Lithuanian actresses Marija Žemaitytė and Rugilė Latvėnaitė share songs from their performance “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One), and together with Professor Emeritus Violeta Kelertas, they discuss the legacy of Žemaitė, Lithuania's most famous female literary figure.
TRANSCRIPT
Marija Žemaitytė: So first I want to read the translation of the song. It was super hard to translate because there are inner meanings in our language, but I hope you get it. So:
The pretty and the powerful one,
or maybe that one powerful and that pretty one,
and if pretty, then powerful, too,
or if powerful, then pretty.
And what’s better? Powerful Inga (it’s a Lithuanian name) or pretty Gražina (another Lithuanian female name)?
Am I pretty?
Is there a big part of Barbora in me?
Maybe a part of Salomea?
Maybe a big part of my grandmother in me?
Maybe a part of Bona in her?
A lot of beauty, power; many faces, names, and dresses.
Is there a big part of others in me? Part of me in others?
What part of me in me?
[*Opening song of “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One) plays*]
Colin Gioia Connors: Welcome to Crossing North: a podcast where we learn from Nordic and Baltic artists, scholars, and community members to better understand our world, our communities, and ourselves. Coming to you from the Scandinavian Studies Department and Baltic Studies Program at the University of Washington in Seattle, I’m your host Colin Gioia Connors.
[*Opening song of “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One) ends*]
Marija: I want to tell you more a bit about the band because actually it is five of us: Asta [Zacharovaitė], Ieva [Palštytė], Vaiva [Kvedaravičiūtė], and the two of us, Rugilė [Latvėnaitė] and Marija [Žemaitytė], and we are from Klaipėdos Jaunimo Theater. And we made this performance, and some people see us as a musical band; other people see it as a performance—theater piece—because we are actually actresses but we were always very close to the music so somehow everything goes together, and we see ourselves as between music and theater. And in 2018 we created a performance called “The Pretty and the Powerful One,” and we are talking there about famous, brave, beautiful, strange, and powerful Lithuanian women from all the times. So during our performance we are trying to understand what is common between a renaissance beauty, a woman with a headscarf, and a soviet hero? And we are asking these questions: what is it like to be a woman in Lithuania, in the country where the head of state is a man? In this performance we are trying to understand and to make the audience think: what is beauty and what is power? And if you are beautiful, are you still powerful?
Colin: Marija Žemaitytė and Rugilė Latvėnaitė visited the University of Washington in the spring of 2022 to share highlights of their show “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One). While in Seattle, they spoke at the annual conference for the Association for Advancement of Baltic Studies and they made presentations in two of our Scandinavian Studies classes. In Lithuania, their show had tremendous appeal and they performed before sold-out crowds. Each song in the show paints a portrait of a different woman from Lithuanian history and contains lyrics crafted from letters and quotes from each woman’s life. In 2020, they released a music video that went viral that celebrated Lithuania’s most famous female writer, Žemaitė. School children for generations have learned Žemaitė’s name and read her works, but even so, the members of “Graži ir ta galinga” felt that Žemaitė’s legacy is largely underappreciated.
Marija: Yeah, even me, I remember in school I was like, it was the last thing that would interest me because teachers would never present her in an interesting and important light, like, the way she was! It would be like, “Ah, old lady with a scarf and she wrote several stories” And then actually when we started to read about her and really investigate who she was, I was really shocked, I was like, “This is the coolest person!” And maybe for us now it is okay, because we don’t how it was at that time. You know, during these times when you had to be normal, you had to be in the position that was your position. And she was brave, she was the one to start it. It was not cool at all at that time. Now it’s like, we really appreciate the people who were brave to stand for their personality and the unique things they have. And she was the one. A really good example.
Rugilė Latvėnaitė: And she made so many courageous steps in her way. Maybe I can talk about them. For example, that she started to write when she was almost 50—at that time when there were no female writers in Lithuania. And to start writing when you are 50 is another huge step. She was from a noble family but she lived in a farm, she worked in a village, in a farm, and her life was really difficult.
