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| Lithuanian Research and Studies Center |
Close to 60 people gathered in Chicago on Labor Day weekend, September 3-4,
2011 to discuss issues around the preservation of Lithuanian archives and, to a
lesser degree, libraries. At least 7 of the speakers were from Lithuania, the rest of the participants were
mostly from the Chicago area and Washington DC, with other
key players from Putnam, CT,
Baltimore, and
other places.
It is a strange feeling to sit for two whole days and listen
to information vital to your research in a language you don’t quite understand.
I have never studied Lithuanian, just know that it is similar to Latvian, and
that some words that sound like Latvian words have different meanings. Like
“mokslo,” which is like “maksla” or “art” in Latvian, but means “research” in
Lithuanian. Or “kambarys” – sounds like “kambaris” or “closet” in Latvian, but
means “room.” It was a mental exercise to listen intently to a couple of dozen speakers
at this Lithuanian archive and library conference, and see if I can get a gist
of what they are saying. Often I would catch a phrase like “where the problem
lies,” but then would not get the problem itself. There were certain cadences
to the language that sounded familiar, especially when people started arguing.
I was lucky that on the first day, before the conference started, I had talked
to a musicologist Loreta, who was very willing to translate main points to me.
I had the program in partial translation, so I knew who was speaking, what
organization they were representing, and what their topic was supposed to be. I
seemed to understand more of what was said by the émigré Lithuanians, than from the officials
from Lithuania.
I asked questions during the breaks and had dinner in English with two of the
organizers, who helped fill in many of the gaps. On the second day I had
another translator.
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| Dale Lukas, Rolandas Kačinskas, Antanas Gražulis, Robertas Vitas |
This conference was organized by Dale Lukas (Lukiene), chair of the
American Lithuanian Archives Committee, whom I met around 15 years ago at an
AABS conference. She is also one of the people responsible for compiling an
extensive list of Lithuanian Archives and Libraries in the US that I have been using as a guide to my research. Much of the
information I want to put into my directory is already there. I just have a
slightly different take on these collections, will be organizing the
information differently, and want to visit the major collections, so I can
accurately reflect what is available to researchers. Plus I am asking questions
about available databases and online tools. Though she was not the first to
speak, in her introductory remarks Dale talked about Lithuanian immigration
history being more than 100 years old and that a lot of things have been
created over those years to preserve that history, and that they need to
continue to preserve it. Her goals for the conference
were to get people together to talk about what can be done, what problems they
face. She was also interested in making the community aware that archives need
to be preserved and that the community will need to support these efforts with
time and resources. Dale has also started the conversation with the archives in
Lithuania
and hopes that there can be an exchange of specialists and researchers,
organized workshops, and common guidelines, methodologies, standards.
The conference was opened by Robertas Vitas, the chair of
the Lithuanian Research and Studies
Center (LRSC) and our host. The
conference was held in the very comfortable café of the Center. Robert remarked
that the Lithuanian nation doesn’t just exist in Lithuania, but it exists wherever
there are Lithuanians that are active, where there is a Lithuanian
consciousness. He believes archives and libraries too should exist wherever
there are Lithuanians and argues strongly against sending everything to Lithuania, as
someone had recently proposed in a letter to the newspaper Draugas. Robertas believes in the Global Nation – a concept I saw
repeated throughout the conference. Rolandas Kačinskas, representing the
Lithuanian embassy in the US,
addressed the conference and encouraged everyone to work together.
The first presenter was Ramojus Kraujelis, Lithuania’s
chief archivist. He gave an overview of Lithuanian archives, and his PowerPoint
slides contained the structure of their archival system, which I will have to
get and translate. I wish the wireless had worked in that room, as I could have
taken phrases from his slides and put them into Google Translate and gotten a
better sense of what he said. I believe his presentation will answer many of my
questions and give me the structure of archives in Lithuania that I want to describe
in my handbook. (I brought in my more powerful laptop on the second day and was
able to connect to the wireless and do some translations.)
