Creators of Kaunas Literature Week: “We were a little naive”

In the last five years, Kaunas has become a real capital of festivals. Some of those events happened only once, in the context of the “Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022” project, while others grew and became a separate body. Among them is the Kaunas Literature Week, which will cover the city from May 8 to 12. This year, the event will be held for the fourth time – literary evenings, traditional readings, meetings with writers, dates with a book and new initiatives are planned. I talked about the organizational processes, moods and difficulties with the main organizers of the festival – Lauryna Katkumi and Rūta Eidukevičiene.

Lauryna, Rūta, what are your moods while waiting for the festival?

Lauryn: We live intensively, waiting. Our baby, the festival that we have been preparing for a year, will soon appear in the light of day, so it is very interesting how it will be received.

Ruth: I feel the same way. We live happily, although there are many worries. The closer the festival gets, the more surprises happen. That’s why it’s great that we have a great team, little by little new people are joining, new ideas and perspectives are emerging. It is good for the heart that the festival will take place at all – there were hesitations, but we feel a duty both to our visitors and to our partners.

Before the first Literary Week, I was interviewed by my colleague. You mentioned that Kaunas did not have its own literature festival – this is the reason why you decided to correct the situation. What were your first generations like?

Ruth: We had an idea – and we immediately started to fix that gap. We were a little naive, we expected everything to be simpler. Of course, 2021 was a year of huge challenges in itself – after all, the height of the pandemic. If I’m not mistaken, the opening of the festival took place the day after public events were allowed. You can imagine how we felt waiting for the opening, not knowing exactly what we would be able to do or if we would be able to do it at all. There were also political challenges – unrest started in Belarus, and we had a guest from there. He flew home on the last flight. We couldn’t even imagine what would happen a year later – during the organization of the second festival, the war in Ukraine started.

Lauryn: Sometimes such events take you where you did not expect to be. For example, the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine brought together Ukrainian writers. We were probably the first to invite them to Lithuania when the war started. That connection remained to this day, not only in the literary plane, but also in carrying aid to their country. This shows that the festival is not a table whose graph needs to be filled. It is a living organism that reacts to what is happening in Lithuania and the world.

Ruth: It is perhaps natural that the first year of the festival is a year of searching. Lauryns is a writer, translator, who has visited various foreign literature festivals, so we were able to draw on his experience. We searched a lot, we tried, and during the second festival we gave up on something. Now we have some new ideas. For example, the discussion forum for writers, which we organize together with the Goethe Institute. They are our main partner and sponsor this year.

In our country, it is not accepted that literary readings are paid, unlike concerts or movie screenings. Therefore, we do not have an additional financial source.

Lauryn: I would say that a certain core of our audience has been formed since the first festival. Of course, it varies depending on the author and the topic, but it can be said that the majority is made up of middle-aged and older people. Rūta and I belong to the middle generation, so it is not surprising that our literary taste mostly corresponds to the taste of this generation.

An interesting situation arose with the youth. They willingly go to readings for them – “Open Mic” or “New Wind”, but visit other events less often. Although it seems that everything is already happening, but young people who write should be interested in modern literature, famous and new names. I hope it will be so in the long run.

Ruth: In 2022, the festival program was longer – after all, the year of “Kaunas – European Capital of Culture”. Only the festival grew, probably not because of the spring events, but because we also had the second part in the fall. The autumn program included “Brush readings” – Ukrainian Yuri Andruchovych with a text written especially for this meeting right after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Svetlana Aleksievich, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature from Belarus, took part in them.

Let’s talk about the present. The organizers of many activities born during the “Kaunas 2022” project later encountered the indifference of the financing institutions. Did it touch you too?

Ruth: I would say that we were not affected by the end of the “Kaunas 2022” project, but by the fact that the general situation is simply more difficult this year. We did not receive the support of the Lithuanian Culture Council, so we had to think about how to adjust the program and adapt everything to the available possibilities, knowing that we could no longer refuse some events.

We had to intensify the search for partners and sponsors. We are very happy with the connections with the Goethe Institute, which contributed to the festival not only financially, but also ideologically. Of course, we also received the support of Kaunas City Municipality. The goal for the future is to find more sponsors from the private sector who would see the meaning and benefits of the festival for the city.

