A proposal to build a monument to Lithuanian poet and writer Justinas Marcinkevičius has reignited a debate – do career achievements trump collaboration with the Soviet regime? And how can collaboration be defined in the first place?
Marcinkevičius was a well-known member of the steering group of Lithuania’s independence movement, Sąjūdis. But he was also active in Soviet politics – he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, and at the end of the 1960s, he was chairman of the country’s Writers’ Union.
His work has never stopped raising questions. The 1961 short story The Pine Tree That Laughed may have been written based on material provided by the KGB, although this has never been confirmed.
Previously, philosopher and political scientist Nerija Putinaitė analysed Marcinkevičius’ work as an example of Soviet nationalism, where Lithuanian identity was promoted, but criticism of the Soviet system and rebellion was suppressed.
His writings are taught in schools without much controversy, but recent plans announced by the Lithuanian Writers’ Union to build a monument in central Vilnius has reopened the old debate – should Marcinkevičius be remembered for his literary genius, or are his achievements trumped by elements of collaboration?
According to philosopher and political scientist Kęstutis Girnius, the writer should be celebrated in schools, but the admiration of his talent should stop short of a monument.
“More attention could be paid to his poetry and works at school, but without neglecting the sins of his youth, his pandering [to the Soviet authorities], his party life,” said Girnius.
According to him, almost at the same time as Marcinkevičius wrote The Pine Tree that Laughed, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the famous Russian dissident writer, published One Day of Ivan Denisovich, which is considered the first literary work on Stalin’s repressions.
“This was no longer the time of Stalinism, [...] but Marcinkevičius showed loyalty when there was no need to do it,” said Girnius.
Even during Lithuania’s anti-Soviet independence movement, Sąjūdis, in the 1980s, Marcinkevičius was never self-critical. Even when dissidents and the Catholic underground began to operate in Lithuania, he did not express any support for their activities, according to Girnius.
Meanwhile, a distinction should be made between resistance, adaptation and collaboration, said Girnius.
“He was not a collaborator, but he adapted. [...] The question is how much did he choose to adapt? He made a very good and comfortable life out of it,” Girnius said.
Those supporting the monument’s idea say Marcinkevičius was one of the most important figures of the Sąjūdis movement, and it was the former Soviet elite – influential scientists, artists, and writers – who proclaimed Lithuania’s independence in 1990.
According to Aistė Deimantaitė, a doctoral student at Vytautas Magnus University (VDU), who has been researching the period of Sąjūdis, Marcinkevičius emerged during the movement, not by chance.
“The Sąjūdis was inspired by the Soviet Union Communist Party’s programme of transformation, and most of the people who came to the initiative group were intellectuals, scientists, and, of course, political functionaries, philosophers, and musicians,” she said.
“Dissidents were not accepted there because they were afraid of repression,” Deimantaitė added. “The initiating group of the Sąjūdis consisted of 36 people, 17 belonged to the Communist Party. This was natural.”
According to her, the authorities were also afraid of Marcinkevičius and would not have dared to arrest or intimidate him.
“Marcinkevičius was like a wall,” said Deimantaitė. “He had authority and could not be punished easily.”
“Lithuania must be independent and sovereign, and he openly supported this,” she added “This separates him from Algirdas Brazauskas [Lithuania’s first post-independence president], who advocated for sovereignty within the Soviet Union.”
Dalia Satkauskytė, a literary scholar and professor at Vilnius University, told LRT.lt that it is necessary to talk about Soviet writers in a different way than we do now.
“There is no need to make a saint out of him, he didn't make one out of himself,” she said. “Gestures of loyalty were made by everyone who was published, the question is whether these gestures of loyalty were necessary or superfluous. In the case of Marcinkevičius, they were probably superfluous.”
Satkauskytė also advised against building monuments.
“It seems to me that monuments in Lithuania are always a source of [conflict], and I would suggest a moratorium on new monuments,” she said
Grey area
For a large part of the population, Marcinkevičius’ work has become a very important part of their identity, according to Rimantas Kmita, a literary critic, scholar, and writer also known for his analysis of Marcinkevičius,
Most intellectuals at the time were in the grey zone: neither dissidents nor communists.
According to Kmita, the debate sparked by the commemoration of Marcinkevičius is not a question of literature, poetry or history, but of identity.
“It seems to us that there was the Soviet Union, the communist ideology, and then pure Lithuanians appeared out of nowhere and formed the Sąjūdis movement,” he said.
“All of us, who were born there, grew up there, matured there, were Soviet people in one way or another” Kmita said, adding that there were only a handful of genuine anti-Soviet dissidents.
“The path of survival was the path [Marcinkevičius] chose. His mates wrote poems that led to them being summoned by the KGB and their careers did not work out, but Marcinkevičius did things differently, and everything went well for him,” Kmita said.
Vilnius City Council is due to decide on whether to proceed with the monument. In the face of public opposition, the Lithuanian Writers’ Union did not rule out abandoning the idea altogether.
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