Donata Mitaitė

Vilnius: A Dangerous and Intimate City in Lithuanian Poetry 

Tomas Venclova describes Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, as an eccentric and capricious border city. In the 20th century, one occupation followed another, leading to changes in the ethnic composition of the population, which shifted most dramatically during and soon after World War II, as the city’s Jewish comunity (which was essential) was murdered and a great deal of the Polish residents were forced to repatriate. This paper will analyze the works of poets who came to Vilnius to live or study during the first postwar decade, with the aim of determining how the image of the city changed in their personal writings and poetry. Some poets (Justinas Marcinkevičius, Alfonsas Maldonis, and others) came to Vilnius university after graduating from elementary school in pre-war independent Lithuania, where students were well acquainted with the patriotic slogan “We will not rest until we have Vilnius” (at that time, Vilnius was occupied by Poland). The Lithuanization of the capital seemed particularly important to them. Judita Vaičiūnaitė and Tomas Venclova first saw Vilnius shortly after the war, when they were still children; the war-torn city seemed unsafe, even dangerous, to them. Later, attitudes toward the city changed; for most poets, the fate of the Jewish community became a deeply pressing concern, the city’s history took on greater depth, and for Venclova, the repressive Soviet regime made Vilnius an especially dangerous place. The city’s history and present are ambiguously reflected in the works of the poets.