Lauryn: It seems to me that all literary events in Lithuania that want to have a larger international program and invite well-known authors face the same problem – the usual ceiling of support from the Culture Council or the municipality. In addition, it is not acceptable for us to pay for literary readings, unlike concerts or movie screenings. Therefore, we do not have an additional financial source.

What do you think are the reasons for this? Even before the first festival, you mentioned that you wanted to present live, modern literature and texts from different languages ​​and nations in Kaunas. Perhaps there is no need for Literature Week and the aforementioned topics in Kaunas after all?

Lauryn: The need is definitely there. We have our audience, although, of course, we always want the circle to be even wider. Another thing: the contemporary writers that we bring to the festival, not only in Kaunas, but also in Lithuania in general, very rarely visit. And meeting the author is a unique way to get to know both the writer’s work and himself.

Ruth: Conversations with authors are very important to us. We want to present not only the texts, but also the authors themselves, their personalities. For this reason, we carefully select moderators who are able to start sincere conversations and talk about a wide variety of topics – from today’s current events or challenges to common human questions. This year’s international writers’ discussion forum will be moderated by Eglė Murauskaitė, one of the most experienced security specialists in Lithuania, a researcher at the University of Maryland (USA), and the guest from Argentina, Mariana Enriquez, will be interviewed by the associate professor of Wellesley College in Boston, teacher of Latin American literature and culture, translator, writer Dr. Evelina Gužauskytė. There will be more unexpected and intriguing encounters.

I would like to talk about the phenomenon of the Vilnius Book Fair. Did it not occur to you that for the average reader, it is enough to visit the fair once a year, so it becomes much more difficult to go elsewhere later?

Lauryn: The book fair phenomenon extends beyond fiction and even beyond the book. I am glad that people are used to visiting it. For many, especially young people, this is the first acquaintance, the first step into the world of word culture.

We envision the Kaunas Literature Week as a second step. If you get to know authors and book news at the book fair, you can continue that in a slower, more thorough way at our festival. Especially since there are no such obstacles as queues, traffic jams, several events at the same time and the like. After all, the people of Kaunas do not need to go to Vilnius – everything happens in the very center of the city.

our goal is to introduce younger people who don’t necessarily live in Kaunas, but have grown up and formed here.

Of course, we do not only organize serious readings or discussions – we also have events that shape the culture of communication among readers – for example, Sunday lunches at the “Godo” cafe and “Book Freedom”, where you can find a long-read book or find a new interesting book at second-hand booksellers and independent publishers.

Ruth: And where else is the buddy program that makes the festival events spread widely across the city. Our partners, libraries, museums are involved in it. And now I keep hearing that some organization in Kaunas, having an interesting idea related to literature and books, decides to wait for spring so that they can implement it during the Literature Week.

Share the highlights of this year’s program.

Lauryn: The program consists of several parts. In the Lithuanian part, we are looking forward to meetings with Undine Radzevičiūta and Mantas Adomėnas this year. Also, one evening will be dedicated to writers from Kaunas and from Kaunas. This year, poets Gvidas Latakas, winner of the Jotvingiai Prize, and Artūras Valionis will participate in the traditional section “Išeiviai ir namiškiai”. We want to show that the field of urban literature is wider than it is usually thought. We all know the older generation of Kaunas writers, and our goal is to introduce the younger ones who do not necessarily live in Kaunas, but have grown up and formed here.

In the foreign part, we will have a guest from Latin America – M. Enriquez, a bright, provocative author. By the way, the Kaunas Literature Week is the first stop of her big tour of literary festivals in Northern and Western Europe. Fans of Scandinavian literature are invited to come and meet the prominent Icelandic prose writer Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. Julia Fiedorczuk, a secular author very close to Lithuanians, will come from Poland. And if you like poetry, I recommend the evening of German poet Hans Thill and Ukrainian poet and soldier Jaryna Chornohuz, which will honor the power of poetry to connect people and languages.

What are you currently reading?

Lauryn: The latest books I’ve read are for Literature Week Club. There we talked about the book “Coin & Labyrinth” by Mantas Adomėnas, “The House Across the River” by Alvydas Šlepik and “Poland” by JM Coetzee.

Ruth: I hope I won’t surprise anyone. I am currently reading the novel “Dangerous Words” by my favorite author U. Radzevičiūtė, which will become one of the highlights of the festival opening. The writer is a great master of words, so I highly recommend coming, getting acquainted and, of course, reading the book itself.

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