Russia is arguably the only country in the post-Soviet space where the veneration for Karlsonas has taken on greater proportions than in Lithuania. There has even been estimated that Astrid Lindgren’s Karlsson-on-the-roof is likely to be the second most common book to be found in the average Russian home next to the Bible. (When Astrid Lindgren herself was told about this by the Russian Ambassador to Sweden, Boris Pankin, she is quoted to have said: “Strange, I had no idea that the Bible was that popular”. And when Ingvar Carlsson, then Swedish Minister of State, visited Russia in the early 1990s, his Russian hosts deplored the fact that he had very little in common with “the real Karlsson”.

However, in Sweden, the homeland of Astrid Lindgren and her vast collection of beloved fairytale characters, children barely rank Karlsonas among the top-ten of Astrid Lindgren’s most appreciated figures. Similar attitudes can be observed among Western European children in general, who are more inclined to embrace the stories about Pippi Longstocking and Emil of Lönneberga.

So, does this imply that the frame of cultural preference varies significantly between Eastern European children as compared to Western European children as far as Astrid Lindgren’s stories are concerned?

No, this is not likely to be the case since the image of Karlsson-on-the-roof which has been conveyed in Lithuania and the post-Soviet space is slightly different in several perspectives compared to how he was depicted in the original Swedish versions of the popular books.

What first should be noted is the fairly haphazard translation of the book from Swedish into Russian (and latter from Russian into Lithuanian) which made the objects and the surroundings in the story appear distinctively Soviet, and thus less reminiscent of bourgeois mid-century Stockholm. Of greater importance is that that the Soviet censorship was contemplating the attitude that Karlsonas communicated – individualism, egocentrism, narcissism and anti-authoritarianism – as potentially dangerous and contradictive to the ideological tenants of official discourse. Consequently, in accordance with the stringent demands from the censors, the ensuing story about Karlsonas that was engineered deliberately saw to reduce the most conspicuous acts and elements of crudeness and delinquent behaviour.

The result, however, seems to have been an equally mischievous and innovative Karlsonas, only less wicked and more warm-hearted, who have managed to surpass the original figure’s capacity to strike a cord with generations of children. This is also the Karlsonas one encounter in the cartoons from 1968 and 1971, artfully illustrated by the famous Boris Stepantsev, which is another reason for his immense popularity in the former Soviet Union.

There are, at any case, more connections between the Baltic States and the world of Astrid Lindgren. Generations of Scandinavian children has, for example, enjoyed the pastoral and idyllic illustrations in Astrid Lindgren’s books with a sense of recognition as the surroundings are reminiscent of the typical rural landscape found in the Scandinavian countryside. However, Ilon Wikland, who contributed with the popular illustrations of many of Astrid Lindgren’s most beloved characters, had her childhood Estonia rather than the Scandinavian countryside in mind when she created images to Lindgren’s texts. Consequently, though Wikland was forced to flee Estonia for Sweden during the World War, her Estonian legacy still lives on in many of Lindgren’s books. In addition, in 2009 Wikland was dedicated her own museum in Hapsal, a small Estonian city to the south of Tallinn.

Karlsonas, then, is actually neither Swedish nor Baltic, but Ilon Wikland found the inspiration to draw him as he is normally illustrated, in books and cartoons alike, when she stumbled upon a chubby, red-haired little man at a market in Paris.

Fredrik Rydström is a distinguished academic from Sweden who graduated Vilnius University in Spring 2010. He has lived for almost two years in Lithuania where he ound true love: the kibinas. Fredrik has held several lectures about and specialized in Baltic-Nordic relations.Other articles by Fredrik Rydström

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The glass façade of the house allows sunrays to penetrate into the gallery where her paintings hang on the walls. The sunlight plays with the colors of the paintings, and light and shadow dance in that space in the center of which hangs a chandelier with nine lights like paratroopers distributing light in the night of the room.

A stairway leading upstairs; doors leading to rooms; and deep within, a back door that leads to a garden and a pond decorated with deep blue ceramics; surrounded by palm trees and other plants near a linen rope swing, a table and chairs perfect for meditation.

In an interview with “Emirates Today” Jurgita said: “I don’t want to reproduce reality in my art”. She believes that “the studio is the place for creative solitude”. She describes Dubai, which she has come to love, and so decided to make her home, as a “city of ideas”.

During our conversation, Jurgita spoke of her childhood and of all the studios where she worked. She spoke of culture in her family, the techniques she uses in her paintings, her solo exhibitions, her vision of creativity, her motivation for expressing herself through art, and her search for meanings within layers. Jurgita grew up in a creative home. Her grandmother was an artist, her father specializes in portraiture, her mother is an art critic for the National Museum in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, and her brother studied art and is a jewelry designer.

Jurgita studied Fine Arts in Lithuania, Iceland and Denmark, specialized in graphic art. “My upbringing in a household involved in art has allowed me to express my feelings”, she said. She described the creative environment she grew up by saying: “there were paintings and sculptures everywhere; it was a house of colors”. She reminisced about her childhood days in Vilnius: “Poets, musicians, novelists, artists and philosophers used to visit my father, Pranciskus, at our home and we kids were always introduced to them; and they would sign their books and creative works and give them to us as gifts”.

