On Tuesday, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are marking the 33rd anniversary of the Baltic Way, a huge rally that proved to be a milestone on their path to independence. In Vilnius, a concert and various commemorative initiatives are planned for Tuesday night, while a flower exhibition opens in Panevėžys.
On August 23, 1989, around 2 million people formed a human chain connecting the three Baltic capitals. Many were holding gladiolus flowers – or sword lilies – which have become symbols of the Baltic Way.
“It was a form of peaceful resistance, and peaceful resistance is linked to beauty, so we wanted to make the Lithuanian emotion even more powerful, to bring armfuls of flowers in cars, to throw them from airplanes, to rejoice and so on,” recalls Leonas Adomavičius, a participant of the event and a collector of gladioli.
Back then, most of the flowers were Dutch, he says. Flower selectors have since decided that the Baltic Way deserves its own flowers.
In 2009, on the initiative of selectionist Alfonsas Žobakas, the public library of Panevėžys in northern Lithuania started organising exhibitions of Lithuanian gladioli, entitled Flower for the Baltic Way. This year, the exhibition is held for the 14th time and is dedicated both to the Baltic Way and the author of the idea, who passed away earlier this year.
“We are trying to preserve dad’s collection and keep the tradition alive,” says Tadas Žobakas, the son of Alfonsas. “Three or four years ago, dad said the library was doing well and would do well and gave it [the exhibition] to them to organise.”
The display shows dozens of different varieties of gladioli, with dahlias included alongside for the first time.
“It all started with gladioli, but the exhibition has been expanding, with more and more flower farmers joining. Dahlias also appeared,” says Skirmantė Karpavičienė, the organizer of the exhibition.
Dahlias, just like gladioli, are flowers of late summer and their blooms are omnipresent in late August.
“I remember from my childhood: my grandmother’s house, the patio, the walls of the house – everything was planted with dahlias, with large, droopy flowers, and now they are a new variety, a national flower, so to speak,” says Virginija Gasiūnaitė, a collector.
Six flower farmers and selectionists, as well as the Šiauliai Botanical Garden, are involved in the exhibition.
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