Address
Kintai, LT-99050, Silute region.
Tel. +370-441-47379.
E-mail: vydunas@delfi.lt
Vydunas cultural center of Kintai is in the very center of Kintai town,
near the Bus Station.
Structure
Vydunas Museum;
The Gallery “Palepe” (“Loft”)
Art School for Children
Music School for Children.
Opening times
Tuesday to Saturday 10.00-18.00.
In every concrete case the visits can be agreed upon by a telephone call.
Visits to the museum are payable.
Additional
services
Every visitor, upon request, will be
acquainted with the life and creative work of the enlightened of Lithuania
Minor Vydunas, with the past of Kintai and the littoral, will visit
exhibitions in the gallery “Palepe” (“Loft”), children art school
of Kintai, will get acquainted with pupils’ works and their authors.
Museum's
collection
The collection of the museum consists of
displays telling about the writer and philosopher Vydunas (1868-1953), his
personal things, photographs, memoirs, books, magazines published by him.
The museum also accumulates displays telling about the main stages of
history of Kintai, Lithuania Minor and the littoral.
Expositions
Stands of the exhibition reflect different
periods of Vydunas’ life and activity; visitors are acquainted with his
creative works. Vydunas’ books and photographs showing various episodes
of his life are displayed.
The
Gallery “Palepe” (“Loft”)
The gallery functions on the upper floor of the building. Art exhibitions,
chamber events, meetings with artists are organized, and anniversaries of
the most important cultural events are celebrated.
Painter pleinairies are held in summer, during which the painters are
involved in creative work, get acquainted with Kintai. At the end of such
events a part of works created is left in the center. In this way art
collection which is going to merge into the art gallery of Lithuania Minor
in Silute is enriched.
Art
School for Children in Kintai
Art school for children in Kintai functions since 1994. About 50 children
living in Kintai and its environs attend it, 2 teacher teach them. This is
a school of supplementary training. Children get acquainted with art
history, drawing, painting, modeling and other trends of art in a course
of four-year studies. After four years every pupil has to present the
final work evaluation of which is included in the diploma.
Exhibitions are arranged in the museum, co-operation with other
educational institutions of similar type is developed. Pupils of the
school take an active part in creative competitions. Traditions of the
school: novice christening, discussions on mid-year works, farewell
banquet. Excursions and cognitive trips are organized.
Music
School for Children in Kintai
The school functions since 1983. Children are taught basics of
music and to play piano.
Fragments
of the history of Vydunas Cultural Center of Kintai
Vydunas museum was opened in 1994 as a branch of the museum of Silute.
In the beginning of 1998 an independent Vydunas cultural center was
established by the municipality of Silute district. It started functioning
in the old school of Kintai built in 1705. The philosopher and writer
Vydunas worked as a teacher here in 1888-1912.
Vydunas
- one of the famous Lithuanian Cultural Worker
Vydunas (pen name of Vilhelmas Storosta)
Vydunas (1868-1953), philosopher and writer, leading figure in the
cultural life of Lithuanians of East Prussia (Lithuania Minor), born in
Jonaiciai, county of Silute (then under German rule).
He graduated from the Ragaine (Ragnit) teacher’s seminary in 1892 and in
1896 in Konigsberg passed the qualifying examinations for high school
principal.
From 1892-1912 he taught English and French at a boys’ gymnasium in
Tilze (Tilsit). During summer vocations he took humanities courses at
Universities of Greifswald, Halle, Leipzig and Berlin, at which time he
developed a life-long interest in Sanskrit and the religious philosophy an
ancient India. From 1917-1919 he taught Lithuanian language and literature
in the Oriental department of the University of Berlin and worked on the
preparation of a textbook entitled Einfuhrung in die litauische Sprache
(1919). Subsequently he returned to teaching from time to time, but spent
most of his time writing and working with Lithuanian social and cultural
organizations.
In 1895 he had founded the Lithuanian Singers’ Society at Tilze and
organized its chorus, which he himself directed for over 40 years. He had
learned to play piano, violin and harp in his early youth. Every year the
chorus gave at least ten concerts throughout Lithuania Minor and
occasionally even visited Berlin and towns in Switzerland. Furthermore,
Vydunas supplied amateur theater groups with original plays and published
a number of periodicals: Saltinis (The Source, 1905-1906), Jaunimas
(Youth, 1911-1914), Naujove (Novelty, 1915), and Darbymetis
(Season of Toil, 1921-1925), all of which carried his philosophical
tracts, stories, and ethnocultural speculations.
As a community leader Vydunas was only interested in cultural affairs;
however, since his activities fostered and strengthened the Lithuanian
national spirit he began to be persecuted when the Nazis came to power
(1933), Tilze being under German control. The Lithuanian Singers’
Society and other organizations were shut down in 1935. His volume on
German-Lithuanian relations in historical perspective, Sieben Hundert
Jahre deutsh-litauischer Beziehungen (1932), was confiscated. He had
written two other historical treatises earlier: Litauen in
Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1921).
In 1938 he was arrested, charged with violating the foreign exchange laws,
and imprisoned. Released after a few months, he remained under police
surveillance.
In 1944, as Russian air attacks on Tilze became more frequent; he withdrew
to West Germany.
Vydunas the philosopher was an individualist, deeply preoccupied with
moral and religious problems. He fused Oriental, especially Indian,
metaphysics with Christian and neo-Platonic medieval mysticism. His
outlook is expressed in a number of philosophical-theosophical works: Visatos
saranga (The Structure of the Universe, 1907); Slaptinga zmogaus
didybe (The Mysterious Greatness of Man, 1907); Mirtis ir kas
toliau (Death and Thereafter, 1907); and Zmonijos kelias (The
Way of Humanity, 1908).
In his philosophy Vydunas distinguished two parts of reality: physical or
cosmic and spiritual.
Dramas occupy center stage in Vydunas’ literary output. The most
important of them are Prabociu seseliai (Shadows of the Ancestors,
1908); Amzina ugnis (The Eternal Fire, 1912); and Pasaulio
gaisras (World Conflagration, 1928).
The first play takes place in the 13th-14th centuries, when Prussia and
Lithuania were being attacked by the Teutonic Order and subjected to an
alien culture. Serfdom in 18th century Lithuania Minor is the subject of
the second. The final play deals with the Lithuanian national rebirth.
Amzina ugnis, another trilogy, transposes events from 14th-15th
century Lithuanian history (introduction of Christianity, destruction of
pagan temples, penetration of foreign cultures) onto a fantastic and
symbolic plane. Its message is that the moral and cultural traditions of
the forefathers must be preserved because only respect for the past
ensures a people’s continued vitality.
In the tragedy Pasaulio gaisras the action takes place during World
War I: the main character, a strong-willed, heroic woman personifying the
Lithuanian nation dies in her burning home, refusing to leave her native
abode. The play conveys the idea that a nation survives on its distinctive
culture for which it is worthy to die.
Vydunas’ view of humankind in which all nations merge and rise together
towards perfection and divinity is expressed in the mystery Juros
varpai (Bells of the Sea, 1920).
Another group of works consists of short comedies, usually one act in
length and based on realistic circumstances. Nearly all of them were
staged in Lithuanian Minor under the author’s direction. These comedies
ridicule loss of national identity and Germanization.
Vydunas made his literary works vehicles for the expression of ethical and
didactic principles. In his view, a man of letters is called upon to exalt
that which is beautiful, true, noble, and good, while condemning that
which is ugly, false, ignoble, and evil. He must raise his eyes towards
the divine powers and thus open up the ways of humanity to true love,
wisdom and self-fulfillment.
