Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943-09-28–2015-04-03) interviu

THE LAST INTERVIEW WITH ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATĄCKAS (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) Interviewed by film director Juozas Javaitis at the initiative of Algirdas Saudargas DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all84-13 516–0001–01 There were even recordings made somewhere. I think that, if one searched the archives, one might find Šiugždinis himself reading it. For me, he was the ideal. That is, although in French I see the verbal text and I see what he makes of it. He would capture it. Yes, that rhythm of Milosz’s is alive. That is, not mechanical as it can be there, ¹ Vaclovas Šiugždinis (August 29, 1911, Kaunas – November 22, 1988, Kaunas) was an outstanding erudite, an excellent scholar of Romance languages, a poet, translator, and teacher. Articles / Articles 285 ALGIRDAS VACL̄OVAS PATACKAS that rhythm is very subtle, but it is nevertheless standard, so to speak. Whereas his has this kind of breathing; it comes and alternates. That is one of the secrets of his poetry. That is why many people like it, without really understanding why. Because he differs completely from all other poets. All right. Perhaps we could try to make this the beginning of the conversation. Here is a question: when and under what circumstances did Oskar Milosz enter your life? Well, here what probably played the greatest role—I would describe it as an attempt to break away from reality, because at that time Soviet reality was so stifling, hopeless, whereas here, so to speak, a little window opened. And this happened thanks to Vaclovas Šiugždinis; we used to call him the Teacher. I had two such teachers. One was Povilas Butkevičius², who… but he was more involved in what we might call underground activity, in a cultural-political context. Šiugždinis was purely in a cultural context. He was a man who lived and studied in Paris, a complete European, although he came from a village in central Dzūkija. His father worked as a caretaker at the university, while he, already at the age of ten or eleven, had received some kind of prize for literature, even a prize from Norway—so, a child of Kaunas. Besides, he spoke French excellently; he studied in Grenoble and somewhere else too, I no longer remember. He lived here near Šarvčis Church, a romantic corner on Laisvės Avenue. There is a Gothic little church and around it a Marian monastery, with a library right here on Laisvės Avenue. Well, that was a window onto the West; none of us expected ever to leave. It was a metaphysical window onto the true Europe, which, to tell the truth, is now almost disappearing. In short, that was the main impetus, and then, by translating, we were able to become acquainted with poetry; later came his plays, especially Migel Manjara, and then his metaphysical works, or rather, his poetic metaphysics. So that was the development. Thus, through Milosz, we felt that we were free. That is, free to enter a world that was more real than that reality. It was a window onto an entirely different cultural atmosphere. And later, when we had grown a little bolder and more capable, we decided to contribute in some way. That is when the idea of publishing his writings arose. The main things were Šiugždinis’s translations; most of them had not been printed. He had printed some, and at one point even a semi-underground performance of Migel Manjara³ was staged. A group of actors simply came together, also a group of enthusiasts—not in a theater, I do not remember where, in some hall—and staged Migel Manjara. Šiugždinis would also sometimes organize a semi-illegal poetry evening there ² Povilas Butkevičius (May 26, 1923, Kaunas – April 4, 1985, Kaunas) was a humanist, physician, and political prisoner. ³ Oskar Milosz’s play Miguel Manjara, Lithuanian Migelis Manjara, was written in 1913. 286 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu and would read some of it aloud. But, of course, he could not read everything—those of a religious nature or something like Mefiboset⁴, for example, nor could he read all the heavy artillery, and not all the poems either. So, there was this kind of symbiosis: people had gathered at the old man’s place; he was elegant, simply very French, somewhat light-hearted in his way: he let you feel his muscles, so to speak. Later he had some very linguistic jokes, let us say. I do not know whether this is appropriate here, but they meet Ičik and he asks: “How are things going?” The other replies: “They are not going.” He asks: “Wait, are things going well for you or not going?” “They are going, they are going, just not very far.” Something of that sort; later there was something about alcohol. In short, he was truly a Western, European, pleasant, cheerful, very French sort of man. As they say, he had become a Frenchman from a little Dzūkian. And some people in academic circles looked skeptically at his translations and so on; they tried things and published an absolutely unsuccessful, distorted translation of Milosz. Well, it was simply full of mistakes. Are you speaking about Valdas Petrauskas⁵? Yes, he simply writes “earth” and “sun” instead. I did not understand whether that was a proofreading error, but perhaps it was needed to some extent. Šiugždinis’s translations were somewhat Lithuanianized and polished. In terms of melody, so to speak, Milosz [would speak] in a certain way—melodic, yes, but sometimes there were rather harsh little words. There were dissonances of a sort, but they were necessary, because otherwise it would be nothing but melody. Šiugždinis avoided such things, so to speak; he, well, I do not know what to compare it with. That is, if you write, everything is beautiful, but at the same time it is also in reality—I do not really know how to explain it—but, in short, Milosz was not merely la-la. Sometimes that melody continued beyond it. Šiugždinis smoothed it out. But they sounded very beautiful, melodiously, especially when he recited. And he knew how to recite very well. Very artistically, very convincingly. And in Lithuania I have heard many of those reciters. Petras Venslovas⁶ also read, and he liked Milosz. Venslovas read quite well, but there were a few absolutely unsuccessful [readings], he completely failed to capture them. Because reading Milosz—especially his later works, after all the initial stages—is not easy. At first, it is elementary, nothing much, but later, in short, it requires exceptional mastery and concentration. So, through Šiugždinis we came to Milosz ⁴ Oskar Milosz’s mystery play Mefibosetas, written in 1914. ⁵ Valdas V. Petrauskas (July 11, 1938, Kaunas) is a renowned translator from Romance languages into Lithuanian. In 1981, his philological translations of O. Milosz’s texts appeared and received considerable criticism. Perhaps also because the translator was not a poet. ⁶ Petras Venslovas (December 28, 1949) is a well-known actor, director, and reciter. His creative work is associated with Kaunas. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 287 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS and then the idea arose of publishing his writings. There was a basis for it. Without Petras Kimbrys, nothing would have come of it, because the commentaries to his Les Arcanes / Slėpiniai⁸ had to be translated. The text—the commentaries are longer than the text, than Milosz’s own text. Because no one was able to comprehend them, he was forced to write commentaries. But together they form a single, unified work. The work itself and its commentaries are one piece. So, to translate those commentaries, one had to be an erudite. Petras Kimbrys was, so to speak, a scholar of exceptional erudition. He knew French genuinely well, but despite that he is now a biblical scholar, translating the Holy Scripture, and has received the St. Jerome Prize⁹ for editing and translation. Even then he was a qualified translator and at the same time an intellectual who could find his way through all the details and so on. You say, in those days. Are you speaking about the time of your youth? Yes, the seventies. The seventies and eighties. You were twenty years old then, right? Well, a little older; I was born in ’43. ’43? ’43. So this whole undertaking with Vaclovas Šiugždinis took place in ’66, when—in ’65? A little later, perhaps around ’67. Around ’67? Yes, somewhere before ’67, after it. It is difficult for me to pin it down now. Well, since all the components were there—there were translations, there were commentaries, Petras Kimbrys translated them—and his, so to speak, poetic metaphysics. All that remained was the editorial work. I pushed that engine along; there were problems. We had to take the texts away from Šiugždinis because he was a perfectionist. He would polish them until… Well, we would simply take them—steal them, in fact—and then he would resign himself to it. With Kimbrys, it was the opposite. Only the Jesuits knew how to make Kimbrys work. Otherwise, I remember, I had to go to him over two sentences, when I went to ⁷ Petras Kimbrys (March 20, 1948, Telšiai – April 21, 2018, Kaunas) was an outstanding translator, an editor of extraordinary talent, founder and editor of Naujojo Židinio–Aidai, and a principal contributor to the Lithuanian Catholic press. ⁸ A metaphysical poem by O. Milosz, written in 1927 and published in 2002 on P. Kimbrys’s initiative. ⁹ Petras Kimbrys, unfortunately, did not receive the St. Jerome Prize. He received the Literary Editor’s Prize and the Bronys Savukynas Prize. The Institute of the Lithuanian Language sincerely thanks the late man’s widow, Brigita Kimb riene, for donating a bundle of books from Petras Kimb rys’s library. 