Vilnius: a personal history

• Venclova, Tomas
• Miłosz, Czesław

LTVilnius – daugiatautis miestas. Tai Lietuvos sostinė, bet ir miestas, savas lenkams, baltarusiams, rusams, žydams, totoriams ir karaimams. Knygoje skaitytojas supažindinamas su Vilniaus istorija, mitais ir legendomis, architektūra, įžymiais literatūros ir meno, kultūros ir mokslo žmonėmis. Itin daug dėmesio skiriama lietuvių tautinio atgimimo, tarpukariu liepsnojusio lietuvių ir lenkų konflikto, žydų tragedijos Antrajame pasauliniame kare, komunistinės Rusijos viešpatavimo, disidentų priešinimosi totalinei priespaudai temoms. Didelę knygos dalį užima Česlovo Milošo ir Tomo Venclovos dialogas (2 laiškai) apie Miestą, humanizmo idealus, lietuvių ir lenkų kultūrų sąveiką.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Vilniaus istorija; Vilniaus universitetas (VU; Vilnius University); Kultūrinis gyvenimas; Vilniaus gyventojai; Vilniaus architektūra; Česlovas Milošas; History of Vilnius; Cultural life; Vilnius inhabitants; Architecture of Vilnius; Czeslaw Milosz; Vilnius; Miesto istorija; Kultūrinė atmintis; Vilnius; History of the city; Cultural memory; Tomas Venclova; Literatūra; Czesław Miłosz; Tomas Venclova; Lithuanian literature.

ENThis is a book about the marvelous city of Vilnius in the eyes of the great poet Tomas Venclova, a Nobel Prize runner-up, about whom Harold Bloom has said, "One believes Mandelstam and Babel might have rejoiced" in his writing. As an essayist, Venclova writes that he has been occupied by Vilnius, his native city, "through whose example one could easily trace all of the complexity and tragedy of ethnic and national relations in Eastern Europe." He has, for a quarter of a century, been one of the lonely representatives of the conscience of Lithuania. Margot Bettauer Dembo has contributed to Vilnius: A Personal History as a translator. Dembo is an editor at the American Museum of Natural History. Czeslaw Milosz has contributed to Vilnius: A Personal History . Czeslaw Milosz was born in 1911 in Szetejnie, Lithuania. He survived World War II in Warsaw, publishing in the underground press, after which he was stationed in New York, Washington, and Paris as a cultural attachE from Poland. He defected to France in 1951, and in 1960 he accepted a position at the University of California at Berkeley. Although his writing was banned in Poland, he was nevertheless awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 2004 in KrakOw.