The Grandma

The artist, together with her jewelry designer brother, Darijus Gerlikas, put together and published a book dedicated to their grandmother, Petronele Gerlikiene (1905-1979), who was an intuitive artist. Jurgita remembers watching her grandmother embroider her work thread by thread, and painting spontaneously from memory. She adds: “She would finish her embroidery work surprisingly quickly, working directly from her imagination, without a pattern. And for her paintings on canvas she would use colors directly from the tube. She considered painting to be the same as education; she never received a formal school education”.

Speaking of her grandmother’s life, which was troubled by numerous tragedies during both World Wars, Jurgita added: “My grandmother started embroidering in 1972; and she started painting at the age of 71. Over the period of almost five years she produced more than 10 large tapestries and over 60 paintings”.

Jurgita lived in the family home in the capital of Lithuania until she was 20. She went on to tell us: “My mother, Danute Marijona, was an art critic and worked for the Museum of Vilnius. There were many discussions at home revolving around plastic arts exhibitions; culture was a major component of our family life”. Jurgita grew up in this artistic and creative atmosphere in Vilnius, a city that is over 1000 years old.

During her childhood, the family home was her first studio, and its walls the first creative space for artistic expression. But the walls were too large a space for a child eager to express herself through color; besides, those walls were not designed to be painted on. She added: “In my childhood, I started painting on the walls of my home, but my parents were quick to recognize my talent and they provided me with the paper, canvas, paint and tools that I needed”.

Artist Jurgita specialized in graphic art; she loves reading and writing poetry. She started writing in her childhood – and so poetry lives with her. Her engravings, her silkscreens, her digital art, all her artwork is poetic. There is poetry in her work, whether reflected in numerous colors or in monotone, black, white and their different tones. She said: “I try to express my feelings, my thoughts and reflections in words and color”.

The family home in Vilnius was like a “creative workshop”; paintings on the walls, statues, books, drawing tools, and discussions on culture. Jurgita studied art history in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius and later moved to Iceland to study graphic art – from lithography, engraving, to silkscreen. She ended up spending a great many hours in the studio from where she breathed art, meditated on nature, and practiced drawing in the open air in the fields. It was also where she saw the exotic phenomenon called northern lights.

Speaking of the motivation behind her creative work which revolves around man’s inner world and the seeking of meanings inside layers, the artist said that: “It is about love, self-expression and the sharing of ideas, dreams and reflections”. She stressed that: “Creative people are hungry for knowledge, and for sharing this knowledge, love and expression. Art techniques are not an end in themselves, but love is the torch of creativity which makes life possible and more beautiful”.

Dubai

Jurgita visited Dubai on the 6th of November last year– that is three months ago. She toured the city’s landmarks and fell in love, because it is “the city of ideas, creativity and beauty which is reflected in day to day life” as she described it. She added: “I was astonished when I read the poems of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on his website which speak of love. I was impressed with the fact that the Ruler of Dubai is a poet who encourages creativity and education. This is what has made Dubai great where many cultures converge”. So I decided to stay in Dubai and to start interacting with all its cultural components.

The Lithuanian artist who had 12 solo exhibitions and several group exhibitions looks forward to organizing an exhibition in Dubai. She expressed her desire for sharing with others and for teaching art. She would also like to learn more about Arab culture, pointing out that this probably goes back to her childhood: “When my mother read stories to me, many were about Arab customs and traditions in the desert, and their generous nature. I used to listen to the stories and imagine Arab life and traveling through the desert”.

Technique

Jurgita lived in the Danish capital Copenhagen for seven years. During that period, 2003 to 2006, she held two graphic art exhibitions, and she learned to use non-toxic materials in her artwork. The method primarily uses water, ink and other materials in various tones. She executed print work in black and white in this field which employs the principles of photography. She also learned “digital graphics” and how to create impressionist work using this technique. She pointed out that “multi-media creativity enriches the artist’s experience which allows for new expressive spaces and new possibilities”.

She had a studio at Factory of Art and Design, previously an old laundry building that encompassed studios for painting, sculpture, multimedia, fashion and graphic art. “The Copenhagen experience was important to me because we could share opinions and studio doors were always open” commented Jurgita in a reference to the doors for dialogue and sharing experiences between artists being also open.

Inner World

Jurgita’s creative vision focuses on abstraction, because, she stressed: “I do not want to reproduce nature or the reality before our eyes”. Some of her work, especially her digital graphic art, is a dialogue of colors and with shapes overlapping to produce layers of varying color depths. In some of her work we see a flower or a leaf covering the entire canvas, revealing its inner details and overlapping other layers.

These paintings need further reflection to be able to unveil the layers of inner meaning; the inner references hidden underneath the creative ambiguity. In this aspect, the artist touches on Sufism, mysticism or the Zen philosophy which aims to “reveal the absolute within the limited”. Jurgita employs her poetic intuition in the creation of her artwork as if she were a color-full ascent, especially as she is also keen on philosophy and poetry.

In her engravings/ etching dialogues between abstraction and embodiment as “an expression of the overlap between fact and fiction” abound. She pointed out that “art raises more questions, which makes people search more and reflect more on the aesthetics of art”. The artist, who re-constructs the inner world and the surrounding environment from a poetic perspective, elaborated that: “abstraction, or re-construction, gives new meanings to ordinary things”.

