Category: New Books

A book donation to the National Library of Lithuania

Donatas Januta stands beside the books he donated to the National Library of Lithuania. Photo: National Library of Lithuania/ Vygaudas Juozaitis

Several dozen books on Lithuanian and Judaica subjects were added to the National Library of Lithuania collections. All of them were donated by Donatas Januta, a Lithuanian-American lawyer, who visited the Library at the end of this summer.

This is not the first gift from Januta to Lithuanian readers. Almost thirty years ago, he donated to the Lithuanian libraries, including secondary schools, fifty sets of the Encyclopedia published in the USA and more than one hundred sets of the six-volume Encyclopedia Lituanica. Januta also supported the publication of the book “Draustosios spaudos pėdsakais” (Following the Traces of the Banned Press; 2011) by Silvija Vėlavičienė, the long-time head of the Lituanica Department of the National Library of Lithuania.

Although Januta’s gift is more modest this time, it is no less significant. Over half of the books donated to the Library this time are on Judaica, a topic of interest to the Lithuanian American himself. According to Dr. Larisa Lempertienė, the head of the National Library’s Center for Judaica Studies, all books are very much needed by the Center’s Reading Room and will find a place on its bookshelves.

Januta is well known in the field of movable cultural heritage as well. In 2018, he presented the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania with a special gift—a portrait of Prince John Casimir Vasa (1609-1672), the future King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, painted by the Dutch Baroque painter Pieter Danckerts and bought at Sotheby’s, followed a year later by a table clock made in Vilnius by the famous watchmaker Johannes (Hans) Klassen in 1638.

Forward, or Die

The book will be a revelation for readers as well as scholars of journalism and cultural history. Photo: Vygaudas Juozaitis / National Library of Lithuania

On October 19, Vytautas Gedgaudas‘s book, Pirmyn arba mirk (Forward, or Die), was presented at the National Library of Lithuania.

Jolanta Mažylė, Associate Professor of the Centre for Journalism and Media Studies at Vilnius University and the winner of the Gedgaudas Prize, is to blame that the articles written by a long-time editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian-American newspaper, Dirva, the only Lithuanian accredited to the Paris Peace Conference and the only Lithuanian journalist who wrote about the Nuremberg Trials for the Lithuanian American press, finally made into a book. The author of the book has managed to preserve an exceptional testimony of WWII, which will find its place among the memoirs of Lithuanian soldiers who served in foreign armies.

The book consists of three parts. The first and second parts contain Gedgaudas’s texts about the Foreign Legion in which he served during WWII. Mažylė believes that the third part of the book, which contains Gedgaudas’s articles published in Lithuanian American press after he immigrated to the United States of America, will be a revelation not only for readers but also for scholars of journalism and cultural history. The book is illustrated with photographs taken by Gedgaudas himself.

A Book About Lithuanian War Refugees in Britain

A new book “West Midlands Ho!” is a compelling work of local history, focused on a particular corner of England but set against a background of tumultuous international events. In the book, Lithuanian author Aldona Grupas reveals the personal tales of Lithuanian migrants who moved to Britain in the wake of WWII. Unable to return to their homeland due to the Soviet occupation, from 1947 onwards, several thousand refugees swapped the refugee camps of Allied-occupied Germany for basic accommodation in Britain, along with jobs in manufacturing and agriculture. In the following decades, they put down roots in Britain, all the while keeping their Lithuanian identity alive. In a series of interviews, Grupas teases out the personal experiences of five members of this migrant community in the West Midlands of England.

The book begins with an overview of Lithuanian history, taking in WWII and the post-war Soviet period. Drawing on existing literature, Grupas explains why so many Lithuanians were stuck in Germany in the post-war period and were subsequently offered new lives in Britain under resettlement programs like Balt Cygnet and Westward Ho!

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The Book “Breaking Through the Iron Curtain”

At the end of WWII, the Baltic States found themselves in the Soviet grip, isolated from the free world. The people who remained in the country lost the opportunity to travel freely. Soviet oppression and restrictions on freedom of movement prompted many Lithuanians to flee Lithuania. The book “Breaking Through the Iron Curtain” prepared by Dr. Darius Juodis examines the flight of the Lithuanian population from the Soviet Union.

The book presents several periods: the first escapes (1940-1941); the period after WWII; the partisan escapes; the flight of the Lithuanian population to the West from 1950s to 1990s and the subsequent escapes.

Two components stand out in the structure of the book: research and the analysis of situation and a biographical description of each flight. The latter part lists the persons who successfully fled abroad. Dr. Juodis’ book presents various stories of escapees, photos of persons who fled and border crossings and KGB documents from the Lithuanian Special Archives, other memory institutions and personal archives.

A New Batch of Documents from the Lithuanian Cultural Attaché in UK

The archive of Justė Kostikovaitė, the cultural attaché of the Republic of Lithuania in the United Kingdom, covering the period from 2016 to 2020, has arrived at the National Library of Lithuania. Kostikovaitė noted that during the four years of her term as a cultural attaché, the need for contemporary cultural content had arisen. The events focused on the virtual content distribution have become very important, particularly during the on-going pandemic.

While in the office, Kostikovaitė was able to introduce new communication tools now used by almost the entire network of Lithuanian cultural attachés. One of them is an e-newsletter, which helps to inform the audience about Lithuania. There is also a huge array of archival and communication material in social media, such as a Facebook “Lithuanian Art and Culture in the UK,” Twitter—“@LtCultureUK,” and Instagram—“lithuanian_art_in_the_uk,” created and administered by Kostikovaitė.

Kostikovaitė also noted that in recent years there has been a great need to form a digital archive of cultural and other special attachés, which currently contains a large number of material on dissemination and documentation of the events.

Lithuanian-American Poet and Zen Practitioner AL ZOLYNAS

By David A. Bainbridge

I would like to introduce you to my favorite poet, Algirdas Zolynas. His most recent book was his just released, Near and Far, Garden Oak Press, December, 2019,141 pages. $11.69 at B&N.

Al’s poems are personal, rich in emotion, and often leavened with humor. Many capture the beauty and mystery of every day life. Some of my favorites include: Bread, In Gratitude; Near Sunskai, Lithuania; Watching a Day; the Western Felt Works, Leaving Kaunas, 1944, and Sideways Down Rapids.  

Also worth a look in earlier books: Love in the Classroom, The Zen of Housework, Nothing to do—Nowhere to go, The Way He’d Like it, Running down Summit Avenue in Saint Paul in a Heavy Snowfall, and Living with Others.

Al was born in Austria of Lithuanian parents in 1945. They had fled the Soviet advance and survived bombing raids in Berlin. His parents became part of the wave of 11 million displaced people (DP) after the war. His father had been an attorney and one of his grandfathers signed the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence in 1918. As refugees they were refused entry to the US, where you had to have a sponsor, a place to live, and a guarantee that you would not displace American workers or, better yet, a related American citizen. 

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