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The first lesson is the simplest and most obvious. People want to rejoice, they not only want to know, but also feel that they have something to be proud of, something to appreciate. A few years ago, I said that the best monument to freedom in Lukiškės Square would be the happy and free people gathered there. Today and again we can see what it is about.
Of course, for most people, it is just an opportunity to rejoice, enjoy the sun, the sand, the fountain, stay with your children or friends. But there is something in the air that at least I like to see more. The Nazis, who had their headquarters nearby, evaporated from our land. The Soviets, who stayed here longer, were also driven and rotten out of Lithuania. And we, the winners, are here and rejoice in our country, our capital, Vilnius. I imagine Lenin consuming resentment in the mausoleum.
A few years ago, I said that the best monument to freedom in Lukiškės Square would be the happy and free people gathered there.
The second lesson. The main Lithuanian parties are powerless ideological. Pandemic recovery? Strengthening of the health system? Modernize education to develop free and creative personalities for the future? Financial sustainability after a massive sprinkling of money to voters to bribe? The paralysis of the Constitutional Court due to the inability of the Seimas to appoint judges? Paralysis of the Supreme Court due to Seimas’s eye with dismissals / appointments? No, this is not a matter for the peasants or the opposition parties.
Her concern is how not to let people rejoice and feel proud that Lithuania and its freedom have won.
Here is the peasant commander. Karbauskis is already making plans, how to introduce direct control of the Seimas in Vilnius, which, God, is not so similar to the native collective farm.
Conservative pillars demand urgent removal of sand from the square, and supporters explain that ice was not bad in winter because people were more dressed there (the next day, forgetting the Taliban in their own hearts, they will explain the inappropriate customs. of women in Muslim countries). Everything is fine here …).
Gentvilas, the true leader of the Liberal Movement, sheds tears on the island of hedonism in Lukiškės Square.
Not a single Seimas, like a Pakistani fundamentalist in a stone-throwing campaign, feels a sacred duty to the only representative of the Freedom Party in the Seimas to make a nasty and vulgar comment on Aušrina Armonaitė.
All this reminds me of the historical testimonies of the times when the Republic of the Two Nations occupied Moscow. Who else outraged the Muslim elite? Oh the fact that these western people listen to music (!), They dance, they eat veal and somehow they are too free. It is almost impossible to deny the historical heritage of Lithuania, when a Lithuanian was “for whom freedom is wanted and adheres to the Statute”, more than politicians of the dictatorship of all parties in the Seimas do today.
I waited for the rulers to use their institutions, and it wasn’t long. The State Commission for the Lithuanian Language has already joined on the horrors of non-Lithuanian words. The Cultural Heritage Council is about how heritage is not what heritage is, but what you do and think about it. I have no doubt that there will be heavier artillery, which is already preparing to quell the rebel Vilnius.
The third lesson. Our ruling elite sits in the city, but knows nothing about urban history or urban planning. I say this because I hear and hear the same argument over and over again: Lukiškės Square is a place of tragic events, therefore the celebration of life is not appropriate here.
In this way, it is forgotten that everything always happened in the central squares of the city: commerce, celebrations, demonstration executions, demonstrations, everything related to the mobilization of people.
Not to mention Vilnius alone, I will give the example of smaller cities, in fact almost every city in Lithuania.
At least two tragic episodes took place in almost every city or town in Lithuania in the mid-20th century. The first are the Jews imprisoned in the main square, from where they were taken or transported to a place of total execution and annihilation. The second is the desecrated bodies of Lithuanian partisans. Why in the central squares? The first is that everyone sees that all the old righteous communists and their collaborators can translate the scepter and become the new righteous Nazis. I invite Timothy Snyder to read the details of that mechanism. The second is so that people who go to church or to the market can see the lying supporters and surrender to the merciful.
Furthermore, like the 1863 rebels, other executions at that time were carried out nowhere, but in such a way that as many people as possible could be seen. As Michel Foucault deconstructs in his Discipline and Punishment, it was a macabre theater of power deliberately created because the government clung to fear and respect for power.
We can also return to the ATR in Moscow. Not only music, dancing, inappropriate food, and “ungodly” behavior angered the Russians. They were particularly disappointed that Tsar Dimitrius, who had been thrown to the throne by the ATR, had mercy on the boyar conspiracy that rang out against him, and there was no macabre theater in the central square.
It is forgotten that everything always happened in the central squares of the city: commerce, celebrations, demonstration executions, demonstrations, everything related to the mobilization of people.
It is difficult to behave like the current opponents of freedom who have moved in time to that time. There seems to be no hesitation in dealing with those who think differently. Because they don’t even bother to realize that Freedom cannot be owned by anyone.
I will continue to work for the mayor of the city, to mobilize the townspeople in search of creative solutions and the growth of the city. I’m not quite sure that the Taliban hypocrites in the Seimas also work for what belongs to them. However, the good news is that both the people of Vilnius and all the people of Lithuania are more decent and intelligent than the translated hypocritical chorus.
I suggest ignoring them and continuing to celebrate freedom and life. Where you want, not where you are not prohibited.
Remigijus Šimašius is the Mayor of Vilnius.
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