Welcome to Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas
memorial apartment-museum
Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas (1893–1967) – famous poet, playwright, prosaist, translator, professor of literature science, one of the most celebrated Lithuanian writers of the XXth century. V. Mykolaitis-Putinas and his wife moved from Kaunas to Vilnius in 1940. The apartment (Tauro str. 10) in which writer lived from 1947 to 1967 replicates his life. Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas memorial apartment-museum opened its door for visitors in 1986. Today the museum has about 5 000 exhibits accumulated. In three memorial rooms (the study, the parlor and the sleeping-room) the authentic atmosphere is restored.
The collection is made of authentic things of V. Mykolaitis-Putinas – furniture, books, pictures, as well as various materials associated with the writer’s creation, life and personality. The biographies of the family members and the authentic impressions of everyday family life fill the flat with their spirit to this day and allow visitors to experience V. Mykolaitis-Putinas anew.
Another famous Lithuanian novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic Balys Sruoga has been living at the same flat till 1947. Best known for a novel entitled The Forest of Gods based on his time spent in a Nazi concentration camp. From 2017 there is a room-exhibition for Balys Sruoga and his family.
Today the museum presents up to five temporary exhibitions per year, organizes cultural events, educational programs and activities, cooperates in many different projects.
Events and guided tours at the musuem of V. Mykolaitis-Putinas
Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas (1893–1967) – famous poet, playwright, prosaist, translator, professor of literature science, one of the most celebrated Lithuanian writers of the XXth century. V. Mykolaitis-Putinas and his wife moved from Kaunas to Vilnius in 1940. The apartment (Tauro str. 10) in which writer lived from 1947 to 1967 replicates his life. Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas memorial apartment-museum opened its door for visitors in 1986. Today the museum has about 5 000 exhibits accumulated. In three memorial rooms (the study, the parlor and the sleeping-room) the authentic atmosphere is restored.
The collection is made of authentic things of V. Mykolaitis-Putinas – furniture, books, pictures, as well as various materials associated with the writer’s creation, life and personality. The biographies of the family members and the authentic impressions of everyday family life fill the flat with their spirit to this day and allow visitors to experience V. Mykolaitis-Putinas anew.
Another famous Lithuanian novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic Balys Sruoga has been living at the same flat till 1947. Best known for a novel entitled The Forest of Gods based on his time spent in a Nazi concentration camp. From 2017 there is a room-exhibition for Balys Sruoga and his family.
Today the museum presents up to five temporary exhibitions per year, organizes cultural events, educational programs and activities, cooperates in many different projects.
V. Mykolaitis-Putinas (1893–1967) – famous poet, playwright, prosaist, translator, professor of literature science, one of the most celebrated Lithuanian writers of the XXth century. V. Mykolaitis-Putinas was ordained as a priest, however he questioned his mission as a priest and in 1935 had deserted priesthood officially. Well educated (St.Petersburg, Munchen, received a Ph.D in Fribourg) he was one of the best professor at Kaunas university, read courses of New Lithuanian literature, Introduction to world literature, Aesthetics. In 1924-1932 he had edited magazine Židinys (The Hearth); in 1925 was a secretary of the Society of Lithuanian Artists, helped to establish an art society of students Šatrija. V. Mykolaitis-Putinas was famous for his poems, novels, plays. (Between the Two Sunrises 1927, The Lord 1928, In the Shadow of Altars 1933, The window 1966 and others).
The novel In the Shadow of Altars had started a new route in the history of a Lithuanian novel. Putinas has created a complex psychological image of an intellectual character, in a simple and natural form has written a work of high integrity and has shaken the limited folklorism and wandering formalism from the Lithuanian literature. This novel realistically describes the process of emotional and intellectual maturation of a creative personality, talks about important issues of spiritual life. Putinas’ dramatic work represents a bridge between his lyrical poetry and his fictional prose. In its essence it is still closely related to the poetry and is, from many a standpoint, its extension. The thematic moments analyzed in his lyric poetry are joined in his dramatic compositions into logical constructions of greater dimensions, intended to present the illusion of the essence of life.The poetry of Putinas readily falls into three periods: romantic (1911-1920), symbolistic (1920-1926), and classic (1926-1944). These divisions represent not only a difference in method, but also indicate quite accurately the pace of Putinas’ maturation as a poet.
From songs of a vagabond
The sun shines bright, then comes the night –
So many happy days are gone,
But still I tread the road ahead,
I do not halt, I’m striding on.
In solitude or in a crowd,
With friends and strangers, old and young,
In all my spells of joy and woe
I do not halt, I’m striding on.
My own misfortunes I bemoaned
And lauded love in many a song.
Now I am silent and benumbed
But do not halt, I’m striding on.
I dream again the dreams of youth
When all day long the bright sun shone.
For many a mile with bliss a smile
But do not halt, I’m striding on.
Now day is drawing to a close,
The sinking sun will soon be gone
And shadows steal into my heart,
But I don’t halt, I’m striding on.
The Speckledy Falcons
The glow of the sunset was nearly to die
When speckledy falcons flew up to the sky.
Despising earth‘s dreams, too deceptive to bear,
They spread their long wings in the currents of air.
“We mustn’t return,” looking earthwards they vowed,
“While darkness its mountains and valleys enshroud.
We’ll have now no dreams and no shadows to shun
Upon the bright roads leading straight to the sun.
And when we watch up with the glorious dawn
We’ll snatch a bright lily from her brilliant crown –
The dark rocks and fields by miraculous powers
We’ll turn into sun-spangled beds of bright flowers!”
They fluttered their wings and so onwards they flew
Still further and higher until they were due
To feel the hot flames of the sun on their way
And see the bright dawn of a new promised day.
The reddening skies in the east clothed in glow,
The sun lit the rocks and the fields down below,
But back from the sky, whether cloudy or clear,
The speckledy falcons did never appear.
1959 translated by Leonas Pažūsis
Penisive Christ By The Roadside
Good Lord, how luminous autumnal night are!
How high vast heaven opens up above us!
The stars, those teeming stars, both large and tiny,
So glittering, move me to tears, my Lord.
This is the time to go out on a high road:
On a smooth road one only can be footloose,
On a smooth road on a bright night as this one
Sweet youth may well indulge in lofty dreams.
But why do you, my watchful Lord, keep vigil
By the smooth road like silent human sorrow?
By the smooth road where you can see in daylight
Only our woes pass by with heavy sighs.
Good Lord, is it indeed our restless dream life
That called you down from heaven to the roadside?
Or are you just a vivid earthly vision
Created by these bright autumnal nights?
1959 translated by Leonas Pažūsis
The Earth Goes Fragrant
The earth grows fragrant in the evening shadows –
So sweet the flowers’ breath is and so light,
And from the dreamland of a bygone springtime
You come again to visit me tonight.
An anxious thought once more disturbs my spirit,
A blissful joy is glowing in my eyes.
Words fade away, only a distant echo
Repeats your name, the name my heart still cries.
With my whole being I can sense your presence,
To earth you bring the fragrance of a dream.
You are a lambent light whose rays of wonder
Tonight into my somber bosom stream.
Thought far away you are, at this great distance
You are as ever my longed-for delight
Emerging like a fairy queen of dreamland
Amid the fragrant shadows of the night.