Publikacijos
The Genius of Ukrainian Cinema
When somebody mentions Ukrainian cinema, I immediately find myself thinking about two major film directors - Sergei Parajanov and Kira Muratove. These artists are as distant from one another as two people of genius can be. Parajanov’s masterpiece Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), based on the story by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky revealing and portraying the unique Ukrainian Hutsul culture, was nothing short ofa miracle, yet it was a meaningful episode in Parajanov’s work otherwise more related to Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri cultures. Kira Muratova appears as a more specific Ukrainian phenomenon. (Tęsti...)
The Second Birth of Europe
The year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Therefore, it invites a closer look at postwar Europe and its brief assessment. What happened to Europe then? Historically and politically speaking, Europe changed beyond recognition. For centuries, war was as unavoidable in the old continent as clashes over faith and (dis)loyalty to the king or the queen. After WWII, it became obvious that peace came as a new political identity of Europe.This was the second birth of Europe. Needless to say, this applied for a long time exclusively for Western Europe. (Tęsti...)
Žingsnis pirmyn, o du – atgal
Kodėl mums taip nesiseka reformuoti aukštojo mokslo? Šį klausimą ne kartą girdėjau iš inteligentiškų žmonių lūpų. Ir iš tikrųjų – kodėl ryškios figūros per dvidešimt penkerius mūsų nepriklausomybės ir laisvės metus atėjo į šalies verslą ir žiniasklaidą (jų atsirado net ir mūsų jaunoje, tik dabar bręstančioje politinėje klasėje), bet ėmė ir apėjo švietimo ir mokslo valdymo sferą? (Tęsti...)
Twentieth Century Revisited
The Latvian film director Davis Simanis’ quasi-documentary Escaping Riga (2014) allows a standpoint from which to deal with the intrinsic logic of the twentieth century. Modelled after what we may well call the “mockumentary” (in terms of cinematographic language, it bears family resemblance to Woody Allen’s masterpiece Zelig), this film deals with two people of genius. (Tęsti...)
Optimistai tampa disidentais
Šiandien nedaug kas abejoja, kad optimistas pačiu geriausiu atveju yra negilus ir lėkštas, o dar atviriau pasakius – tiesiog paikas ir neišmintingas žmogus. Mums kažkodėl atrodo, kad gelmė ir išmintis slypi visų pirma pesimizme ir apokaliptinėse pranašystėse. (Tęsti...)
Kieno kraujas raudonesnis?
Skausmas yra mūsų kasdienybės dalis. Bet kai kada jis tampa greitai prabėgančiu epizodu, o kartais virsta mūsų pačių gyvenimo drama ir prašosi klausimo – kodėl? (Tęsti...)
The Dilemmas of Freedom
Zygmunt Bauman once wrote about human beings and their lives being rendered useless – reduced to throwaways by globalisation. No one needs or misses them; and when they disappear, the statistics, including various economic and security indicators, take a turn for the better. (Tęsti...)
Russia’s Unholy War Against Its Best People
On 27 February 2015, the noted Russian politician and spokesman on human rights and civil liberties Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in the city center of Moscow, in the Kremlin’s vicinity. Was the red line crossed this time by those who orchestrated and committed this cynical murder (provided there is any in this surrealist and diabolical political game)? Who was behind the crime that left Russia and the world in shock and dismay? And who was afraid of Boris Nemtsov? (Tęsti...)
L. Donskis. T. Venclova. Tai dar ne Miunchenas, arba pranašystės Europai
Siūlome ištrauką iš knygos „Optimizmo paieškos pesimizmo amžiuje: Rytų Europos nuojautos ir pranašystės (Leonido Donskio ir Tomo Venclovos dialogai). (Tęsti...)
How did a Political Prisoner Turn into a Politician?
Mikhail Khodorkovsky hardly needs an introduction. No aspect of his biography and activity would exhaust his personality. A tycoon in Russia at the time when it was still regarded if not as a friend, then at least as a reliable partner, a person of difficult choices, and a living promise of yet another Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has become an emblematic figure in present Russia when he was accused of tax evasion (a standard case in an authoritarian state practicing political persecution and selective justice both masquerading as the struggle against corruption) and confined to prison for ten years. (Tęsti...)
Arvydo Šliogerio tyla
Vienas iškiliausių šalies filosofų Arvydas Šliogeris šiuo metu, jau sulaukęs 70-ojo gimtadienio, tarsi pritilęs, bet jo tekstai tebėra iššūkis Lietuvos filosofijai. Tas iššūkis neturėtų būti suprastas paraidžiui. Tai anaiptol ne atmetimas ar nusigręžimas nuo jos. Iššūkis nebūtinai reiškia grėsmę arba išorinę tavosios veikos ir egzistencijos reviziją. (Tęsti...)