Violeta Kelertas: Žemaitė was from the landless gentry. Sometimes in Lithuania they refer to these people as the aristocracy. And you know, they’re not dukes and duchesses or any of that, so I have a hard time seeing how Žemaitė is aristocracy from the impoverished lifestyle that she had.
Colin: This is Violeta Kelertas, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois in Chicago and affiliated faculty with the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington. Violeta is an expert in Lithuanian literature, and together with Maryte Racys, Violeta recently translated an anthology of Žemaitė’s autobiography, speeches, and short stories.
Žemaitė was born in 1845 into a family of landless gentry, meaning that although poor, her family had their freedom, something that serfs lacked. Žemaitė’s parents worked as stewards for the local count, and in her autobiography, she writes that throughout her childhood, she could never understand why her parents did not want her playing with the children of the serfs. These experiences as a child led her to question the power structures around her and to develop a critical mind.
Violeta: She did not receive much formal schooling and what she did get was in Polish, in the Polish language, at a wealthy aunt's home where she was tutored along with the aunt's children for a year or two. Rumor often has it that she was almost illiterate, but this is not really true. She read Shakespeare's plays and other classical works like Goethe’s Faust and books like that, and she also read the famous Polish feminist writers, women like Orzeskova and Konopnicka. She bought borrowed books from a neighbor because, in a Lithuanian household in the 19th century, they only had the Bible and you know, some hymn book maybe.
Colin: Žemaitė developed a strong sense of justice and rebellion as she grew up. The Lithuania that Žemaitė was born into belonged to the Russian Empire, and though serfdom would soon come to an end in 1861, independence from the Russian Empire was still a long way off. Before the Russian occupation, Lithuania belonged to a commonwealth with Poland, and in 1863, when Žemaitė was 18 years old, Poles and Lithuanians united in rebellion against Russia. Žemaitė and her family supported the rebellion, and Žemaitė fed and clothed rebel soldiers. The rebellion was unsuccessful, and brutally suppressed. Žemaitė and her family escaped any direct punishment for their participation in the revolt, but Lithuanians everywhere suffered a forty-year ban on Lithuanian writing intended to turn Lithuanians’ loyalties away from the Poles and instead toward Russia.
Violeta: Now that's a very interesting thing because it only happened in Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia were exempt—they could write any way they wanted—whereas in Lithuania they were forced to rewrite the whole language in Cyrillic—Russian writing—and the sounds didn't match the letters and the Lithuanian sounds didn't match the Russian letters. And anyway, the people didn't want it, you know, they had their own language and they didn't want it. And the ban lasted from 1864 to 1904. What the populace did, though, they had something that was called vargo mokykla, “the school of hardship.” And actually even in America, I have seen it at the University of Pittsburgh. They have something called the Cathedral of Learning that they built in the 1920s. And the Cathedral of Learning, so-called, has classrooms from every nationality of people that live in the state of Pennsylvania. And I've been there. And they have a sculpture of a mother sitting at her loom, weaving, and there's a child by her with a book open. And if the soldiers, Russian soldiers, come along or any other kind that are out there to get them, they hide the book under the mother's voluminous skirts. And so that was the school of hardship; they continued teaching their children themselves. Also in other books that I've read, there actually were some schools, secret schools, that were in the church property and things like that. And so it was actually a sort of a quiet revolt by the population where, you know, they did not yield to the Russians.
Colin: After the Russians instituted the ban on Lithuanian writing in the Latin alphabet, Lithuanians responded by building a black market for Lithuanian writing. In the aftermath of the rebellion, many Lithuanians emigrated, some to neighboring East Prussia in present-day Kaliningrad, and others to the United States. While in exile, these Lithuanian emigrants built printing presses and kept the revolt going by publishing Lithuanian newspapers and books in the now-banned Latin alphabet. Most of the books were printed in East Prussia, although some were printed in the United States and then sent to East Prussia, where the books were smuggled across the border into Russian-occupied Lithuania. The individuals who carried the books are known today as the “book smugglers,” and they are remembered as national heroes.