288 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu seventeen times. Then it all ended with me, walking through the oak grove with all the manuscripts, falling terribly into a puddle; among those manuscripts there were also all sorts of underground materials. Now I am wondering whether I broke something or not. And I am afraid to move. I think: well, if I did break something, we will have to call an ambulance, with all these manuscripts and so on. I moved, and apparently nothing was wrong. Those were the kinds of problems. Reprinting: it was done by some women from Vilijampolė, devoted underground typists¹⁰; without them there would have been nothing—neither shelter nor anything else. They remained completely unknown; no one paid attention to them. However much I tried to send journalists to them, well, that was the technical side solved. Then it was bound by the late Juozas—I have forgotten his surname—a unique man. He had been imprisoned three times. An old, old… I may remember… Also a man with a unique biography. Well, and then there were the illustrations by Gražina Didelytė¹¹. She was the only one among the artists who was not afraid to make illustrations for an underground publication. Could you elaborate a little more? No, Gražina Didelytė. You said Juozas. Yes. No, you probably will not find him here. I will remember. An old underground man. That is, Prapiestis was involved with Pastogė. Tell me, those Pastogė. What kind of people worked there, who made up your core? The core consisted of three editors. They were Gema Vosyliūtė¹², who has died; Juozas Prapiestis¹³ died last year. And me. 516–0001–02 Much may already have been written, but it was like this. Mindaugas Tomonis¹⁴ left it to us, dying. Something like his testament. And we had to publish it. Mindaugas Tomonis—you have probably heard the surname. In short, before he was murdered and ¹⁰ Gražina Liucija Kulvietytė and Vitalija Žvikaitė. ¹¹ Gražina Didelytė (October 2, 1938, Kaunas – January 2, 2007, Vilnius) was a unique graphic artist, a talented book illustrator, a person of exceptional courage, who also belonged to the Pastogė circle. ¹² Gema Vosyliūtė (1936–1998). ¹³ Juozas Prapiestis (1947–2013), pseudonym Mykolas Šilaitis, A. K., was a figure of underground culture who wrote prose and verse. The publishers of Pastogės did not publish in the Soviet-era press. ¹⁴ Mindaugas Tomonis (August 28, 1940, Vilnius – November 5, 1975, Vilnius), pseudonym Tomas Kuršys, was an active participant in the underground and resistance, a poet and philosopher, who died in unclear circumstances. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 289 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS it is unclear; we are certain of that. And how everything happened remains unclear to this day. But he certainly could not have ended up under a train by his own death. There had simply been talk of publishing a cultural journal. At that time there was a niche; it was lacking. We had very strong dissident and political press as a whole, but this cultural component was missing. Someone had to fill it. Tomonis cared deeply about this; even the title is his—Pastogė. Well, we held on like that, still lying at the bottom, but after his death there was no longer any way out. We began publishing Pastogę. There were the three people I have mentioned, then there were contributors—someone designed the cover, a man named Gytis Ramoška15—and those women in Vilijampolė did the printing. That was how it went: two issues came out, and then they suppressed us. After that we published a collection called Ethos16; by then we had covered our tracks. They would get very angry if you published anything periodic. That is, if you publish once, you will keep publishing. But here it was as though we had closed ourselves off, and then we brought out the Ethos collection. They began investigating again: what was this, where, and how? At the same time, in parallel, we were preparing these writings of Milosz17. We wanted to do something lasting, something sufficiently substantial and sufficiently high-quality, and to prove that even under underground conditions such works could be produced. And I consider it our greatest achievement that we proved it: three volumes are lying there, and now they can be carried away. So far, no complete edition of Milosz’s writings has been published. There are bits and pieces, with all sorts of things put together. Thus, if his Lituanistika has now appeared, supposedly with the diplomatic materials gathered in one place, well, we did not manage that. We had all the material, but by then they had broken us thoroughly. Did someone inform on you? That is a separate story. There were some very—simply tragic, dramatic things. In other words, we were doomed from the outset, because an agent of a very high level had been infiltrated into Pastogę. So we knew that if we began publishing, we had at most two or three years. This is a very old practice, dating back to the days of the gendarmerie. They say that if you publish an underground press, it takes two or three years to work its way from the reader to the editor. So you have those two or three years to accomplish what you can, and then 15 The publication’s artistic design was handled by artist Gytis Ramoška (the illustrations used Lithuanian popular watermarks, redrawn from Edmundo Laucevičius’s book Paper in Lithuania in the 15th–18th Centuries, which had appeared at the time; the KGB interrogators regarded this invention as forgery, since anyone who reproduced the publication could easily redraw them). See http://alkas.lt/2014/12/09/seimo-bibliotekoje-bus-pristatytos-signataro-a-patacko-knygos-ir-pogrindžio-leidiniai/. 16 Ethnos was an underground samizdat publication that replaced Pastogę. 17 This refers to O. Milosz’s three-volume edition, which, largely thanks to Petras Kimbrys’s efforts, was published by that same circle of underground cultural figures (translated from French by Vaclovas Šiugždinis and Petras Kimbrys and edited by Algirdas Patackas). The most dangerous technical work—printing—was done by the Kaunas women Lucija Kulvietytė and Vitalija Žvikaitė.). See also http://alkas.lt/2014/12/09/seimo-bibliotekoje-bus-pristatytos-signataro-a-patacko-knygos-ir-pogrindžio-leidiniai/. 290 Acta Linguistica Lituanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu they package you up, so to speak. So this was nothing new, whether there were stukacių or not; sooner or later they would have tracked them down anyway. They had already reached Pastogę. You said: from the reader to the editor. Well, they catch you reading the publication. Then they begin to unwind it—well, everyone. Oh, the other way around? The other way around. Well, this goes back to the days of Aušra. Everyone knows that if you publish an underground press, you have two or three years. Three years at most. Well, I got a little more because they expected it; they already had me in ’83, but they imprisoned me only in ’86. They followed me for another three years, thinking that through me they would reach the chronicles, the Chronicles of the Catholic Church of Lithuania. My case was an offshoot of the Chronicle. That may be another matter, but Milosz was, well, for us… We wanted to prove through Pastogę that it was possible to publish and breathe freely. We had a formula. That is, Pastogė—not underground; we did not like that word. Pastogė—it is cold there, but you can see far. But Pastogė did not succeed for us; we must admit that. No one simply wrote. From our circle, we spread the word that there was such a publication: whoever wished could bring something in, and we guaranteed that nothing would leave us. The author risked little; he would take it, let us say, to some editorial office, the editorial office would reject it, and then it would simply fade away. The author risked little. The editor risked everything. We accepted that risk, but everyone ran aside. Young authors, practically speaking—well, one Gintaras18 sent in one little poem. My brother signed himself Erasmus of Rotterdam. So Pastogę must be regarded as a failure, but not through any fault of ours. We had done everything, we had taken on the risk, but the official side was simply more attractive, and everyone wrote there; consequently, later they did not have much to show in their drawers. Tell me, did the trip to Čerėja19 take place before you began publishing that publication, and what kind of trip was it—approximately what year? Yes, it served more as a stimulus for that publication. We were preparing, and that trip to Čerėja—well, there was a certain miracle in it after all, if you have read about it. In short, we found something extraordinary. That is, I was six summers and four winters old—a childhood love. And we found that woman. And we are absolutely convinced that she was the girl. 18 Algirdas Patackas’s brother was the famous poet Gintaras Patackas (July 18, 1951, Kaunas). 19 Čerėja is a town in Belarus where Oskar Milosz was born on May 28, 1877. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 291 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS Ksenija? Ksenija Milovič20. She was 103 years old then, and she remembered everything, how the little gentleman would call her “soha voronokon” and so on. Milovič? Milovič21, yes. All right. Then I will ask you to tell that episode in greater detail. If you remember that meeting. I myself was in Čerėja, but I could not find anything there… There was nothing to find there, and it is impossible to find anything. There is practically nothing left. Nor did we have such grand visions. We traveled like tramps, by train and then in some passing cars. We arrived, having read a great deal of Milosz’s poetry, and, of course, we searched. Nothing remains—not the garden where he descends toward the water and a vast space opens up before him. Only fragments of the linden avenue remain; everything has been cut down, demolished, and defiled. Well, Soviet reality. And only a local teacher, an excellent man, a peasant-like man with such hard-working hands. He invited us in; he was a local historian. And he says: “Yes, I have heard everything here, that he published many books; I had already heard about it.” He had conscientiously drawn the foundations of the manor, but there was nothing, only one cellar. And that was all; everything else was overgrown with, how shall I put it, field grass. Well, we would have left just like that, except that, of course, the space remained. And Milosz’s poem about those childhood gardens is precisely about that space. That space is so… There are lakes around it, one lake there, but it seemed as though there were water everywhere; on the other side one could see some ruined church or Orthodox church. A church? Yes, a church. And farther on, the chimneys of the Novolukoml22 power plant rose up, so apocalyptic. So we thought, that was it. We had seen something; we had felt the space. And in the evening our teacher says: “There is one more old woman.” And he takes us there. Well, he gets her up out of bed. And imagine, she was gray-haired; she had already be 20 We share Algirdas Patackas’s memories of his visit to Čerėja in 1976. He and his fellow travelers somehow found here the centenarian Ksenija, who, half-delirious, drew childhood images from her memory: how the little gentleman showed her a large book with pictures in the summer garden, and then played with her. Was she not the first love who awakened the poet? (Julius Sasnauskas). – Šiaurės Atėnai 14(1270), July 21, 2017, 2. Available online: http://www.satenai.lt/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Nr.14–1270–2017–07–21.pdf. 21 In his book Litua (490 p.), published in 2013, A. Patackas writes about Ksenija Minovič, born in 1874. 22 Novalukomlis is a city in northern Belarus, in the Vitebsk region, west of Orsha, near Lake Lukoml. Available online: https://www.vle.lt/straipsnis/novalukoml/. 