The Solitude of the Zero Line

Embarking on a piece of art can be described as “the zero line”, that is the first condition in which the painting, sculpture, poem or piece of music is created. Speaking of that ritual, the artist Jurgita Gerlikaite says “Before starting any creative work, I enter moments of profound reflection, in creative isolation, where passions bubble and ideas form in the imagination in a joyful environment”. She describes this condition as “an extreme condition of passion and meditation, which takes me to the heights of aesthetic joy. At that metaphysical moment, all the experiences, feelings, and diversified cultures I have known intensify and I become highly in touch with them”.

Polish Infrastructure deputy minister Tadeusz Jarmuziewicz met Lithuania‘s Communication deputy minister Rimvydas Vastakas in Vilnius to sign a mutual agreement on the matter this Thursday.

“We have reached the agreement with Lithuania that we have to start the discussions,” Jarmuziewicz told PAP.

According to Lithuania‘s Transport and Communications Ministry, the two countries will cooperate on accomplishing a study on the possibility to create an air space block . The European Commission is going to finance the study partially.

“This project is a big challenge to the engineers. We hope to finish it by 2012,” Jarmuzievicz said.

He stated that other Baltic countries, Latvia and Estonia, could also join the block later.

The EU members are trying to establish common air zones by mid-2012 in order to manage the air space more efficiently and safely. This initiative gained speed after the Iceland‘s volcano eruption this spring, when Europe‘s air traffic was badly disturbed.

“Distinctive Litvak legacy was created over the centuries and it constitutes an integral part of Lithuania’s history and culture. We trust that not only our citizens in Lithuania, but also Litvaks living all around the world will be joint together by this noble initiative to preserve the Litvak heritage for the present and future generations,” head of the working group, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Šarūnas Adomavičius said during the meeting.

The Vice-Minister noted that the Litvak Jews, who lived in Lithuania and also in the large region of Eastern and Central Europe, suffered terrible losses during the Holocaust, wars and occupations.

According to the Vice-Minister, the treasures of culture, art and science that were created by Litvaks are priceless for Lithuania and all mankind. Therefore, we share an important moral obligation to foster this heritage.

“The Litvak history, culture and contribution to the development of Lithuania and many other states are significant also today. The Litvak legacy has to be best-known in our society, especially to the youth, and promoted around the world as much as possible,” Vice-Minister Š.Adomavičius said.

The Vice-Minister acquainted members of the organization “Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Litauen e. V.” (The Community of Germans from Lithuania) with today’s political, economic and cultural relations between Lithuania and Germany, and highlighted the most important bilateral activities.

Vice-Minister Š.Adomavičius noted that Lithuania’s ethnic Germans living in Germany were a “human bridge linking the Lithuanian and German societies”, and invited them to engage more actively in the Lithuanian-German Forum that is well functioning.

“I am convinced that besides the official and diplomatic level, the activities of the forum promote the spread of the idea: “more of Lithuania in Germany and more of Germany in Lithuania”. I would like to take the opportunity to encourage you to participate more actively in the activities of the forum in Germany and, in this way, to contribute to fostering relations with Lithuania,” the Vice-Minister said.

The Organization “Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Litauen e. V.” was founded in 1951 in Germany. During the establishment, this organization united about 10 thousand members. Currently it has about 1 thousand members in entire Germany. Hardy Mett is the Chairman of the Community of Germans from Lithuania.

The Community publishes a periodical Die Raute (The Rue) four times a year. It reviews the Lithuanian-German relations, Lithuania’s political news and activities of the community. The Almanac Heimatgruss (Homeland Greeting) is published once a year.

Members of Lithuania’s Seimas (Parliament) and the Government, representatives from non-governmental organizations, diplomats from the Embassy of Germany in Lithuania also took part in the meeting with a group of Lithuania’s ethnic Germans who are paying a visit to Lithuania on 24 July – 3 August.

“Tell them that there are no cars and that women can be beaten and exchanged for new ones whenever you want,” he said, echoing similar rumours about Lithuania he had heard in foreign lands.

We were discussing the fact that many people in countries as close as Sweden or Germany had no idea about Lithuania, what its capital is and what language is spoken here and so on.

In fact the knowledge of the country in the world is appalling. On a visit to Belgium a few years ago, I had dinner with two doctors and their little daughter. The girl was just learning to speak, but they had high hopes that she would also become a doctor in future: a highly educated family.

They asked me about what I was doing in Europe and where I live and what my job is. I was halfway through a story about Lithuania when they stopped me and asked “sorry what country do you live in again?”

“Lithuania? Litauen? Lituanie? Lietuva? Litva?” I tried the names of this country in every language I knew. Didn’t ring a bell.

This couple had travelled to every continent on the planet except Antarctica, but they had no idea where Lithuania was, a European Union country already for five years at that time. They had no idea.

Another acquaintance of mine, who came to Lithuania from England also had massive troubles with the country. At first he was afraid to come here because it is in the wild wild east and he might get robbed or stabbed. Or both!

He imagined a land without electricity and without laws (okay, well that part is more or less true). Hard drugs were sold on the street and women carried AK-47s down the street. After all, this country was in the Soviet Union.