Violeta: And men, women and children took part in it. But most of it— some of them were actually paid to do it, they made money somehow on it, and they carried other things in their sacks, especially the men, in sort of potato sacks or whatever, hidden somehow, and they were like a walking general store. They'd have whatever people needed. And so the books were just part of what they were bringing. But others carried only books and newspapers.
Colin: Žemaitė writes about her first encounter with a banned book in the 1890s when she was in her late 40s, and the moment was revelatory. She writes in her autobiography:
“When we moved to the brother’s, I became acquainted with the neighboring gentlemen. They took an interest in me: how I came to speak Polish so well. I used this to get Polish books to read. We didn’t worry about Lithuanian writing. Lithuanian writings were prohibited, and that was that. In addition, I taught my children to read and write in Polish.
…
A rumor started making the rounds that in Prussia, they were publishing Lithuanian writing, but if they caught them bringing them to our part of the country, the Russkies punished them fiercely … —jail or deportation to concentration camps. Such curiosity came over me—somehow, somewhere to at least get to see those works. But no such luck, you couldn’t even ask about them. “Do you want to get caught yourself and get others in trouble?” were people’s first reproach. “Well then, keep still.” One time Poviliukas came home for Christmas. The very same evening he came running over to us. He looked so happy, jumping up and down, saying: “Auntie! You won’t believe what kind of treat I brought?” Pulling a book out of his shirt, he showed me. “Look, you never saw one like this yet.” Tearing it out of his hands, I looked, and even my eyes dimmed. “The newspaper Aušra in book form, the whole year’s copies sewn together.” “Žemaitiškai Lowland Lithuanian!” I shouted in surprise. I leafed through it, reading it, and couldn’t believe my eyes. My hands were shaking.” (pp. 175-176)
It was only a short while before Žemaitė began writing her own stories. She was then 49 years old. Here again is Rugilė of “Graži ir ta galinga.”
Rugilė: So you know the story that when she found this secret press, she said this quote, I remember: “That’s not a big haystack. I can write like that!” And soon she started to write. I think Žemaitė is a person who inspires us to believe in who you are— how to not be afraid of doing anything when you are 50, 60, 70 years old. It doesn’t matter.
Marija: —never too late—
Rugilė: It’s never too late to do what you want.
Colin: Žemaitė’s literary career began with short stories. She wrote her stories by hand in small notebooks, not dissimilar in size or construction to the bluebooks on which many college students write their exams. These notebooks were then smuggled into East Prussia, printed, and then smuggled back into Lithuania where copies were passed secretly from person to person.
Violeta: The interesting thing is that she chose, she chose—that was a conscious decision—to write in lowland Lithuanian dialect rather than the Polish that she had learned in her classes. And the Lithuanian language was not standardized until in the 1920s. And so she could only write the way she heard herself speak. If you read it out loud, you’d know that it was the lowland dialect. She even took her name from—her name is actually Julija Žymantienė—but she used the pseudonym of Žemaitė, “Lowland Woman,” because of the language ban that the Russian tsar had enforced.
Colin: Žemaitė wrote in secret. Her husband begrudged her use of candles, so she waited every night until he fell asleep before she lit a candle and began to write. Žemaitė had married for love, but the marriage was not a prosperous one. She had gone against her family’s wishes and the tradition of arranged marriages and had married a man beneath her social class, a man who was a former serf. Rebellious and ever a friend of the poor and downtrodden, Žemaitė gave up her social position and took up the life of a peasant wife.
Violeta: Well, I mean, see, he was good looking, he was charming, he was a sweet talker, her husband. And he also drank heavily. I mean, I think it was a very bad marriage for her because not only did they have seven children—boys all died except for one. It was a bunch of girls like 5 or 6 girls who survived. And you know how difficult it was— you had to bake the bread and you had to do this and you had to do that and the children were crying and the children were sick and the husband was drunk and, and— You know, she signed up for this very difficult life, which of course she didn't know— she didn't imagine, I don't think, that it was gonna be that bad. But he was kind of lazy, you know, he wasn't— he was not a good husband. So in that sense— Well, of course, she was 20 years old. I mean, you know, we’ve all been 20, [*laughs*] and it's hard to imagine, you know, that you think everything looks idyllic and ideal and everything was going to be so wonderful, but it isn't.
