Bicentenary gift to Australia

Artist Ieva Pocius with the statue

Australian Lithuanian Community Bicentenary gift to Australia

A memorial to represent Australia’s welcoming and providing a good life to the migrants.  What will remain to represent Lithuanian life in Australia.  The idea of donating a sculpture by an Australian Lithuanian sculptor was first raised by Dr Ben Vingilis in 1984 and formerly adopted by the Australian Lithuanian Federal Council in 1986.

A committee was established to raise funds and to call for expression of interstate form sculptors.

The artist chosen was Ieva Pocius, well known Adelaide sculptor.  Her piece was based on Eglė the Queen of Serpents which is considered one of the best-known Lithuanian fairy tales. The twelve foot bronze statue stands on a large piece of granite located at Glebe Park, corner of Ballumbir and Akuna Streets, Canberra.

The statue was unveiled by Hon Ros Kelly, M.P Member for Canberra, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel.

Artist: Ieva Pocius

Casted by Bruce Sutherland

Technical advice: Rimas Kabaila and engineer Romas Katauskas

Chairman of the organising committee: Victor Martisius

Artistic Advisor: Eva Kubbos

Publicity: Juras Kovalskis

Finance: Dr Ben Vingilis

Fundraising committee: Augis Zamoiskis (Adelaide)

The story

A young girl named Eglė discovers a serpent in her clothes after bathing with her two sisters. Speaking in a human voice, the serpent agrees to go away only after Eglė pledges herself to him in exchange for his leaving the clothes, not realising the possible consequences. Three days pass, and thousands of serpents come for the bride, but are tricked by her relatives each time. A goose, a sheep and a cow are given instead but the cuckoo warns about the deceit. Enraged serpents return for a final time and take Eglė with them to the bottom of the sea to their master.

Instead of seeing a serpent, Eglė meets her bridegroom Žilvinas, a handsome human - the Serpent Prince. They live together happily and bear four children, until Eglė decides to visit home and her husband denies her permission. In order to be allowed to visit home, Eglė is required to fulfil three impossible tasks: to spin a never-ending tuft of silk, wear down a pair of iron shoes and to bake a pie with no utensils. After she gets advice from the sorceress and succeeds, Žilvinas reluctantly lets Eglė and the children go.

After meeting the long lost family members, Eglė's relatives do not wish to let them back to the sea and decide to kill Žilvinas. His sons are are threatened and beaten by their uncles, in order to try to disclose how to summon their father; however, they remain silent and do not betray him. Finally, a frightened daughter discloses it:"Žilvinas, dear Žilvinas, If you are alive – may the sea foam milk. If you are dead – may the sea foam beblood…"

The twelve brothers call Žilvinas the Serpent from the sea and kill him using scythes.

The worried Eglė calls her husband, but unfortunately only foam of blood comes from the sea. When Eglė discovers that her beloved is dead, as a punishment for betrayal she turns her children and herself into trees - the sons into strong trees, an oak, an ash and a birch, whereas the daughter was turned into a quaking aspen. Finally, Eglė transformed herself into a spruce.

Adelaide supports Siberian deportees

Support Deportees from Siberia

Šalpa Sibiro Tremtiniams komiteto

The Adelaide Lithuanian community would at times organise special committees for various projects.  Formed on 24 March 1996, Support Deportees from Siberia committee was presided over by Stase Paceviciene.

During the period 1941-1953, some 132,000 Lithuanians were deported to remote areas of the USSR, in Siberia, the Arctic Circle areas and Central Asia. They were not allowed to leave the remote villages they were brought to. More than 70 percent of the deportees were women and children. Around 50,000 of the deportees were not able to return to Lithuania ever again. Those that did return to life in Lithuania, faced discrimination for jobs and social guarantees, their children were denied higher education.

Money was raised from donations, lunches, in lieu of flowers at funerals.  Money was divided and sent to different areas around Lithuania.  Each place that received funds provided a detailed list of how much and to whom it was given.

Some examples below:

Marijampolė       17 people received between 100-150 Litai
Alytus                16 people received between 100 – 200 litai
Panemė              6 people received 100 litai
Panevėžys           20 people each received 200 litai

The committee consisted of:
President:            Stase Pascevičienė
Treasurer:           Algis Zamoiskis
Members:            Marytė Neverauskienė, Henrikas Butvila, Janina Vabolienė, Ieva Pocienė, Aldona Patupiene.

The committee was active for five years until 2000, and in that time just under $20 000 was collected and distributed.

Total collected $19 189.

