1st Edition
Life should be Transparent Conversations about Lithuania and Europe in the Twentieth Century and Today
382 Pages
by
Central European University Press
This book of thirteen conversations introduces us to the life of an exceptional person—theatre critic, Germanist, and long-time chair of the Open Lithuania Fund board—Irena Veisaitė. The dialogue between Lithuanian historian Aurimas Švedas and a woman who reflects deeply on her experiences reveals both one individual’s historically dramatic life and the fate of Europe... Read more
Introduction: Engaging Memory and History, Acknowledgements, 1. Life Should Be Transparent, 2. We Could All See That Lithuania Was Trapped, 3. What Had Happened to the World?, 4. To Forgive and Build the Future—These Are the Duties of the Living, 5. I Was Surrounded by Very Good People, 6. I Needed a Change, 7. I Saw My Work as a Kind of Mission, 8. The Theatre Suits My Interests and Temperament Perfectly, 9. People Developed Close Relationships within Islands, 10. Why Was Faust Redeemed, Even After Making a Pact with the Devil?, 11. I Felt a Powerful Connection with My Spiritual Brothers, 12. I Regret Nothing, But I Continue to Pay Dearly for My Decisions, 13. It Is Probably Only Possible to Feel a Part of History Once in One's Lifetime, In Lieu of an Epilogue: More and More Questions, But Fewer and Fewer Answers, Appendices, Key Biographical Events , Photos, Index
Biography
Aurimas Švedas is an associate professor at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University.
Irena Veisaite is a Lithuanian Jew and survived the Holocaust. She earned a doctorate in Leningrad in 1963 with a dissertation on the poetry of Heinrich Heine, and was a lecturer at the teacher's college in Vilnius from 1953 to 1997. She has also been head of the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre in Nida, Lithuania. She was awarded the Goethe Medal in 2012 for her contribution to the cultural exchange between Germany and Lithuania. A German scholar and theatre critic, she has been at the helm of the Open Society Fund for many years.
