The Kristijonas Donelaitis Memorial Museum has been silently renamed in Kaliningrad’s Chistye Prudy. Meanwhile, representatives of the cultural community urge politicians to react to Russia’s actions directed against Lithuanian history and culture.
The church in Chistye Prudy is the resting place of the Lithuanian poet Donelaitis. This is where his memorial museum was founded in 1979. However, the local authorities have now renamed it Literature Museum.
Gintaras Skamaročius, chairman of the Kristijonas Donelaitis Society, says he was aware of the plans to rename the museum in Kaliningrad as recently as last November.
“We should make a statement that should be heard by people of culture in Lithuania, as well as in Kaliningrad and Moscow – that we are not distancing ourselves from this. We must also say in Brussels, in all other corridors, that this is our culture,” he told LRT TV.
According to Skamaročius, the museum’s exposition and the poet’s tomb have not been touched. However, there will be fewer exhibitions devoted to Lithuania Minor and Donelaitis himself in Kaliningrad.
Sigitas Šamborskis, the chairman of the Lithuanian Community in Kaliningrad, noted that in 2022, the memorial plaque to Lithuanian philosopher and writer Vydūnas was torn down from the house in Sovetsk where he lived. Now it is the turn of Donelaitis.
“It is very sad. The Writers’ Union of the Kaliningrad Region, headed by Boris Bartfeld, has also expressed its protest. They fought a decade ago to prevent the Donelaitis Memorial from being handed over to the Orthodox Church and to preserve the museum,” Šamborskis said.
Russian influence on UNESCO
According to Agnė Jasinavičiūtė, Chairperson of the National Commission for UNESCO, there is still a risk that the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which houses part of the Donelaitis Museum, could be handed over to the Orthodox Church. This is an attempt to destroy a culture different from that of the Russian world, she says.
“[This is] the desire to adopt everything to Russian traditions and to leave no trace that there was a Lithuanian culture here, that this is the birthplace of a Lithuanian writer, which would influence the spread of a different, European culture in the Kaliningrad region,” she said.
However, influencing Russia through UNESCO is difficult because it is a United Nations institution where Russia has so far managed to maintain its influence.
According to Jasinavičiūtė, a telling example is that Russia recently blocked a joint attempt by the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine to include in their intangible heritage letters written by deportees in Siberia on birch bark.
“Russia is still trying to block such decisions in various ways so as not to show that Russia has done some harmful historical act. [...] This destruction of culture should already be important at a fairly high level,” Jasinavičiūtė said.
Former Culture Minister Simonas Kairys, who is now a member of the Seimas, says that Lithuanian diplomats should also raise questions.
“Lithuania can now speak with very concrete examples and should continue to do so actively in the international arena. Another thing is that this issue enters the territory of diplomatic policy and I think that the Foreign Ministry could also think about how to better coordinate the work of our representatives in various international organisations and talk about these issues,” he said.
The current Culture Minister Šarūnas Birutis refused to comment on the situation. His deputy Ingrida Veliutė provided a written statement.
“We have contacted the Consulate General of the Republic of Lithuania in Kaliningrad about the situation. The consulate has not received any official information given the current holiday period there. Kristijonas Donelaitis is exceptionally important for Lithuania and its cultural identity, so the Culture Ministry will clarify the situation as soon as possible,” reads the reply.
Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714–1780) lived and worked in Lithuania Minor, a territory in the Kingdom of Prussia that had a sizable Lithuanian-speaking minority. He wrote the first classic Lithuanian language poem Metai (The Seasons), which became one of the principal works of Lithuanian poetry.
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