War and Peace Eastern Europe: the Ukrainian Lessons
This paper is based on the presentation made at the Fifth international conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania A piece of culture, a culture of peace, re-imaging European communities in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions, hosted by the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies and Valahia University of Târgovişte, August 17-19, 2014. (Tęsti...)
The Misery of Putinism
Working on my new book of an interpretive vocabulary of politics – a blend of political humor, satire, and my own experience in European politics – I revisited many Soviet clichés, pearls of propaganda, and poisonous darts of demagoguery (all of them alive and well in present Russia). Some of them lead us straight back to the root of the matter. For instance, one of famous Vladimir Lenin’s revolutionary slogans reads: “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country!” (Tęsti...)
Iš ko lošiame?
Gyvename trauminių patirčių visuomenėje. Trauminių ne tik dėl to, ką žinome ar juolab ko nežinome, o tik nuspėjame apie savo ir kitų kartų patirtis, bet visų pirma dėl to, kad mūsų selektyvi atmintis kiek galėdama mus gelbėja nuo prisiminimų. Anksčiau traumavo sovietmečio vaikystės ir jaunystės prisiminimai, dabar bene labiau mus skaudina posovietiniai išgyvenimai ir patirtys, kurių gėdijamės ir kratomės. Hermannas Hesse „Stepių vilke“ rašė, kad tikros žiaurybės mums atsiveria tik tada, kai jos atsiveja arba yra primetamos kitos epochos. Panašiai su atmintimi: nenorime prisiminti to, kas primena bjaurastį, neestetiškumą, nejaukumą, mūsų menkumą, pralaimėjimą ir bejėgiškumą. (Tęsti...)
Let’s Recall Orwell to Expose Chiesa
Giulietto Chiesa. Who is the man? An Italian journalist, a former member of the Italian Communist Party, a former correspondent of L’Unita and La Stampa in Moscow, and a former Member of the European Parliament (2004-2009), Chiesa contrived to become, in 2009, a candidate to the European Parliament on behalf of Latvia’s left-wing alliance “For Human Rights in United Latvia.” Happily, he failed. Previously, I wrote about Chiesa’s sister-in-arms, Tatyana Zhdanok (Tatjana Ždanoka), a former MEP from Latvia (2009-2014) who became an emblematic person in my eyes for her poorly disguised disdain and hatred for her country (provided she considers Latvia to be one). (Tęsti...)
Iš tuštumos į tuštumą
Iš tuštumos į tuštumą – tokia jėgos lemtis. Williamo Shakespeare’o tragedijose politinė galia tampa lauku, kuriame galutinai apsinuogina žmogaus menkystė, trapumas ir pasmerktumas tylai ir tuštumai. Išskleistą makbetiško gyvenimo apibrėžtį – „idioto papasakota istorija, pilna triukšmo bei įtūžio ir nieko nereiškianti“ – ne veltui lydi hamletiška tyla ir tuštuma. „Toliau – tyla“. Tai paskutiniai Hamleto žodžiai prieš mirtį, tampantys tragedijos užsklanda. Jis išpranašauja ir laukia, kada Norvegijos princas Fortinbrasas taps Anglijos karaliumi, bet… Toliau – tyla. Ir viskas baigiasi. Iš tuštumos į tuštumą – tokia jėgos lemtis. (Tęsti...)
Ukraine’s Historical-Political Time Zone
The Ukrainian-American political scientist Alexander J. Motyl and the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin noted that a new Ukraine was born and that we have had a unique opportunity to witness the emergence of a new political nation.This statement, however accurate, is incomplete, though. (Tęsti...)
Neither Friend nor Enemy: Israel in the EU
This summer I finished a five-year term as a member of the European Parliament (EP), so I was not as shocked as I might have been when, in July, Italian celebrity philosopher and fellow Member of Parliament Gianni Vattimo said that he “would like to shoot those bastard Zionists” and suggested that we Europeans ought to raise money “to buy more rockets for Hamas.” This was extreme even by the standards of the European political and academic elites. (Tęsti...)
An Imagined Dialogue on Several Clichés
In the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian war disguised as an internal conflict in Eastern Ukraine, several clichés and misperceptions of reality widespread in the West have reappeared. In this light, the following questions could and should quite legitimately be raised. I will try to formulate them in such a way so the reader can feel a trajectory of thought. Everything is based on my own fairly recent interviews and discussions on Ukraine and Euro (Tęsti...)
Išvarymas? Egzodas? Ar laisvės dilemos?
Oskaro Koršunovo režisuotas „Išvarymas“ – pats tikriausias dabartinės Lietuvos epas, o sykiu – tragedija, kurioje neasmuo virsta oriu asmeniu, nežmogus tampa žmogumi. Tad sutaurinantis tragedijos padarinys, it klasikinis katarsis antikinėje graikų tragedijoje, sukrečia ir apsaugo nuo baisios klaidos ar nuodėmės laikymo dorybe. (Tęsti...)
