The fifty years of Soviet occupation were hardly a uniform, monolithic period during which Lithuanian culture was suppressed. It appears there are slightly more differences than similarities between the years under Stalin's rule and the end of the Soviet epoch as it moved toward decadence and liberalism.
With Stalin's death in 1953, organized partisan resistance also came to an end, and as the Soviet system was finally firmly established, a relatively peaceful existence began (deportations to Siberia subsided, for instance). People began to think about how to live under the new circumstances rather than to change them. Lithuanians began joining the Communist Party, and the 20th Communist Party Conference in 1956 that denounced the "cult of personality" fostered hopes, however fragile, for a more liberal government (the events of 1956 in Hungary were a signal to many in the literary world that the regime would not essentially change for a long time). Controls over culture did not decrease, but they took on new forms. The official literary history of the day stated that "antagonistic contradictions", i.e. cultural alternatives, no longer existed in that period. Indeed, this was a time when literature learned to live with new circumstances, rather than protest, contradict or experiment.
Literary and artistic autonomy is not created in a day or in a year. It requires several generations. What was understood as a gradual loosening of control and liberalization in the late 1950s might today be seen as the twilight of a totalitarian system.
How should we perceive those processes of cultural liberalization today? Every artist experiences the sense of freedom and the limits of his own possibilities differently, measuring courage and weighing risk factors in an equally different fashion. It is no wonder, then, that the recollections of different writers of the cultural atmosphere of this period are contradictory. Poet Marcelijus Martinaitis always reminded readers that he had lived in a censored cultural space:
We shouldn't forget that, with the exception of works by Salomėja Neris, we had virtually no knowledge of any other example of more humane lyricism—we, the children of villages and small towns, and especially those from poor families, where libraries—and books themselves—were a rarity. It is no coincidence, then, that as soon as the so-called 'thaw' began, books were swept up and voraciously consumed almost as soon as they emerged in print, including those by P. Širvys (Žygio draugai – Friends of the March), Justinas Marcinkevičius (Prašau žodžio – I Ask to Speak), A. Baltakis (Lietučiui dulkiant – In the Misting Drizzle), and, somewhat later, J. Degutytė (Ugnies lašai – Drops of Fire). Marcelijus Martinaitis, „Eduardas Mieželaitis, bet ne tas“, in: Eduardas Mieželaitis: post scriptum, sudarė Vladas Braziūnas, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla, 2008, p. 32.
Looking only at the official cultural realm, libraries were cleared out, books and newspapers appeared heavily edited, and the works of modern authors could only possibly be found in Russian language journals. But many cultural activists used their network of acquaintances (a resource that would be impossible to recreate today) and would receive "samizdat" (self-published) books in Russian, while academics could gain access to "special archives" to read Lithuanian émigré publications. Those that spoke Polish visited the foreign literature book store "Draugystė" (Friendship) that was further away from the wandering eye of the censors, and those speaking other Western tongues would receive books in those languages, while a few publications were also available on the black market (as books or manuscripts).
Closer ties to the Lithuanian émigré community developed around the mid-1960s. Contact with the diaspora broadened cultural horizons and more books by émigré Lithuanian and Western authors began to reach Lithuania. Before this, the greatest source of more serious literature was comprised of Russian and world classics.
Equally different and difficult to comprehend from today's perspective was the experience of the art world of the period and its reaction to change and innovation. The greater part of literary works written between 1956 and 1964 is an interesting example of how the concept of literature changes with the cultural and political context. Many memoirs of this period cite the considerable influence of poets, but today that impression appears difficult to explain.
Lines written by Eduardas Mieželaitis, for example—"even in a book, a gray nightingale has the right to live"—became a kind of manifesto, in which somewhat younger poets could find solace as they sought to speak in verse with a more intimate voice, shaking off formality, propagandist posterism, and Soviet greatness. The title of Algimantas Baltakis' first book, Lietučiui dulkiant (In the Misting Drizzle), published in 1955, was like a breath of fresh air; the poetic works of Janina Degutytė and other poets were copied by hand like the most precious of texts that spoke to the inner human condition, while Vytautas Rimkevičius' novel Studentai (The Students) (1957) sparked discussions in youth circles. The first collection of poems by Justinas Marcinkevičius, Prašau žodžio (I Ask to Speak) (1955) was sold out, but the poet did not include any poems from this collection in any later publications, and it would be difficult today to find poems or texts from that first publication that we would consider poetry.
So, although it may be difficult to understand today what made an aesthetic impression—and, most importantly, why it did so—we should not forget that these small books, both before publication or afterward, continued to be constantly reviewed by the literary bureaucracy. It is difficult to imagine that a harmless image from nature could provoke such governmental displeasure. In the words of Kornelijus Platelis: "Even the poetic enjoyment of natural scenery or the celebration of feelings of human love, friendship, or motherhood was called 'escaping from reality' and was considered a crime." Kornelijus Platelis, „Apie moderniąją lietuvių poeziją“, in: Poezijos pavasaris, Vilnius: Vaga, 1991, p. 258.
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