292 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu she had been blind for several years. And she says: “Ah, I remember.” And she says something like that, then falls silent, and afterward another stream of words opens up in her. “Ah, I remember; the little gentleman would invite me and show me little books with pictures. Soha, voron, okon.” They ask why he would call her, and she says she would come. And later he left. Later he returned only for his father’s funeral, but he had written many books, and they were very expensive.23 So that was Ksenija? Ksenija Milovič, yes—she was 103 years old. We calculated it exactly. Ksenija. Ani. Ksenija was Ani. And that Ani appears throughout Milosz’s work. He remained unmarried, although he had those love affairs. But there were betrayals there too. In one place, in a poem, it says, “her name is not in the book of love.” That was his kind of revenge. But that Ani was an archetype, you know, an archetype of childhood. That is, imagine it: six years old, still a child, yet already a person. And his sensitivity—he was extraordinarily sensitive in general, perhaps even pathologically so toward the end of his life. Those who told stories from the circle of the embassy of [Petras] Klimas24 said that his movements were nervous. He was a man who lived an extremely intense spiritual life and underwent that great shock, that conversion, on December 23, 1914, which changed his entire [life]; afterward he seemed to renounce creativity. My God, how human that is—too human; I have written about it. It was a very important event for him; such events occur in the lives of mystics, and they are decisive. Many have written about this—someone like Dionysius the Areopagite25, for example. In short, they seem to rise above such human matters, above creation. And perhaps only a few people have uttered such a sentence. Tolstoy was one of them. Milosz was one of them. In short, that sensitivity he carried with him from childhood. Well, for us, Ani was—since we looked at her from a Lithuanian angle—we connected her with that archetype of Lithuania, when, during one of his recurring crises, when his creative work had entered such an empty, barren period, he was engaged in translations and trying somehow to live through that creative interruption. And then he missed a place where he could, as he says, situe himself. That is, in his work, in that metaphysical work, that situe is often used. Thus, every soul, every personality… 23 Probably from Polish kwiatek ‘flower’. 24 Petras Klimas (February 23, 1891, Kušliškiai – January 16, 1969, Kaunas) was a signatory of the Act of Independence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, diplomat, and publicist. On May 20, 1925, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in France. There he worked with Oskar Milosz. 25 A historian of philosophy and theologian from the late 5th to early 6th century, Dionysius the Areopagite. See further Makselis Rasius 2016: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s Insights into Life in the Context of Divine Manifestation (Prohodus). – Logos 87, 35–42. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 293 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS 516-0001-03 To have one’s own place to lean on, from which one has come, and so on. He began searching for that metaphysical homeland. At first those wanderings were rather banal, perhaps some Polynesia, Van Gogh and Gauguin there, and the like. And then somehow he latched onto Lithuania. Well, many circumstances coincided here: he lost those estates, lost his property, became completely destitute, and had to live off something. But—and this moment must be emphasized—he began giving lectures about Lithuania... One... One of his most successful texts about Lithuania, and in general one of the most successful texts ever written about Lithuania, is his lecture in the hall of the Geographical Society, where he records and sketches that landscape: “This country knows not the luxury of sorrow – to mature.” This is a brilliant sentence, which is the formula of Lithuania, the key to our identity. The luxury of sorrow—to mature. That is, to mature is a luxury, but it is a sad one. For to mature means to acquire form, and every form is mortal. Thus Lithuania is the place that never matures and always remains an evergreen rue, so to speak. All other cultures attain civilization. And what is Egypt now? A pile of stones, a pyramid. Or something else there. All forms die. Only what remains in being, remains in the phase of being, does not die. But what is in the phase of form dies. So this is brilliant. Being Lithuanian by one quarter himself, at best a quarteron, that is, he said such a sentence that, well, we call him a fifth-degree Lithuanian; one can calculate it there: whether one’s father or mother is Lithuanian, one is Lithuanian, and so on. And one can be Lithuanian while having almost no Lithuanian blood, almost none. Well, some small amount, apparently, is required. So this is the story of Milašius; it is, as it were, his new reincarnation into Lithuania, that childhood love. And Lithuania also becomes his love. And here it must be emphasized that he can be understood as someone who, well, having run out of money, attached himself to the embassy, right? Absolutely not. He first began giving lectures without anyone asking him, without anything. Only afterward did they take notice of him. It seems to me that the first to take notice was the priest [Vincas] Bartuška, if I am not mistaken. Then he informed Klimas, and Klimas invited him; well, there he was, let us say, his language—he distinguished himself by his excellent command of language, and diplomatic documents had to be written. Milašius would arrange them in such a way that everyone took notice. Thus he was truly very valuable. Moreover, he was sufficiently popular in certain elite [groups]; he was popular among the elite. In short, the main axis here is that Milašius’s Lithuanianness lies not in the fact that he wrote distinguished works, tales or something else, but in something fundamental. Jacques Buge has said: “There is not a single sentence in which Milašius,” 26 Clergyman and philosopher Vincas Bartuška (January 9, 1881, Kazl iškiai – January 28, 1956, Marijampolė, formerly Kapsukas). 27 Jacques Buge’e defended his dissertation Milosz en quête du divin at the Sorbonne; it was published in Paris in 1963. It touches upon the harmony between Milošas and Lithuania. In 1965, the French literary scholar published a selection of Milašius’s works, Connaissez-vous Milosz? 294 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu where he would not be Lithuanian.” One of the best researchers. But I have probably gone too far into a monologue here; you should probably ask something. 516–0002–01 We need not avoid repeating what You wrote, because the living word is more compelling. I think so. Indeed, we do not avoid it. And perhaps I will now return to that Lithuanianness. You know, I would ask about the following topic. That is, You only mentioned it and did not develop it. 516–0003–01 So I would now ask You to comment on the relationship between personality and creativity, recalling the sentence by Milašius that You quote, “God, how human this is, too human.” Why do You think that precisely in this sentence one should look for the key to the world of Milašius’s creativity? In other words, comment on the Christian conception of the human being in Milašius’s work. Christian? The Christian conception of the human being. I understand that Your text Three Lives essentially sets it out very consistently, convincingly, and logically. Well, perhaps. In short, perhaps without grand words, but proceeding from the intention You singled out, “God, how human this is, too human.” Well, you see, the relationship between biography and creativity is complicated. Some do not acknowledge it at all. There is a school of thought that only the texts should be analyzed, completely excluding biography. Then there is another position, perhaps equally extreme, namely that his work is merely a retelling of his biography. I would say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle: it is impossible to remove biography from creativity. If one knew nothing of a person’s biography and considered only the work, the reader would simply lose a great deal by not knowing certain things. That is, when you know a person’s biography and look at his work, a kind of fourth dimension appears in reading. Some biographies are very indistinct; well, I mentioned Rainer Maria Rilke—what can one say about him? Well, nothing extraordinary. That is, in life and in everyday affairs he was an inconspicuous person; there were no great upheavals. But in his work he was very, Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 295 ALGIRDAS VACLОVAS PATАCKAS labai ten yra ir dramatizmo, ir ko tik nori. O kai kur biografija užgožia kūrybą. Ten koks nors, žinot, iš tų tokių kaip va Francua Vijonas28 arba mūsų koks nors ten, čia toli ieškot nereikia, tos vietos turim irgi personažų. Žodžiu, neadekvatų būna savotiškai. Be biografijos neįmanoma, ypač Milašiaus, – geram, talentingam, genialiam rašytojui jo biografija yra vienas iš esminių dalykų. Vadinasi, turi būt sinchroniškai: eina jo kūrybos dalykai, biografija, aš va dabar Tolstojų čia kažkaip iš naujo perskaičiau. Tiesiog, kai žinai Tolstojaus biografiją [čia pas mus visokių gyvuliukų prisiveisę, kai mažai gyveni čia], tai, žodžiu, kai žinai jo biografiją, tai tada susidėlioja labai ta, išeina tas ketvirtas matmuo. O Milašiaus atveju tai jis yra ypatingas, aš jau sakiau apie tai ir rašiau, kad jisai priėjo tokį tašką savo tokių, vadinkim, žmogaus kaip kūrėjo galimybių, kaip žmogaus, kaip Dievo paveikslo ir panašumo. Ir tada žmogus, aš nežinau, čia sunku pasakyt, čia labai yra intymu, asmeniška. Jis atsiduria Dievo akivaizdoj, jis supranta, kad jis kaip žmogus daugiau nieko nebegali. Va, tai tada jam lieka koks kelias: likt ant to paties laiptelio, žmogiško, paties aukščiausiojo, jis visą savo talentą yra ne pražudęs, o pavertęs į vertybę tam tikrą, arba eiti toliau. O ką reiškia „toliau“? Toliau eiti reiškia atsisakyti. Ne tai, kad atsisakyt, jis žiūri tada iš tokio dieviško taško: „Dieve, kaip tai žmogiška, per daug žmogiška.“ Ir tada prasideda tas mistinis periodas. Na toks, keletas buvo ten: Swedenborgas29 mistikas, sakau, toks mums prieinamiausias pavyzdys yra galbūt Tolstojus, sakysim, ir su Mickevičium kažkas panašaus įvykę. Tas laikotarpis, kai jis buvo susižavėjęs tuo Tovijanskiu30, kai jis irgi taip tarsi metė visą kūrybą į šalį. Bet pas Mickevičių ten kažkas truputį ne taip su tuo Tovianskiu. Čia bandė aiškintis, na bet žodžiu. Księga Pielgrzymstwa polskiego31. Tai ten nežinau, aš tai juo nes žaviu, ta knyga. Ne tas kalibras turbūt. Bet irgi iš to paties... Žmogus prieina ribą, kai arba jis eina Dievop, bet tada jis turi viską palikt, kas žmogiška. O Dievop tai reiškia per mistiką ieškoti kontakto su Dievu. Vadinasi, bet jau per mistiką. Arba likt ant to paties laiptelio, tada ateina ten visokie apdovanojimai, garbė, nobeliai ir taip toliau. Bet labai retas, kuris sugeba peržengti. Čia yra tokia logika, galbūt, kaip jūs sakėt, krikščioniškos tokios žmogaus sampratos. Žmogaus kelias yra Dievop. Talentas ateina iki tos ribos. Jis arba žengia, arba nežengia. Prieš žengdamas jis 28 François Villon (François Villon, real surname François de Montcorbier or des Loges) (April 1, 1431, Paris) – a French poet of exceptional talent. 