Highlights – Second Quarter 2025
LRC‘s Museum at the Chicago Lithuanian Center has a new exhibit of Dolls in National Costume. Both the costumes and dolls were created by Ksavera Janionytė Jančienė. LRC Director of Archives Dr. Indrė Antanaitis Jacobs interviewed Ksavera’s daughter, Jūratė Jančytė.
Ksavera Janionytė was born in Panevėžys in 1924 and grew up with the Nevėžis River right outside her house‘s front gate. She was especially fond of the Nevėžis River, where she spent the summers of her youth, dreaming of faraway lands. Her father, Stasys Janionis, worked as a tailor; her mother, Apolonija, spun wool in the summers and wove in the winters.
In 1944 Ksavera departed Lithuania with her cousins and brother Antanas Janionis, thinking she was going on a vacation trip, not knowing that she would not return. They ended up in Dresden, Germany, where she got „Rosie the Riveter“ factory work. One day she played hooky from her job and went apple-picking, only to find Dresden bombed upon her return.... She moved to the DP camp in Wurzburg where she met her husband, Bronius Jančys, and where her oldest daughter Jūratė was later born in 1946. When Jūratė was two years old, Ksavera and her family immigrated to Chicago, to her father‘s half brother‘s home.
Ksavera enjoyed designing Easter eggs, doing needlework, embroidering, making quilts; she sewed all the drapes at home, wove tapestries, and sewed all her daughters‘ clothing when they were growing up in Chicago. She took woodworking classes and made a table, took pottery classes, and created half a dozen large vases and glazed them. One of Ksavera‘s handiwork projects was the creation of 19 dolls in Lithuanian national costume, seven of which are displayed in the LRC museum. Ksavera Jančienės dolls are made of porcelain; their hair is fashioned from mohair; their eyes – handpainted.
LRC thanks Jūrate Jančytė for the donation of her mother‘s beautiful handiwork.
The Lithuanian Research Center (LRC) declared 2024-2025 the Year of the Displaced Person, commemorating the great migration of Lithuanians westward across Europe eighty years ago. Ten events took place with tremendous attendance by the general public, diplomats, journalists, community leaders. This series has also resonated in Lithuania. Gaile Vitas, LRC Volunteer Coordinator, conceived of, and executed, the series.
On March 30, 2025, Dr. Žydronė Kolevinskienė of Vytautas Magnus University and Deputy Director of the Lithuanian Institute of Literature and Folklore, gave a lecture entitled The Year of the Displaced Person: What has been done in Lithuania. This lecture was the eighth event of LRC’s Year of the Displaced Person project, funded by the Lithuanian Cultural Council in Vilnius and the Lithuanian Foundation in the US. Thanks to Arūnas Šatkas for filming the lecture. Below left, our presenter meets with LRC Archivist Laima Smilgytė. LRC Director of Archives Dr. Indrė Antanaitis Jacobs moderated the event.
LRC Chairman of the Board Dr. Robertas Vitas and LRC DP Program Coordinator Gaile Vitas moderated an event on DPs at Saint Casimir Lithuanian Parish in Los Angeles on March 30, 2025. The hall was filled to capacity and interesting information on DP history was gleaned during our time together.
Top left: Robertas with Marytė Newsom and Monika Gylys of Los Angeles who arranged the event, Attache Julijonas Matukas from the Consulate General of Lithuania in Chicago, Counselor Mindaugas Čiaglys from the Consulate General of Lithuania in Los Angeles. Top right: Gaile Vitas speaking with attendees in Los Angeles. Bottom left: Danguolė Navickas of the Lithuanian American Community, Inc. Bottom right: Antanas Mažeika, president of the Baltic American Freedom League and Rymantė Barauskaitė.
LRC continues to interview those who experienced the mass exodus from Lithuania during World War II and later lived in DP camps. If you are interested in sharing your story, please write to info@lithuanianresearch.org to arrange an interview.
The Bridge Between America’s Lithuanians and Lithuania took place on April 6, 2025, with presentations by Regina Butkus and Jonas Platakis. They discussed the support that the first wave Lithuanian-Americans gave to Lithuanians during and after World War II. Jonas emphasized that Lithuanians have influenced America’s history since the 17th century. Regina spoke of the second and third waves of Lithuanian immigrants and how they have bridged cultural gaps and built relationships with Lithuania.
Lithuanian American Community Vice President for Information Romas Jelinskas with our presenters.
LRC President Kristina Lapienytė, Vice President of the North American Ateitis Organization Daina Čyvas and visiting from Lithuania, President of the Ateitis Federation Gediminas Plečkaitis.
Kristina with Žiburys Lithuanian School Director Vilija Jurgutis.
The Detroit Chapter of the Lithuanian American Community (LAC) hosted LRC President Kristina Lapienytė on April 13, 2025. Kristina presented on LRC, its collections, activities and projects, including digitization. Attention was also given to LRC’s Year of the Displaced Person.
Viktoras Memėnas and Vytautas Radzevičius shared their memories of life as DPs
LRC again participated at the Annual International Conference of the American Association of the Friends of Koščiuška at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on April 25-26, 2025, with representation from Lithuanians, Poles and Americans, including the Academy's Superintendent and Commandant of Cadets. We also hosted the Consul General of Lithuania in New York Dovydas Špokauskas, Lithuania's Defense Attache to the US Colonel Mindaugas Mažonas, Lithuanian Parliament National Security Committee Chair Giedrimas Jeglinskas, Antanas Dambriūnas from the Lithuanian Alliance of America and Lithuanian National Foundation, and Neila Baumilienė of the Kazickas Family Foundation.
Director Aistė Stonytė visited LRC in early May to collect archival material for her upcoming films about Virgilijus Šontas and Stasys Lozoraitis.
May 17, 2025, was International Museum Day and an opportunity to visit the LRC museums in our Chicago facility: LRC Museum, LRC Medical Museum, and the LRC Military Museum.
Our tenth and final DP event took place on May 18, 2025, when historian Violeta Rutkauskienė presented on the DPs of Chicago who had survived the mass Soviet murders carried out in the Červenė Forest in 1941. Among those in attendance was Rimas Černius, correspondent for the Draugas Newspaper. The event was filmed by Tadas Raudžius.
All of LRC‘s filmed events can be found at YouTube‘s Lithuanian Research Center channel.
LRC President Kristina Lapienytė and Chairman Dr. Robertas Vitas met with Lithuanian American Community (LAC) President Edita Buzėnienė and Vice President for Information Romas Jelinskas on June 12, 2025 to discuss issues of mutual concern and joint projects. Our visitors also reviewed LAC archives housed there. LRC is the official archive of LAC.
LRC’s Musicology Archive, founded in 1920, is the largest such archive on the continent and frequently has composers, lyricists, opera performers and directors and choirmasters among its visitors. Violeta Fabianovich, a long-time folk-dance teacher, visited in search of material for this summer’s dance courses to be held at Camp Dainava in Michigan. She was pleasantly surprised to meet one of her students here - Kamilė Juzėnas, who was volunteering at LRC at the time, and has been dancing in Violeta’s Grandis folk dance group for ten years.
Other new volunteers who assisted at LRC were student Emma Raicevičiūtė and Daina Fischer, who is a professional singer and teacher and member of the Peppermint Patties singing group. Below, Daina delights in having found information in our Musicology Archive on her mother, Jūratė Tautvilaitė-Fischer, longtime singing/voice teacher.
