The Vilnius authorities plan to rename several streets named after Soviet writers.
The street named after poet Salomėja Nėris will be renamed Vėtrungės Street, while the street named after writer Liudas Gira will be renamed after Lionginas Baliukevičius-Dzūkas, a partisan leader.
The street names were chosen by Vilnius residents who took part in a municipal survey. Vilnius councillors are scheduled to vote on the name change next week.
The name change is part of the ongoing desovietisation of public spaces. The country’s Desovietisation Commission has recognised that the names of the two streets in question violate the ban on the promotion of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
Gira and Nėris both praised the Soviet government in their works. In 1940, as delegates to the so-called People’s Seimas, they and other representatives went to Moscow to ask for Lithuania’s admission into the Soviet Union.
However, some literary and other researchers stress the importance of Nėris’ work for Lithuanian literature and collective memory, and point out to her later repentance for her collaboration with the Soviet authorities.
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