29 Emanuel Swedenborg (January 29, 1688 – March 29, 1772, London) – Swedish scientist, mystic, and theosophist. 30 Andrzej Towiański (Andrzej Towiański, Анджéй Товяńский) (December 21, 1788 – May 13, 1878), originating from the Vilnius region, was a philosopher, mystic, and founder of the Towianist group; he studied at Vilnius University. 31 Mickiewicz Adam 1832: Księgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego. Paris: A. Pinard. 296 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu has to undergo a rather painful resection, that is, an operation: to renounce his own—not that he despises it or anything, but he understands that it is nothing. That is, it is too human. That it is too human in such a way—not necessarily in a negative sense; one can even discern a positive [meaning] here, in that he exhausts himself as a human being. Through the parable of the talents: some scattered them, while others used them and, well, used them completely. It is a gift from God; it has already been put to use, but what next? He is still alive; he has not yet died. Well, then some great people, veritable titans, one might call them, cross that boundary and enter the mystical period. Perhaps that is how it should be understood. And then, simply to expand on this. You called Your wonderful, interesting, profound text about Milašius Three Lives. Perhaps it is, as I understand it, a conceptual title. What are Milašius’s three lives? Without expanding very, very widely, perhaps, nevertheless describe them, since the text exists; here, for the film, one might say it more concisely, but make clear what You mean—three lives of Milašius? There was an exhibition of his in Paris, with his poster, a photograph of Milašius and, beside it, a black-and-white negative. That is, the negative of the same photograph and the photograph itself. And it said: “From shadows, light.” So that first period is the period of the Fall, when he, a young man, came to Paris, with its multitude of temptations; he still remembers that childhood land. In my text there is this: “Why did you allow me to leave that childhood garden, where there are so many boats, where there are so many beautiful girls luring me toward the southern country...” And so on. And there is his quintessence there, a poem called “The Dance of the Monkeys,” when he had already gone considerably, as one might put it colloquially, off the rails. But afterward came the attempt at suicide. That failed attempt apparently shook him, and he then began moving from shadow into light. Thus, into the luminous period. That is the second life. The transition was not easy; I also include in that transition L’Amoureuse Initiation (The Initiation of Love). There are problems with the titles: the Poles translate it as Milosne wtajemniczenie; in my opinion, it should be translated as “initiation” or “baptism,” “love.” There is also a great deal of decadence there, as far as I was able to make sense of it without knowing French, using the Polish text. There is still a great deal of what one might call excessive agitation; in short, there is still a great deal of creative chaos. Existential chaos—that is probably what to call it. Les Zborowski is assigned to that same category. There too he seems to write about the entire history of his family; it too is mysterious, enigmatic, and so on. But there is a very short text, The Very Simple Story of Mister Triks–Trix. About a jester who somehow seems always to have been smiling—perhaps his face had been cut; he smiled all the time. It is a wonderful little work, and it ends with “one must live, one must live Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 297 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS one must.” Then Miguel Mañara has the chorus repeat: “One must live, whatever happens.” So this is his recovery, and he then writes what may already be his most substantial works, Saulių iš Tarso, Mephiboset, especially Migel Manjara. Migel Manjara is essentially a biographical work. So that is the second life. And the third, as we have just been discussing, is the mystical period. The period in which he renounces his creative work, as it were leaves it behind and moves elsewhere. So there are these three lives, if put briefly. So the third one occurs after the vision of 1914, right? Yes. Some researchers sometimes try to interpret it banally, saying that he contracted lupus, a rather nasty disease, and that this was a consequence of the illness. But in Milašius’s own description there is no mention of any illness. It is simply a classic case, nothing new. Dionysius the Areopagite, the ancient mystic, described these things. In every mystic’s life there is this so-called Mount Alverno32. Francis experienced such a vision and shock on Mount Alverno, in the rock, too, and afterward became a mystic. Francis of Assisi. So, on every mystic’s path—for those interested in mystical literature—there is nothing new here. That is, the mystic’s life begins with a shock, a vision, a certain event of great existential importance, and then he begins his life as a mystic. So, Milašius had that vision in that period. 516–0003–02 Three lives. That is, light and shadow, with the creative period in between, which for us, as people and readers, is perhaps the most valuable. Yet for him, as a human being, it was not enough. You mentioned the exhibition. When did that exhibition take place? It was some kind of anniversary of his. It was long ago, many years ago, but one would have to check when he was born, and... It was in France. In France, incidentally, if you have looked into it, Cahiers Milosz33—Milašius’s notebooks—still exists to this day. Incidentally, this text was first printed precisely in Paris. Thus, about the journey to Ceret. Of course, under a pseudonym—I do not know how he got there. But it was translated by a certain Jonas Grinius34. There was such a 32 Mount Alverno (La Verne)—a mountain in Umbria, in the homeland of Saint Francis of Assisi. 33 The first issue of Cahiers de l’Association Les Amis de Milosz (the notebooks of the Association of Milašius’s Friends) was published in 1967. 34 Jonas Grinius (March 5, 1902, Giminėnai, Joniškis district – November 10, 1980, Munich)—intellectual writer, art scholar, literary critic, and historian. He studied together with Salomėja Nėris in 1924–1926. He also wrote about Milošas. Atminties r aktas. In the interview, A. Patackas mistakenly mentioned Grinius’s first name, calling him Juozas. 298 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu a literary critic; he considers him one of Salomėja Nėris’s lovers, one among the many, candidates for those she loved; I think there were at least several of them. And before his death, the last text he translated was this little text about the journey to Ceret. And it was printed in Paris. For some reason, I was the first to have it printed—not somewhere in Lithuania. Later Draugas of Chicago reprinted it, and so on. Now, another motif. How do You interpret the theme of nostalgia in Milašius’s work? Well, one of... Of course, nostalgia is a feeling familiar to every person, but in Milašius it occupies a central, I would say essential, place. And this too is one of the roots, so to speak, of his Lithuanianness, because nostalgi-a... One can also say of Milašius: “I am entirely from my childhood.” That is, childhood is like the primordial image of Paradise, where a person once is. In my understanding, one does not need very much to believe in God—one needs to love children and flowers. So if you know a child—I wrote “Christ and...,” that is, “Adam Is a Child,” a text; I do not know whether you have read it. In my view, Adam was not an adult but a child. Perhaps he looked like an adult, but essentially he was a child. So, in short, childhood is, of course, important to everyone here, but for Milašius it is already at the boundary. One might say he never left it, childhood, throughout his... And the theme of nostalgia in our literature is decisive. How did our literature come into being? From nostalgia. That is, there was folklore, right? Then folklore—as we joke, little Poviliukas, a student from Petersburg, within a radius of sixteen kilometers, as we calculated, gathered girls together, made them learn Lithuanian, forced them to write all those hazel owls and witches of Šatrija. Well, he also found some old woman, fifty years old, and told her to write, and thus Lithuanian literature was born. About Saudargas’s hut, where you alone somehow come out to sixteen kilometers. You know, that old one—that is Pečkauskaitė’s principal work. In the Old Manor? In the Old Manor, yes. It should be said that that Poviliukas is Povilas Višinskis, right? Yes, precisely. And the other women—are they the classic women writers of our literature? Yes. And then Jablonskis appeared, who Lithuanianized all the dialects, and so on. Yes, but You give that word nostalgia a special meaning. Yes. In short, folklore is folklore. The lyric song, as Maceina [argues], we in fact arrived at that opinion independently, but let that now be Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 299 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS Maceina, that it is a cultural phenomenon. According to Spengler35, every culture has its own archetype, its phenomenon. This is the folk song as an expression of the soul of a nation. We translated a text written in German and included it. There were also partisan songs; that cost me an article, so to speak, because since there were partisan songs, they required an additional article from me in return for publishing it. You mean the article from the time when they caught you, right? Well, there was a story behind it. At the Academy of Sciences there was a cupboard in the corridor called the “Catalog of Topically Irrelevant Materials.” It contained everything—books that the censors did not know where to put. That is, all sorts of brochures thrown together. And sometimes you would order something and they would bring it to you. Usually they did not. But sometimes they did. And there we found Seven Legends about the Crucified. And we found some German-language journal called Baltikum, devoted to the Baltic countries. And there was Maceina’s article. In German. It had been written in German, not Lithuanian. We translated it and included it, and now I no longer remember whether it was in Ethos or in Pastogė. So when they caught us, it was because of those partisan songs... That is, the lyric song is to us what the pyramid is to Egypt, the arabesque to the Arabs, and the spatial quality, Bach’s music, and the like to Western European culture. In short, when the germ of our literature was born, it was born from