Augustinas Idzelis, a historian and philosopher, placed the
whole archive conversation withina historical space. He quoted Lithuanian
philosopher Juozus Girnius, that has described the history of a nation as
its roots, Lithuania
itself being the trunk with branches all over the world. If we cut off the
branches, we lose the history of Lithuanians in the U.S. I was told this was an
eloquent argument against sending all materials back to Lithuania. He
also spoke about the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center,
its collections, programs and issues. Though I did not understand much from his
presentation, I saw the extensive collections Sunday, and plan to return and
get a tour in English with more detailed explanation of their work.
After lunch we heard from Dalius Žižys, the director of the
Lithuania Central State Archive in Vilnius. He described their archive, and if I
understood correctly, they have the historical collection from the first
independence through the second independence 1918 until 1990. I will get the details later, but I assume they divide up
responsibilities like they do in Latvia, with a historical
collection and then the ongoing collection. I
understood that they keep all their documents in a climate controlled
environment and are working on digitizing the most important and most requested
or useful documents. I believe I heard 700 million pages have already been
scanned. (I have to find out what kind of numbers make sense to quote when
talking about digitizing. I figured out that at work we just scanned about
20,000 pages for 50 years worth of the journal Reading Horizons in a few months this spring and summer – in
between other projects.) They are also digitizing films, sound recordings, and
photographs. Director Žižys demonstrated their database, that can be searched
by topic and documents can be browsed, bringing up images of the actual
document. They are still resolving security issues with this database, so it is
not available online, just within the archive.
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| Church at the Lithuanian Center |
Vytautas Žalys, the Foreign Ministry Ambassador at Large, a
role I do not quite understand, addressed the topic of Lithuanian Archives
owned by other countries. I understood him to say, that the Lithuanian
governmental archives were just established in 2009, though I am sure
governmental materials have always been collected, maybe they became more active a few years ago. Ambassador Žalys did address an interesting
question about Lithuanian archives that are scattered throughout the world
because of history. Some of the oldest archives are located in Russia, because Russia governed Lithuanian lands
for so many years. Some are in Germany,
especially concerning the territory
of Klaipeda. During wars,
archives get stolen or moved, e.g. the allied powers divided documents they
found in Germany,
so Lithuanian documents could be anywhere.
The first day of the conference ended with a discussion
about a new American Lithuanian archive and research center. Robertas Vitas
gave the background and explained the proposed project. I will need to get a
translation of his article in Draugas,
before I dare set down any details, but this is a huge project that will need
the support of the whole Lithuanian community. After the introduction by
Robertas, a panel of stakeholders expressed their opinions, and as I was told
later, all of them supported the idea in pricinciple, as long as funding is
found for the project. The panel included Stanley Balzekas, Gediminas Deveikis
from the scout archive and museum, Dalia Cidzikaite from the newspaper Draugas,
Rimas Griskelis from the Lithuanian Foundation, Giedrius Subacius from the
Lithuanian Studies Department at University of Illinois at Chicago, Skaiste
Aniuliene, from the Lithuanian general consulate, and Vytautas Žalys,
Ambassador at Large. Many other participants rose to make comments or ask
questions, and my sense was that most of the concerns were about financing a
project of this magnitude.
My day ended with a delightful discussion of the Lithuanian
and Latvian communities in English over Chicago
deep dish pizza with Robertas Vitas and Vytas Beleška. They filled in a lot of
gaps on what I had not understood in the day’s proceedings and gave me some
background information about the need for the new Center. I see the need and
wish them the best of luck in realizing this vision.
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| Ramojus Kraujelis, Daiva Barzdukiene |
- Guidelines for Lithuanian archives around the world, including what kinds of materials should be preserved
- Detailed description of what personal documents should be kept – biographical, correspondence, memoirs, creative materials, ecnomic, etc.
- List of institutions with archives of Lithuanians abroad
- List of institutions in Lithuania that may be accepting archives from the emigre community in the future
- List of major Lithuanian libraries and museums and their specialties
- Sample of survey questions asked of archives.
