Laima Vincė. When I was growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, our family made a yearly summer pilgrimage to the St. Anthony’s Guest House on the Franciscan monastery grounds. My mother recalls spending her summers here in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, we would hear Lithuanian spoken on …
Read More »In Conversation with Yusuke Ishii
Interviewed by Gailė Vitas, Lithuanian Research Center, Musicology Archive Last summer and for the past two months I have had the pleasure of working with Yusuke Ishii. He is Japanese, studying music in Lithuania. He speaks Lithuanian fluently. In addition to his academic work, Ishii has won various prizes in …
Read More »Recalling the Flight of Lituanica
Juozas Skirius. Each summer, we recall the tragic fate of Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, the two Lithuanian airmen who attempted a pioneering flight across the Atlantic. This event was widely covered by the media of its day and deeply impacted the Lithuanian community on both sides of the Atlantic. …
Read More »It’s a huge deal! Ownership of Chicago’s Lithuanian Center changes hands
On May 23, the Lithuanian Jesuit Fathers signed over ownership of the Lithuanian Youth Center to Chicago’s Lithuanian community. The center is a large complex located in Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood. It has been the epicenter of Lithuanian cultural activity for over a half-century. The new owner, Lithuanian Center, Inc., …
Read More »Baltic Independence and “The Vision Thing”
Victor Nakas. As Ronald Reagan was halfway through his second term in the White House, his vice president was making plans to succeed him. Unlike Reagan, who excelled at communicating with the public, George H. W. Bush was being faulted for a dearth of vision — the ability to communicate …
Read More »“Thug Rose”: Lithuanian America’s Ultimate Fighter. A Film Review
Sandy Baksys. Just as we might expect of a biopic about a female champion in the sport of “ultimate” fighting, the new documentary, “Thug Rose: Mixed Martial Artist,” by veteran Lithuanian-American filmmaker Marius Markevičius, can be described as the ultimate sports psychology film. Whereas Markevičius’ Lithuanian basketball documentary, “The Other …
Read More »A War Unknown No More
Victor Nakas. Once upon a time, thousands of people, mostly men, decamped deep into Lithuania’s forests. They established underground bunkers from which they would emerge to battle Soviet troops tasked with occupying and pacifying the country. Initially, these “forest brothers” (miško broliai) succeeded in making large areas of the countryside …
Read More »We all Felt Like Kings: The Tale of Kings: The 16th Lithuanian Dance Festival in Philadelphia
Laima Vincė. My first Lithuanian folk dance festival – as veterans of Lithuanian folk dance festivals like to say – took place in Cleveland in 1984. I danced with “Liepsna” from Elizabeth, New Jersey. We’d dance in the church hall, just like all over the United States and Canada, young …
Read More »An Immigrants’ Grandson Remembers: Life and Death in a Pennsylvania Coal ‘Patch
Reminiscences of Bernard Terway about his youth from 1940-1959 in Seltzer City, Pennsylvania, composed by Sandy Baksys. In June 1940, when I was just five weeks old, my father Joseph Tirva, 45, was buried alive in an accident in a “bootleg” coal mine. Dad’s so-called “coal hole” couldn’t have been …
Read More »Mission Accomplished, Almost. THE LITHUANIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MAP
“Destination Lithuanian America,” the five-year-long heritage mapping project, is coming to a close. This January, project director Augustinas Žemaitis added his last 100 discovered heritage sites to the 750-site compendium. The map covers Lithuanian-American churches, cemeteries, clubs, monuments, museums, and locations otherwise falling under the rubric of “Lithuanian heritage.” It …
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