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– You look surprisingly calm: maybe quarantine is exceptionally useful for you?
– In every sense. I’ve never had so much time. Accept that time as a gift, clean the environment, clean the nests. For a decade that I have lived outside the city, I can already say that I am a villager. I couldn’t imagine that that could happen. I believed for a long time that I would live in the old town, but now I do not regret that step and I discover many things in it. For example, that each tree (ash, linden, birch, maple, oak, hazelnut) has its own aroma, that each grasshopper has its own name. So the quarantine is another interesting period for me, like the Soviet era, like the times of the Movement, Independence, the blockade, the crises, the European Union … My father used to say: in each situation, look at what depends on you and what you can do. In general, our country is living probably one of the happiest periods: so many decades without war.
– But we live like a war … The confrontation is enormous.
– Maybe I promise a change.
– What changes would you like to see?
– I want more love. Love and respect for people. The truth. More public thought. Although in some cases it does not exist at all, it is rather called anti-state. Here is a person who presents “n” cases against Lithuania, who poses against the flag of a neighboring state, since nowhere is Minister of Justice appointed. Not only that, in this position, he protects minority rights and drafts the law on national minorities. What could surprise Lukiškės square beach in such a context? The power, in most cases, only to dismantle, to destroy.
– He has also been elected to the Vilnius City Council for one term. This conclusion from there?
– There you see how broad the word politics is. When you do not face reality, you do not understand how a “paper” can walk through the floors and offices of the municipality for eight months. How can a politician who has just defended one turn his mind in a few minutes and start saying otherwise. If the situation at the municipal and state level does not change, people will undoubtedly unite together. This is historically unavoidable. Perhaps it is also related to the characteristics of our nation. Lithuanians are emotional (on the other hand, according to the philosopher Stasys Šalkauskis, who analyzed the predominant features of nations, they too are in great need of the truth. Of course, it is possible and, as we can see, it is manipulated, but it is possible to some extent. Looking at the history of Lithuania, after the 1831 uprising, the 1863 uprising followed, after a quarter of a century, the movement of the Dawns, then the restoration of the state …
– It is already the 32nd year of Independence … What will happen?
– If our sages, having chosen politics, learn to agree, separate the importance and unite, then something good will be.
– Your son, the actor Ainis, once said that the theater was for you and that there is a possibility of being closer to the truth. Is right?
– Yes, close to the truth, traveling on the path of cognition.
– Among his activities (actor, bard, composer, artistic director of poetry singing festivals, etc.) is pedagogical – for many years he has been directing the theater studio “Elementorius”, where, I suppose, giving him the opportunity to be closer to the truth and to a group of curious and creative young people.
– During my studies, we had a dream with the soloist of the Opera of Bright Remembrance Sergey Larin to gather a group to set up a group of self-education and self-awareness. But he left Lithuania and the idea hung in the air. Now I am trying to implement it with the youth of these days. We have a great time. Elementorius is the oldest operating room studio in Lithuania, it was 55 years old.
– Paraphrasing the philosopher Nerija Putinaitė, everything that was founded during the Soviet era today smells bad. You recently crucified the Lithuanian ensemble, who dared to commemorate its 80th anniversary, and even you dared to participate in the program of this ensemble, don’t you feel dirty?
– This is a completely irrational ideological attack. The “Lietuvos” ensemble has been doing some really beautiful and interesting work lately. In my opinion, the performance “Gods and People” is, in my opinion, one of the most impressive and significant productions of recent times, as well as his latest work. – the opera “Mažvydas”. A person’s attack is reminiscent of dealing with what kind of cultural people or more socially active people there were and there are quite a few. At that moment. I don’t know why this is so. I don’t know who needs it, who runs it. Who serves? Who will now dare to renounce or exclude from our culture, say, the music of Julius Juzeliūnas, Bronius Kutavičius, paintings by Antanas Gudaitis, graphics by Stasys Krasauskas, performances by Juozas Miltinis, Jonas Juras or Eimuntas Nekrošius, works by Marcelijus Martinaitis, Romualdas Marcinkevičius or Justinas Marcinas and we would be different, their creativity and active social position was one of the conditions to live now in a free country. and while driving around the country with the “Lietuvos” ensemble, I was genuinely surprised that there were no empty seats to be seen in any of the aisles.
– And which rooms coincide with the book “The Lithuanian Kings and the Kingdom of Lithuania” by the writer Algimantas Butis?
– This book is historical, intended for those interested in Lithuania’s past, so we did not expect an audience of a thousand. We would have liked thirty or a hundred people interested in this topic to come. Sometimes even more. Overall, this book by A. Butis is very successful: its third edition has already appeared, a new encyclopedic book dedicated to this subject will be published soon in Lithuanian and English, with extensive sources from contemporaries and all our kings.
– What is the difference for you – Dukes or Kings Lithuania?
– A big difference. Not just for me. I think for most Lithuanians and some Lithuanians around the world. In fact, this is the first complete study of medieval titles in Lithuania, based on the hierarchy of titles now recognized in the world. It is written according to perhaps the most modern methodology, using the contexts of archeology and philology, linguistics, folklore, providing all the sources cited in the book and its translations, rather than their references. If we go back 3 decades or even more, a few hundred years ago, historical circumstances would reveal why, according to Russian and Polish sources rather than Western European sources, the story was falsified, but it is not clear why yet. it is faked. in independent Lithuania. After all, you don’t have to finish your Latin studies to understand that the word “rex” means “king” and “regnum” means “kingdom” …
– But our historians understand them differently.
– The current rector of Vilnius University, the historian Rimvydas Petrauskas, considers this translation strange for translators. In that case, ask yourself where the error is. And why is that? Why did historians eagerly accept the news when a man found the Act of Independence in the German archives as if it were from outside? Do you remember what his lazy reaction was? An employee of the Institute of History, when asked why historians did not search for this document, replied that they had not been told. It is difficult to understand him as an employee, but difficult as a citizen, especially at the time of the Centennial of Independence. I think A. Butis’s book deserves a more detailed presentation and discussion, because it destroys the myth inflicted since childhood that we have the only King Mindaugas. Isn’t it time we wrote our own history instead of looking at our neighbors for what they think and write about us? Is it not from there today that misinformation about some historical facts and historical figures is spread (remember the cases of General Vėtra, the organizer of the June Uprising K. Škirpa, A. Ramanauskas-Vanagas), which does not an adequate response by specialists and individuals who defend personalities, losing their jobs. Not without reason, Romualdas Ozolas realized that there were few Lithuanians on the minds of historians.
– Painfully prophetically back in 1988, your favorite poet Sigitas Geda wrote about Lithuania: “If after a thousand years you ever stumble here, a passenger / And you stand on the high mound and look sad, – / shore … / Ash, ash, ash … “
– People like texts, some are read and forgotten, while others do not leave and travel with them through life. The writings of S. Geda are as follows. All in all, S. Geda is a titanium that fell to Lithuania. One of the pillars of our culture, like Just. Professor Viktorija Daujotytė has named Marcinkevičius, one of the messengers and bridge builders of the time, as V. Mykolaitis-Putin. In fact, we have many impressive personalities. I never cease to marvel at them, as does our oldest sung poetry, that is, popular songs; they are also interested in seeing young people open encoded cultural cues. To reach them are the slogans of our history, folklore, poetry, capable of unlocking our language and shaping us. It is our roots that purify and strengthen.
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