I was able to talk to Daiva before her
presentation and she explained that Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas received
a grant to document archives of Lithuanians that have gone abroad. They sent
surveys out to 300 Lithuanian institutions and have received 30 responses from
collections that have these archives and 50 institutions that report that they
do not have these types of materials. They have five doctoral students who will
be visiting all the larger institutions to compile this data, where the staff
is too busy to do so. The plan is to put all of this information into a unified
database, so if someone is researching a particular person or organization,
they will be able to look up all the places that have some archival material on
this person or organization. I believa Daiva will be a very important contact
for me while I work on gathering information for my handbook. I was not
planning on providing that level of detail – what archives are where, but I
definitely want to point to any lists or databases that provide this
information.
Maryte (is this
like the Latvian Marite?) Patlaba talked about the oldest Lithuanian library in
the U.S., the Baltimore Lithuanian House Library and Archive, established in
1908. They have about 5000 books and have revived activities after a 10 year
hiatus. Someone pointed out that this has one of the best local community
archives – about Lithuanians of Baltimore.
I will definitely have to visit this collection.
Gediminas
Deveikis is the chair of the Lithuanian Scout Association archive & museum,
which is located in the Lithuanian center in Lamont, IL. I believe this was the
center I visited in 1989 and was told that this center was purchased, when a
large portion of the Lithuanians moved out to the southwestern suburbs.
Deveikis explained the archive was started in 1980, formally established in
1984 and in 2005 they published a catalog of the collection - Lietuviu skautu sajunga archyvo-muziejaus
katalogas. (I looked it up and the only copy in WorldCat is at the
Library of Congress. They have four people working on the archive on Tuesdays
and have close to 300 banker’s boxes of materials. There is a fund that
supports their work, but the are running out of room and the rent has gone up
too much. They would like to digitize their collection.
Daiva Kapkute and
Dalia
Kuziniene, fellows at
the Lithuanian Emigration Institute in Kaunas, spoke about their institute. (I
heard about this at the conference in Germany.) „Its main purpose is to
collect, study, preserve, and exhibit the archival materials that constitute
the cultural, political, and scholarly heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora,
embracing both organizations and individuals.” From their website.
The Institute supports the Center for Lithuanian
Diaspora Studies at Vytautas Magnus University
in Kaunas. They
publish books, a journal and organize conferences, seminars and exhibits. They talked of
having a single database with information about what is available in all archives,
but I did not think to ask if this was the same project described by Daiva Barzdukiene. They were sitting
together at one table, so I will assume that it is the same.
The last session of the conference was a potpourri of U.S. Lithuanian organization archives and
their activities.
Dale Lukiene from
the American Lithuanian Archive committee spoke about sending letters to 60 organizations asking about their
archives and has received 3 responses so far. She also pointed out the Lithuanian World Archives list on the LRSC site.
Rimas Griškelis
spoke about the Lithuanian Foundation and the issues they have with their own
archives. He made the observation that documentation of
their organization and others may be more in English as language skills decline.
They publish a history of the foundation on major anniversaries – 10, 25, etc. They
regularly support organizations such as the LRSC.
Saulius Kuprys
spoke about Amerikos Lietuviu Taryba (ALT) or Lithuanian American Council, founded in
1915 and representing the interests of the Lithuanian-American community and cooperating with Latvians and
Estonians. Their archival material is distributed in various places including
the LRSC and Balzekas Museum, some was in Connecticut, where they had a fire.
The Joint Baltic American
National Committee (JBANC)
archives are at the Immigration History Research Center in MN.
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| Skirmante Miglinas showing a 1908 newspaper |
I still have a lot to learn, but I am thankful I found out about this conference and was able to attend, as I now have some idea of the Lithuanian archive and library situation. They may have many issues to resolve, but I am afraid that both the Lithuanians and Estonians are way ahead of American Latvians in preserving their archives.
