Apie 1980-uosius Paberžėje, 1863-1864 m. sukilimo atmintį ir istorijos polinkį kartotis. Pokalbis su istorike Neringa Češkevičiūte

ENWith Neringa Češkevičiūtė, a historian who has worked at the Lithuanian State Historical Archives for 42 years, we talk not only about her work at the Archives, but also about her personal experiences, which testify to how, in difficult periods of history when it is dangerous to speak openly, the memory of things that are important to a nations self-understanding is passed on to the next generation and between the lines in the so-called Aesops language in the form of a mutual understanding that is sparing with words. The historian shares her memories of visiting Paberžė (Kėdainiai district) as a student in 1980-1981 with young historians and restorers. There, she would also visit Father Stanislovas (Algirdas Mykolas Dobrovolskis, 1918-2005), a dissident monk, imprisoned in the Soviet camps and persecuted by the KGB during the Soviet era, who preserved the memory of Father Antanas Mackevičius (1828-1863), one of the main leaders of the 1863-1864 uprising. The young people helped Father Stanislovas manage the museum he had founded and erect the shrines “To the rebels,” “To those who did not return,” and “To the forgotten” on the graves of the 1863-1864 rebels in the cemetery in Paberžė.The community gathered by Father Stanislovas perceived the allegorical meaning of these monuments as a reminder of the nations freedom struggles, which did not correspond to the official Soviet narrative, which portrayed the 1863 uprising as a class struggle of the peasantry against “tsarism” and “landlords,” without the element of resistance to Russia and national liberation. After being warned that she would be expelled from Vilnius University, Neringa stopped visiting Paberžė, but the experience gained there remained important throughout her life. According to the historian, who later took part in Sąjūdis activities and has been searching for details of the fate of unknown rebels of 1863-1864 in archival documents, history moves in a spiral: “Forms change, circumstances change, but the essential things remain the same. The same human nature, the same desire for freedom, the same sins.”.