Lecture “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne 1918–1948: one city – many stories”
Tuesday, 21.03.2022, 19:00
Pilecki-Institut Berlin
Following this year´s special edition of Exercising Modernity – whose extended topical focus was displayed by the added [Eastern] part in the middle – we’re happy to announce a new lecture series which will continue to “reflect on the concepts of East and West, have a closer look at the incoherencies between political, geographical, and cultural borders of Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries and examine the issue of the role of culture and architecture in shaping the societies, cities and states in this region of the world”.
We would like to cordially invite you to to watch the first lecture of this series. Recording of the lecture is below:
“Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne 1918–1948: one city – many stories” by Prof. Dr Giedrė Jankevičiūtė.
In the period between 1918-1948 Vilnius was a melting pot, a liminal city, reminiscent of Lviv or Trieste in its multifaceted life and social dynamics experiencing population alternations. Moreover it was rife with political turbulences: the struggle for the city, the integration of Vilnius into Poland and the subsequent almost 20-year long years of period of stabilisation, the Soviet and Nazi occupations, the Holocaust, the exodus of the interwar Vilnius inhabitants to Poland after the WWII, and the intensification of the Stalinist terror. This multi-layered history of the city will be presented by Prof. Dr Giedrė Jankevičiūtė through the lense of the exhibition “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne 1918-1948: one city – many stories”, which will be on display at the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie and the National Art Gallery in Vilnius in 2023 (curators: Giedrė Jankevičiūtė and Andrzej Szczerski).
Giedrė Jankevičiūtė is an art historian and exhibition curator, based in Vilnius. She is a leading research fellow at the Art History and Visual Culture Department of the Lithuanian Institute for Culture Research, and professor of art history in Vilnius Art Academy. Her current field of interest lies in artistic culture of occupied countries; she explores this topic focusing on the situation of Lithuania in the middle of the 20th century, namely during the period of the Second World War from 1939 till 1944; however she is also interested in art under Soviet occupation after the WWII and Lithuanian émigré art. The results of her research were published in the numerous academic papers, exhibition catalogues, and several books. With her Polish colleague prof. Andrzej Szczerski from Cracow, currently she is curating an exhibition “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne 1918–1948: one city – many stories,“ which will be held at the National Museum of Art in Cracow and the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius from the end of May 2023; she is also the editor of the catalogue of this exhibition.
The lecture is organised by the Pilecki-Institut Berlin in cooperation with the Embassy of Lithuania.