Vytautas Alantas

Alantas was the eldest of four children of a family of Lithuanian farmers in Sidabravas. Alantas' father briefly worked in the United States and managed to purchase 80 hectares (200 acres) of land from a former manor in Kriaukėnai near Radviliškis.[4] His brother Algirdas Jakševičius became a theater director. Alantas was taught by a daraktorius, a travelling Lithuanian teacher educating pupils in secret during the Lithuanian press ban. In 1912–1923, Alantas studied at the Šiauliai Gymnasium, with a half-year break in 1919 when he volunteered for the Lithuanian Army to fight the West Russian Volunteer Army in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence, despite being only 17 years old.[4] From sixth grade onward, Alantas became immersed in literature, writing poetry and participating in the activities of the Ateitis Catholic Youth organization. Like many Lithuanian writers, he published his literature under a pseudonym, choosing Alantas, a tributary of the river Minija.[1]

In 1923, he enrolled to study literature in the University of Lithuania, but quit a year later due to lack of funds, and worked as a teacher at a gymnasium in Plungė until 1926.[1] He continued his studies at the University of Montpellier in France and graduated in 1929.[5] Because of his knowledge of French, he worked as the chief of the French section of ELTA from 1930 to 1934. In 1934–1939, he worked as the chief editor of the state newspaper Lietuvos aidas, and officially changed his last name to Alantas in 1937.[1] He was awarded the Order of Vytautas the Great (1936) and the Order of the Three Stars (1939).[4]

In the late 1930s, Vairininkai took control of the media and the party apparatus in Antanas Smetona's dictatorship – party newspapers such as Vairas, Akademikas and Lietuvos aidas were chaired by the radical youth, while the general secretary of the Nationalist Union Jonas Statkus and the chairman Domas Cesevičius supported their ideas. They were unaligned with earlier extremist Lithuanian movements such as Voldemarininkai and presented themselves as an "opposition of goodwill".[6] The Vairininkai were anti-semitic, anti-democratic, anti-communist, totalitarian and sympathized with National Socialism. They believed all political parties to be a hurdle towards creating a monolithic state with an unquestioned absolute leader at the top (cf. Führerprinzip) and saw democracy, in Alantas's words, as a "psychosis" which the young generation should rid itself of.[6]

Alantas openly expressed extremist views arguing for aggressive nationalism without compromises.[7] For example, he published an article in Vairas arguing in favor of an ethnic cleansing in the Vilnius Region after it was returned to Lithuania according to the terms of the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty – he cited Nazi Germany as an example writing that "the Germans turned the city of Gdynia into the most German city in their country through a fully mechanical process – people were moved out and other people were moved in".[6] Alantas published selected articles and texts in his book Žygiuojanti tauta (The Marching Nation), published in 1940. It was an apologetic work that defended the authoritarian regime of Smetona.[7] He denounced international cooperation in favor of isolationist policies, and believed that national egoism, based on national solidarity, was the key to nations' survival.[8] He believed that one's nation was superior and above others, and that citizens should sacrifice for their country (and not that a country should sacrifice for its citizens).[7]

A monument to Alantas in his native Sidabravas

After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in June 1940, Alantas fled to Germany. His wife and son remained in Lithuania and were deported to Siberia during the June deportation in 1941.[2] In Germany, he was invited to head the Commission of Culture of the Lithuanian Activist Front, a movement of Lithuanian exiles who sought to liberate Lithuania with Nazi German support. Alantas belonged to the radical right wing of the LAF and supported establishment of the Lithuanian National Socialist Party.[9] Despite being offered by Pranas Germantas to head the Commission of Culture in the Ministry of Education in the Provisional Government of Lithuania, his appointment was blocked by the Party of Lithuanian Nationalists and he was appointed as the head of Vilnius Drama Theatre instead.[10] During three years of work, Alantas wrote three plays, two of which were staged.[1] In 1944, Alantas fled to Germany from the approaching Soviet army and became a displaced person in the aftermath of World War II. In 1949, Alantas moved to Detroit, United States,[11] where he worked as a low-wage labourer in a Ford Motors automobile factory[12] until retirement in 1968.[4] His four-act comedy Ragučio šaltinėlis, written in 1948 as a displaced person in Ulm and Flanders, premiered in Detroit in 1951.[13] He knew French and German, but struggled with English.[7] He dedicated the rest of his life to literary work and published several novels, short stories, and a poetry collection.[1] He was chairman of the Lithuanian Journalists Association in 1967–1971,[5] and was offered jobs editing Lithuanian periodicals but he refused.[2]

In exile, Alantas's views grew increasingly esoteric and are exemplified in his first novel Pragaro pošvaistės (Patches of Hell). Searching for a psychological refuge, he began glorifying Baltic paganism and pre-Christian Lithuanian culture and denounced Christianity as a foreign, imposed influence. He equated Lithuanian national ideology with a return towards pagan humanism, and championed a worldview in which Lithuanians would recognize only Praamžius, the chief god of Baltic paganism, in the metaphysical, humane solidarity between fellow Lithuanians in the moral, and the principle "kill your enemy if you're able, perish yourself if you're not" in the political prism.[14] In emigration, Alantas published two non-fiction books. In 1976, he wrote a study on Romas Kalanta who self-immolated in Kaunas protesting the Soviet regime in 1972. He wrote Tauta istorijos vingiais (The Nation Along the Twists of History) in 1987 and published it in 1990. It contains thoughts on the survival of the small nation, national character and identity of Lithuanians, meaning and value of the anti-Soviet resistance by the Lithuanian partisans.[1] The work was republished in independent Lithuania in 1992.[5] That year, the Ministry of Culture and Education proposed to include the book in the history curriculum for the 12th grade, but the proposal was quickly dropped.[7]