nostalgia. “Op! Op! Little Nemunas! Are you calling me?”36 It passed over from nostalgia, that is. Folklore passed into literature, which began from the very outset. Well, its engine was precisely nostalgia, but nostalgia in perhaps a schmalz37 sense, that is, the world’s sadness in a Reue38 period of this kind. So if in folklore—I am not expressing this very clearly; this matter still needs to be probed further, and my hypothesis may be a little too bold, it still needs to be completed—but if in the Reue period, if in folklore everything was beautiful and good, there was nevertheless a great deal of sadness. Our songs in general. In lyric poetry generally there is a great deal of sadness. A great deal of that aisa, as we used to call it. Aisa means a kind of undefined sadness of the world. So the literature that was being born also oriented itself toward the same thing. It too turned in that direction and took that sadness from folklore; and then, well, look at all those texts by Biliūnas—they are truly not cheerful. Nostalgia is Lithuanian; essentially it is the longing of a person expelled from Paradise for that primordial Paradise, for harmony, for primordial concord. That is what we have; I call it nostalgia, though perhaps it is something broader. But this would require separate studies, and I probably will not have time to undertake them. It was one of the main motivations, so to speak... Thus, our literature has a very close relationship with nostalgia. Without this 35 Osvaldas Spengler (Oswald Spengler) (May 29, 1880, Blankenburg – May 9, 1936, Munich)—German historian and philosopher, expert on literature and the arts. 36 From a quatrain by Andrius Vištelis. 37 German der Schmalz ‘sentimentality’. 38 German die Reue ‘repentance’. 300 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu feeling, I do not know what would become of our literature. Incidentally, it very quickly caught up with the European level. That is, look, I recently wrote an angry text about books and reading, because I feel a terrible inferiority complex that while the Russians had all their Tolstoys, Gogols, and so on, we had Muziką Žemaičių ir Lietuvos Poškos. We started from zero, if we do not count Donelaitis, who stands somewhat apart. In short, this is where the greatest evil of the Union of Lublin lay. That is, it not only destroyed the state but took our language from us, and language is identity. For us language is not merely a means of communication. Language is something more. And without that language of ours... But Mykolaitis-Putinas’s Altorių šešėlyje is already a work of European level; that level has already been reached. Well, perhaps it has a slight provincial odor, but one still cannot deny it. And thereafter all our further literature consists of genuinely European works. [Antanas] Vaičiulaitis is entirely European, though, incidentally, he did not know any Slavic language. He knew neither Russian nor Polish. Who is that? Vaičiulaitis. I heard Mieželaitis. No, no, no. Mieželaitis is beside the point here. In short, Vaičiulaitis belonged to that generation, which was very clearly marked in time—a very brief period, perhaps ten years—when one did not need to learn either Polish or Russian. He knew English, he knew German, whatever you like, only not Polish; he managed without those languages. Vaičiulaitis’s father valued him as a very fine stylist. Indeed. So, in short, perhaps he is not a star in the Western context, but a Lithuanian will never be. 516–0003–03 an international bestseller. Anyone who writes in Lithuanian must forget this fact. In this context, the only people we know are Milašius and Mickiewicz. Perhaps we should return to nostalgia and Milašius. In short, as I say, this theme of nostalgia is truly the longing of Adam, expelled from Paradise but still very near Paradise; and Lithuanian culture in general, to put it banally once again, was not driven far away from—if I mean that eternal greenness, existence in aisa, the reluctance and even inability to create form, because the creation of form, “to blossom,” is “to flower.” To flower is to form a blossom. To gray means to grow green, does it not? We have the whole complex. That is, we call it the law of withering–ripening. Here maturity and here death. What matures dies. What acquires form becomes mortal. What does not acquire form balances on the boundary of form. What is eternally green is therefore eternal. So this is our lot, so to speak; whether it is good or bad no longer depends on us—let us call it what we will. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 301 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS Please expand somewhat on Your claim that everything can be found in language; it only needs to be unlocked. Since our subject is Milašius, yet Milašius did not even know Lithuanian, though he was nevertheless very Lithuanian. On the one hand, You claim that everything can be found in language, it only needs to be unlocked; on the other hand, there is Milašius, who merely learned a little Lithuanian… Well yes, here there is a certain peculiar contradiction. But in fact there is none, because everything can be found in language; consequently, we have a method, which was already very much disparaged, but if it were not for that method, we would not have written those twelve books of ours—I would not have. And, in the end, Saudargas is now rehabilitating it with this little book that you have, in Lithuanian. Well, speaking briefly, what we do half-consciously, not really understanding what we are doing, is now called very scientifically—cognitive linguistics. What kind of linguistics? Cognitive. From the word cognitio—knowledge. It is the newest kind of linguistics; it is only twenty years old, and so on. So this is about those methods. So, in short, language is a part of our identity. For other nations—some Belgians, for instance, or others—language is a means of communication. They can speak Walloon, they can speak Flemish, but they only need to make contact. But for us, language means that if we lose our language, we lose a part of ourselves, and together with it we lose literature as well, and everything collapses. Consequently, language is, for us—well, I do not want to start telling you how old it is, Sanskrit, and so on. So, in short, matters of language are essential. Now, Miłosz knew a little Lithuanian, but even if he had known it well, that would not have been the point. We call him a Lithuanian of the fifth degree. Why? Because there is—I do not remember who—some say Berdyaev39, others say that someone else said that every nation is a certain idea of God. Consequently, God created a nation, just as He created a human being, so that it might embody a certain idea. There are nations that embody such very distinctive ideas: the Chechens, for instance. I know that nation well; I have been there many times. They fascinated me and continue to fascinate me, although now it turns out that they too have enough dark elements among them. So, in short, the problem among the Chechens is freedom. A Chechen is the same as freedom. I have even said—and at one point they seized on it—that the Chechens are not a nation but “sostojanije duši”—how should one translate it—“a state of the soul.” So, in short, every nation—well, nations are mixed, and there it is harder to make sense of things—but we have that idea. Whoever grasps that idea is Lithuanian. Whoever develops it, whoever lives it, is Lithuanian. They may no longer speak Lithuanian. Matters of language apply to what we might call the first three or four degrees. And Miłosz is that drop—still needed in heaven, some kind of drop—but look at Eret's example: he has absolutely nothing in common with 39Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (March 18, 1974 – March 21, 1948) was a Russian philosopher and a representative of religious existentialism. 302 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu Lithuania. As he is dying, a friend says: “Go, and if you want, go and do what I will not be able to do.” He came to Lithuania, and so on. Such a short text by Eretas has been unjustly forgotten; somehow, during the war, he produced “Lithuania Is the Adam of Europe.” In short, it is worth paying attention to. It is the same thing we are talking about. Eretas arrived at this independently; we only discovered the text here quite recently, so, in short, these are some reflections. Thus, the phenomenon of Milosz is resolved in this case precisely through that idea of the nation. A nation that grasps it—we have not yet grasped it, we have not yet come to understand it when we adopted it. So, yesterday, when we had a television forum here about what to do so that people would not flee Lithuania, local economists were sitting there. Naive people. They think that they will hold back those fleeing Lithuania through economics. Whoever has put down roots culturally and existentially will never leave, regardless of all economic considerations. There is such a word butšaknis; I do not know whether you have heard it. What? Butšaknis. The Samogitians have preserved it. It means the entire place of a tribe, where the tribe was born. The whole tribe may leave, but the butšaknis remains in place and goes nowhere. It protects the land of the tribe and its ancestors [land]. Thus, as long as there are butšakniai in Lithuania, there may remain not three million, but three hundred thousand; but if they are butšakniai, we will not disappear. These things are very important. A root must be allowed to grow. A root can be put down only culturally. If your root is weak, it is very easy to uproot it. And then the wave of emigration carries it away, like that, you know, Russian “pere kati pole”—there is such a little plant that rolls across the steppe, a little ball; it stops somewhere, sometimes puts down a little root, holds on, and then uproots itself again and is carried away again. It is the same with us. All emigration, all economics, all schemes involving all the taxes will help nothing if there is no root. Here, at the beginning, there is a little poem for you to read: “What are we, they build houses out of clay, they sing the songs of the ancestors.” These are the butšakniai, and they will not leave here. They will be here, whether there is war, plague, or famine. They will remain here. Perhaps this would be a suitable place to insert such a question. About Oskaras Milašius’s desire, such an effort. Oskaras Milašius’s desire, his effort, was to add another dimension, with Lithuania at its center, to the ancient and biblical dimensions. Well, I encountered this subject in a very interesting context. I was making a film about Česlovas Milošas, and at that time I was preparing and had been in Italy for quite a long time, on the island of Capri. And then, being in the cradle, so to speak, of that ancient culture, but in that zone, and thinking about Česlovas Milošas’s other Europe, I forgot the title of the book. Native Europe, in