Other people I have spoken to think the country is on the Mediterranean sea somewhere near Malta.

So here is an opportunity I suppose. The Lithuanians who emigrate and those who travel could play a big role in the future of this country. The world doesn’t yet know the name of Lithuania. One day they will find out, but until then you have a blank page. Write in it whatever you want!

So, its up to you who go abroad. Perhaps you also want to go abroad and play silly games with uneducated people. Or maybe you’d like to go tell the world about the mountains of amber that everyone has in their garage. Tell them about the Seimas and how it was defended by the citizens and tell them about Lithuania’s great beaches on the Black sea.

Hold on is that a game or is that the truth?

Jankūnas will play under Aco Petrovic who has been appointed the new coach in Kaunas. The Serbian coach has been at the helm of FMP Belgrade, Hemofarm Vrsac, Lokomotiv Rostov and Unics Kazan and is looking forward to his move to Lithuania after inspecting the Žalgiris facilities recently and meeting with owner Vladimir Romanov and management.

“My basketball ideology is super-defence and decent offense. These are the keys to victory. I believe in the young players and value their enthusiasm and ambitions. Any foreigner has to be a better player than a local,” Aco told lithuaniabasketball.com

The team is also coming together after Tadas Klimavičius was officially inked for next season, and big man Omar Samhan signed a two plus one contract recently.

Omar averaged 21,3 points, 10,9 rebounds and 2,9 blocks in 34 games last season with St Mary’s College of California (NCAA), helping his team to make it to the NCAA Tournament eighthfinals.

Omar is regarded as much for his basketball prowess as his post-match performances where he is a favourite with the media for his personality and quotability, including: “I hate these guys (who) run around, shooting threes. You’re 6-11. Go get your butt in there. I take pride in being a big man (who plays with) his back to the basket. It’s a lost art.”

Still, he retains a strong work ethic, and after playing in the NBA summer league it was felt he needed a few years in Europe where he can develop his big-man skills, and at 22 years and 211 cm most are predicting an NBA future after his two year contract with Žalgiris.

As expected, Travis Watson will be wearing green again next year, as will Mirza Begic while the return on Jankūnas puts a question mark around a place for Mario Delas. The young Croatian tall will probably be lent out to another club where the 20 year old will see a bit more court time.

Mindaugas Kuzminskas will also be debuting for Kaunas next season. Mindaugas is an extremely gifted player with range and height and at just 20 surprised many with his improvement last year after not being a part of the extensive Lithuanian junior system.

Kuzminskas was already signed to Kaunas and was on loan to Šiauliai last season where he won MVP for the Lithuanian League.

Žalgiris might also be looking to loan out their other young talls Povilas Butkevicius and Siim Sander-Vene and with the possibility of another point guard joining the Kaunas roster in the future, Zygimantas Janavicius, Sarunas Vasiliauskas, Arturas Milaknis and maybe Adas Juskevicius could also be sent out on loan to various clubs in Lithuania and Europe.

Meanwhile Žalgiris pre-season begins on 16 August and their preparation will include a friendly against the Iranian National Team.

For Žalgiris Jankūnas,Tadas Klimavičius, Martynas Pocius and Mantas Kalnietis are all training with the Lithuanian National Men’s Team.

People who visit their holiday destinations in summer often have to pay hefty fees to take their cars across the water to the spit, while residents pay less tariffs. Locals also do not pay to go onto the spit with their car.

People approach local residents and ask them if they can register their address under the property.

Neringa Mayor Vigantas Giedraitis also said that many people were buying fuel over the Russian border, because it was less crowded than other checkpoints. Many petrol smugglers drive across the border then bring back cheap petrol, which is sold illegally to Lithuanians.

The mayor has called on locals not to allow others to register at their homes, but often they profit from the act.

“The Neringa population do not think that in doing so they harm the state and themselves. Not just an artificially large load for ferries and border posts, but they do damage to the municipality, which collects more local charges for the entrance to the spit,” the mayor said.

“In our modern world one can get by without bread and butter, without stuffed fish on Saturdays; but without news, stuffed with surprises and sensations, it’s impossible to live. A normal person getting up in the morning and sticking his head out the window first asks the Holy Father: Vos chert zich? – ‘What’s new?’ – or in his ancestors’ language Ma nishma? and waits patiently until the Most High answers.

The inhabitants of Miškiniai didn’t really worry whether Chatzkel Bregman was pulling the wool over their eyes or telling the truth. It was all the same to them. Both lies and truth beautified their monotonous existence, brought them joy or sorrow, and angered or elated them, and they were all thankful to Bregman for making their blood, stagnating from boredom and sameness, quicken in their veins. There were times when the next day Chatzkel, smiling guiltily, would negate his news.

“Israelites! Jews! I want to apologize: I have to take back yesterday’s news from Berlin. Hitler is not ill with consumption. I’m very sorry, but for him, so far, I’m very sorry, it’s only ordinary diarrhoea. And one more of my inaccuracies. It appears that Churchill’s son did not marry a Jewess, but rather an Italian.

