The boy presses his slipper to his heart and rolls his eyes skyward. This statue, erected in 2007 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, depicts the French novelist Romain Gary (1914-1980) as a child, at the foot of the building where he lived at the beginning of the last century. Naturally, Lithuanian Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys received the French press in front of this sculpture in May, a few months before the start of the Lithuanian Season in France on 12 September. But it was a completely different symbol that he wanted to draw attention to.
Nearby is an imposing neoclassical building that until recently was dedicated to the Russian theatre repertoire. In September 2022, seven months after the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s troops, Simonas Kairys renamed it the “Old Vilnius Theatre”. The same year, he ordered the dismantling of the Soviet-era military sculptures. An affront that the Kremlin has not digested.
In February 2024, Kairys, along with several hundred other personalities, found himself the target of a wanted order from the Russian Interior Ministry, accusing him of hostility towards Russia. “On this list are historians, mayors, judgeshe says, jaw clenched, not at all intimidated. By criminalizing us, Russia shows that it does not consider us citizens of a sovereign state. What happens in Ukraine could happen here. » Sandwiched between Belarus and the ultra-militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the tiny Baltic state of 2.7 million people is on high alert, fearing it too could collapse if Moscow wins the war.
Hammering your uniqueness
In less dark times, Lithuania’s season in France would have received little media coverage. Who remembers the astonishing Latvia in 2005 and the tonic Estonia in 2011, diplomatic-cultural operations aimed at the other two Baltic states? But the stalled conflict in Ukraine has given Lithuania another stature, which now seems to be a centre of resistance to the Kremlin. Ukrainian flags fly proudly from balconies all over Vilnius. “Putin, The Hague is waiting for you”proclaims a banner placed on top of a skyscraper in the capital, in reference to the arrest warrant issued in March 2023 by the International Criminal Court against the head of state.
For Lithuania, which clings to the European Union and NATO, of which it has been a member for twenty years, sovereignty is not only at stake on the military front. “Culture is also a battlefield”Kairys says. Two years after the city of Kaunas was awarded the label of “European cultural capital”, it has become more urgent than ever to emphasise a uniqueness that Moscow has always worked to erase. “Take our language. It is one of the oldest in Europe and was banned for forty years, from 1864 to 1904.regrets Virginija Vitkiene, curator of this season that aims to put Lithuanian culture into orbit.
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