which he... Or no, generally about his perception of the space of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And then I think: Good Lord, but this is an entire culture, an entire dimension that has somehow never entered Western Europe’s understanding. In other words, I will not confuse Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 303 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS my thoughts here, which are not fluent, but returning to the matter, could you somehow comment on that effort by Milašius to add another dimension, with Lithuania at its center, to the ancient and biblical dimensions? Well, as for the ancient dimension, as you call it, I somehow see only traces of it in Milašius. I need to think this through carefully now. I mean that in Europe, in European culture, such a dimension exists. Well, you see, we regard this as Lithuania, that is, when Spengler counted seven great civilizations there, Toynbee40—twenty-three or however many. Lithuania can be regarded as a completely separate civilization, in the sense of an Ethos culture. If culture is divided into Ethos and Logos cultures, then Lithuania is a separate formation that stands apart from everything around it. It is barely noticeable. As I said, it is noticeable precisely because it does not create a form. In Kant’s words, two things inspire me: the starry sky above me, the world of the Logos, and the moral law within me. So, this world of Ethos, the moral law within me—that is where Lithuania is a civilization, in this sphere. We have a fully developed system of calendar festivals. We have all those moral truths. And one that is still relatively unspoiled—or rather, not spoiled. So, in this context, this Milašius—he had another problem, in my opinion, which he called biblical. He was, after all—his mother was Jewish. I know several such figures here, such as Letas Palmaitis; he may be little known, but he is one of the most interesting figures in contemporary Lithuania. I wrote a little book together with him; I can give you a copy. “Who and When Abducted Europe.” Well, the original—a brilliant linguist—is currently unable to afford food, and so on. All those linguists have roofs that are slightly askew; there are no others. Linguists are extraordinary people: they enter that world and are no longer capable of leaving it. In short, Milašius—to return to him—look, I’ve wandered off into the fields, and now. Aha, the biblical one. All his life—in the final part of his life he returned to that biblical subject matter, because his—well, Saul of Tarsus [drama, 1914], let us say, is Christian, but, for example, his Nihumim [collection of poems, 1915] and the others are already biblical works of that kind. That is, that. And all his life he grappled with the problem between Lithuanian identity and, as you said. 516–0003–04 This was one of the cases in which it was resolved, at least in some form; that is, he died while still in the process, caught between these two, nevertheless very important, civilizational principles. This is a very rare case. Heine had great problems too, and so ⁴⁰ Arnoldas Toinbis (Arnold J. Toynbee) (April 14, 1889, London – October 25, 1975, York) – a renowned philosopher of history and civilizations. 304 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu did not solve it, he remained a secret enemy of Christianity, although he had formally been baptized. Here is that drop of biblical blood. It very often breaks through quite unexpectedly, and most people lose by either becoming divided within themselves or entering a certain schizophrenia... At the same time, Miłosz remained a faithful Catholic and wrote to the Pope. After sending those prophecies, he was apparently accused by some, Maritain⁴¹, of prophetism, supposedly allowing himself to be a prophet—something not very acceptable to Catholicism. The Pope’s, or more precisely his secretary’s, reply was formal but rather chilly: “Thank you, we received it, very talented.” Something like that. Miłosz became best known for those prophecies, but at the same time he remained faithful to that drop of Jewish blood of his. Thus he developed that biblical theme skillfully, even brilliantly—the elements harmonize in him. That was another of his victories. One might say he died at the right time—the thirty-ninth year. You can imagine: if he had remained alive in fascist-occupied Paris, what would his fate have been—Buchenwald or something like that. Something terrible. He died while simply chasing a little bird in a park, one might say under such ideal circumstances. A canary escaped, and he chased it. But I understood that it was in the hotel where he lived? I understood it that way: the canary escaped and flew outside. I understood that in the room. Perhaps it should be clarified. We had driven to that house where he lived, and there was an interesting story there, but it did not work for my film, so it was left pending. People live there now; during the war, that house was turned into such a contaminated place. The people who moved in said that when they moved in, it was filthy and so on. That house was very beautiful. But that is another subject. Since I do not have much time, I will return to Miłosz’s Lithuanian identity. You seemed to have mentioned it; I do not know whether you said everything, so what is this Lithuania of Miłosz’s, or, as you said, the place allotted on earth? He is looking for a way out of his creative crisis; I already said that there had been a kind of pause. He tried publishing a magazine and engaged in translations. Creative people have such breaks, let us call them creative ones. And then he began looking for something to lean on—situé—to situate himself, something on which he could rely, something that could serve as a stimulus for his creativity. And here, unexpectedly, Maurice Prozor⁴² played a certain role; he was a nobleman who had taken part in the uprising, somewhere from the Kaunas area. He drew attention to the Lithuanian character of his work. Lithuanian identity in the sense of how I tried to ⁴¹ Jacques Maritain (1882 November 11 – 1973 April 28) was a French writer and philosopher. ⁴² Maurice Prozors (January 28, 1849, Vilnius – May 10, 1928, Nice) was a French writer, translator, and diplomat. Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 305 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS to recount. As if he were writing in French, he was searching there... rather banally, perhaps I said as much, to leave for those Paradise islands... That allusion to Paradise, the search for that place—pure, radiant, undefiled—where he could situate himself and from there receive a new stimulus for his creativity. Probably every person at some point feels like a stray soul without a place—he searches for where I come from, who I am, where my roots are; he was probably searching for his roots. And then suddenly that Prozoros opens his eyes: he remembers those gardens again, generates himself back into childhood, into that Ani. That Ani and Lithuania are more or less the same thing. They undergo a kind of transformation. A peculiar, multilayered metaphor, isn’t it? Of course, I don’t know what word to use here; there are all sorts of terms. And then he begins giving lectures, but I want to emphasize—with the embassy there have so far been no contacts, there is no material interest involved; I am checking these matters very carefully against the dates and so on. And he begins to speak, to tell about Lithuania as a certain kind of Paradise, a primordial Paradise, a country of linden-tree scents, of wolves... in short, genealogically, this text perhaps ought to be taught in schools... From then on, Lithuania becomes for him a mythical homeland of dreams. Incidentally, when he first arrived in Lithuania, it was a shock for him. After the First World War, imagine it: Kybartai, ruins, a devastated, ravaged Lithuania. But he nevertheless does not renounce her; he serves her conscientiously with his language, his eloquence, his connections, and plays a very significant role. The French immediately sense that they are dealing with some kind of cultured country, and the matter is viewed quite differently. Thus Lithuania is regenerated for him from childhood. He truly loved Lithuania; for him it was perhaps more that “childhood garden,” that ideal image. Then he categorically rejects Polishness. The Poles were attracted to him and tried to make him a Pole, but he simply rebuffed them rather harshly, even bluntly. Therefore Zborovskiai remained unfinished. Thus Milašius had found a motif; his new creative revival began. At the same time, he began taking an interest in Lithuanian tales. The most fruitful period begins from that point. Those metaphysical texts of his were written then. Yes. He began writing metaphysical works when what we might call the Jewish component was reborn in him. Then it powerfully energized him. And everything fell into place. Saul of Tarsus, who converted on the road to Damascus, changed from Saul into Paul—this is, as it were, a very Christian motif. Nevertheless, I would consider the symphonies the pinnacle of his work: “The Unfinished,” and others. There is both songfulness and melody there, but at the same time meaning, Lithuanian character, and the biblical component, as you said. The poems are beautiful, the lyric poetry, and so on. Mañara (a play Migelis Manjara—editor’s note) is also a very powerful work. Mañara is the story of the founder of the Jesuit order, only given a different name. And, at the same time, his own story. Where priestly love turns into divine love. A very powerful work. It completely echoes Loyola’s biography. Loyola—a wounded officer—becomes lame and founds a militant order. The Jesuits are the soldiers of the Church. Companía di Gesu translates as “the Society of Jesus.” 