Not everyone liked Chatzkel Bregman and his “Jewish News”. The old government didn’t make any trouble for Chatzkel Bregman: Jews will be Jews, they can’t help but gossip about one another and the whole world. But later, when the barebellies came rooting to the trough, Bregman the rumour carrier was invited for a chat with some sort of district committee and was told to stop spreading propaganda against the people. Chatzkel, fortunately or not, pretended he didn’t understand this word, and continued to create further news for his clients, according to his own taste and liking, mostly about Hitler, the new Amman, sworn to eliminate the entire Jewish nation. And again he was invited to the district office, but this time not to a civilian committee, but to the police division, to the stern Russian chief who briefly and firmly explained to him that it was forbidden to gossip about Hitler, in Lithuanian, in Russian, and in your language, comrade Chatzkel. Hitler, please take note, is not an enemy of the Soviet Union but a friend, and this is shown clearly by the peace treaty we made with him two years ago, and about friends, of course, you must speak with appropriate respect.

“Is that clear, comrade Bregman?”

“Yes.”

“Very good,” the chief praised. “I hope that your gossiping will no longer stir up trouble and we will not be forced to take unpleasant measures, such as confiscating your Phillips or closing your shop.”

After his meeting with the chief Russian, much changed in Chatzkel Bregman’s life: the relatives in Paris and Warsaw, London and New York vanished, and the envelopes with foreign postmarks and rare postage stamps disappeared. Suddenly the tubes of the Phillips burned out. There were no colonial goods in his shop, Ceylon tea, Moroccan dates, Indian fabrics. Chatzkel became gloomy and withdrawn, bitter and weakened, and he fell severely ill. Worried about their stock of news, his countrymen tried hard to give him countenance: some promised to take the Phillips to an expert in Kaunas who would fix it at no cost. Others joked that for every good piece of news they would pay no less than what they would have paid for Indian fabric. Others secretly cursed the new government, which was at fault for the tubes burning out, and for the lack of Ceylon tea, and for Chatzkel Bregman falling ill.

Chatzkel had no descendents in Miškiniai (his wife Golda had suffered a heart attack the summer before, and even before the Red Army came both his sons had emigrated to the other side of the ocean, to America), so a relative, a noisy, big-mouthed seamstress named Mirela, who barely spoke with Chatzkel, that miser, when he was alive, made arrangements for his burial.

Having made arrangements with Danuta-Hadassah and with the Burial Society, she chose a time for the funeral and the place. Sunday afternoon, and, for convenience, on the hill next to her parents who were also Bregman. Chatzkel would never have agreed to lie next to them, but no one asks permission of the dead. They bury you: now lie peacefully.

“He could at least have left some money for the headstone,” reproved Mirela of the shopkeeper’s miserliness.

“Don’t worry about it. Jacob will choose a stone,” Danuta-Hadassah answered, scowling and just as reproachful. “It will be Chatzkel’s headstone as well. I told him so.”

“Who?” Mirela looked at her wide-eyed.

“Chatzkel. The dead, just like the living, take joy in good news.”

Before every funeral she began to worry about something. After more than thirty years of interacting with the dead, Danuta-Hadassah had never gotten used to witnessing each unhappiness and brushed-away tear, but also could not hide her deep and uncensored happiness that, at the very least, the funeral brightened her loneliness a little bit. She would meet with many of her acquaintances, and it was good to share a word or two. It was likely the whole town would come together to say goodbye to Chatzkel Bregman. For most of the inhabitants (and in Miškiniai most were Jews), Chatzkel was a bringer of good news and a consoler. They forgave him his lies and inventions, because then no one humiliated themselves or tore their heart out like they do today to plague everyone with truth.

On the eve of the funeral, Danuta-Hadassah followed Jacob around like she was stuck to him. She saw that he would not disappear: she couldn’t dig a hole at her age, when her hands no longer obeyed her and the clay loam was harder than steel …

“Just don’t think of going off somewhere,” she warned Jacob, having in mind Eliševa.

“You must prepare Bregman a comfortable place. He’s not moving there just for a year, you know.”

“I’ll try.”

That Saturday he stayed home, he didn’t run off to Eliševa, and when the first star appeared in the sky he hoisted his shovel over his shoulder and climbed the little hill, spat into his hardened palms, and began, with heatedness and unexpected zeal, to build Bregman a comfortable resting place.

Having dug the hole, he fired up his self-built sauna, beat himself with birch, dressed in a clean shirt and lay down to sleep, so that he would not bother any of those come to accompany the town gossip on his final journey the next day with his yawning. Danuta-Hadassah wanted to tell him something, maybe about the headstone, for which the deceased did not leave any money, maybe about the horse, whose long and sad neighing frightened the dead; but she changed her mind, lit a somewhat melted-down candle and, looking at the flame, fragile and impermanent as a one-day moth, she began to weave her nightly Polish prayer, her threads rising like steep stairs higher and higher to the Holy Father. When the threads broke, Danuta-Hadassah feverishly tied them back together, and when the heavens and His heart were very near, suddenly, from beyond the window in the June sky full of stars, came a frightening drone, and then a terrible crash and a flame shot up, covering the stars and the earth in a bloody red.

Terrified, Danuta-Hadassah with her fingertips – she did not understand why in such noise she stole along with her fingertips – slunk up to her son’s room and breathlessly, repressing a constricted yell, she called:

“Jacob! Jacob!”

