NIKODEM SZCZYGLOWSKI: Lithuania and Poland shared a common state for respective centuries. This union could be compared to, let’s say, the union between England and Scotland. However, no 1 dares call Scotland “England”. As for the Republic of the 2 Nations – or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – to this day it is frequently simplistically referred to as “Poland”. Why is that? Is there a deficiency of terminology?
TOMAS VENCLOVA: Yes, this is due to a deficiency of terminology. England and Scotland have a common word – large Britain. Lithuanians and Poles besides have a common term, but it is simply a long and not very convenient word – Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, the Republic of the 2 Nations – which nevertheless emphasizes the fact that there were two nations, as in the case of England and Scotland. There are besides differences between the English and the Scots and the Poles and the Lithuanians. The Scots have barely preserved their language – unlike the Lithuanians, who did – and the Lithuanian language is very distinct from Polish, which clearly separates Lithuanians from the Poles. And what unites Lithuania and Poland is the Catholic religion. Whereas the Scots have their own spiritual tradition, the English have theirs. By the way, it is not only the Scots who can be compared to Lithuanians, but besides the Irish. There was a violent conflict between the English and the Irish nations, I would say bloodier and worse than the Lithuanian-Polish conflict in the 20th century. But it has now ended there too. The Irish have besides not preserved their language and talk English, the old Gaelic language is almost non-existent. It is again a different situation erstwhile compared to the Lithuanian one. In Lithuania, 3 million people talk Lithuanian, and mostly, primarily or exclusively Lithuanian. And that is how we disagree from the Scots. I always say that we gotta remember that the Republic of the 2 Nations – or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – was far from being just “Poland”, it was a common state made up of 2 different entities.
Can Lithuania and Poland now be regarded as equal heirs to this common state? And what about the Belarusians and Ukrainians? How should their function in this common state be viewed?
That state consisted of the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was ruled from Vilnius, that is to say, from the territory of what is now Lithuania, but which nevertheless besides included Belarus and, until the Union of Lublin, besides Ukraine. Lithuania, just like Poland, now recognizes the May 3rd Constitution proclaimed in 1791 and believes that this legal act, had it not been destroyed by the Russian Empire, would have opened up a certain space for the improvement of Lithuanian culture, as well as – possibly – for the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages and cultures. Since this failed, things began to make differently.
Czesław Miłosz erstwhile said of Vilnius that it was a unusual city. I quote: “It was a city of different, intertwined forms, like Trieste or Czernowitz.” Of course, Miłosz was referring to the city of his childhood and youth, which, in fact, no longer exists in that form. You mentioned in a fresh speech that Vilnius is “a city of all the peoples to whom it is important”. That includes besides Poles and Belarusians. How do you feel about the fresh discussion which is taking place in Lithuania about the alleged Litvinism, which is fundamentally a claim stating that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was “primarily Belarusian”?
I have spoken to a Belarusian activist, an independency activist, individual who is against Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and I asked him what percent of the Duchy of Lithuania he thought was Belarusian and he said that it was 100 per cent. I was amazed to hear that, so I asked him what the Lithuanian percent was then. He thought about it for a while and said: also, 100 per cent. Well, if this is the way to realize Litvinism, then we have nothing against specified Litvinism. Certainly, the Belarusian component was very noticeable in Lithuania. A large part of the nobility was of Belarusian origin, of the Orthodox faith, but not only that. If the Radziwiłłs were Catholic and of Lithuanian origin, although they spoke Polish, the Chodkiewiczes were of Belarusian origin, their ancestors spoke Ruthenian or Old Belarusian, and they themselves already spoke Polish – and in that sense they were not besides different from the Radziwiłłs. But still, these are 2 different branches of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The problem is being overblown a small bit, I think for provocative purposes, and I believe Lukashenka has his own interests in raising the issue, so that, you know, there is simply a claim that Lithuanian statehood is effectively “Belarusian statehood”. That is not the case. It was a common state. There were both Lithuanians and Belarusians. Of all those national differences today, you cannot apply them to those times. It was different. The concept of Lithuanian back then meant both Lithuanian and Belarusian. It was about both. Mikalojus Daukša1 was Lithuanian, spoke Lithuanian and wrote Lithuanian books. Francišak Skaryna2 was Belarusian. He spoke Ruthenian or Old Belarusian, and published Slavic books. Both of them published those books in Vilnius. So, old Lithuania was in fact dual. There was both a Baltic component and a Slavic component in it. This, I think, should be acknowledged. Only those Litvinists who do not admit this fact are wrong, but I do not think that they are very influential, and I do not think that they are very numerous. The smarter ones admit the duality of the Grand Duchy.
