Lithuanian museums abroad
The world beyond Lithuania has a considerable number of Lithuanian museums or Lithuanian rooms in other museums (e.g. "Museums of immigration" or "Museums of ethnic heritage"). Most of these are located in cities where many Lithuanian emigrants used to live.
Lithuanian museums abroad are interesting to different groups of people, including:
1. Descendents of Lithuanians to learn about their country of origin.
2. Local people of areas where many Lithuanians live to learn about the culture and history of their neighbors.
3. Lithuanians from Lithuania or anywhere else who are interested in Lithuanian history and art - to see that history and art through the lens of the Lithuanian diaspora, as many things important to Lithuania as a whole happened outside Lithuania and many great Lithuanian artworks are still held there.
4. Researchers, who often find interesting documents in the museum archives.
Lithuanian Museum in Esquel, Patagonia, Argentina
Exhibits of the Lithuanian museums
The exhibits of Lithuanian museums abroad include:
*Collections of Lithuania-related items that were brought by immigrants, collected by immigrants, or sent to them from Lithuania. Often, these represent Lithuanian traditional arts and crafts, Lithuanian coins.
Miniatures of traditional Lithuanian woodcarved crosses and chapel-posts in ALKA, Connecticut, USA
*Major Lithuanian artworks and historically important items that were evacuated or smuggled from Lithuania due to occupation.
*Often patriotic artworks that were created abroad by famous Lithuanian artists after they themselves were forced to flee Lithuania by the Soviet Union (1944).
Tortured Lithuania represented by a girl (ALKA museum, Connecticut, USA)
*Lithuanian traditional artworks and crafts created by Lithuanians who emigrated, their children, or grandchildren.
*Documents and memorabilia related to the Lithuanian organizations and their activities abroad.
*Documents and memorabilia related to the famous Lithuanians who lived abroad.
The original printing press of the largest Lithuanian-Argentine newspaper, as exhibited in the Esquel, Patagonia museum
A good Lithuanian museum introduces a foreigner to Lithuania and the important moments of its history and tenets of its culture. It also tells the story of why Lithuanians migrated to the area and how their lives were different from Lithuanians who remained in Lithuania and from those of local people.
A Lithuanian rally in the 1920s as it appears in a Shenandoah area Lithuanian museum image
Many of the Lithuanian museums abroad, however, lack annotations of their exhibits, and thus it is best if they are visited together with somebody who could tell the story. Some museums are only visited by arrangement and, in this case, a knowledgeable person is usually present to tell the story.
Some of the greatest museums are also located in buildings of ethnically Lithuanian architecture.
Lithuanian Youth Center of Chicago houses several Lithuanian museums. Its facade is adorned with Vytis based on the works of the famous Lithuanian painter M. K. Čiurlionis, while the memorial to those who died for Lithuanian freedom stands in the front
List of major Lithuanian museums abroad
Some of the Lithuanian museums abroad include:
*Lithuanian Museum of Art (Lemont, IL) - the best collection of Lithuanian traditional and some professional art abroad.
Lithuanian wooden folk arts at the Lemont Lithuanian Museum of Art
*ALKA Lithuanian Cultural Archives (Putnam, CT) - an impressive collection of Lithuanian professional art, as well as books.
*Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture (Chicago) - the largest museum on Lithuania abroad.
*Lithuanian Museum of Esquel, Patagonia (Patagonia, Argentina) - representing Lithuanian-Argentine history.
*Museums in Lithuanian Youth Center (Chicago, IL) - items related to Lithuanian fight for freedom.
*Baltimore Lithuanian Hall Museum - items related to Baltimore Lithuanians and Lithuanian artworks.
Chapel-posts that were used in the Washington DC protests against Soviet persecution of Lithuania - now presented in the Baltimore Lithuanian Hall museum
*Shenandoah Lithuanian Museum - in the oldest Lithuanian-American community of such size, with Shenandoah being known as "Vilnius of America".
*Adelaide Lithuanian Museum - the only one in Australia.
*Punsk Skansen - Poland's Lithuanian minority.
Recreated Prussian-Yotvingian settlement near Punsk
Smaller Lithuanian museums or rooms exist in Kansas City, Rockford (IL), Florida, Alaska, Grand Rapids, etc.
Rockford Ethnic heritage museum Lithuanian room
Often, there is no real distinction between a "museum", "archive" or "library", with museums collecting all Lithuania-related items, including those bequeathed by Lithuanians (or gifted by children of Lithuanians), without evaluating their qualities or importance.
Drinking straw ornaments by Anna Karazinas at the Rockford ethnic heritage museum. In Lithuania, such ornaments were made of real straws, however, in the American urban enviroiment, real strawas were often not accessible, and thus drinking straw ornaments became a Lithuanian-American form of art that is represented in Lithuanian-American museums
Museums related to Lithuania
In addition to Lithuanian museums, there are other museums that represent Lithuanian history and culture.
One type of such museums is Museums of immigration in areas where Lithuanians immigrated. While they do not concentrate on Lithuanian immigration in particular, the immigration experience of immigrants to the same area was often similar. E.g. in Ellis Island (US museum of immigration), you would learn how the process of the pre-WW1 immigration to the USA looked like, with registrations at Ellis Island and health checks, and how did the immigrants feel. In the museums of immigration of South America, on the other hand, you'd see the recreated institution of "Immigrant hotel" where they would stay in hostel-like conditions while waiting for job offers.
Beds in the Museum of Immigration in Buenos Aires remind those where immigrants, among them Lithuanians, would have stayed waiting for jobs
In the places where Lithuanians were expelled to such as Kazakhstan there are Gulag museums describing this experience of the Soviet Genocide.
Likewise, in the former Nazi death camps (e.g. in Poland) there are museums that represent what Lithuania's Jews (and in some cases ethnic Lithuanians) suffered when targetted by the Nazis.
Gulag museum in Dolinka, Kazakhstan
Central and Eastern Europe has various museums of Communism, of Cold War, and of World War 2 that typically represent the Lithuanian experience as well.
There are other organizations that were or still are important in the history of Lithuania that have their own museums or buildings with tours available, e.g. the United Nations.
Additionally, Lithuanian history, arts and crafts are represented in some general thematic museums.
Little Lithuanian museum in Chugiak, Alaska
Moreover, some Lithuanians or Lithuanian-born people became famous abroad, or spent parts of their lifes and have museums dedicated to them. E.g. there is Adomas Mickevičius (Adam Mickiewitz) museum in Istanbul, where he died, and there are museums to Litvak painters who lived in Brazil and Uruguay.
'Houses of Vilnius' by Lasar Segal in the Museum of Lasar Segall in Sao Paulo (Lasar Segall was a Vilnius-born Jewish painter)
Article by ©Augustinas Žemaitis.
