[ad_1]
The editor Donata Linčiuvienė worked with J.Baltušis for many years, she was not only a person whom the writer trusted to prepare his work, but also her friend, to whom the writer also confided secrets.
– At that time, when communicating with J. Baltušis, did you know that he was writing newspapers?
– Yes, he told me. He was very open when he contacted me, we were so kind that after the launch of a new book that came to give a copy, we had dinner. He talked about everything very openly, and then the other side opened, like “Instead of a newspaper.”
– Did he tell you what he planned to do with these blogs, who did they go to?
– He did not address anyone, it was just a habit to sit down every day and write some event, what he did that day and what he thought about it, what excited him, what attracted him. He was a very controversial personality, very emotional, he was irritated by all the meetings he had to attend, his emotions were intertwined, so he had to vent somewhere else. He had no intention of submitting the blogs to any archive, he said he was disappointed with his nails, he turned in the manuscripts, then searched and found nothing. Later he considered for a long time who to give them to.
Admittedly, I don’t even have much to say about the last few episodes of his life, because after all his “friendships” with “Jedinstvo”, speeches in “Caspervizia” didn’t call me anymore, and he used to call and talk very often about books , on what he writes what goes wrong. That last stage was completely new for me, I did not know what I was thinking … It was very unfortunate and painful, I wanted to cross it out, I turned off the television when I talked about it, I tried not to listen to it. At the time, J. Baltušis was like a stubborn child.
At the time, J. Baltušis was like a stubborn child.
I learned of the fact that I was seriously ill by the priest Vaclovas Aliulis, who had later accepted me to work in the “Catholic world”. I was about to say goodbye to him, but the events of January had started and you couldn’t talk about it anymore. It’s even hard to see why those black forces bothered him so much that they blackened his biography and work.
“Why do you think he did that at the time?”
– I think he was confused, overwhelmed at the time, just as he was overwhelmed by the events of the 1940s, he felt the same way during the Sąjūdis. He probably imagined that he had to be invited to join the Sąjūdis, as they had always invited him, because he was a man used to being at the front, sitting in the presidencies, talking, surrounded by people and then realizing that life was passing and in a completely different direction.
– Has the writer revealed you with new colors while reading these blogs, did you learn something new about him?
– I didn’t learn anything new in particular. He often laughed at himself for taking advantage of what he hated himself. On the other hand, he was surrounded by people who sought his advice, services, mediation, intercession. Sometimes he did his duty as a deputy, sometimes, and perhaps often, he did it with a good heart, providing his relatives with everything they asked for. However, sometimes he was also on fire for things that were completely absent and that would violate his ambitions: he was a very ambitious person. If someone criticized or reprimanded him, there was a fire. Inside that bonfire burned both the interior and the people who raped it, then everything was already there.
This was also reflected in the letters: I have received several letters. He knew the letters were readable, so everything was written within very restricted limits, but a comical picture of reality permeated them, say, how nomenclatural farmworkers live somewhere in Palanga or in a sanitarium, they use everything. ..
Family archive photo with his wife Monika in 1974
– You have been its editor for many years. How was the work with him?
– The editors were afraid of J.Baltušis. He didn’t like publishers, there were conflicts with them. I met him in 1973. I remember how we met: I entered the office, J. Baltušis sat at the door, turned around and asked ironically: “What will they say?” I said, first I want to say as a reader that “With whom ate salt “, these are also my grandparents. the trails I walked along with your mother’s experiences.
We started talking about it, and he said, “Oh, here I find it interesting.” When we met him like that, he asked, “And what did you do in my manuscript here?” He replied, “I like to edit.” And right here he acted the manuscript like a fan. He was an extremely verbose manuscript presenter. It was said that he remembered Lev Tolstoi, who said that the writer must correct until he feels spoiled. But sometimes you don’t feel it, of course. He used to say: dry, improve and shorten. There is not a single book in which something has not been substantially revised or which chapter has been revised.
