(Aleksander Wat was, in many ways, the archetypal Central ...)
Aleksander Wat was, in many ways, the archetypal Central European intellectual of the mid-twentieth century, a man, who experienced and influenced all the tumultuous political and artistic movements of his time. This book is the first account of Wat's turbulent life, accompanied by a thorough analysis of his extraordinary poems and prose works in their diverse periods and genres.
(In this collection of essays, acclaimed Lithuanian poet T...)
In this collection of essays, acclaimed Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova reveals the tangled relationship between poetry and politics in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe.
(This book brings together entirely new translations of To...)
This book brings together entirely new translations of Tomas Venclova's most recent work, as well as a selection of poems from his 1997 volume "Winter Dialogue".
("Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova" is a ...)
"Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova" is a book in the European tradition of works, such as "Conversations with Czeslaw Milosz" and Aleksander Wat's classic "My Century". The book interweaves Eastern European postwar history, dissidence and literature.
Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian-born American poet, prose writer, philologist, translator and author of a nonfiction text on poetry. Also, he is known as one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, a dissident organization. During the period from 1980 till 2012, Tomas taught at Yale University.
Background
Tomas Venclova was born on September 11, 1937, in Klaipeda, Lithuania. He is a son of Antanas Venclova, a Lithuanian and Soviet politician, poet, journalist and translator, and Eliza Rackauskaite Vencloviene. Tomas' grandfather on his mother’s side, Merkelis Rackauskas, taught classical languages and translated Plato.
Education
In 1960, Tomas received a diploma in Philology from Vilnius University. During the period from 1966 till 1971, he did his studies in Semiotics and Russian Literature at the University of Tartu. Later, Venclova continued his education at Yale University, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1985.
Also, he received several honorary doctorate degrees from different educational establishments, including the Jagiellonian University, Krakow (2000) and others. Also, Tomas obtained several Doctor Honoris Causa degrees, including the one from Vilnius University in 2017 and the University of Göttingen in 2018, among others.
In 1966, Tomas began his career as a lecturer in Literature, Linguistics and Semiotics at Vilnius University, a post he held till 1973. Between 1974 and 1976, he was a junior fellow of the Institute of History at the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR (present-day Lithuanian Academy of Sciences) in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Also, during his years in Vilnius, Venclova translated Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and other authors into Lithuanian. However, in Lithuania he was forbidden to publish his own work, although one volume, entitled "A Sign of Speech", appeared in 1972.
In 1976, Tomas co-founded Lithuanian Helsinki Group and took part in Lithuanian and Russian dissident movements. In 1977, following his dissident activities, Tomas was forced to emigrate. The same year, in 1977, Venclova was appointed a Regents Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. Also, in 1977, Tomas served as a lecturer in the Department of Slavic Language and Literatures at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he remained until 1980. Moreover, in 1978, he acted as a Morton Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Ohio University, in Athens.
In 1980, Tomas began working as a lecturer and acting instructor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University, a post he held till 1985, when he was promoted to the post of an assistant professor. Bewteen 1990 and 1993, Venclova served as an associate professor at Yale University, where, in 1993, he was made a professor. Tomas continued to teach at Yale University until 2012, when he was made a Professor Emeritus.
Also, during his career, Tomas was a member of editorial boards for Forum Balticum (Stockholm), Sintaksis (Paris), Zeszyty Literackie (Paris), Metmenys (Chicago), Akiraciai (Chicago) and Yale Russian and East European Publications.
At nineteen, Tomas was strongly impressed by the Hungarian uprising of 1956, as well as by the anti-Stalinist movement in Poland, which gained strength the same year. Like many Lithuanians of his generation, he learned Polish with the express goal of getting more information on the topics, banned in the USSR and Lithuania. Moreover, Tomas maintained links with Russian dissidents, in particular, with unofficial poets of that era.
In 1976, he became one of the founders of Lithuanian Helsinki Group and took part in Lithuanian and Russian dissident movements. In 1977, his involvement in dissident movement resulted in an unusual situation. The Soviet authorities allowed him to travel to the United States on an invitation from the University of California and, during his stint at Berkeley, stripped Tomas of his Soviet citizenship. Thus, he became a political emigre.
In his early years in the United States, Tomas joined the American-Lithuanian diaspora and published several books of poetry and essays in his native language, contributing simultaneously to the mainstream press.
Views
Tomas believes, that his work is influenced by Russian poetry, mainly by Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Brodsky, as well as by W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin and other authors.
Quotations:
"I consider myself primarily a poet in my native Lithuanian language."
"My interest in Aleksander Wat was enhanced by the fact, that my own experience paralleled some aspects of his. A Polish emigre, a major Central European poet and a brilliant critic of totalitarianism, Wat is only slightly known to Western readers — a situation, that my book on him attempts to remedy."
Membership
Tomas is a member of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, as well as other organizations.
Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies
,
United States
1989 - 1991
New York Institute for the Humanities
,
United States
1981 - 1984
Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
Poland
2007
Personality
On April 12, 1985, Tomas became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Interests
Traveling
Connections
Tomas married Tatyana L. Milovidova, an actress, on April 18, 1990. Their marriage produced two children — Andrei and Maria.