Herkus Kunčius: “The darkest prophecies are coming true” | Culture

– What is your relationship with Sapiegi Park, do you visit here often?

– During the Soviet era, a military hospital was located in the current Sapiegi Park. Surrounded by a three-meter-high green-painted wooden fence, it looked like a fortress, which no one from Vilnius could enter. Growing up and living in Antakalni, I passed by it every day.

At 19 and drafted into the Soviet army, I got hepatitis a year later, that was almost 40 years ago. I ended up in the Infectious Diseases Department of this hospital. The regimen was not very strict, so every day I walked around the park, where the Departments of Surgery, Infectious Diseases, Venereal Diseases and other departments were located.

Here I became friends with the future doctor, ophthalmologist Rimvydus A., who simulated jaundice by instilling iodine in his eyes. We were in the same ward. In the evenings, we often jumped over the fence and went on adventures in Vilnius, changing into civilian clothes.

Therefore, Sapiegi Park evokes such sentiments. I’m happy to come here today. Just like back then, I walk around the park and as I walk I keep staring at the windows of the former Infections Department in front of the oldest Liepaja in Vilnius, where Rimvydus A. and I were in the ward at that time.

Laura Vansevičienė’s photo/Herkus Kunčius

– Your short story “Ligo istorija” won the Antanas Vaičiulaitis literary prize. The story describes the experiences in the Santara clinics in the style of a diary. The impressions of the time, as I understand it, were quite different.

– In the Soviet army, there was a criminal-type hierarchy among conscripts: showers, young, pumps, old man, dembelis. I got to the hospital when I was pumpsthat is, after serving a year. Unlike in the unit, here everyone was equal – patients, regardless of whether you were showersar dembelis. So at night, no one forced you to stand on a stool until morning, to do laundry lazy underwear or fist training spirit.

The military medics did not care too much about the treatment of hepatitis, so you could read, play cards or listen to stories about the sexual exploits of the cadets of the nearby Ryšiai War School.

In addition to these, the so-called partisans – men called up for military training for a few months – were admitted to the hospital. Some – with white fever.

One such person in our ward experienced visions – he saw a funeral procession through the window, while jumping on the bed he was delirious about his mother in a coffin, and at night he began to strangle the neighbor of the ward. After waking up from the snoring, we hastened to tear him away from the victim and tied him up with towels. In the morning, he was taken to the New Vilnius Psychiatric Hospital. I remember, when paramedics were putting him in an ambulance, a partisan shouted in Russian that he wished the soldiers to defeat fascism as soon as possible.

– In addition to writing impressive, often shocking books, as well as plays and librettos, you are very productive – do you ever fear that you might run out of ideas, that you will run out of ideas? What has been the longest period of time in the past decade that you haven’t written anything?

– I have neither the desire nor the time to think about what would happen if there were. I do not do personal futurology. And I don’t divide the time when I write or when I don’t write.

– Why are you so interested in the Soviet era in recent years?

– I am not interested in the so-called Soviet era in the abstract. In this period there were, roughly speaking, stages of Leninism, Stalinism, Khrushchevism, Brezhnevism or perestroika. Each of them had its own specifics: from military communism, red terror, forced collectivization, deportations to stagnation or Mikhail Gorbachev’s rosy illusions of creating socialism with a “human face”.

The epicenter of my books is Lithuania, Eastern Europe and the person in it, when in the face of totalitarianism a dilemma arises, what identity to choose for him, for example, or how, for example, the communist ideology distorts the scale of human values, when yesterday’s Christian becomes an ardent atheist without historical memory.

Laura Vansevičienė’s photo/Herkus Kunčius

– Last summer, the exhibition “Traps with central heating” was opened in the National Museum of Lithuania, where it was suggested to reflect on the Soviet past. One famous writer regretted that the exhibition claims that the past he lived in is rubbish and he doesn’t want to agree with that, because the poor exhibits from those times cannot be a testimony of his personal life. What did the Soviet era mean to you?

– For me, the Soviet era in Lithuania is, above all, the Russian occupation. The term “Soviet age” hides this very important reason.

– The literary world you create is sometimes described as cruel and perverse. What are the rules of the game when writing about real historical events and personalities?

– The main rule is to rely on historical documents. Often the facts mentioned in them surpass the wildest imagination.