Of course, there were conflict situations, but I tried to find out: the writer will not work again, he will not say that he will remake everything. Above all, of course, we handle the works stylistically, he continued to show imperfections, he said that the works should be handled as if they were a scalpel.
– I understand that they were not only colleagues, but also close friends.
– yeah And that did not stop me from having wells in my biography: my father was a political prisoner in the 1940s, J. Baltušis knew everything, but he never got in the way.
It was fun. He would be transported by such a caring driver, he would come out with a huge briefcase, he would bring a new book that he had just released, he would first open the door to the apartment room and say, “Cha cha, the table is ready, ready for dinner” . Then he asked if Monika could be called. I said of course. He called and said: “Monica, I’m already with my editor.” This meant that my husband had to call a taxi and bring Monika Mironaitė. It was brought in, and then our dinner began, of course, modest in those days.
Monika really liked music, she said: J. Baltušis does not lead to concerts, does not listen, does not like music. They asked me to tell you if I was at the Philharmonic, what concerts I saw. And J.Baltušis used to say to my husband: “You should wear VEF sooner, there will be news soon -” Voice of America. “And they heard that knowledge at full volume. And upstairs lived a famous security figure, a former Red Partisan. He couldn’t tell J. Baltušis that it was dangerous for me to hear that knowledge. And soon I received guests: the day after J. Baltušis’s visit, he landed, stepped on the door, inspected the room (and my husband had recently posted a book), took it and asked: “A što eto? Rasprostraniajietie knigi?” (“And here who? Distribute books?” – Russian). I say: ‘No, here are the ideological books’.
There was a lot of chameleon in the character of J. Baltušis. He was given life as an unfulfilled talent of an actor, he was a great actor, he assumed so many roles that the objective truth was very curly. And sometimes it broke very abruptly.
– We can see on blogs that there were quite a few writers with whom their relationship was tense.
– What I didn’t like, I didn’t like. It is known about their great conflict with Kazi Boruta, with whom they later reconciled. They flew in all directions like apple beaters, both of this type. His hatred was strong. He did not like Eduardas Mieželaitis, because E.Mieželaitis had fallen in love with Monika Mironaitė, and J.Baltušis did not forgive the gentlemen of the Monika novels in any way,
– Did you support younger artists?
– I don’t like modernists. He did not like, as he said, the youth’s pastime of revealing sex. But if anyone could access it, it speaks … J. Baltušis wanted to be respected, loved. For example, Saulius Šaltenis liked him and defended him a lot. However, if criticized by a favorite writer, that palette could change.
– From the last volume of blogs we see that he and Richard Gavel did not want it either.
– Yes, it seemed like a joke. But I’ll be open: after all, I edited R. Gavel’s first book, it was very weak, then it started to grow, it worked a lot. It was written illiterately, the content and the form very loose. Later, there was a scandal when an editor discovered episodes of plagiarism; Later critics began to justify that these may be intertexts, things allowed by postmodernity. However, there was still no talk of postmodernism, a sad phenomenon that was with us at the time.
– You have also discovered yourself on blogs, J.Baltušis comments about you in very good words.
– I feel uncomfortable. You don’t feel comfortable with that compliment, says an old friend, you have to like it a lot, because women like to be praised. But it’s not fun for me, it’s like a confrontation with other people.
– From this conversation, it can be understood that, despite all the contradictions, would you like to remember him precisely as a talented writer and friend?
– Yes, because he also felt infinite kindness towards the people who treated him normally, with whom he did not have to deal with any problem, to enter into conflicts. And those people could have had different biographies, they also communicated beautifully with priests, exiles, those with whom many people were afraid to communicate. He knew how to keep secrets. He is a tragic personality, he did not have good conditions to work as a writer, he was spinning all the time, he could not dedicate himself to serious work, I suspect that he worked at night. They were infinitely hard-working people and appreciated for their diligence and simplicity.
[ad_2]
