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Alumni from the Antanas Vienuolis School

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Growing up in the shadow of war
Tomas Venclova Poet
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[Petras] Cvirka and his wife, the artist Marija Cvirkienė, also withdrew to Russia, while their son – because of the chaos and confusion, so to speak, at the beginning of the war – was left under my mother's care. And she raised both of us like real brothers during all of that period of the war. Andrius always called her mother and even when his real mother returned from Russia, he used to say, 'I have two mothers'. And so, in fact, until now... even now, although the two mothers are no longer living, he says: I had two mothers. And he's in Vilnius. He's now living in Vilnius, an artist, a cartoonist, a quite well known bohemian figure in Vilnius, my cousin. Well, and that's how we spent the war years. The war years, as I've already said, were difficult for our family. Well, they... they were difficult for everyone, for some even very difficult, even harder than for us, but it wasn't easy, so to speak, for us, since many of our acquaintances tried to avoid contact with us... with a leftist, almost communist family in danger... except for a few people. Out of those people I would mention the poet, the distinguished poet Henrikas Radauskas, who later became an emigrant and found himself in America. He was a very good poet, perhaps the best Lithuanian poet of the 20th century. He was then also living in Kaunas and we spent all of the war period in Kaunas and… he used to come to visit us. I remember how he once swung me on a swing; I was five years old perhaps. He was a friend of my father's from before the war, and, so to speak, he had enough courage to visit our family, not to forget us and in that way to support us morally a little bit. Another person to do this was Kazys Boruta – later imprisoned by Stalin, well, he died in Vilnius later, after going back to writing, after getting out of a Soviet prison... Boruta, whose daughter, as I've already said, taught me to read. Well, then... then the Soviet army returned... returned and the Germans retreated from Vilnius and Kaunas, and my father came back. At that time we moved from Kaunas to Vilnius. My father was no longer a minister but he was a quite well known writer, made a living as a writer, and that meant he could support my mother and me. We got a flat in Vilnius and lived in that flat for many years. That flat is still in Vilnius, my father's office is kept there and it's something like a small museum, where even some literary evenings are held, some scholarly conferences – in Pamėnkalnio Gatvė – one of the museums in Vilnius. Well, for me it's simply the flat I grew up in.

[Petras] Cvirka su žmona, dailininke Marija Cvirkiene, irgi pasitraukė į Rusiją, o sūnus, taip pat per karo pradžios, taip sakant, chaosą ir betvarkę, liko mano mamos žinioje. Ir ji mudu abudu augino kaip tikrus brolius per visą tą karo laikotarpį. Andrius ją visada vadino mama, ir net kai jau tikroji mama grįžo iš Rusijos, vis tiek jis sakė: aš turiu dvi mamas. Ir taip, faktiškai, net ir ligi šiol, ir ligi šiol jisai laiko, jau tų abiejų mamų nebėra gyvųjų tarpe, visada sako, kad: aš turėjau dvi mamas. Ir jis yra Vilniuje, gyvena šiuo metu Vilniuje, dailininkas karikatūristas, gana žinoma Vilniaus tokia bohemos figūra, mano pusbrolis. Na, ir taip mes leidome karo metą. Karo metas, kaip sakiau, buvo sunkus mūsų šeimai. Na, visiems jis buvo sunkus, kai kam net labai sunkus, sunkesnis negu mums, bet mums buvo, taip sakant, nelengva, nes daugelis pažįstamų su mūsų šeima stengėsi nepalaikyti jokių ryšių. Kaip su kairiųjų, beveik komunistų šeima, esančia pavojuje, ir išskyrus keletą žmonių. Iš tų žmonių aš prisiminčiau poetą, žymų poetą Henriką Radauską, kuris vėliau tapo emigrantu – atsidurė Amerikoje. Labai geras poetas, galbūt geriausias lietuvių XX amžiaus poetas. Jis tada irgi gyveno Kaune, o mes karo visą laikotarpį praleidome Kaune ir... jis pas mus užeidavo. Atsimenu, kaip jis mane vieną sykį supo ant sūpuoklių, man buvo gal penkeri metai. Jis buvo tėvo bičiulis iš prieškarinio laiko ir, taip sakant, jam užteko drąsos, taip sakant, mūsų šeimą lankyti, neužmiršti ir ta prasme truputį moraliai palaikyti. Kitas toks buvo poetas Kazys Boruta – vėliau Stalino kalinys. Na, o dar vėliau jis mirė Vilniuje, grįžęs į literatūrą, jau po Stalino kalėjimo. Boruta, kurio dukra, kaip jau sakiau, mane išmokė skaityti. Na, vadinasi toliau… toliau grįžo, grįžo tarybinė kariuomenė, vokiečiai pasitraukė iš Vilniaus ir iš Kauno, ir grįžo tėvas. Nuo to laiko mes persikėlėme iš Kauno į Vilnių. Tėvas jau nebebuvo ministras, bet buvo gana žinomas rašytojas, gyveno iš rašytojo darbo, galėjo, reiškia, išlaikyti mamą ir mane. Ir Vilniuje mes gavome butą ir tame bute gyvenome labai ilgus metus. Tas butas ir dabar tebėra Vilniuje, jame yra saugomas tėvo kabinetas ir ten yra kažkas panašaus į tokį muziejuką, kur net vyksta kai kurie literatūriniai vakarai, kai kurios mokslinės konferencijos – Pamėnkalnio gatvėje, toks vienas iš Vilniaus muziejų. Na, man tai yra tiesiog gimtasis butas.

Born in 1937, Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature. He was educated at Vilnius University and later at Tartu University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had to emigrate. Between 1977 and 1980 he lectured at University of California, Berkeley, where he became friends with the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, who was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the school, as well as the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. He is currently a full professor at Yale University.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: WWII, Kaunas, Vilnius, Petras Cvirka, Marija Cvirkienė, Andrius Cvirka, Henrikas Radauskas, Kazys Boruta

Duration: 3 minutes, 31 seconds

Date story recorded: May/June 2011

Date story went live: 20 March 2012