While darkness and cruelty prevail in Russia, famous Lithuanian writer Kristina Sabaliauskaitė says we should support all Russians of good will, paying attention not to their nationality but deeds. Otherwise, we will be "no different from the Nazis".
The return to normal has not happened. At least for the free, democratic world. As the pandemic (aren’t the emotions aroused by it funny now?) waned, we were all taken hostage by the Russian war. It seemed unthinkable in the 21st century. But maybe that’s just the way we see it? Perhaps for Russia, which believes in the cyclical nature of history, this is perfectly normal? It has prepared for it and has achieved what it was planning to do.
I would not use the plural. Neither the passions aroused by the pandemic were funny (on the contrary, it was a very difficult period, affecting many people, especially children and young people, whose psychological, intellectual, and educational needs were sacrificed), nor the current geopolitical situation seemed unthinkable.
If you look at my public statements over the last few years, you will see that I have been repeating two things. First, all epidemics, even the worst mediaeval ones, tend to “fizzle out” in about two years. Second, we are facing major geopolitical shifts, and this is not a time for societies to complain about petty differences in lifestyles but to unite and face the dangers that lie ahead of us.
For some time now, I have thought that the question of war is not “if” but “when”. I was and still am very worried about the fifth column and the pro-Soviet and pro-Russian individuals in our society (including in the cultural world), who are now more silent but will resurface in time.
However, going back to the war, it is reassuring that these challenges have come upon us during the term of a pro-European, pro-Western ruling majority, which is capable of maintaining an equal dialogue with its Western partners.
To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for the muses and a time for war. Today, civic and political positions are more important than books and creative success that would bring joy in peacetime. You are now addressing Westerners, who cannot make up their minds and do not see what they are dealing with. What do you think are the reasons why the Western European countries and their elected representatives are favouring Russia?
I simply do what I think is necessary and meaningful. In order to talk to the West, you have to be known there, be part of the Western cultural discourse, and have connections there because otherwise, no one will publish your opinion. I take advantage of the fact that in some foreign countries my books are appreciated and read, and I have a platform to speak to the people of those countries about a state that is now a threat and that we, as neighbours, know quite well. I stress the need to act together because in Ukraine the fight is for the civilisation of us all.
I wouldn’t say that civic position is more important than literature. On the contrary, it is literature that reaches people’s hearts and minds. In the Netherlands, for example, where Peter’s Empress [Sabaliauskaitė’s book] has been among the most read prose books for five months, people quote whole paragraphs on social media about Russian commanders starting wars, about how they rape women, about the destroyed Ukrainian town of Baturin…
In the current context, it is uncomfortable and painful for me to read the words I have written. But now, my comments published abroad, especially in the US on Salon.com, are read and shared by many people. I hope that the fog in the Westerners’ eyes clears out because they really have no idea what they are dealing with. The reasons are simple – the distance from Russia and Russia’s heavy investment in cultural propaganda in recent decades, using it as a soft power abroad.
The Russians are able to speak loudly and with shameless self-confidence about how important and wonderful they are, but the paradox is that Lithuania, a tiny country, which allocates little money to its artists, has in the last decades achieved probably more in contemporary art, architecture, music composition, and documentary cinema than huge Russia and its millions.
With a few exceptions, under Putin's self-censorship, Russia has produced almost no internationally significant art of any kind, and has mainly been known for its music performers and dancers, who do not themselves create intellectual content. or the works of those dissident Russians, who have been living in exile for decades and are certainly not part of the state narrative.
How do you feel about the initiatives to remove the statues that glorify the Soviet army and soldiers? Is the intervention of art historians and researchers of historical memory necessary in such cases?
Reasonable people always listen to the arguments of professionals, but these arguments may be different. As an art historian, I advocated for the removal of the statues of the Green Bridge in Vilnius because the discussion was already taking place after Russia annexed the Ukrainian territories in 2014. It was inappropriate to keep the statues of the aggressor’s soldiers in the most visible place in the city. These statues could have remained as a harmless exotic if Russia had evolved into a country that did not threaten its neighbours.
Today, we can be glad that we no longer have images of soldiers, who are still killing and raping civilians, in the centre of our capital. However, I also believe that today we have more important things to do than removing Soviet army monuments. The funds could be better used for defence or civil protection purposes.
It would be sufficient to “neutralise” the existing Soviet army monuments with information boards with the following text: “The soldiers of the Soviet army that brought us 50 years of occupation are buried here. May God be their judge.”
