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Views | Duration | ||
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61. Speaking on Radio Liberty | 41 | 02:04 | |
62. Confronted by VLIKas | 45 | 01:19 | |
63. An offer from Julien Greimas | 63 | 01:38 | |
64. The dumb fish that spoke | 38 | 03:00 | |
65. Teaching semiotics in San Francisco | 39 | 01:12 | |
66. My trip to Hawaii | 35 | 01:56 | |
67. My Soviet citizenship is revoked | 45 | 03:05 | |
68. Seeking political asylum | 30 | 01:58 | |
69. Help from Czesław Miłosz | 47 | 03:52 | |
70. Travelling around the world | 84 | 01:10 |
The other question which came up then was what to do now? I lectured for one semester but I had no permanent work in America. Czesław Miłosz... when I was left without any work, well, I still had about $8000 out of that $10,000 but it was clear that that would be gone within a few months. What to do then? Well, émigrés did all kinds of things. Some émigrés applied for state benefits and got them, some were supported by all kinds of émigré foundations. Some simply switched professions looked for work, sometimes very lowly work. Like nowadays, people who have left Lithuania nowadays often find some quite lowly work, caring for the elderly, cleaning rooms and so on. Well, I was determined, if needed, to also take on such work, since I didn’t intend to die of hunger... I had to look for something. But Czesław Miłosz – with whom, over that period, I had become more closely acquainted and even become friends – made a call to another town, to Los Angeles, to Marija Gimbutas, a well known Lithuanian scholar, a scholar of Lithuanian descent, from Vilnius, an archaeologist, who, as it were, was at the time almost a cult figure, she… her books were very well known in America. She was very successful, a Lithuanian scholar who had made a serious career in America focusing on the émigrés of '44 who had left because of the advancing Soviet army. Like very many then. Well, Gimbutas said, ‘Well, I’ll try to find you a job at our university’. I was invited to the university, I passed the interview and got the job, I was hired as a Lithuanian language lecturer for one year.
I taught Lithuanian, elementary Lithuanian for beginners, it wasn’t easy. My students were mainly young Lithuanians, the children of Lithuanians, who had forgotten their Lithuanian but whose parents had told them that they would buy them a Cadillac or BMW if they got a good mark in their Lithuanian language exam. Well, because of the Cadillac or BMW, they tried to learn some grammar with me, to acquire some basic grammar, so to speak. I said that wasn’t an easy job since the majority of them didn’t want to study Lithuanian, nor did they really have the ability. Well, I taught and managed to extend my contract for three years. After three years, I had by then found my feet in America, I had already published a couple of books in Lithuanian, books of poems, a book of translations of poems, I was preparing a book of essays, even two books of essays. And in the émigré community, especially in the Lithuanian émigré community, I was already a quite well known figure. And from that... that also went towards my livelihood, since I would get some sort of fee for my talks to the émigrés, not a large fee, but I did get something. But mainly I lived on my university salary for teaching Lithuanian. A modest, of course in American terms, very modest salary, but I was on my own, without a wife, without children, it was enough for me. Besides which, I really don’t have any great needs, I don’t need a Cadillac or a BMW, so to speak. I also don’t need a large house and if I have any expensive needs, then it’s the need to travel.
Kitas klausimas, kuris tada kilo, tai… Ką toliau veikti? Vieną semestrą dėsčiau, bet neturėjau jokio pastovaus darbo Amerikoje. Česlovas Milošas, kai aš netekau darbo, na, turiu dar iš tų dešimties tūkstančių dolerių dar kokis aštuonis tūkstančius dar man buvo likę, bet aišku, kad po kelių mėnesių jų neliks. Ką toliau daryti? Na, su emigrantais būdavo visaip – kai kurie emigrantai prašydavo valstybinės pašalpos ir ją gaudavo, kiti iš visokių emigracinių fondų būdavo remiami. Nu, kiti tiesiog keisdavo profesiją, ieškodavo darbo, kartais labai primityvaus. Kaip ir dabar, dabar iš Lietuvos išvykę žmonės dažnai randa primityvų gana darbą: prižiūrėti senukus, valyti kambarius ir taip toliau. Na, aš buvau pasiryžęs, kad jeigu reikia, imsiuosi ir tokio darbo, kadangi badu gi nemirsi, reikia kažko ieškoti. Bet Česlovas Milošas, su kuriuo per tą laiką mes arčiau susipažinome ir net susibičiuliavom, jisai paskambino į kitą miestą, į Los Andželą, netolimą miestą, Marijai Gimbutienei – garsiai lietuvių mokslininkei, lietuvių kilmės mokslininkei, vilnietei, archeologei, kuri, taip sakant, buvo beveik tada kultinė figūra, jinai… labai jos knygos labai garsios visoje Amerikoje. Labai sėkminga, padariusi Amerikoje tikrą karjerą lietuvė mokslininkė, iš keturiasdešimts ketvirtųju metų emigrantų, pasitraukusi nuo Tarybinės kariuomenės. Kaip labai daugelis tada.
Na, ir Gimbutienė pasakė: Na, aš bandysiu surasti jam darbo mūsų universitete. Pakvietė mane į tą universitetą, aš ten praėjau interviu ir gavau vieneriems metams buvau įdarbintas kaip lietuvių kabos dėstytojas. Dėsčiau lietuvių kalbą, elementarią lietuvių kalbą pradedantiesiems, tai nebuvo lengva. Mano studentai buvo daugiausiai lietuviukai, kurie lietuvių tėvų vaikai, bet kurie jau buvo užmiršę lietuvių kalbą, bet tėvai jiems pasakę, kad nupirks jiem ten Kadilaką arba BMV, jeigu jie gerai išlaikys lietuvių kalbos egzaminą. Na, tai dėl to Kadilako ar BMV, bandė pas mane kažkokios gramatikos, taip sakant, kažkokius gramatikos pradmenis, taip vadinasi , įsisavinti. Sakau, tai buvo gana sunkus darbas, kadagi dauguma iš jų nei norėjo studijuoti lietuvių kalbą, nei labai sugebėjo. Na, ir taip dėsčiau ir man pavyko tą kontraktą pratęsti trejus metus. Po trejų metų, jau aš buvau Amerikoj šiek tiek apšilęs kojas, jau išleidęs porą knygų lietuviškai, eilėraščių knygą, poetinių vertimų knygą, rengiau straipsnių knygą, net dvi straipsnių knygas. Ir emigrantų visuomenėje, ypatingai lietuvių emigrantų visuomenėje, jau buvau gana žinoma tokia figūra. Iš to irgi, taip sakant, tas irgi prisidėjo prie pragyvenimo, kadangi už pokalbius su emigrantais gaudavau šiokį tokį užmokestį, nedidutį, bet gaudavau. Bet daugiausia gyvenau iš tos universiteto algos, už lietuvių kabos dėstymą. Kuklios, žinoma, Amerikos supratimu, labai kuklios algos, bet buvau vienas, be žmonos, be vaikų, man to užteko. Taip pat ir didelių poreikių tikrai neturiu, man nei Kadilako, nei BMV, man taip sakant, nereikia. Didelio namo irgi nereikia ir man, jeigu aš turiu tokių... tokių brangių poreikių tai yra poreikis keliauti.
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.
Title: Help from Czesław Miłosz
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: 1944, USA, Czesław Miłosz, Marija Gimbutas
Duration: 3 minutes, 52 seconds
Date story recorded: May/June 2011
Date story went live: 20 March 2012