The Minister of Culture Mindaugas Kvietkauskas says that the plans of the Vilnius authorities to transform Petros Cvirkas Square and remove the monument to this writer and Soviet-era figure are incompatible with heritage protection requirements.
According to him, the Ministry was not informed about these plans, which are connected by the Vilnius authorities with the construction of a new concert hall on the nearby Tauros mountain, and only found out from the media.
"Petro Cvirka Square is a valuable part of the territory of Naujamiestis from the point of view of heritage protection. The Cvirka monument, created by the sculptor Juoz Mikėnas, is also entered in the register of heritage values. Therefore, it is really impossible to make decisions regarding the modernization and redevelopment of this entire square without the opinion of heritage preservation specialists and urban planners," the minister told BNS on Tuesday.
As the news portal lrt.lt announced on Tuesday, the Historical Memory Commission of the Vilnius municipality received the conclusion of the Lithuanian Population Genocide and Resistance Research Center (LGGRTC) that Mr. Cvirka assisted Soviet propaganda, became a public supporter of the occupiers, and contributed to the imprisonment of the poet Kazios Jakubėnas.
Vice Mayor Valdas Benkunskas BNS assured that this week the historical memory commission will evaluate the opinions of both LGGRTC and other organizations, including Political Prisoners and Exiles, Writers' Unions, and will not rush to make any decisions. However, he confirmed that the capital city council could decide on the fate of the Cvirka monument and the square this year.
"Apparently, in this case, the minister reveals all his competence, showing all his wisdom. I can say that no formal decisions or restrictions of the Department of Cultural Heritage will certainly stop the arrangement of this space and the erection of the Cvirka monument. A principled decision in the council could theoretically be adopted this year, but there will be no rush to implement it," he emphasized V. Benkunskas.
M. Kvietkauskas claimed that Mr. Cvirka's "pro-Soviet views and service to the occupation authorities can only be evaluated negatively", but that his creativity, dialect-filled, picturesque speech and other "bright sides of his biography" should also be put on the scale. According to him, the monument in the square is not for the collaborator, but for the writer P. Cvirka.
The minister says that the removal of the sculpture and the complete transformation of the square raises contradictions both from the point of view of urban planning and heritage protection, as well as from the point of view of historical memory, and wonders why the alternative proposed by some historians and architects to preserve the square as a "unique space of that time" and part of the city's history is not considered.
"In my opinion, this is also a testimony of the history of the Soviet era for the present, the young generation, and there are many questions about the decisions to completely reorganize this public space." An information board could be installed next to Cvirka's monument, or his controversial biographical facts could be presented in another way so that everything is known. Then this space could also become a place of education about the painful past of the Soviet era", says the minister.
"If we completely eliminate this space, erase the signs of the Soviet era, the atmosphere of that time, won't it be the case that in 30 years we will regret that the authentic legacy of the Soviet era has been completely cleaned up in our city and we no longer have anything to show either to young people or to guests coming to the city ", M. Kvietkauskas wondered.
Recently, after the revival of discussions about the monument to Mr. Cvirka, supporters of its removal claim that he actively collaborated with Moscow since the first Soviet occupation in the 1940s, later, when he led the Writers' Union, he removed colleagues from it for anti-Soviet views, passed information to the security.
The defenders emphasize the talent of Mr. Cvirkas as a writer and say that by demolishing monuments that reflect the Soviet era, because in this way "we will not erase the dramatic pages of Lithuanian history".
Author: Ignas Jačauskas