Colin: While Žemaitė learned the drudgeries of a peasant life first-hand, her sense of solidarity with Lithuania’s working women grew even stronger. Her desire to make life better for women fuelled her creative output, and her stories depict the many hardships that rural women faced at the time. She was the first to develop social realism in Lithuanian literature, and read collectively, her short stories constitute a manual for young women to learn and hopefully avoid the worst abuses of arranged marriages.
Violeta: So she was a serious thinker in my view. She was appalled at the injustices that women of the time had to suffer like arranged marriages, alcoholic husbands, difficult labor on the farm. They were responsible for an awful lot of the work, and even outdoors in the fields. It wasn't that the women just had to run the household, but they— she had to do her share of the farmwork. And Žemaitė had a very special feeling and understanding of this because she had been a farmwife until her husband died. She then became almost kind of a city person. She actually worked in Vilnius as a journalist and things like that.
Colin: Over her lifetime, Žemaitė wrote hundreds of short stories, plays, articles, and speeches. After the language ban was lifted in 1904, Žemaitė could publish freely without fear of punishment. Once her identity became public, she became something of a celebrity. Yet despite her growing fame, she never lost sight of her purpose to improve the lives of working women.
Rugilė: When she wrote this first novel, then she moved to the cities. She left her farm, her village. She stayed with people. She was interested in art, in politics, in literature, in everything. She really loved people. She loved meeting. Everyone was glad to see Žemaitė, to talk with her, to ask her some advices. She had really nice—how to say—appearance. When she came into a space, everyone was inspired because she was very strong. You see, she all the time was wearing a kerchief. All of Lithuanians, they know who is Žemaitė because of this scarf. All of them. All of our people. This kerchief was not just a kerchief. This was a non-verbal manifesto testifying her identification with rural society. And while being in America it was a manifesto against established norms that was appropriate for women to wear bonnets. So there is a story which is connected with United States that when she was in America, some Lithuanians asked her, “Please— maybe, remove your old scarf. Just put on a bonnet and everything will be okay—”
Marija: And be normal!
Rugilė: “—Be normal, yes.” And she said, “If I have to go to meet the President of the United States, I still would wear a kerchief.”
Colin: Žemaitė lent her celebrity to the growing feminist movement in Lithuania, of which she herself was a major part. Her stories contributed significantly to a growing cultural shift in Lithuania away from arranged marriages toward marriages for love. Her stories inspired women in all strata of society, and women saw in Žemaitė an advocate who understood their struggles and was ready to bring about change.
Violeta: There was a women's congress in 1909 [*1907] in Lithuania, in Vilnius—the first one, the first women's congress ever. And she wrote some speeches for them, and first it was just one speech. And then what happened was that, you know, it was arranged by more or less intellectual women, but when the the actual congress started, there were an awful lot of farmwives there, and they all wore the the kerchief tied under their chin like Žemaitė did all her life to to show her solidarity with these women. But they were not, the organizers were not expecting so many people. And these women were very passionate and they told of their hardships and how their husbands drank away any money that they managed to make by selling eggs and vegetables and things at the market and that there was no money left for them to buy medicine for their ailing children and what to do. And they cried and were very emotional. And so that night, Žemaitė went back to her lodging, and then she wrote the second speech about what to do about this problem of this rampant alcoholism. And her angle was very interesting. She did not blame the men, she blamed the women. She said, “We women help promote this kind of behavior because we are— you know, if company comes over, we get the bottle out and set out the glasses for the vodka or wine or whatever they have. And we are responsible. Let us live differently. Let us not put out the bottle. Why do we need the bottle?” And so I found that very interesting because if anybody had asked me what she was going to say, I would have thought, “Oh, she's gonna, you know, be accusing the men of this behavior.” And instead she turned it around.