“What happened?” he murmured through sleep, thinking that his mother had been worn down by sleeplessness.

Jacob squeaked up in his bed, listened and, blinded by the thundering dawn, ran into the yard in his shirtsleeves.

The explosions did not stop.

White as a ghost, Jacob stood in the middle of the yard and did not lower his eyes from the flaming sky.

“War,” he said.

He stood there, stroked the mare tied to the rotting post, and returned to the cottage adding hopelessly:
“They’re bombing the tank range in Juodgiria …”

“Where is Eliševa?” Danuta-Hadassah now understood that it wasn’t the Russian tanks that were worrying him, but Gedaljė Bankvečeris’ daughter.

“As soon as Bregman’s funeral is over I’ll ride to her.”

“If there will be a funeral at all.”

“What, during war they don’t bury the dead?”

“They bury them, they bury them,” said Danuta-Hadassah, and then remembered how Lomsargis had talked about the imminent arrival of the Germans. Maybe Chatzkel Bregman will be the last Jew buried in this cemetery.

“I heard that in Poland the Germans closed all the Jewish cemeteries. They’ll close ours too … What will we do with ourselves, Jacob? What will happen to us? Eh?”

“You, Mama, the German’s won’t touch. You’re …”

She didn’t let him finish.

“What do you know about me, son? What? I myself don’t know what I am. I forget. A Pole? A Jew? A Byelorussian? A moth heading for the flame? A ladybird?” Danuta-Hadassah sighed heavily and began to sing a tune: “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home …”

Around midnight German planes with crosses on their sides appeared in the sky above Miškiniai. Howling bestially, they pealed over the town where, other than the Jews and the new Red government, there were no targets. One of them nosedived, and, maybe practising or maybe trying to scare them, dropped a bomb on Bruchis’ (who had been sent off to the white bears) furniture factory. The echo of the crash seemed as though it could be heard all the way to that unbearable Siberian flatness. Later, everything quieted. The only sound to be heard was the usual church bells signalling the end of prayers.

“The mourners have been held up for some reason,” worried Danuta-Hadassah.

“Does anyone hurry to the cemetery? No matter what you say, things didn’t go well for Bregman. In times like these, the dead don’t matter to the living. Everyone is thinking about himself or herself … about how to survive in this mess.

“Not everyone is thinking about that,” argued Danuta-Hadassah, fixing her gaze towards the town, on a crooked clearing in the trees. “Jacob, your eyes are still, thank God, not eaten away by tears and see better than mine. Look at the clearing! It looks like they’re bringing him.”

“It looks like they are bringing him.”

He wanted to fill the grave all the more quickly, to flatten down Bregman’s clay home nicely with his shovel and, jumping on his anxiously waiting horse, to fly to Juodgiria to find out if anything had happened to Eliševa: the estate of Česlovas Lomsargis was separated from the tank grounds and the emergency Red Army landing strip by only a narrow swath of hemp.

Soon Danuta-Hadassah also saw the mourners.

Bregman was driven over in the spacious wagon belonging to the joker Pinchas Žvairys, who, in the good old days, brought from Kaunas for Chatzkel the in-demand colonial goods that he sold so successfully for many years.

Besides the deceased’s distant relative, the seamstress Mirela, ceaselessly and with some joy cried tears as fat as currants, the wise and patient rabbi Gilelis, nervously twisting his payout and the trio from the local Burial Society, almost no one was at the grave. And this was not surprising. German planes raced like lightning over Miškiniai, chasing away most of Bregman’s buyers and listeners, who were no longer worried about accompanying the honoured shopkeeper on his final journey, but about how they needed, oh most likely they had all long needed, to save themselves; because if the Germans beat the Russians not one of the town’s, and not just the town’s, Lithuania’s, Jews would escape misfortune.

Rabbi Gilelis chanted with rumbling pauses and overtones and began a prayer, not only for the late Bregman, but, it seemed, for his Phillips with its good and bad news, for the colonial and local goods, for his responsible and irresponsible debtors, for his neighbours, lying in rest under the pines, and, what sacrilege, for the whole town, where it seemed that soon there would be no one to mourn. His voice rang out like never before, and when he finished no one moved from where they stood.

After a moment, they all shuddered and moved as though coming to. Mirela quickly unleashed a bucket of unending tears, and the mourners slowly and respectfully closed the gate.

“Ma’am, hard times are coming,” Rabbi Gilelis said in Polish to Danuta-Hadassah as he was saying his good-byes. “Especially for us Jews.”

“Where is God looking? Does He not love His own? He chose you from all of His people. Doesn’t He love you?” Danuta-Hadassah asked with irony. “Does He like wars … murder?”

Rabbi Gilelis looked at her in amazement with eyes full of an unusual sadness; he couldn’t think of an answer, it was as though he was guilty of all the world’s misfortunes, and he began to look around sorrowfully at his fellow tribesmen, until the joker Pinchas Žvairys took him by the hand and led him to the wagon. After walking a little way, Rabbi Gilelis unexpectedly turned around and said:

“I am too small and too weak to bother the Heavenly Father with my questions, or give Him advice, though sometimes, like any Jew, I really, really would like to …”

He bowed to the cemetery and climbed into the wagon, along with the inconsolable Mirela and two old women who never missed a funeral.

