Haikus of Siberia: Jurga Vilé presented his book on the Lithuanians deported by Stalin to Prague in Prague

Lithuanian deportations in 1941

With his graphic novel, Jurga Vilé reopens a painful chapter in the history of Lithuania. In 1941, the Soviets deported some 43,000 Baltic citizens and forced them to live in inhuman conditions in Siberia. Among the deportees was also the family of Jurga Vilé’s father. This dark page of relations between the Soviets and the Lithuanians who were to be forgotten, therefore resurfaces in a book whose form and drawings of Lina Itagaki make it accessible and understandable to young readers. For Jurga Vilé, it is the culmination of a long process of research and discoveries:

“It is our common experience, the collective memory that brings us together. I took a long time to learn more details about the history of our family, without considering writing a book, however. I read books on exiles from the age of 13. They were difficult and complicated books, books that scream and were born from pain and inability to talk about it. First of all I was distraught. What my father told me when I was little was probably vague because he wanted to protect me. He told me stories of his childhood as if they were rather funny adventures. »»

Victims of Stalinist Terror

The tragic fate of the Lithuanian deportees is told in the book by a boy who loves adventure and does not first understand what is going on, why all his family is driven from his country and what was his fault. He does not understand why they find themselves in Siberia. In this book, the vicissitudes of the prisoners of the gulag are seen by the eyes of a child who often does not realize their tragic dimension. It is up to the reader to guess what is hidden under the naive observations of a small deported child. To create the character of Algis, Jurga Vilé was very much inspired by his father’s experience:

“My father was at that time younger than the little hero of the book he is model. He was only three years old when he was deported and returned to Lithuania until the age of eight. The protagonist of my book is eight years old when he has to leave his homeland and returns home at thirteen. We advanced it because we needed a more active hero. My father was embarrassed by this change, he could not admit the fact that we wrote a book that was not only documentary and where there was also a part of our imagination. »»

A miraculously preserved notebook

Life in the camp is unbearable. No weakness is tolerated. Cold, hunger, harsh chores, brutality and cynicism of Russian supervisors can only be supported by strong individuals who do not be completely demoralized by the situation which seems dead end. And yet in this camp which is the overwhelming image of human misery, people seek and find the means to survive. And some even discover the strength to come together, to sing together, to help each other, to love each other and to be friendly with others. This is the case of the Algis grandmother who writes during this period a diary, a precious document which will be preserved until today and will give Jurga vile a lot of information on camp life:

“Although I have read a lot of documents, my grandmother’s notebook was very important to me, especially because he was concerning my family. There were a lot of episodes of my father’s life and also the deep sensations of my grandmother. Her descriptions touched me extremely because she was talking about her experience differently and paid a lot of attention to the characters and the kindness of the people she met. This gave me the impulse to write a book which is not like my grandmother’s notebook but which allowed me to transmit the light that I found in its narration. »»

The Japanese story line

In the proximity of the Lithuanian camp is a Japanese prison camp. Soon is established between the prisoners of the two camps a bond which allows them to overcome the differences in culture and language. The two parts observe each other, sympathize, learn to do origami and, thanks to a Lithuanian who has notions of Japanese, exchange short poems written on small pieces of paper in the form of haikus, this kind of Japanese poetry that expresses sensations in very few words. It is therefore one of the reasons why Jurga Vilé entitled his Haïku book of Siberia but what was decisive for the choice of this title was the notebook of his grandmother:

“The word ‘Haïku’ was inspired by the tiny notebook of my grandmother whose text was written with a simple pencil and whose cover was lost or may never have existed. In the text there are many passages that have been erased but their content is clear. The notebook deeply upset me and it came to me at the idea the word ‘haïku’. I realized that we could say so many deep things with very few words. Later, there was also another Japanese line of the story and we finally find in the book a whole skein of Japanese motifs. »»

The main message

Little Algis lives and grows in a world that is hostile to him and hands him dangerous traps. His father was separated from the family and died in another camp, but he is surrounded by three women, his grandmother, his mother and his sister, who seek to protect him. In this region at the end of the world, iced for most of the year, he learns to appreciate each small change, each small event that breaks the overwhelming monotony of his existence. His life cannot be more modest and more humble, death lurks around him and sometimes strikes the people who are close to him, but he does not sink into despair because he learned to rejoice in the simplest things And discovered the benefits of human fraternity. It is this image of a boy who did not allow himself to be destroyed by the misfortune that Jurga Vilé wanted to evoke in his book:

“The main message that I would like to transmit to young readers is that we should not give in to weakness, that we must face difficult situations, keep your inner courage, keep and respect a deep faith and inspire others . »»