In memory of Gintaras Beresnevičius

                                     In memory of Gintaras Beresnevičius

                                                    Gintaras Beresnevičius

First, I would like to present a translation of Gintaras' text for All Souls' Day(Vėlinės), and then say a few words about Gintaras himself.

                                                                                 xxx

All Souls' Day and Halloween are holidays that respond differently to the question - how to behave before the challenge of death? This is the response of different civilizations.

The Baltic civilization responds with seriousness, the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic - with a commotion of fear. The Baltic tradition invites spirits, the Anglo-Saxon one seeks to scare them away.

We are a very serious audience, and I like the Lithuanian response better. During All Souls' Day, we go to the dead, flooding the cemeteries...

We ourselves turn to our ancestors. The Celts avoided setting foot outside the threshold of their homes on that day, and especially at night - because then the gates of hell open, the dead, witches, and spirits rage right outside the window. Lithuanians also know that during All Souls' Day, spirits travel, move, and gather in cemeteries. And our response is - if the spirits come, we must meet them.

We very often overlook the power of our tradition.

In this case, it is harmony, a covenant with the ancestors, communion. It is the realization that the ancestors and we, the living and the dead, are one.

The meeting of the dead confirms this once again. There is absolutely no fear in it. Let's say, the Anglo-Saxon mentality, or nowadays the mass culture identical to it, eliminates death from circulation. One could say out of fear.

Why such different concepts of death? There are, of course, more than one reason. But first of all, such a feature would catch the eye here - our concept of death unites everyone first of all. From the point of view of modern Western culture, death is a terrible, irreversible, insurmountable separation, the destruction of life.

                                                 Gintaras Beresnevičius - Dausos

If death were to become conscious, the entire mass culture complex would appear meaningless, the entire passion for consumption would lose its meaning. The consumer is immortal, that idea was instilled in him by advertising. And he dies surprised and offended. Probably. After all, mass culture said nothing about this...

For the Lithuanian tradition, death is a bridge over the abyss, for the modern Western one - the abyss itself. Of course, there is a metaphysical tradition, many archaic peoples from the aborigines in Australia to the tribes of West Africa, from the Chinese to the American Indians have maintained a special, calm, trusting relationship with the dead.

Lithuanians also intervene here, this is not a religious outburst. Religious scandal arises at the very moment when the abyss begins to separate from the dead, standing face to face with the dead, with ancestors is a natural religious state.

The Romans felt it perfectly, medieval Europe did not lose it, But - the Middle Ages, but - the Romans. We have maintained it, maybe because of a special metaphysical sensitivity. Maybe because of isolation, closure.

Anyway, it is not a shame to maintain that communion with ancestors, which Rome and China knew, or the Japanese do not know, or the last riddle of the Earth - the aborigines.

Shameful is the fear of ancestors, the ability to stand face to face with them - the prerogative of the strong ...