Danuta-Hadassah could not remember so short and hurried a good-bye to any deceased. Only Rabbi Gilelis and the weepy Mirela did not hurry during the funeral. The trio from the Burial Society made a sign to one another, as though understanding what was going on: we have to hurry home, gentlemen, to our wives and children.

The strapping Jacob also darted about, gazing at his horse whose neighing demands for attention and oats denigrated and weakened the solemnity of the remembrance prayers.

“Mama, I’m going,” said Jacob, when the cemetery had emptied.

“But you haven’t eaten anything.”

“Eliševa will give me something … Lie down, rest …”

His mother’s garrulity bothered him. Knowing her testy disposition, Jacob never stopped her. He would pretend to listen closely, and he was unwillingly forced to say endlessly needless and meaningless words. Normally he made do with very few spoken words: usually he stammered, nodded his head, sighed sorrowfully, wrinkled his face, or smiled in agreement; words did not give him any pleasure. In Jacob’s opinion, all that is best for a person lay in silence, and had to be protected like money in a Jewish bank, which is why he took as an example not his chatterbox brother Aaron, but the cemetery pines and headstones, austere and silent, guarding under bark and stone that which is unexplainable in any language.

“Listen … I won’t bother you for long … I had a thought: maybe you should stay there for a while?”

“Where?”

“In the village. With Eliševa … It looks to me that it would better for you to stay out of sight. I feel that no one else is going to be buried in this cemetery.” She was silent, and then quickly added: “Like you said, they won’t touch me. I was never a Jew to the Jews, and to the Germans I’ll be even less of one. But you …”

“Do you think that in the village I won’t be one? A Jew is a Jew everywhere. And so far the Germans are only in the sky …”

“They’ll soon be on the ground … Like in Poland. I said last year that the angel of death was flying towards us.”

“Okay, I’ll come back. We will talk. Rest,” he said and turned to his horse’s inviting trumpeting.

Translated by Medeinė Tribinevičius

In the Shadow of the Devil

BY ALGIS KALĖDA

Grigorijus Kanovičius’ new novel Šėtono apžavai (The Devil’s Spell) is not a sudden twist in his rich output. We could say that this work grew on the foundation that he has been building for several decades, the basis of which was created in the trilogy Žvakės vėjyje (Candles in the Wind), consisting of the novels Paukščiai virš kapinių (Birds Above the Cemetery, 1977), Palaimink ir lapus, ir ugnį (Bless the Leaves and the Fire, 1980), and Lopšinė seniui besmegeniui (A Lullaby to a Snowman, 1982). In these novels Kanovičius depicted, as if through a magnifying glass, the lives of several characters, and recreated the fate of the Jewish community of the whole of Lithuania in the pre-war years and during the Second World War. His other novels deal with a similar set of issues, and each of them is original and interesting.

Kanovičius’ novels have enriched Lithuanian literature with new artistic paradigms. This was not only the theme of the fate of the Jews (for other authors, primarily Icchokas Meras, also write about it), but first of all an originally arranged composition, individual and never before seen portraits of characters, and an especially suggestive narrative in which realistic images, mythological parables, confessional monologues and the polyphonic counterpoints of the tale merge into a whole. The writer resorts to aphoristic generalisations and ordinary details of everyday life, and raises the craft of the dressmaker, shoemaker, craftsman or gravedigger to a metaphysical level, projecting the characters’ individual feelings on to a genuine human plane into a timeless space. These features are characteristic of the writer’s later novels Kvailių ašaros ir maldos (Fools’ Tears and Prayers, 1983), Ir nėra vergams rojaus (There is no Paradise for Slaves, 1985), Козленок за два гроша (A Twopenny Goat, 1987), Nenusigręžki nuo mirties (Turn not your Face from Death, 1992), and the play Nusišypsok mums, Viešpatie (Smile Upon us, God, 1991).

The heroes of these works usually live in two spheres: in the real one, which is reality that has undergone all historical catastrophes; and in the sphere of visions, myths, one could even say eternity. The first is concrete: it contains details of pre-war life in Lithuania, and easily recognisable historical signs. The action usually develops in Vilnius, Kaunas, or in small towns. The characters are mostly shoemakers, tailors, synagogue servants, musicians, and, recurrently, gravediggers. The latter (usually represented by a comparatively young, still maturing, man) seem to possess the possibility to relate this earthly reality with the one on the other side, the transcendental one. The image of the cemetery that arises in several of Kanovičius’ works, quite often, and paradoxically, represents vitality, because it offers the opportunity to show the permanent status of human fate, the continuity of the family, kin and nation. But in work by this writer, it is continuity without continuation, because life’s natural passage through centuries is tragically disrupted by the massacre of the Second World War.

In an interview the writer once said: “To be honest, when I look back at the road I’ve covered, at all those books I’ve written, I realise it’s one and the same book, one saga about the life of Lithuanian Jews. I am happy I came to be a peculiar chronicler of the Jews who lived in Lithuania. Probably the cemetery is the symbol that is dictated by my subconscious and that permeates all my creative work, all my books. I am not an optimistic writer; therefore, the metaphor for the world as a cemetery is very deep in me. The tragedy of the Holocaust, when so many people stayed to live in cemeteries … And I mean it, to live.”

