The Lithuanian Writers’ Association: Seven Decades of History

Exhibition to mark 70 years of the Lithuanian Writers’ Association

The Lithuanian Writers' Association (LWA), established at the Faculty of Humanities of the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas on February 21, 1932, is the first independent organization uniting Lithuanian writers, translators, literary researchers, and critics. Active in Lithuania until 1944, the organization was restored in Germany in 1946 by Lithuanian WWII refugee writers who fled their homeland, escaping the second Soviet occupation, and was renamed the Lithuanian Refugee Authors’ Society. From 1950 until the present, the Association remains active in the United States of America.

The exhibition shows the history of the LWA through a wide variety of documents stored at the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center in Chicago, such as letters, minutes of meetings, announcements, bulletins, and other documents related to the Association’s day-to-day business, as well as photos and audio clips. These are complemented by material housed at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania Archive. We thank the Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum in Kaunas and especially Virginija Paplauskienė, head of the Diaspora Literature Department, for providing useful information about Paulius Jurkus' presidency.

The exhibition was prepared by Lithuanian Studies Research Department of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. The exhibition’s partner – the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago, USA. We kindly thank Danutė Janutienė for her assistance in translating.

Authors: Dr. Dalia Cidzikaitė and Kristina Lapienytė-Bareikienė. Visuals and design by Eglė Karalienė.