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The dumb fish that spoke
Tomas Venclova Poet
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Na, bet su Greimu mes pabendravome kaime netoli Šartro, rodos, jo buvo tokie, taip sakant, vasaros namai, kur jisgyveno beveik nuolat. Ten sėdėjome visą naktį gėrėme vyną ir kalbėjomės apie įvairius reikalus. O paskui išskridau iš Prancūzijos į Vašingtoną. Vis dar su tuo pačiu tarybiniu pasu. Ir Vašingtone buvau iš karto pakviestas į Amerikos Kongreso komisiją liudyti apie Žmogaus teisių padėtį Lietuvoje. Na, tai buvo mano tiesioginės pareigos, kurias man buvo pasiūliusi Helsinkio grupė, ir aš tas pareigas vykdžiau. Kitaip sakant, atvykau į Kongreso komisijos posėdį ir atsakinėjau į kongresmenų klausimus: o kaip Lietuvoje yra su religijos padėtimi, kaip yra su tautiniais klausimais, kaip yra su žmonių, taip sakant, judėjimo laisve, ar žmonės turi teisę laisvai keliauti į Vakarus? Žinoma, atsakymas buvo "Ne". Ne tik laisvai keliauti į vakarus, bet netgi keisti savo gyvenamąją vietą Lietuvos teritorijoje arba iš Lietuvos išvykti į kokią kitą tarybinę respubliką, tai irgi yra sunkus dalykas, kadangi buvo tas priregistravimo reikalavimas. Na, visa tai aš paaiškinau, tai galbūt Amerikiečams tai nebuvo kažkas naujo, bet pats faktas, kad žmogus iš Tarybų Sąjungos ir dar su tarybiniu pasu apie tuos dalykus laisvai ir atvirai kalba, buvo naujovė. Kaip kažkas anais laikais gerai pasakė, Vakarų specialistai, kurie studijavo Sovietų Sąjungą, buvo kiek nustebę susitikę su disidentais, kaip būtų nustebęs zoologas, pamatęs žuvį, kuri staiga pradėjo kalbėti. Žuvys ligi tol buvo nebylios. Na, ir toje Kongreso komisijoje pakalbėjęs, aš taip pat nemažai kalbėjau per radiją, ir kuo toliau tuo laisviau, bet iš Vašingtono, kur atsakinėjau į Kongreso komisijos klausimus, tai visada buvo daroma viešai, ir paskui tas viskas pateko į Amerikos Kongreso protokolus. Yra tokie vadinami "Congressional Records". Ten nuo Amerikos įsikūrimo ligi šių dienų. Tie protokolai yra renkami ir spausdinami ir leidžiami atskiromis knygomis. Ir patekti į juos jau reiškia, galima sakyti, patekti į istoriją, virsti istorijos dalimi. Na, man tas, taip sakant, likimas teko, bet supratau, kad Tarybų valdžia man to neatleis. Ir, matyt, kaip nors reaguos, tik ne visiškai aišku kaip.

Well, [Julien] Greimas and I spent some time together in a village not far from Chartres, I think, at his summer house where he lived almost all of the time. We would sit there all night drinking wine and talking about various things. And then I flew from France to Washington, still on the same Soviet passport. And in Washington I was invited straight away to the American Congress Commission as a witness to give evidence on the status of human rights in Lithuania. Well, those were my direct duties which the Helsinki Group had given me and I carried out my duties. In other words, I went to a meeting of the Congress Commission and I answered questions put to me by the congressmen: what's the state of religion in Lithuania, what are the nationality problems, what is freedom of movement like for people, so to speak, do people have the right to travel freely to the West? Of course, my answer was no. Not only could people not travel freely to the West, but they couldn't even change their place of residence within Lithuania itself, or leave Lithuania to go to another Soviet republic, that was also difficult because of the requirement to register. Well, I explained all of that, perhaps it was nothing new to the Americans but the very fact that a person from the Soviet Union – and one with a Soviet passport – was speaking about those things freely and openly was something new. As someone during those times put it well, 'Western specialists who were studying the Soviet Union were somewhat surprised to meet with dissidents, like a zoologist would have been surprised on seeing a fish that all of a sudden began to talk'. Fish had up to that time been dumb. Well, after speaking at that Congress Commission, I also spoke quite a lot on the radio and the more often I spoke, the more freely I did so. But from Washington, where I answered questions from the Congress Commission... that was always done openly and then all of that found its way into the American Congress records. They're called the Congressional Records. They've had them from the beginnings of America up till now. Those records are collected and printed and published in separate volumes. And to get into them means, one could say, is to get into history, to become a part of history. Well, fate decreed that for me, so to speak... but I understood that the Soviet government wouldn't forgive me for it. And, obviously, they would react in some way, it just wasn't clear how.

Born in 1937, Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature. He was educated at Vilnius University and later at Tartu University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had to emigrate. Between 1977 and 1980 he lectured at University of California, Berkeley, where he became friends with the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, who was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the school, as well as the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. He is currently a full professor at Yale University.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: Washington, USA, American Congress Commission, Lithuania, Algirdas Julien Greimas

Duration: 3 minutes

Date story recorded: May/June 2011

Date story went live: 20 March 2012