In general, Kanovičius often shows the marginal situations, when a human finds himself between life and death, and experiences a real existential catastrophe. On the other hand, such states, which often emanate a fatalistic hopelessness, seem to crystallise the kernel of the personality, and show the scale of its moral values. In the novel Žydų parkas (The Park of Jews, 1998), the author reveals variations of different moral postures, without condemnation, and just states, melancholically, this is how it is … The narrator’s sensitivity in all Kanovičius’ novels lets the reader experience the depths of the human soul, to experience catharsis, and a feeling of spiritual enlightenment. The individual’s relation with eternity and divinity unfolds in his work with special suggestiveness. The writer creates an extraordinary atmosphere in the communication between a human and God, he allows his characters to “speak” to the Almighty, and to reproach sadly him about deeply rooted injustice. To small people unfairly wronged by their neighbours, God is like a source of hope that the wrongs will be redressed. God is different to the Jews led to the mass grave or tortured in the ghetto. He becomes like an equal with them. He shares the same fate, and seems to encourage some to be resigned (“Happiness is not on this earth”), and others to sustain their resolve to defend, at least by weak actions, their human dignity.

The plot of Kanovičius’ latest novel develops along the line of the previous novels. The action of Šėtono apžavai is inscribed in the historical context of 1940 and 1941, when Lithuania was overrun by the Soviet army, and shortly afterwards by Nazi troops. The population of Miškiniai, a small town in Samogitia, is predominantly Jewish, outnumbering the Lithuanians. Danuta-Hadassah, a Pole, who some time ago came here from Belarus to her father-in-law, and who is looking after the cemetery with her son Jacob (his father was a Jew), is a peculiar intermediary between the two ethnic groups. The author weaves a web of national relations that is not rare in reality, is natural and does not give rise to extraordinary passions. However, the town’s comparatively quiet life is shattered by demonic political conflicts, and the residents of the town and its environs become victims of demonic powers, and hostages of a peculiar struggle between good and evil.

The novel consists of eight parts, telling about the behaviour, feelings and experiences of the main characters. Kanovičius seldom uses an internal monologue: he depicts his characters from the narrator’s point of view by introducing the look from aside approach, and resorting to the abundant expressive dialogues and that kind-hearted irony so characteristic of him. An extremely voluminous style, rich with a diversity of meanings, associations and connotations, and aptly echoing a ­perception of the world, thoughts and spiritual state, facilitates in creating that special atmosphere of the work. The author’s narrative seems to imitate the character’s manner of speaking and events that befell him or her, and judges them from the point of view of the character.

Due to the specific communicative structure, semantics and suggested reflections in this novel are not limited by the contours of reality but step beyond the field of meaning of directly depicted events and phenomena. Following the principle pars pro toto (a part for the whole), the writer has succeeded in making a symbolic generalisation of the experiences of individual characters. Among the most characteristic versions of psychological-social existence are the fates of the Nazi henchman Juozas, the communist sympathiser Aaron, Jacob, the Jewish patriot Eliševa, who wishes to go to Palestine, the Lithuanian farmer Česlovas Lomsargis, and, of course, Danuta-Hadassah. In one way or another, all these characters experience the temptation of sin, bliss, and find themselves trapped in cruel challenges. The writer creates an unusual genre form, consisting of a parable, a ballad and a historical realistic novel that has allowed him to reflect on numerous aspects of the endless space of the human’s world.

The literary critic Elena Bukelienė once wrote that Kanovičius’ writing “abounds in biblical parallels, biblical wisdom, metaphysical feeling and, simultaneously, rich images of everyday life”. The inimitable characters of the heroes, their archetypal way of life, customs, habits, faith and feasts that come from ancient traditions and preserve the legacy of thousands of years, unfold against the background of daily rounds. It is these traditions that determine the writer’s originality and artistry, and establish links between him, born and having grown up in Lithuania, and such prominent figures in world literature as Isaac Bashevis Singer and Saul Bellow.

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PM Kubilius, who is on his bicycling holiday in Belarus said to Ziniu radijas on 29 June that since the gas consumption in the both countries is different the initial construction of the Lithuanian and Belarusian LNG’s should proceed separately.  Lithuania is planning to build an LNG terminal with capacity for 3 billion cubic meters a year.  The Byelorussians need an LNG terminal with capacity of 8 to 10 billion cubic meters a year.  The both countries consume according amounts of gas annually.

Prime Minister Kubilius has also stated that in the near future a first shipment of the Venezuelan oil for Belarus could be handled at Lithuania’s Klaipedos Nafta (Klaipeda Oil).  He said to Ziniu radijas, ‘Talks are underway to use the Klaipedos Nafta terminal’s capacities. There is a possibility that the first such oil shipment will reach Belarus via Klaipedos Nafta in the near future. The whole technological line will be tested whether it is worthwhile.’

In May media reported that an additional works would have to be done in order to be able to handle the Venezuelan crude oil shipments for Belarus.  It was reported that while the Lithuanians were calculating the cost of such adjustment Minsk began considering to choose Tallinn over Klaipeda.