306 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu Not a society at all; it should be translated as “the Military Company of Jesus,” that is, a military unit. If we divided all [books written by the Jesuits], each Jesuit has written an average of 12 books (some scholarly works or something of the sort). A very learned order. And when they bury them, there are neither first names nor surnames. There is a joke like this. It says that a Jesuit receives an order; he has already been working somewhere for a long time, and things are going well for him there, and suddenly he receives an order to board a ship and sail to a completely different place. And he agonizes all night about what will happen now, what he will do, saying: to hell with it, first a Jesuit receives an order, boards the ship, and only then agonizes. There is another moment from your text. You single out a quotation from Nihuminį: “In life’s life, I know that the world’s six days are given to reveal what must be known on the seventh.” What was that seventh day of Oskaras Milašius, what did it look like? It is difficult to say. The seventh day—the Sabbath—I do not really know how to interpret this matter. I do not know how to answer. I remembered another very beautiful novel described by Thornton Wilder, but The Eighth Day. God created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, but no one knows how long God’s day lasts. And that now the eighth day is lasting. That is what I had in mind when asking about Milašius. I understand that his ascent toward God reaches almost the highest... [end of recording] 516–0003–05 So, as I imagine it, the answer to that question about the seventh day should contain something like that. Probably. Probably, that is a good guess. Something like: God is very pleased with me when God took delight in His creation. Well, He makes it, and then delights in it. So I don’t know whether that was on the seventh day or the eighth. Perhaps, probably the eighth. So I, probably, simply happened to work for ten years—mowing ditches. Well, they threw me out of the Academy of Sciences, and so on. So, in short, if you make a ditch, a drainage ditch, beautifully, a little channel runs along it. And for the first time in my life, I probably will never experience that again, it used to be beautiful to me. I made it straight and beautiful, the little stream flows, and so on. And I took delight in my work. Of course, I shed a lot of sweat there. And afterward I never experienced such refreshment, neither while writing books nor, all the more so, while working in the Seimas; but if a person—this is essential—if you do everything correctly and accomplish something, it must look beautiful to you yourself. You need to devote time to that and not be ashamed of taking pleasure in it. Not boasting about some prize or something else; because, as I say, it is very strange, but I began to feel that way by the ditches, and it really was beautiful. Here Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 307 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS It was a swamp, overgrown with goodness knows what; you could not even see it. Now there is a beautiful little ditch here, clearly water flows through the muck, with that shovel, with that scythe, for six hours. But you do it, and it looks beautiful. And it is the same with God. He looked at the world He had created and rejoiced. I do not know, perhaps on the seventh day, perhaps on the eighth. God rested on the seventh day, while we live in the eighth. We try to improve. Well, I do not know whether there is anything to add here, but I happened to read Petras Klimo's memoirs about the final period, the last years of Oskaras Milašius, when he lived at the embassy, when someone would come to see him and he would come down. Well, some people accept almost madness. If you are acquainted with those Klimo memoirs, what do you think about that final period? I was not all that deeply acquainted with it—only in passing—but I understand it this way: such people, well, they look rather odd. In other words, they may perhaps already be somewhat pathological. I mean, for example, even that same Leta Palmais. He is a person who, in everyday life, well, in short, has problems with him. In short, he could really have looked rather odd, as though his roof had slipped. And when there is such a photograph—I remember it—of their entire embassy, the staff, there with all the typists and everything. Well, everyone, you know, is standing there quite respectably. And he has his legs crossed, in a somewhat nervous sort of pose. Well, you know, a person who lives purely a spiritual and difficult spiritual life, an intense one, and which is his true life—well, he may appear somewhat, well, not quite normal there. But there is nothing surprising about that. And if that were not the case, I would be surprised. I look at you, and from your gaze you somewhat remind me of Milašius. Well, perhaps you do become somewhat similar. He has a very impressive gaze in photographs. There is even a short clip, eighteen or thirty seconds long, filmed of him smoking by the window; his gaze there is truly impressive. Well, he used to pull such pranks. They were sitting somewhere in a restaurant with a friend, and he said something disrespectful about faith or the Pope, Catholicism. So right there in the restaurant he made him kneel down and apologize. And he said a prayer together with him, and he apologized. Imagine: a restaurant, two people kneeling here and praying. Well, such things happen, but only geniuses do things like that, you know, they, with them... So it is good that it is like that, because there is also the completely opposite version, when someone allows himself too much. Like my little brother—then it went on completely until the end of his life. Well, as with all the topics. We have talked a great deal here; be sure to shorten it. No, it never all makes it into the film. I actually just thought about it yesterday: I used to have a program on television, I had a show, but now I don’t have one anymore 308 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu and I do not want to have one, but I thought that if I somehow find the time, and if you could find the time, perhaps we should nevertheless find some thirty or forty minutes to spend with you separately. And what would the topic be? Creativity, life, and all those twists and turns of life. Well, all right, I have nothing against it; perhaps I have already said too much here, so that later it does not become, you know, something else. And what have you been saying? Well, there is no shortage of all sorts of programs here. 516–0004–01 They look at us, so to speak, differently. Exactly. I think that is precisely why it needs to be done. In any case, I am very grateful that Saudargas brought up this topic; somehow, I might not have gotten into it otherwise. I have now even started reading this text; that word is difficult for me to pronounce. Cognitive. Cognitio – cognition. Cognitive. Swaggering, swaggering. But, in a word, these linguistic arguments are very interesting in the best sense, and I think they are very contemporary. So I think that it is not esoteric, but nevertheless scientific… There is no esotericism here whatsoever. From a scientific perspective… The essence is that, well, we believe—and lately this is no news at all—that sound and meaning are connected. In other words, sound signifies, and meaning can be heard. Sound—to signify, meaning—to be heard. This was severed after the catastrophe of the Tower of Babel. In other words, humanity began to be unable to understand one another. We think that this connection has survived in the Lithuanian language. Sound signifies, and meaning can be heard in the form of sound. So, for those interested in this, it is no news. It is news only to our linguists, since they are behind by who knows how many years. I also remembered one thing that I disagreed with when reading that text. About the eye and the image. No, about sound and the image. About the eye and the ear? Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 309 ALGIRDAS VACLОVAS PATACKAS I forgot. I wasn’t planning to ask, but once, while reading, I made a note. I didn’t want to agree that the image is not important. The image is important, but the ear is even more important. So, you read it. Ah, I’m sorry. Your statement that for a Lithuanian the ear is more important than the eye. Yes. For a Lithuanian, the ear is more important than the eye. Oh, and I started thinking. I am preparing to make a film, so images are important to me there. Images are necessary. The eye is very necessary. But all the same, for our kind of self-awareness, the ear—if we return to the essence of that sound—we hear first, and then comprehend. It is like that. Read Baranauskas’s The Forest of Anykščiai. What does everything begin with? In sequence. First, you hear—everything rustles there; then you see; then you smell. There are three. The nose, the hearing, and the eye see reality. Sound—the ear hears what is beyond reality. Music has exactly the same advantage over prose, for example. Thus, if in prose there is, let us say, the eye, then the ear is… Look, the ear. One letter, s, is a divine letter there; we have, well, the word of God, d, v, s—all three of those letters are sacred, according to our theory. So s is, s and a is a hardened s. Thus, here are satem kentum all the things; if you are interested in linguistics, our language cannot be assigned either to the satem or to the centum languages. Thus, some say centum, while others say “one hundred.” And our language can do both this way and that. Thus, these are perhaps technical matters, so to speak. But now here is such a paradox. We have the word akmuo. It simply didn’t… Every noun must have its own verb. Because a noun arises from a verb. Thus, it must have its own verb. Hand—gather, from gather, and so on. But akmuo could not be connected in any way. Now replace k with s. What do you get? A person? It looks strange. In other words, must a person be like a stone? Well, if he is alive, he is a person; when he dies, he becomes a stone. That is how it is. I think this signifies strength. Firm in form. All forms disintegrate. Find the form that does not disintegrate. The fate of forms is to die. Thus, it was not in vain that we wrote about transformations. The Book of Transformations we wrote with Žarskus. So: birth, the transformation of birth, the wedding transformation, and the transformation of death. There you have it: a person passes through all three. The most conscious, of course, is the wedding transformation in the broadest sense. A priest also undergoes a wedding transformation. He gives—the ordination is received; this too is a certain transformation, a betrothal to the Church. In short, all these transitions—but from the moment you mature, ripen–wither. You ripen until you become ripe, mature, and then—downward, withering. And there are about twenty of them. It is in my texts; if you read them, you will find them. So k and s… The ear is 310 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu our principal instrument; the eye is in second place, and in third place—some sense of smell, say, and in fourth—some form of touch. But everything proceeds in what we might call the direction of materialization, because the eye is a sufficiently material thing. Vision. Would I be right in saying here that, speaking about Milosz, those three lives are also some kind of three transformations? Or not quite? Well, yes. Every radical change, when bridges to the past are burned—and that is essential when passing through a transformation. The iron rule is: one must not look back. If you have resolved to undergo a transformation, you must leave everything behind and resolve never to return, to burn the bridges. You know, when Lot’s wife turned around and became a pillar of salt. The second very important moment is that the moment of transformation itself is extremely important, because there you find yourself alone; no one can help you. Thus, even Christ: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In fact, at the moment of transformation, a person remains absolutely alone, but one can prepare for it. One can prepare for the point of transformation. Enter that zone, prepare properly. Then it is possible. But under no circumstances may one [look back], because otherwise you will become stuck in the transformation. If you begin looking back. And, stuck in the transformation, you will waste energy for no reason, flailing about neither here nor there. It drains your vital energies, and you remain that way. All those kaukai and aitvarai are people stuck in transformation. Our, so to speak, pseudo-deities. So that is the iron rule. And afterward, awakening. Well, a baby is awakened. To awaken, then, means also to leave the zone of transformation; there is a certain ceremony, a certain scenario for how to leave it. If you perform it correctly, you move into another state and are already different. So, there are three transformations in a person’s life; I am now preparing for the last one, so to speak, preparing very seriously, and I feel more or less ready. But, of course, you never know how it will be, that subtle point—you will be completely alone. No one will be able to help you. Even God Himself could not help His Son. