Lithuania. How many French people know how to place Lithuania on a map? Probably a minority. The approximately two hundred projects of the Lithuania Season intend to raise awareness of this Baltic country which became independent in 1990. Led by the French Institute, this Season revives the tradition of cultural seasons interrupted by the Covid crisis (with the exception of the Africa 2020 season in 2021). This year, the international context gives it a political tone: it is impossible to hide the war in Ukraine and its repercussions since Lithuania borders Russia via the Kaliningrad enclave.
However, the selected creations do not directly address this war, as Eva Nguyen Binh, president of the French Institute, explains: “The geopolitical context did not specifically influence the construction of the Season and, if Ukraine is present in the programming, it is not predominantly present. » The general commissioner of the Season Virginija Vitkienè recalls that if this Season was discussed in 2021 between the two presidents, the official confirmation came “early 2022, a few days before the invasion of Ukraine.” The prolongation of the war led organizers to wonder “what image of Lithuania to present in France in this context”. The war in fact awakens traumas linked to the Soviet period in Lithuania, marked by “massive deportations”. Looking at the programming, it appears that the organizers have chosen to show Lithuania as a European country that looks at its history carefully. Beyond the theme of the Other which serves as a guiding principle, this Season defines Lithuania as European: the documents distributed to the press recall that Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Schengen area, the OECD, and that its currency is the euro. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausèda’s editorial cites Lithuania’s “European” identity several times and mentions the war in Ukraine in the European context: “We are preparing the Lithuanian Season in France while the Ukrainians heroically defend our common choices of civilization. » Finally, among the debates and conferences, we note themes such as “the politics of memory”, “European values”, and “Facing war, European dialogues”.
Antanas Sutkus, “Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in Lithuania”, 1965.
© Antanas Sutkus
But defining Lithuania as essentially European would amount to denying the mark left by the Soviet occupation, and before it by the conquests of the Russian tsars. According to Virginija Vitkienè, it is important to talk about this traumatic past because “the French do not know Lithuania well and assimilate it to an ill-defined group of post-Soviet countries”. Some plays focus on these events of the past, such as the work of Karolis Kaupinis on the years 1989-1990, the period of transition towards independence. Given the influence of Soviet censorship on creation, the organizers of the Season were also keen to show hidden or rarely exhibited works: Virginija Vitkienè mentions on this subject the obligation of “socialist realism” which restricted artists and regulated all their practice. The exhibition “Contemporary Art in Lithuania from 1960 to the present day” thus benefits from donations from the MO Museum in Vilnius to the Center Pompidou, from a collection of works banned under the Soviet yoke and “never discussed in art history books before” according to the commissioner.
In addition to arts and entertainment and plastic arts, Lithuanian photography is also present in the selection, in particular at the Les Photaumnales festival in Hauts-de-France. Curator Mindaugas Kavaliauskas chose several works that deal with life in Lithuania before 1990, images sometimes never exhibited: for him “censorship in Lithuania dates back to the time of the tsars, and it continued with the USSR. It’s a theft of collective memory”. Gintaras Cesonis’ series examines the facades of buildings in Kaunas, marked by the modernist Soviet aesthetic, while that of Rimantas Dichavicius explores the countryside of the 1960s, where Sovietism destroyed the social fabric. According to the commissioner, “ photography is used to preserve an identity that we thought was destined to disappear”. Several of the photographers exhibited thus worked in secret. Other series focused on the contemporary period show Lithuania in the years 1990-2000 where society was opening up to popular culture from the United States and Europe (Donatas Stankevicius). This Season therefore transforms a worrying regional context into an affirmation of Lithuanian identity, with a form “optimism” facing a common European future.

Rimantas Dichavičius, “Near a Chappel”, exhibition at the Musée Opale-Sud in Berck-sur-Mer as part of the Les Photaumnales festival.
© Rimantas Dichavičius