Colin: Even if Žemaitė’s second speech surprised her audience, she chose her words strategically. Lithuania was still under Russian rule at this time, and alcohol was a common means of escape from the weight of oppression. Žemaitė was unable to banish the underlying causes of men’s unhappiness and alcoholism with the stroke of her pen, but she saw a strategy for addressing women’s immediate needs with her words. When Lithuania’s farmwives begged Žemaitė for immediate action, she gave them actionable advice. She focused on what women had control over and what they could change themselves, and what these women might achieve in the long-term by changing cultural attitudes toward alcohol in the present. Women are a part of the society that defines masculinity, and mothers have some influence in how their sons see themselves as men. Žemaitė argued that men would be less likely to become alcoholics if they no longer heard quips like “a real man knows how to handle his liquor” that encourage men to drink to excess. Becoming conscious of gender expectations for both women and men was the first step toward cultural change, and Žemaitė asked, wouldn’t it be better for both women and men, if we women encouraged our sons toward another, better vision of manhood?
Žemaitė was in many ways ahead of her time as an activist, and her activism reveals an interesting aspect of feminist theory—that systems of patriarchy hurt not only women, but also men. Žemaitė is widely recognized for the ways in which her stories and speeches highlight how the practice of arranged marriages limited women’s choices and economic opportunities in life, but Žemaitė’s autobiography also highlights how the practice of arranged marriages limited men’s choices and hurt them, too—sometimes physically. Žemaitė begins her autobiography with a story told to her many times by her aunt Barbora, her father’s sister, about the wedding of Žemaitė’s parents. Žemaitė’s uncle was the patriarch of her father’s family, and he did not approve of the woman Žemaitė’s father had fallen in love with. Žemaitė writes in her autobiography:
“[Barbora would often tell us the story:] ‘As soon as your father rode over and told us that the [marriage] banns with your mother had already been announced, his brother got so angry that he turned red as a beet, making his eyes look pale. All he could do was sputter: ‘If you won’t drop that girl, then get out of my sight!’’” (22)
Žemaitė’s uncle refused to accept the engagement. He locked Žemaitė’s father up and prepared to whip him until he changed his mind. Through Barbora’s intercession, Žemaitė’s uncle agreed to spare Žemaitė’s father from the whip for one night while he sent out an arrest warrant for the parish priest who had agreed to perform the marriage. During the night, Barbora untied Žemaitė’s father and helped him to escape, and the next day Žemaitė’s parents got married before their priest could be arrested. Žemaitė’s uncle responded by cutting her father out of the family, as well as Barbora.
The story shows the injustice of Žemaitė’s uncle’s patriarchy over her father, but by telling the story through Barbora’s eyes, Žemaitė forces her readers to acknowledge the simultaneous injustices toward Barbora. Barbora lacked any freedom to decide her own future in her older brother’s home, where she worked as his servant. When Barbora was run out, she moved in with the newlyweds whose marriage she had just saved, that is, Žemaitė’s mother and father, Barbora’s brother. But as Žemaitė’s father became the patriarch of a new household, Barbora once again became subservient to a man’s authority and ambitions. Barbora now worked as Žemaitė’s father’s servant, and when she became too old to be economically productive, Žemaitė’s father sent her to a religious house. Barbora passed on this story of how she helped her brother marry for love to Žemaitė, a story in which, for a brief moment, she got to be the heroine and make her own decisions. The story shows how patriarchy hurts both women and men, and it also shows that under patriarchy, men can be both victim and oppressor. Any lesson that Žemaitė’s father might have learned about his liberation from his older brother’s household does not appear to have translated to how he treated the women in his own life — neither Barbora, who died an old maid, nor Žemaitė, who had to fight her parent’s wishes in order to choose her own husband.
