A Variety of Topics at the Lithuania Diaspora Researchers’ Seminar

By Silvija Stankevičiūtė

Photo by Vygaudas Juozaitis / National Library of Lithuania

This May, the community of Lithuanian diaspora researchers gathered at the National Library of Lithuania for the eleventh time. The event featured a wide variety of topics.

The first half of the seminar focused on a recently launched eKultura.lt platform, the Lithuania’s largest digital cultural space. Dr. Giedrė Milerytė-Japertienė, Deputy Director General for Science and Outreach at the National Museum of Lithuania and a specialist at the Dizi company, presented the collections of audio and video recordings related to the Lithuanian diaspora and showed a few of curated content narratives, which will be gradually appear on the new platform.

The main geographical areas covered by the collected recordings include the United States, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Poland. Radio programs created and produced by Lithuanian-American Giedrė Kumpikas for Lithuanian radio in New York, brought to Lithuania, transcribed, and cataloged, as well as recordings from the Lithuanian Archives Project, supplemented with metadata, will become part of the eKultura. The archival material from film director Arvydas Reneckis, who emigrated from Lithuania to the U.S. nearly four decades ago, will also be available soon.

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A Dream Come True

By Clara Muñoz

My name is Clara Muñoz, I’m from Argentina and I’m of Lithuanian descent. My great-grandparents came from Šiauliai to Argentina in 1920, and thanks to the Bring Together Lithuania program, I was finally able to visit my ancestors homeland. This program aims to give the Lithuanian diaspora around the world the opportunity to reconnect with Lithuania, get to know it, and also work in their professional field.

I’m a librarian and currently studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Library and Information Science. When I applied to the program, I specifically requested to do my internship at the National Library of Lithuania. For me, working in such an institution was a dream come true.

During my internship, I worked in the Documentary Heritage Research Department. At the Statehood Centre, I was assigned research tasks involving Spanish-language texts on the Sąjūdis movement (the Lithuanian Reform Movement), the declaration of independence on March 11, 1990, and the events of January 1991. For the Judaica Research Centre, I conducted searches in the Argentine press on Jewish migration and its connection to cultural institutions such as YIVO, which had a presence in both Vilnius and Buenos Aires. I also collaborated with the Lithuanian Studies Unit, working with Spanish-language publications on general culture, the humanities, social sciences, and the history of Lithuania and its diaspora.

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The Exhibition on the Great Flight in 1944

By Dalia Cidzikaitė

The exhibition has been very popular among the Library’s patrons. Photo: National Library of Lithuania / Vygaudas Juozaitis

The new National Library of Lithuania exhibition, which opened on June 26, 2024, tells about the great flight that took place in the summer of 1944. At the end of WWII, as the German-Soviet war front approached from the east, the inhabitants of the Baltic States, Eastern and Central European countries moved en masse to the West. Nobody knew that they would not return.

The necessity of leaving home caught most Eastern Europeans little or completely unprepared. The rapid collapse of the German front in the east and the approaching Soviet army prevented any deliberation or planning. Since the flight was hasty, people did not have much time to think about what to take. Some took a photo album, others a prayer book or pictures of saints, and others a high school diploma or a dissertation. Still others grabbed books and textbooks, which were especially useful when schools and universities were later established in West Germany.

The first part of the exhibition “Stranded from the Native Land” features the pictures of saints taken from Lithuania, the passport of Adolfas Domaševičius (Damušis), his graduation diploma of from Vytautas Magnus University Faculty of Technology, the graduation diploma of Damušis’ future wife Jadvyga-Aleksandra Pšibilskytė (Damušienė) from the Klaipėda Pedagogical Institute, and the prayer book written by Adolfas Sabaliauskas “Šlovinkim Viešpatį,” published in 1928 [imprint: 1929] in Klaipėda.

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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.

A talk on how to search for Lithuanian data in US archives

Vaitkutė gave a talk on the search of Lithuanian data in US archives. Photo: National Library of Lithuania/ Vygaudas Juozaitis

This summer, the National Library of Lithuania hosted a talk on how to search for Lithuanian data in US archives and genealogical websites presented by Karilė Vaitkutė, head of the Genealogy Department at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in Chicago (USA).

Vaitkutė shared her experience with how to search for Lithuanian material in various US archives, as well as paid and free-of-charge genealogical websites, how to decipher the documents found, how to determine whether they belong to a family member under consideration, and how to overcome the obstacles that occur during the research. In her talk, she also answered more specific questions concerning the search for Lithuanian relatives in the USA and gave an overview of the different sources available.

For the past ten years, Vaitkutė has been working in the field of genealogy, helping Lithuanian Americans whose grandparents and great-grandparents came to the USA before World War I or after World War II to find their roots in Lithuania and Lithuanians who are looking for their relatives in the USA.

Historical letters handedover to the National Libraryof Lithuania

The signing of the document. Photo: National Library of Lithuania/ Vygaudas Juozaitis

This year, Lithuanian American Nijolė Bražėnaitė-Lukšienė-Paronetto turned a hundred years old. On this occasion, the National Library of Lithuania invited Nijolė’s friends and all those interested to an evening to commemorate this anniversary. The event featured a presentation of the book “Apie anuos nepamirštamus laikus: Juozo Lukšos-Daumanto ir Nijolės Bražėnaitės susirašinėjimas” (About Those Unforgettable Times: The Correspondence between Juozas Lukša- Daumantas and Nijolė Bražėnaitė) compiled by Laima Vincė.

During the event, the author of the book handed over a valuable gift to the Library—letters written by Bražėnaitė to Juozas Lukša-Daumantas, which testify not only to the romantic love story of the two young people but also to the great sacrifice they made in the name of their homeland, Lithuania.

On July 18, the formal handing over of the letters and the signing of the documents occurred. The document was signed by the donor, Laima Vincė Sruoginis, and Aidas Sinkevičius, Deputy Director General of the National Library of Lithuania.