 

Lithuanians in China

Sometimes one can find treasurers in the Lithuanian Archives here.  I had looked at the documents below several times and didn't think much of them at first.  It wasn't until I scanned them that I realised these documents relate to Lithuanians in China.  I read the word Charbine in the documents, registered that that was an odd word in Lithuanian, and then it clicked that it was Harbin in English.  I did recall reading that some Lithuanians who arrived in Australia had done so from China.

Harbin, China, is located 1500 miles inland in Heilongjiang Province, a region also referred to as Manchuria.

In 1898, an influx of Eastern European migrants, mainly Russians arrived to build and service the Chinese Eastern Railway on land leased from China.  Many staff members of railways with their families remained in Harbin after the October coup, and then came immigrants from Russia, torn by civil war and destroyed by terror. In the first half of last century, Harbin, was often called the Russian city.  I assume the Lithuanians that resided there came for similar reasons.

In 1913 the Chinese Eastern Railway census showed its ethnic composition as: Russians – 34313, Chinese (that is, including Hans, Manchus etc.) – 23537, Jews – 5032, Poles – 2556, Japanese – 696, Germans – 564, Tatars – 234, Latvians – 218, Georgians – 183, Estonians – 172, Lithuanians – 142, Armenians – 124; there were also Karaims, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, and some Western Europeans. In total, 68549 citizens of 53 nationalities, speaking 45 languages.

 

Shanghai also had a number of Lithuanian residents at the time.  Harbin had a Lithuanian consulate.

The two documents below are from the Lithuanian citizen society of Harbin and the Consulate, one to an opening of Lithuanian library in 1936 and the other to a party at the Modern Hotel for the 20^th anniversary of Independence of the Lithuanian Republic in 1938.  The invitations are made out to a Mrs Meiliunas.

There were several Meiliunas family members who arrived in Australia after WWII, and I am not sure if these documents belong to one of those members or came from a different source.  There is no Mrs K Meiliunas registered in the National Archives.

At this time I am not sure how they became part of the Archives.

Relatives from Lithuania

 

Before Netflix, internet downloads, even DVD's, videos were the latest technology back in the 1990's.  To make its way to Adelaide, a world away from Lithuania came a tv series called Gimines (Relatives). 

The series dealt with the various problems in a newly independent Lithuania.  Issues of land reclamation, racketeers, mafia and love triangles. The series ran from 1993 to 2007.

The series came as 10 videos (40 episodes), available for borrowing from the Adelaide Library for only $3 per week per video.  One needed to request the videos as the whole Adelaide Lithuanian community seemed to want to watch it (Duplicate copies were made).  The serial was purchased by the Adelaide Lithuanian Community Council and Adelaide Lithuanian Union.

It seems almost laughable now, that something so small as this caused a great stir in the community.  But Lithuanians in Australia would have never seen a program on tv in their native language, and for those who never returned home it gave them a glimpse of what life was like in Lithuanian then.

Cast of Gimines 20 years later

Genocide memorial in Klaipeda

 

 

On the crossroad of I. Kanto and Simonas Daukanto streets in Klaipeda a memorial to victims of Nazi and Soviet occupation during 1940-1990 was unveiled and blessed in 1997.  On the other side of Simonas Daukantis street you will find a building that during communist occupation was used to torture Lithuanian men and women.  Prisoners could not stretch out, nor lie down, they were held down in water until they passed out.  The building was the KGB offices.  The memorial is located in a square named for those exiled, shielded by a wide canopy of leaves from the 200 year old oak tree that grows there.  By the tree political prisoners and exiled people erected a statue from a large stone, in memory of those who perished between 1940 – 1990.  Near this memorial another was erected from Lithuanian stone with the names and dates of those who were killed or died. 

Many fathers, brothers, sisters of those who fled Lithuanian were tortured or died in Siberia or in the Partisan war.  To memorialise your family you needed to write their details and send it to Lithuania along with $50 US.  The Adelaide President at that time was collecting payment for anyone from Adelaide who wished to participate.

In the square also stands a statue, "Kančia" ("The Suffering") created by Juozas Genevičius.   It depicts a sitting prisoner with steel wire around his head.  It is similar to the old Lithuanian symbol - Pensive Christ; the difference is that instead of crown of thorns, a steel wire is strapped. In front of the sculpture are plaques with the names of the victims.

The survivors from all Lithuania – deportees, prisoners or their relatives brought black granite and field stones with carved names of martyred persons. There are about 500 such stones.

The plaque reads:

teprimena
šie krauju ir ašaromis aplaistyti
vardiniai akmenys žiauria komunistine ir nacistine
lietuvos okupacija 1940-1990 m.

Blood and tears wet the named stones
as we remember the cruel Communist and Nazi occupation of Lithuania 1940-1990

 

http://www.vanderkrogt.net/statues/object.php?webpage=ST&record=lt211