Demonstrated right before the EP
In the middle of February, when Lithuania celebrated the Day of the Restoration of the State, the sculpture “Fairytale Giant” by Raimonds Kavaliauskas and Nerijaus Ališauskas from Tauragiška came to life at the international light art installation festival “The Bright Festival” held in Brussels.
Belgium, which holds the presidency of the European Union (EU) this half-year, invited local creators and cultural partners from other Community countries to join the festival.
At the festival, which attracted half a million visitors, the installation was presented to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Lithuania’s accession to the EU, reported The Ministry of Culture.
The Lithuanian work, which has become one of the most impressive installations at the festival held for the 8th time, combined traditional folk art and modern technologies.
In Luxembourg Square before the EP, a giant emerging from the earth with the sun in his hand presented three legends from the old Baltic mythology: the giant, the Nine-Horned Deer and the Blacksmith, the helper of Thunder.
The 6-meter-high wooden giant, leaving the dungeons to replace the sun, came to life with the help of animated 3D and 2D elements, a light projector, original music by composer Aurim Vilkišius and sound effects.
The giant told the festival guests in English about the sun forged by Thunder’s helper and the battle that takes place every year between good and evil, light and darkness.
The teacher missed the sensitive approach
In Lithuania, the sculpture received outrage due to one element of decoration – the swastika carved on the giant’s left cheek.
Associate Professor of the Public Communication Department of Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas drew attention to him. Ignas Kalpokas. He shared a photo of the piece with the swastika symbol defined.
“I had missed it during work: some mind tower came up with the idea that very cool Representing Lithuania at the Brussels Light Festival… SWASTIKA.
How detached from any context and historical sensibility and from today’s propaganda environment do you have to be in order for this to turn out to be an ok idea?” he said on Monday morning. wondered on your Facebook account.
The university lecturer also asked “to leave all the ramblings of useful idiots about the “eternal Baltic symbol of the sun” to some hungry people and Nazi associations, because we are not talking about backyard legends.”
Saw 500 thousand. people
“In ancient Lithuanian and Baltic mythology, as in the symbolism of many other cultures, the sun sign is used. This installation tells several combined etiological myths and legends about the origin of the sun.
It is for this reason that we also see the symbol of the sun on the sculpture itself as a decorative element”, – to the portal 15min.lt explained R. Kavaliauskas, the author of the idea of ”Pasakų milžino”.
He also took to his Facebook account to celebrate the success of the piece in Brussels: “500,000!
As many as 0.5 million people visited The Bright Brussels light festival in Belgium, where we also presented the installation.
We brought our Giant, for whom a place was chosen right in front of the EP. It was truly an amazing experience to see such huge flows of people. Every 7 minutes (that’s how long the Giant’s story lasts), a new crowd of people formed – Rockstar A giant”.
Photos of the sculpture have been posted on Facebook before publicized not a single person working or visiting Brussels, not one of them not only mentioned the swastika, but also allegedly paid no attention to it.
Christmas tree tripped in Latvia
The installation was implemented in cooperation with the Vilnius Light Festival and the Lithuanian Institute of Culture.
More than 30 sculptures and light art installations were presented at the international festival in Brussels this year.
The works were presented by artists from Belgium, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and other countries. The organizers of the event invited visitors to rediscover the royal and EU institutions quarters, through which the two festival routes were laid out.
Brussels – not the first place, where “The Giant of Fairy Tales” was shown. During 2021 It’s Christmas was demonstrated in Taurage. Sea River Park. Then she told the story of the Ten-horned Deer, reminiscent of the version of the Christmas period found in ancient Lithuanian and Baltic mythology.
By the way, exactly one year later, Internet users were outraged by the swastikas that decorated the Christmas tree of the Latvian city of Lielvarde. They were decorated with upward-decreasing circles so as to form a cone – a kind of fir tree – twisted red and white bands.
Such a stylized tree symbolized an element of the national costume – an ancient woven belt decorated with a sacred symbol – a broken cross.
Screenshot from Facebook/Lielvardė Christmas tree this year was decorated with swastikas and other traditional motifs
Swastika has been in use for a long time in Latvian folklore. In Latvia, it is found not only in various cultures of the world, but since the 20th century. of the first half – a symbol associated with the Nazis, but also fire cross – cross of branches of fire, Thunder, Luck or Lyme.
In the National Encyclopedia initiated by the Ministry of Culture is positive, that the oldest archaeological finds with this sign date back to the 3rd century. They were related to the cultural space of the Baltic Finns. Soon the swastika was adopted by the whites.
Screenshot from kulturaskanons.lv/Svastika is a traditional sign used by Latvians
These ornaments are not the same as the symbol used by the Nazis. The swastika – an equilateral cross with “arms” bent at right angles in the same direction – is not a symbol created by the Nazis or their party.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, swastika, as a symbol of prosperity and success, was widespread both in the ancient and modern world. This Sanskrit word means “conducive to well-being”.
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2024-04-30 08:09:41