– What do you like about hyperbolization and sarcasm?

– Not only in the 20th century, but unfortunately also in the 21st century. there are plenty of tragic events that need no hyperbole to describe. The same can be said about other periods.

Crimes against humanity, mass executions, deportations, which are constantly accompanying us, are often carried out not only out of pathological hatred, but also out of criminal naivety to make the world more “just”.

To achieve this goal, I always use “useful idiots” who become characters in my books. Their actions are appalling, and the thoughts justifying them are absurd. Arguing with them is hopeless. Just need to describe.

Laura Vansevičienė’s photo/Herkus Kunčius

– You came to literature from the field of contemporary art. And who was the first writer you met who left an impression?

– In the winter of 1992 in Vilnius, I met the American writer Jim Haynes (1933-2021), who lived in Paris. He was an extremely open person – in the 20th century. A legend of the counterculture of the 1970s and 1980s. K

in the summer, when I was in Paris, I visited him in Montparnasse, Tomb-Issoire on the street where he lived in the studio then owned by the painter Henri Mattise (1869-1954), I told him that I was staying in a hotel. Jim didn’t talk, he told him to pack his things the same day and stay with him indefinitely.

That time, and every year thereafter, I lived with Jim for three months. On top of that, I was employed as a courier for the Handshke publishing house, and on the weekends I was in the studio at Jim’s Sunday Restaurant, where about 100 people from all over the world gathered to chat, drink and eat. The spectrum is from pop artist Mick Jagger to composer, Oscar winner Jan Kaczmarek (1953-2024).

With this, after discovering common aesthetic views, we joked over a glass of wine that it should be a great shame for an avant-garde musician to write music for Hollywood films.

So Jim, although he was not the first writer I met, is very important in my life. We both loved Henry Miller (1891-1980), who, like Salvador Dali (1904-1989), once lived in the neighborhood Villa Seurat. Later, in Vilnius, we founded H. Miller’s club with our friends – Jim was its spiritual guardian.

Laura Vansevičienė’s photo/Herkus Kunčius

– You write plays, librettos, you evaluate the works of other playwrights. Recently, there has been, in my opinion, a well-deserved wave of criticism that there was no dramaturgy nomination at the Golden Cross of the Stage awards. What do you think of the current field of Lithuanian dramaturgy? What is happy and what is sad about it? Do you have favorite playwrights?

– Nominations, like crafts, appear, disappear, resurrect. I rarely go to the theater in recent years. I don’t follow the events on stage.

– Your books are translated into other languages. How were they received by foreign readers? What memorable reactions have you received at book launches or reviews?

– In recent years, my books are mostly translated into Polish. in 2019 Lietuviškos apybraižos (translated by Kamilis Pecela) appeared in 2023. – “Stalin’s Iron Glove” (translated by Izabela Korybut-Daszkiewicz). At the end of June of this year, it should appear in Lithuania in 2007. a collection of short stories “Betray, deny, defame” (translated by Zuzanna Mrozikowa) was published. This will be my sixth book translated into Polish.

There are no major difficulties when communicating with a Polish reader. We have a lot in common. Therefore, in meetings with Polish readers, there is no need to additionally explain who one or another character in the book was or why Lithuania in 1990. seceded from the Soviet Union.

The most frequently asked question is: Why do I speak Polish so well? I always give him a standard answer – “nie wiem”, which means I don’t know.

– Do you sometimes read your previous books? Do they remind you of the circumstances of the writing of the book known only to you, your own frozen section of life? Which book evokes the most emotions and why?

– You don’t need to read your books – I remember them. On the other hand, if I noticed myself sitting on a bench somewhere in Sapiegi Park, reading and maybe even giggling, I would immediately seek help from a psychiatrist.

Laura Vansevičienė’s photo/Herkus Kunčius

– How has being a writer changed in the last 27 years since the first book came out?

– I live where I was born, in Antakalni. I am writing in the same room as back then. Only the typewriter was replaced by the computer, paper encyclopedias by the Internet. I no longer smoke at my desk. I still drink coffee. I still read books lying down.

– What makes this stage of life special for you?

– I’m not a catastrophist, but the darkest prophecies come true.

The activities of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union are financed by “Viršukalnės ir buitis”. Lithuanian Council of Culture.