Žemaitė’s stories had their intended effect, and within a decade of her death in 1921, Lithuanians had abandoned the practice of arranged marriages. For the members of “Graži ir ta galinga,” Žemaitė is a person who shows what good an individual with a strong will can accomplish in one lifetime—even if they begin at age 50. What Žemaitė accomplished through storytelling in her later years inspired the members of “Graži ir ta galinga” to see their own grandmothers, and the stories their grandmothers had passed on to them, in a new light.
Marija: So actually there is one grandma in our show and her name is Ona. She's a grandmother of Vaiva, actually. And why we are talking about our grandmothers and mothers during the show, when before we talk about super famous and important and historical women? Because we really see our grandmothers and mothers as a huge inspiration for who we are and as a reminder to always be awake and fight for your values, for freedom, because our grandmothers—all of them—they know what it meant to be in the Soviet Union, what was the life to be in Siberia when you were sent for 20 years.
Rugilė: She was sent.
Marija: Yes, she was. And actually it's a crazy story. We don't mention this in the performance, but she—actually she passed away half a year ago. She was 96 already— And but, she was always with such a good humor all the time, and we used some audios of her in our show. But it's a crazy story because actually she was in love with one guy in Lithuania, but she was sent to Siberia, but they were writing letters to each other. So they were thousands of meters away. She really—it was kind of her hope to come back to him—and then she met one man that she knew already from Lithuania. He was sent to Siberia as well. But because he was super active in this movement against the Soviet Union, he knew that he will be sent to the area of Siberia that for sure he will die in one or two years. Like, it was the hardest place to be. And he also had some problems with lungs. So he was sure that it's one or two years and he will be gone. And the only way for him to stay alive was to get married with someone so that they wouldn't send him and he could stay in Siberia, still Siberia, horrible conditions. But he knew that it's possible to survive. So he went to her because he loved her. She didn't. He loved her and he was like, [*melodramatically*] “Please. Get married with me.” And she was like, [*melodramatically*] “I love another man, but…maybe…it will be the only good thing I will do in my life. I will save someone's life.” And she got married with him and fell in love after this with him, and they lived together for many, many years and have two kids and she was amazing. And sometimes we would visit her when we would go to Vilnius and she was really inspiring, such a funny person— lived a horrible, horrible life and lost her youth. But— Like, these grandmothers? They are pure treasure. And again, when I was small, I was like, “Oh, my grandma wants to tell me one more story. Too boring.” And then with age, I was like, “Please, give me one more story, how it was.” Like, because it's crazy what they experienced. So our grandmothers are real heroes. That's why we really want to talk about them. And you know, all these women we talked about, they had their own fights about, like, for equality, for women’s rights. Our grandmothers and fathers and mothers had their own fights. And I think our generation is having, for the first time, a real kind of fight. I think for the first time our generation really starts to understand what our grandparents and parents told us about Soviet Union—and we are talking about the war in Ukraine.
Colin: Lithuanians have expressed strong support for Ukrainian sovereignty, and considering Lithuania’s history with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, it is easy to see where their solidarity comes from. Performances of “Graži ir ta galinga” often ended in spontaneous acapella singing of Ukrainian folk songs, and Marija and Rugilė likewise used their visit to the United States to raise awareness and support for Ukraine. In this way, the two performers followed in the footsteps of Žemaitė, who 100 years prior made a journey to the United States during WWI. Žemaitė undertook the journey by steamship in her 70s, and while touring the United States she raised funds for her war-stricken countrymen. When she returned to a recently independent Lithuania in 1921, she had collected [*the equivalent of] over 30,000 dollars [*in today’s currency] to support the poor. Like Žemaitė, Marija and Rugilė continue a tradition of art and activism, and while in the United States, they used their time to highlight other Lithuanian women who are doing the same, and to remind us to fight, like Žemaitė did, for what we believe is right.