Let’s imagine that in the close future Belarus is simply a free and democratic country. How, in your opinion, should that country and Lithuania regulate their relations in order to avoid disputes, for example, about common historical symbols, specified as the coat of arms?
Based on my current contacts with the Belarusian diaspora, which includes refugees, academics, as well as independency activists, I daresay that our disputes will not go that far. I think that it will be made clear that the current borders are not disputed. In Europe, it is only Vladimir Putin who is violating borders now. Vilnius, even in the 20th century, utilized to be to a large degree the capital of the Belarusian culture – but it was besides 1 of the capitals of Polish culture and, in a sense, possibly even 1 of the most crucial ones, due to the fact that it is the city of specified Polish artists as the poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Władysław Syrokomla, or the composer Stanisław Moniuszko. It was besides the capital of judaic culture, and it was a place where Russian culture was expressed, and far from always in a bad way, sometimes in a good way, by theatres, painters, and so on. Miłosz said it well that there is simply a small bit of Trieste and a small of Czernowitz in Vilnius. I would say that there is even in it a small bit of fresh York, which is simply a centre of many cultures. But Vilnius is even more multicultural than fresh York, due to the fact that in fresh York the English language culture is clearly dominant, whereas in Vilnius, if we take the full of its history, no culture or language is clearly dominant. In any periods it was one, in another periods another, but respective national cultures have a right to Vilnius and that right cannot be challenged. But the cultural law is 1 thing, the state law is another. Lithuania, thus, has the only state right to Vilnius.
You mentioned Putin, the only individual who is violating borders in Europe. In your opinion, how is the Putin government and its imperialism present different from the older manifestations of tsarist, or even Soviet, imperialism?
First of all, today’s Russian imperialism is anachronistic. Before, imperialism was more or little a natural thing which was universally accepted. Today, imperialism is anachronistic due to the fact that the modern planet is no longer divided into spheres of influence of individual empires, it is becoming more and more homogeneous, more and more globalized. Russia broke distant from that general trend in this respect and is dragging us back to the 19th, 18th and even earlier centuries. This must change, due to the fact that you cannot swim against the tide and get somewhere successfully. From a historical perspective, Lithuania most likely has never had specified a good time in its past as the last 20 years. This is especially actual in terms of the political and economical opportunities that membership in the European Union and NATO has provided. However, the last fewer years have brought back any uncertainty. The brutal war waged by Russia represents a real threat that cannot be underestimated. What is being said is that it is besides a war of values, a conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, which is based precisely on colonialism and imperialism. Britain was erstwhile colonialist and imperialist, now it is not anymore. Germany was erstwhile colonialist and imperialist, now it is not anymore. Though it is not proven, it is frequently said that Russia is fundamentally different from Britain and Germany. It’s just that in Russia the process took longer. partially due to the fact that it inherited the Byzantine imperial tradition. yet that besides may change. erstwhile 1 argues that Russia has never been a democracy, I say that is not true. Russia was democratic in 1917 – for 8 months, from the February Revolution to the October Revolution. Russia was besides democratic after the fall of the russian Union – and not for 8 months, but for at least 8 years. The next period may well be 80 years; and then it could be 800 years. But this requires effort and first of all it requires effort by the Russians themselves. I frequently callback Andrei Sakharov or Natalya Gorbanevskaya, and the another dissidents who were Russian and who spoke out not only against communism, but besides against Russian imperialism. There were specified people even in the 19th century, specified as Alexander Herzen, who supported the 1863-64 uprising and even sent a ship with weapons to support the Lithuanian rebels. Unfortunately, the wind threw that ship ashore in the Curonian spit, the arms did not scope Lithuania to help.
