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My political recovery of sight

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'I believed that communism was the bright future of humanity'
Tomas Venclova Poet
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Well, after completing my grammar school education, I entered the University of Vilnius, the department of Lithuanian studies. That was in '54, when Stalin was already dead. The partisan war in Lithuania was ending, the deportations were ending, the times began to change and to change, I would say – all the same – for the better. It was no longer as dangerous and as difficult to live as it had been under Stalin and... the atmosphere at the university was a little freer. Well, I was a member of the Young Communist League, and quite a faithful, so to speak, member of the Young Communist League. That was an exception. There were lots of members of the Young Communist League, of course, but it was rare for any of them to believe in the communist ideology, it was a case of accommodating to the prevailing circumstances, a matter of one’s career or fear. Whereas I believed that communism was the bright future of humanity – my father also tried to believe that and tried to make me believe it. He was very popular, very productive, and as a result of the productivity, he was also a rather rich writer. He didn’t work at anything else but writing. My mother was simply a housekeeper. She, so to speak, kept house. But she has also translated several books, has had several translations published. Well, I can say that my father knew French and German well, some English, but very little. My mother also knew French and German. Well, and they knew Russian, of course – both my father and mother, both of them. My mother also knew Polish. So I grew up in a family in which one could hear other languages, not just Lithuanian, and from my childhood years I knew those languages a little. Well, I came to have even a very good knowledge of Russian, then Polish as well, and later English. I can only read French, I avoid speaking French. When French is spoken quickly I most probably understand almost nothing. But I can read French – I can read a newspaper or even a novel without too much difficulty. Well, I made some new friends at university. One of them was Juozas Tumelis. He was a person who was very much anti-Soviet, who understood well the defects in that system and the harm it was doing to Lithuania and to humanity, and who tried to get me to think in the same way and I, it should be said, used to listen to his arguments with interest. My friend, my old friend Ramūnas Katilius also set me to thinking in the same way. They all made up a group with interests in common, we were such a group, and we began sharing prohibited literature. We managed to get hold of prohibited literature in various ways.

Na, baigęs gimnaziją įstojau į Vilniaus Universitetą, į lituanistiką, tai buvo 54-ais metais, jau po Stalino mirties. Lietuvoje baigėsi partizanų karas, baigėsi trėmimai, laikai pradėjo keistis ir keistis, sakyčiau, vis dėlto, į geresniąją pusę. Jau buvo nebe taip pavojinga ir sunku gyventi kaip Stalino laikais ir... universitete jau buvo šiek tiek laisvėjanti atmosfera. Na, aš iš pradžių buvau komjaunuolis, ir gana toks tikintis, kaip sakoma, komjaunuolis. Tai buvo išimtis. Komjaunuolių, žinoma, buvo daug, bet retas kuris iš jų tikėjo komunistine ideologija, tai buvo prisitaikymo reikalas, karjeros reikalas arba baimės reikalas. O aš tikėjau, kad komunizmas yra šviesi žmonijos ateitis – tuo bandė tikėti ir mano tėvas ir bandė mane tuo įtikinti. Jis buvo labai populiarus, labai produktyvus, o kas iš to produktyvumo seka, taip pat ir gana pasiturintis rašytojas. Nieko kito išskyrus rašytojo darbo jisai nedirbo. Motina buvo tiesiog namų šeimininkė. Buvo, taip sakant, tvarkė namus. Bet taip pat yra išvertusi keletą knygų, išleidusi keletą vertimų. Na, galiu pasakyti, kad tėvas gerai mokėjo prancūziškai ir vokiškai, šiek tiek angliškai, bet labai mažai. Motina mokėjo irgi prancūziškai ir vokiškai. Na, ir rusiškai, be abejo, mokėjo – ir tėvas ir motina abudu. Motina dar ir lenkiškai. Taip kad augau tokioje šeimoje, kurioje buvo galima išgirsti ir kitų kalbų, ne tik lietuvių kalbą, ir nuo vaikystės jau šiek tiek tas kalbas mokėjau. Na, rusų kalbą išmokau net visai gerai, paskui ir lenkų kalbą, o vėliau anglų. Prancūzų tik suprantu tiktai spausdintą tekstą, kalbėt prancūziškai vengiu. Kai kalba prancūziškai greitai tubūt beveik nieko nesuprantu. Bet spausdintą tekstą suprantu – laikraštį arba net romaną galiu skaityti be didelio vargo. Na, kagi dar pasakyti... apie tuos laikus. Na, universitete atsirado naujų draugų. Vienas iš jų buvo Juozas Tumelis. Labai antitarybiskai nusiteikęs žmogus, kuris gerai suprato tos sitemos ydingumą ir žalingumą Lietuvai, ir išviso žalingumą žmonijai, ir kuris ir mane bandė ta linkme nuteikti ir aš, reikia pasakyti, tų jo argumentų klausydavausi su įdomumu. Panašia linkme mane nuteikdavo ir mano bičiulis, senas bičiulis Ramūnas Katilius. Jie visi sudarė tokią bendrą grupę, mūsų buvo tokia grupelė, ir mes jau pradėjom dalintis draudžiama literatūra. Įvairiais būdais mus pasiekdavo draudžiamos knygos.

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: University of Vilnius, 1954, Young Communist League, Joseph Stalin, Juozas Tumelis, Ramūnas Katilius

Duration: 3 minutes, 29 seconds

Date story recorded: May/June 2011

Date story went live: 20 March 2012