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So, these are very serious matters; whoever understands that finds it much easier to live correctly. In our culture—which is why I call it a civilization—these things have been worked out superbly. Everything is there. Here is that Book of Transformations; I can give you a copy. Martavimas is especially important; that is, both spouses perform it. If you fail to perform it, if you violate the rules of martavimas, your wedding will be unhappy, followed immediately by divorce, and so on and so forth. We have forgotten these things. Everything has been wonderfully preserved in our culture. We only need to remember. I could go on about this for a long time. Then, back to Milosz. Well, he remained unmarried. What would that mean in his life? As I understand it, he had those affairs, and then what? He had a very serious relationship there. He was poor; she was wealthy. Jewish, it seems. There were betrayals; some Eleonor betrayed him. He later condemned her there to nonexistence. She would not be in my poetry. Why did he remain [unmarried]? Well, such a person is not made for family life. Much like a priest. In the end, neither one Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 311 ALGIRDAS VACLOVAS PATACKAS measured up to that infant from his childhood years, with an archangel’s eyelashes, as he called him. So that is probably how it can be understood. I cannot imagine him as a family man. Impossible. These people have their own tasks, their own functions, their own purpose. They carry that burden to the end. In Milosz’s case, there was that martavimas, but it was the period of his shadow. He did everything very wrongly there. You probably know that, if we believe “The Monkey’s Dance,” he passed through every mire there. Perhaps not even in France, but somewhere in Morocco or in Casablanca, wandering God knows where. He did not really want to talk about it, nor did he particularly want to write about it. He named the cities very precisely. Something of mud, fog, and something else. Well, you know, for a person born by Lake Čerėja in that setting, Paris could, of course, have been... 516–0004–02 Everyone will get confused here later. My conclusions, digressions. I simply want to ask you, to request your permission. If something comes up while making the film, if something was not said fluently enough, if the text is too long—could I draw on the texts you sent me? We would somehow indicate it. Of course, of course. If everything works out with the film and a couple of years pass, or even three. I do not know what that means there, how much is involved; I simply cannot yet imagine the process, but perhaps even enlist your help and perhaps somehow compensate you financially as well. But I cannot promise anything, because I do not know myself yet. No, as far as I am concerned, please use everything I have written. 516–0006–01 That is more or less how the doctors described it. So I want to say that if... If I delayed for too long, it might not come true. Yes. I understand; I know that. I know that circumstance. Mr. Algirdas43 told me about it. And that is why he asked me to film without delay, because I kept hesitating in every possible way, saying that I really could not. Therefore, here 43Algirdas Saudargas. 312 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Paskutinis Algirdo Vaclovo Patacko (1943–09–28–2015–04–03) interviu it happened that we were filming on New Year’s Eve. But I think it will be as God wills. Of course, I am not troubled or worried about anything. 516-0007-01 And, if it is not a secret, are you managing with medication now? Well, the medication already... 516-0008-01 No, well, I am already doing fine myself; I understand things sufficiently well. In general, my health is not a problem. I intend to remain here, because, after all, there are duties in the Seimas, and they need to be carried out. For now, while I can cope with those duties, while I accomplish this and that, I must hold on. Well, there are various other reasons why I cannot simply let go so freely; I have to cling on. And how long that will be, you know, that is already a matter for my own bookkeeping. But it is not a problem for me; everyone here somehow... 516-0009-01 Well, you see, there are interesting things. One must prepare for every transformation. I have already had a bit of rehearsal. In short, I was preparing for prison. Because I already knew that sooner or later it would happen; I just did not know when. Every week, on Monday, I waited between seven and eight for the doorbell not to ring—or rather, for it to ring. Because if they did it, they did it on Monday, so they would have the whole week ahead of them. And then you would see through the peephole about seven men in hats; the door opens, they enter. So, if it did not happen on Monday, you had more or less a week and could be freer. Then Monday again, and so on, for about ten years. Waiting like that. And then the operation itself, when they lowered me into the basement, I was already prepared. I already knew everything I had to do, how I would feel. And that was the problem, you see. I was frightened at one point. So they bring you into a cell: there is nothing, just a bench, this wide, pushed against the wall. The cell is slanted, there is nothing else, not a single piece of furniture. I thought: what if I have to sit in a place like this for a year? It turned out to be the search cell, nothing serious, just for putting down one’s belongings. Then they led me to a normal cell. The event itself was a shock. But because I had already prepared, the shock was much weaker for me than for someone who had not prepared. So, one must prepare for every such transformation. And afterward you lie there, and since it is unclear whether it will be five, seven, or twelve years, you know that you will see neither relatives nor anyone else. You lie there with your hands folded like this. The conservatory is playing; everything can be heard through those basement windows. I think: if only you could press a button, walk out, and everything would be as if nothing had happened. Because being in that cell is like lying in a coffin. That means Kalba ir likimai / Language and destiny 313 ALGIRDAS VACLОVAS PATACKAS the interrogation means that they are cutting you, so it would last six hours, sometimes even eight. And I underwent about eighty of those interrogations, perhaps even a hundred; one would have to count them. In short, they were breaking the most important thing in you, and as far as I was concerned, I was no longer afraid of anything, but so that they would not betray my friends, especially Saudargas⁴⁴. So I had to remember his texts, everything, and so on. It was all the same to me by then, however many of them I had to endure. In short, that transformation is like being buried alive, more or less. This basement, that music—it was a burial alive. It was very good rehearsal for what is happening now. There, too, in a certain sense, you are alive, walled in and buried. An ant can get out through the window and the bars, but you cannot. You, a living person, are imprisoned, walled in—for what? What did I do wrong? I did nothing wrong. Neither to people nor to God, only to that regime. So those were my thoughts, but that rehearsal is very useful to me now. I, too, was on such a borderline there. Then it was five years; they added two more—if you said very little, you received seven—and they added another five years of exile. Exile was fashionable then. That is, they threw you out of the camp and you lived as you wished, but in the same region, in the same town. So Skuodis⁴⁵ served seven years, and received another five years of exile on top of that, making twelve years. In short, after twelve years, that too is a kind of peculiar funeral, a person’s peculiar funeral. The camp is somewhat better; there are people there, and other things. But once you have had such an experience, let us say, of a cruel transformation, the next transformation also appears somewhat different—nothing terrible. But the transition itself still has its effect: you remain alone. No one can help you. At weddings there used to be guides for you; there were such guides at funerals too. At weddings there was the martys, a completely forgotten figure. Now the piršlys has emerged. The piršlys is merely the person who establishes contacts, and so on, whereas the martys—we coined and constructed that term—is the one who teaches you how to enter and how to leave, but during the transformation itself shows you everything. Our people are very wise and have worked these things out down to the smallest detail. We are sitting on this dowry and do not know how to use it. And nowadays it is a treasure to possess such a dowry. And these are very unsettled times; everything is chaos, the world is too variegated, full of all sorts of problems, and so on. We need to isolate ourselves as much as possible. I mean, not physically isolate ourselves, but spiritually. Even existentially. Only then will we survive, because otherwise even those economies will not help. The economy, prosperity, will destroy us. If we begin to live [that way]. Just look at what is happening now: deposits are full, although of course there are poor people too, and quite a lot of them. But these things will not save Lithuania. It will become just another little state, a standard one, nothing good. ⁴⁴A loyal friend, Algirdas Saudargas. ⁴⁵Doc. Dr. geologist Vytautas Skuodis (March 21, 1929, Chicago – December 17, 2016, Vilnius)—a prominent participant in the dissident movement and member of the Helsinki Group. 314 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV