We didn’t spend much time in deciding on what kind of face to give to this issue of Jungtys. The theme became clear once we began reviewing our many activities and recalling the many people we had worked with, created together with, and engaged with over the past few years. For the initiatives of the World Lithuanian University (WLU) at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), the topic of Lithuanianness in South America always glimmers like a beacon of light, reminding us not to let this part of the Lithuanian diaspora’s history slip into oblivion.
🌿The life story of Gediminas Orentas, a renowned Kaunas photographer who emigrated from interwar Lithuania to Venezuela;
🌿A story about Ernesto Parselis — an active promoter of Lithuanian identity, member of the Lithuanian community in Argentina, leader of the South American Lithuanian Youth Congress, and academic;
🌿An interview with Felipe Desbanca Liutkus, a student at Vytautas Magnus University from Brazil, about his family’s migration history and search for Lithuanian identity;
🌿A conversation with Lithuanian students from South America about their relationship with Lithuania and their personal transformations while living there;
🌿A look into the little-known history and fates of Lithuanians in Colombia;
🌿A story about Lithuanians in Uruguay and members of this community traveling to Lithuania for the Centennial Song Festival;
🌿A review of Rimantas Vanagas’s book Nijolė Lituana, which describes the author’s encounters with Nijolė Sivickas, the mother of Antanas Mockus.
So, we wish you an enjoyable journey through the “jungles” of South American Lithuanianness. It is important that these “jungles” remain alive in our memory and in our diasporic imagination.
You can find the journal in Lithuanian libraries and at Vytautas Magnus University, K. Donelaičio St. 52–313.