The fifteen stories combine three elements –a person, a building and a specific historical date – around which the narrative is structured. All the stories are chronologically arranged through the 18th century, making it a story not just about Vilnius, but also about an era. An era that had everything: scientific achievements, significant state reforms, beautiful buildings, great personalities, and at the same time, idleness, cruelty, wars, and unreasonable ambitions.
‘Vilnius Stories’ is an unusual guide to the city. It is a kind of spirit guide through space and time, through real places, through a century long gone.
Sonata Šulcė „Vilniaus istorijos“
Tomas Venclova ‘Vilniaus vardai’ (‘Names of Vilnius’) (2017, R. Paknio leidykla)
‘Names of Vilnius’ is an encyclopaedia written by Tomas Venclova, poet, intellectual, professor of literature at Yale University, and active participant in Lithuanian public life. It tells the stories of the people who have lived, worked, visited and left their mark on the history of Vilnius, from its foundation to the present day.
Tomas Venclova „Vilniaus vardai“
Grigorijus Šuras ‘Užrašai: Vilniaus geto kronika, 1941-1944’ (‘Notes: Chronicles of the Vilnius Ghetto, 1941-1944’) (2021, Inter Se)
‘Notes: Chronicles of the Vilnius Ghetto, 1941-1944’ is not only a distinctive chronicle of the catastrophe of the Jews of Vilnius, but also perhaps the most objective one, aiming to present the whole, with as little as possible about oneself, as if through the eyes of all those who found themselves in the ghetto. It is like the prologue to a compendium of history – a primer on the history of the Vilnius Ghetto.
Tomas Vaiseta ‘Vasarnamis’ (‘Summerhouse’) (2018, Lapas)
The historian and writer Tomas Vaiseta talks about psychiatry in the Soviet era (1944-1990), exploring the history of the Vilnius Psychiatric Hospital. Vaiseta explains how the hospital turned into a medical institution, what therapeutic methods were used and how they changed, and he provides an opportunity to see hospital life through the eyes of the patients. For the first time, the book draws on unique sources, including complaints from treated patients and their relatives, interviews with former patients, psychiatrists and psychologists, and the examination of hundreds of hospital documents.