What is perhaps most annoying is the hysterical “hurrah for patriotism” tone of today’s debate on this matter and the pompous ranting of the creative unions about “closing the skies to Russian culture”.
[...] I think we are quite conscious not to cooperate with Russian state institutions, not to allow pro-regime culture in. At the same time, we should not cut ourselves off from the thoughtful, anti-Putinist works of Russians, no matter how scarce they may be.
Creation must first of all be about affirming something, not about defining oneself negatively through conflict with something. So, Russia does not make a good muse...
After the Lithuania-themed Silva Rerum series, it was not Europe but Russia that came to your attention. When you reflect today on Peter’s Empress, to what extent was it driven by a perhaps unconscious desire to understand the origins of a phenomenon like Putinism?
Putin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev – all of them are only temporary leaders. So, the assumption that “an unconscious desire to understand the origins of a phenomenon like Putinism” was an incentive for me to write a novel is completely wrong.
Perhaps it was more inspired by the fact that the two people closest to Peter the Great, Marta and Menshikov, were of Lithuanian origin [...].
By the way, there is a lot of Europe in that story. Peter the Great – and now Russia – inevitably defined and created themselves through a relationship with Europe. They wanted to be like Europe. But when they failed because of laziness, neglect, or simply a lack of knowledge and patience, they became suspicious and tried to destroy it.
There is a certain Russian mental pathology, which I described in the novel, i.e. when one realises one’s insignificance, one destroys what is more beautiful and superior.
I wrote the novel because it seemed to me that there are many important existential and cultural things in that theme that are more eternal than any regime and at the same time can explain those regimes. I try to see the patterns of the centuries. Some, paradoxically, repeat themselves…
I would like to expand on the previous question… Would you agree with the idea that the greatest literary works of the peoples who were part of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, or who bordered them, were born out of their resentment of the regime, which tortured and destroyed them for many centuries?
No. I think that the greatest works speak about more universal existential issues, not just resistance to Russia. They are able to elevate the reader’s thinking to higher, more thought-provoking ideas. The best example of this is Czesław Miłosz’s The Captive Mind.
George Orwell’s 1984 is not the work of an author enslaved by the Russian Empire, but it says a great deal about the Soviet Union and the essence of totalitarianism.
Creation must first of all be about affirming something, not about defining oneself negatively through conflict with something. So, Russia does not make a good muse...
We must see and support every Russian of good will who stands on the side of the light during this cataclysm.
In Ukraine, we are seeing Russians’ moral masks coming off. The Russian army is demonstrating its superiority by killing and raping the unarmed. Even babies, as President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. A century after the Great War, what has the homunculus, which was started during the Bolshevik takeover, turned into?
Russia has demonstrated its true mainstream “culture” in Butcha and other devastated cities, in the conversations of soldiers with their equally dehumanised mothers and wives, making “shopping lists” for the marauders and allowing them to “rape Ukrainian women”. Unfortunately, this has become the most prominent sign of Russian “culture” in the world. Russian intellectuals themselves are already saying that Russian culture collapsed on February 24.
The same “culture” was also demonstrated by Russia during the Second World War, both in East Prussia and Lithuania. Unfortunately, neither Bulgakov nor Pasternak was read by the Russian masses back then, and the crimes of Soviet Russia were not duly acknowledged by the international community even after 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
That is why we have seen that fog of moral ambivalence in the West. The belief that it is possible to do business with Russia in a roughly civilised and pragmatic way has prevailed in recent decades.
The decades of the last regime and the Russian mythology of the Second World War were a fertile breeding ground for this homunculus. Also, when the masses are poor because the government has stolen everything, it is necessary to invent an enemy and a war so that the people do not make noise. So, NATO and the West have become that imaginary enemy.
However, having said that, there is something else to add. At a moment when darkness and cruelty seem to be taking over this nation, it is very important for us all to maintain our own humanity and to see the Russians as human beings. We need to be prepared to fight back against Russian propaganda and military force but also to respect the Russian woman who is being interrogated by the police, who went out with her children to protest against the war.
We must see and support every Russian of good will who stands on the side of the light during this cataclysm. We should remember that our fellow Russians, the Russians of goodwill in Lithuania, are having a particularly difficult time.
I respect every Russian who went out to protest against the war, who was beaten by the police, who was arrested. We must talk about the flaws in the national mentality, society, or culture, but at the same time, we must always see individual decent people, no matter how many of them there are. Because if we no longer see an innocent human being but only a nationality, we ourselves are no different from the Nazis.
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