Category: News

Lithuania’s Nature and the Particular Colour of Green Invite to Come Back

A Lithuanian-Australian writer Kristina Dryža is better known in the world of business and management as one of the most influential futurists, trend forecasters, and business consultants, who worked with companies such as Virgin Group, Microsoft, and British Sky Broadcasting. Kristina says that many still do not know that she is also the author of the novel Grace and the Wind released in 2014. I asked Kristina a few questions about writer’s craft, her first book, and future plans.

– How did you become a writer?

I always loved to write as a teenager, mainly in my journal, kept from my parents’ prying eyes. I didn’t really enjoy writing assignments at school or essays at university. I didn’t like writing to perform, to prove, to justify – for results. I had more fun crafting messages in Christmas and birthday cards for my friends, and sharing my overseas travel experiences in postcard form, when writing postcards was de rigueur in the pre-internet era.

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Interview with M. M. De Voe

Why is it important to bring diaspora authors together? Or perhaps not only diaspora authors but Lithuanian writers who live in Lithuania and Lithuanian writers who live in diaspora?

The Arts thrive in community. In isolation, an author can push themselves to create, yes, but to truly realize their full potential they must be challenged in an inspiring way. The more diverse the ideas that the artists and writers discuss when they come together, the more intriguing ideas bubble up – instead of just beer, you get champagne. Writers of the diaspora see Lithuania from a different perspective, from a bit of distance. Do you know the fable about the elephant and the blind men? One saw a wall, one saw a rope, one saw a tree, and one a spear? Only by adding this all together could they discover an elephant? It is both challenging and inspiring to hear about how other writers work, where they find peace, how they get through writing blocks, what themes and ideas matter. There is something about being in a room full of people who care as much about the perfect word as you do – and then discovering that person lives across the globe from you – and yet you have similar roots, you both know the blue of a cornflower, you both remember some adult showing you as a child how to get to the sharp, bitter scent of a rūta by crushing one leaf between your thumb and forefinger, you both know the savory taste of dill. It pulls the world closer, like a drawstring. And what you keep in that secret sack—that is up to you, but it is nice to know that everyone is carrying some memories that are all tied together.

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The Lithuanian Minister of Culture Visited the United States

The Minister of Culture visited the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in Chicago.

In the early September, the Lithuanian Minister of Culture, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, visited New York and Chicago. In New York, the Minister met with the director of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Jonathan Brent. They discussed the cooperation between the Institute and Lithuania and other relevant issues in preparation for next year’s commemoration of Vilna Gaon (born Elijah ben Solomon Zalman) and Lithuanian Jewish history.

The Minister participated in the Litvak Days organized for the first time in New York and Chicago on the initiative of the Consulate of the Republic of Lithuania in NY. The event included a public lecture and three debates. In New York, Kvietkauskas, along with writer Tomas Venclova and Prof. Saulius Sužiedėlis participated in the discussion “Challenges of Multiculturalism in Contemporary Lithuania.”

While in New York, Kvietkauskas also visited one of the world’s largest American avant-garde film archives, Anthology Film Archives, founded in the early 1960s by Lithuanian-American Jonas Mekas. The Minister participated in the opening of the exhibition of the Lithuanian American artist Vytautas Ignas and met with representatives of the Lithuanian Alliance of America and the Lithuanian National Foundation.

In Chicago, Kvietkauskas paid a visit at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, and met with the leaders of the Lithuanian World Center in Lemont. At the UIC, where students can learn Lithuanian language as part of their academic curriculum, the Minister participated in a discussion “The Narratives of Pluralism: Lithuania’s Past and Present” and met with the students of the Lithuanian Culture course.

Participants of the World Lithuanian Writers Forum Gathered at the National Library of Lithuania

On May 5-7, 2019 the First World Lithuanian Writers Forum took place in Vilnius. It was attended by more than 30 writers, translators and literary critics from fifteen countries. The program of the forum offered a variety of activities—from literary readings to the presentation of the anthology of world Lithuanian authors, Exodica, to a book exhibition of the Lithuanian émigré writers organized by the National Library of Lithuania.

The organizers of the Forum aimed at achieving several goals. The first one was to get to know each other and share different experiences and perceptions of the world. The event also commemorated the Lithuanian Press Restoration, Language and Book Day.


The participants of the Forum took a picture on the steps of the National Library of Lithuania.

On May 6, the participants of the Forum visited the National Library of Lithuania. Jolanta Budriūnienė, the director of the Documentary Heritage Research Department of the National Library of Lithuania, presented the writers to a wide range of library’s activities. She noted that the Library has become a place where more than thousand various cultural events take place every year and the space for the cultural diplomacy. “We cooperate with the embassies of the Republic of Lithuania abroad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture. We have broadened the scope of joint works and projects in the East and West. The library is a unique place, because it traces the signs of cultural diplomacy. It’s a place where we systematically collect and house the books of Lithuanian authors published abroad. Today these publications are an important part of the Lithuanian documentary heritage,” Budriūnienė said.

The writers who gathered at the National Library of Lithuania presented the director of the Documentary Heritage Research Department with their books and publications published abroad and in Lithuania. Afterwards, the participants of the Forum were given an extensive tour of the Library.

Lithuanian Writers from All over the World Will Gather in Vilnius

The Lithuanian World Community, Inc. together with the Lithuanian Writers’ Union and the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore is organizing the first congress of world Lithuanian writers in Vilnius. The event, which will take place on 5-7 May, 2019, will host 50 Lithuanian writers and/or writers of Lithuanian origin who currently live outside Lithuania.

During the event, the participants will meet with Lithuanian writers. They will visit the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore and the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Readings will take place during the event. At the end of the congress, an almanac of the participants’ fiction and poetry will be published.

The Annual Seminar of the Diaspora Researchers

Dalia Cidzikaitė

For the sixth year in a row, the diaspora researchers and archivists gathered at the National Library of Lithuania. The aim of the seminar is to bring together researchers working in the diaspora field, especially students, to give them the opportunity to share their research, and also to encourage the representatives of archives and museums to introduce the Lithuanian diaspora collections housed at their institutions to the broader audience.

The first seminar, entitled “The Young Diaspora Researchers’ Seminar,” today is known under a slightly different name, “The Interdisciplinary Diaspora Researchers’ Seminar.” Currently, the community unites about 30 researchers working in various Lithuanian universities, institutes, museums, archives, and libraries.


Photo: National Library of Lithuania

Six Perspectives on Diaspora

Six perspectives on diaspora were presented at the sixth event. Ina Ėmužienė, Ph.D., who just recently defended her thesis on Lithuanian radio and TV programs in the US from 1944 to 1990, presented the Lithuanian-American electronic media. In particular she talked about the Lithuanian radio programs that were active in the country in 1944-1990: their frequency, geography, and the circumstances of their establishment. The researcher presented a list of the Lithuanian-American radio programs that ran during that period, stressing that it is not final. She is still discovering new archives, related to the topic she has been researching.

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