Russia present is first and foremost an highly centralized country despite the “federation” in its name. There is not a single state school in Russia where all subjects are taught in a language another than Russian. The situation of the cultures of the alleged “small nations” is peculiarly difficult. Russification has reached unprecedented heights not only through education but besides through mass culture. What is more, Russification continues outside Russia wherever there are admirers of the “Russian world”. We can even say that the Poles in Lithuania, for example, stay alternatively on the orbit of Russian, not Polish, mass culture. Is the process of decolonization in Russia, whose future at these moments is highly vague and hard to predict, possible in your opinion? What should it look like?
In terms of language and Russification, Putin’s Russia is even worse than the russian Union. In russian times, there were schools of many languages. But the Russian Empire is permanently crumbling. This process started in 1917, erstwhile Poland, Finland and the Baltic states broke distant from the empire. This was continued under Mikhail Gorbachev, erstwhile the empire continued to collapse, the Caucasian republics broke away, the Baltic republics regained their independency and the Central Asian republics became independent. I believe that the time will come erstwhile the Buryats, the Yakuts, the Tatars, the Bashkirs and many another peoples will have far greater sovereignty than they have always had. That is surely the next phase that will come, I am certain of that. How it will happen and by what means is hard to say, but it will happen. As for the Poles in Lithuania being influenced by the Russian culture, Putin is indeed trying very hard to make certain that this is the case. But possibly not always successfully. I think that the Poles in Lithuania are, however, besides influenced by present-day Poland, which is strictly anti-Putin and, so to speak, its influence on the Poles in Vilnius is, I think, at least as large as Putin’s. And it is our work as Lithuanians to make certain that it is Warsaw’s influence that is stronger than Putin’s influence.
How could this be achieved in your view? Does the end of a alternatively silly dispute over the spelling of surnames make any difference in this context?
In my opinion, the dispute over the spelling of surnames was stupid, and there was a malicious element, due to the fact that it took advantage of Lithuanian prejudices and the narrow-mindedness of any of our figures, and was besides influenced by Putin’s propaganda. But the dispute ended well. I think that nothing terrible would have happened either if, in places where there are many Polish speakers, there had been place names in 2 languages. It is frequently said that there are no Poles there, just Polonized Lithuanians. This is not rather the case, due to the fact that there are many Poles in Vilnius who are not of Lithuanian origin, just as there are many Poles who are definitely of Lithuanian origin, whose great-grandparents inactive spoke Lithuanian. But so, what? They are now speaking Polish and forcing them back into Lithuanian is simply a wrong, I would say imperialist, policy. It is simply a petty, small imperialism, which is no little disgusting than great-power imperialism. Those people should be left alone and they will inevitably learn the state language due to the fact that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be in Lithuania without the state language. In the public space, where Poles live, the Polish language has a right to exist, just as the Lithuanian language exists in the Sejny region (in northern Poland), and nothing terrible is happening there. Concessions are sometimes more helpful than the introduction of a alleged strict statehood.
You have spent most of your life in the Cold War period. Would you agree with those who call what is happening now a “new Cold War”?
Yes, and I would dare say it is even worse. Much worse. During the Cold War there were inactive any rules. The Soviets were more cautious and there was any kind of contact, at least towards the end, between the Soviets and the West, which closed the door to major threats, especially atomic war. Now that contact is all but non-existent. Putin is worse than Brezhnev. He may not be as bad as Stalin, due to the fact that he has not imprisoned millions, not yet, but he is clearly going in the direction not of Nikita Khrushchev, not of Leonid Brezhnev, but of Joseph Stalin. So, yes, we do have a real, fresh Cold War, and it is much worse than the 1 that I remember.
Tomas Venclova is simply a Lithuanian philosopher, writer, poet and translator. During the russian times he was a dissident known for his advocacy for human rights. He was a co-founder of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group.
Nikodem Szczygłowski is simply a reporter, a author and a translator from Lithuanian and Slovenian. He is simply a frequent contributor with New east Europe as well as another media outlets.
