As commentator of "Lietuvos Rytas" Valdas Bartasevičius has written, honoring Venclova by the Municipal Council of Vilnius has become fodder for uncouth attacks towards the venerable intellectualist from the side of the extreme right groups and generally primitive individuals afflicted with xenophobia and anti-Semitism. "Things that were written about Venclova recently force to ask a question: isn't it high time for the intellectual part of the Lithuanian society to stop being quiet and try to defend - not Venclova, because he will defend himself - but Lithuania from such pardon 'Lithuanians'." - writes Bartasevičius and asks further questions. "Zoological anti-Semitism, nasty anti-Polonism, boundless arrogance - has this level of thinking and worldview commonly possessed Lithuania?" In some circles - journalist regrets - a kind word about the Poles actually causes hysteria and an avalanche of abuses.
"National youth" – let me use the vocabulary from the presidential palace – was touched mostly by Venclova's comment on multiculturalism of Vilnius, a strong supporter of which the poet is. "As a funny relic I perceive a struggle of those politicians, who recognize themselves as nationalists and social activists, with the Polish language and double street names requested by the Polish minority" – said Venclova in the Vilnius City Hall during a ceremony when he was awarded with an honorable citizenship. This statement affected the "nationalists" like a red rag to a furious bull. It provoked a flurry of offensive, even vulgar comments and statements (especially on the Internet).
V. Bartasevičius rightly points out that the words of T. Venclova about multiculturalism of Vilnius almost coincided with the President's statement on the same topic in her annual exposé. Madam President, as we have wrote recently about this, has not taken the side of Venclova but the side of a furious bull.
The pro-polishness of T.Venclova, who was a close friend of Czesław Miłosz (a Nobel laureate from Vilnius), is widely known – just like his cosmopolitanism, which is often difficult to accept. This does not change the fact that persecuted during the Soviet times intellectualist is a prominent Lithuanian, to whom Lithuania and especially Vilnius owe an abundant gratitude. T. Venclova, like no other Lithuanian poet, extols the Lithuanian language, Lithuanian literature and poetry of the highest level in the world's universities and most influential intellectual circles. The grotesque is, when "patriots", who are often unable to rig up properly a few sentences in their native language, teach T. Venclova to be a patriot.
Tadeuš Andžejevski