Marija: We chose to talk about her because she is a Lithuanian writer that lives in Hawaii —Vaiva Rykštaitė— and I don't know, for me she's a good example of— or a good answer for those who say, [*despondently*] “I'm alone. What can I do? I cannot change anything.” So she couldn't, like, deny the fact that the war is happening. And she just decided to go to the streets and protest alone with her three kids. And on the first day she was alone with three kids, and then people started to join her. And she was like a standing reminder for all these cars, like, what's happening and if you can support in any way, just do it. And then she printed thousands of stickers with Ukrainian flags and stuff, and then started to sell it everywhere—in coffee places and bookstores— And all alone, she already collected and donated thousands of euros, and it's just stickers. And she was like, really, really doing what she could, and she did a lot. And I think it's important for us to remember that people have the power. We really can make a change if we want.
[*”Žemaitė” from “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One) plays*]
Graži ir ta galinga: Gerą mažulėl, veizu, kam tu nieko nesupranti,
aš tau dabar viskom papasakosiu, i viskom paaiškinsiu.
Pragyvenus puse amžiaus, turu kom pasakyt.
Mun aiškina, ka mano gyvenims jau baigiasi, ka baba,
tavo viena koja jau grebe, tu tik padoriai gyvenk ir ruoškis smerte.
Vo aš tau, mažulėl, pasakysiu:
MIRT👏AŠ DA👏NEŽADU.👏
Monęs taip lengvai nepaimsi.
Aš griaunanti jėga apsigaubus žemaitiška skara.
Kapoju galvas žodžiu ir da ant valiutos esu.
Skaityk mani, išjausk mani, suprask mani.
Vo toks auksas kaip aš ir pelenuos žib.
(I see you don‘t understand anything, my little dear,
I‘ll tell you, and explain it all for you.
Having lived a half century, I have to say something.
They tell me my life is done, grandma,
you already got one foot in the grave, just live decent, prepare for death.
But I‘ll tell you, my little dear:
I‘M👏NOT PLANNING👏TO DIE YET.👏
Not that easy to get me.
I am a devastating power, wrapped in my Žemaitian shawl.
I knock their heads off with my words, and I’m on the money, too.
Read me, see me, understand me, feel me.
Because, see, gold like me glimmers even in the ashes.)
Colin: Crossing North is a production of the Scandinavian Studies Department and Baltic Studies Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. Today’s episode was written, edited, and produced by me, Colin Gioia Connors. Today’s music from “Graži ir ta galinga” was used with permission by Marija Žemaitytė and Rugilė Latvėnaitė. Find Violeta Kelertas and Maryte Racys’s translation of Žemaitė’s works at Birchwood Press. The title of their anthology is Marriage for Love: A 19th Century Lithuanian Woman’s Fight for Justice. Complete transcripts for every episode of Crossing North can be found at scandinavian.washington.edu, where you can learn more about the podcast and other exciting projects hosted by the Scandinavian Studies Department. If you are a current or prospective student, consider taking a course or declaring a major. All members of the public, including high school students, are now eligible to enroll in individual summer courses offered by the Department of Scandinavians Studies. You can find complete course listings for the Scandinavian Studies Department and Baltic Studies Program at scandinavian.washington.edu. Once again, that’s scandinavian.washington.edu.
[*”Žemaitė” from “Graži ir ta galinga” (The Pretty and the Powerful One) ends*]
SHOWNOTES
Release Date: May 7, 2024
This episode was written, edited, and produced by Colin Gioia Connors. Special thanks to Guntis Šmidchens and Violeta Kelertas for helping to translate the lyrics of "Žemaitė” from “Graži ir ta galinga.”
At 22:27, Violeta misspeaks. The First Lithuanian Women’s Congress was held in 1907, not 1909.
At 34:32, Colin misspeaks. Žemaitė raised an equivalent amount of money to the value of 30,000 USD in 2020.
Music from “Graži ir ta galinga” used with permission by Marija Žemaitytė and Rugilė Latvėnaitė.
Violeta Kelertas and Maryte Racys's translated anthology of Žemaitė’s works is titled Marriage for Love: A 19th Century Lithuanian Woman’s Fight for Justice and published by Birchwood Press.