LITHUANIA

I have read

Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea (2016)

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I have written

... nothing ...

a broken alience

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Lithuania is one of those countries that are almost invisible from Poland. Is it? Did not Mickiewicz said... And even more importantly, Miłosz? It should be the familiar Europe (Rodzinna Europa). It is not.
There was a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but it was in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance. Well, in any case, the whole was completely obliterated by Partitions, in the end of the 18th century. Both countries, Lithuania and Poland, regained their independence after the First World War, but it wasn't a time of getting together once more. On the contrary, there was a Polish-Lithuanian War, a historical episode about which --I swear on the innocence of my ignorance-- I first knew about from an English-speaking podcast on Youtube. No one ever mentioned any Polish-Lithuanian war whatsoever all along my school years; (as I've noticed, it tends to be referred euphemistically as "konflikt" in Polish-speaking publications).
Mickiewicz and Miłosz are, of course, Polish writers. The real Lithuania must be hidden beneath, invisible precisely because of the voice they had given to her, to that water snake that did not deserve the stone to be thrown. To that Lithuanian Paradise lost.

A z ciężkich moich grzechów jeden najlepiej pamiętam:
Jak przechodząc raz leśną ścieżką nad potokiem
Zrzuciłem duży kamień na wodnego węża zwiniętego w trawie.

I used to read Miłosz passionately in my youth, and it seemed to me that I saw Lithuania so distinctly through his poetry, as a mythic land, beyond time, history, the usual dimensions of "the flat map", as I wrote in one of my books (it was on that "flat map" that the Polish-Lithuanian war was to be waged, without touching the primordial reality of the snake). Miłosz's Lithuania is a bubble of intimacy bulking into another dimension.
The real Lithuania is hard to find in Poland, and I feel partially excused of ignoring it so completely. I doubt if we have Lithuanian or Baltic studies at any of our universities; at least in twenty years of my presence in Polish academic milieu, I've never heard about them. I don't remember having seen any Lithuanian novel translated. There was a time someone tried to launch some Lithuanian food products on the Polish market, some sort of local hams. But apparently they failed to gain any popularity.

Leiden, 29.04.2019 - Kraków 18.08.2021.

Vilnius

Gediminas' Tower.

Inner court of the Basilian Monastery where Mickiewicz was imprisoned.

A glimpse into the Gate of Dawn sanctuary with its miraculous icon of Virgin Mary.

In front of the University of Vilnius.

church of St. Johns

Church of St. Johns. Main altar.

Church of St. Johns. In the lateral nave.

the Cathedral of Vilnius

The Cathedral of Vilnius. Chapel of Saint Casimir.

church of St. Peter and St. Paul

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Rasos Cemetery

Rasos Cemetery.

the rest of the city

Trakai

the Karaites

The Karaite kenesa.

the Castle of Trakai

To a considerable degree, the Castle of Trakai is a reconstruction. Its former ruin explains the lack of original items in its interiors. The exposition is thus a rather makeshift one, bringing together someone's safari trophies, a collection of pipes and elegant stamps with aristocratic coats of arms. On the other hand, there is a visible, and rather happy attempt to fill the castle with contemporary works of art, in reference to Lithuanian history. I believe it is indeed the best option, and particularly enjoy a great canvas under the title "Vytautas the Great awaiting the crown" (2013), by Giedrius Kazimierenas.