Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Colombia

Lithuanian community in Colombia saw its birth ~1948, when Colombia accepted some 550 Lithuanians who fled the Soviet Genocide in their own country. These Lithuanians saw themselves as exiles and thus worked hard to keep the Lithuanian traditions and spirit afloat.

As such, despite the small size of their community, the Lithuanians of Colombia managed to build Lithuanian buildings and memorials. Where the community truly excelled, however, was in its disproportionally massive numbers of great and influential personalities: unique artists, large-scale farmers, and businessmen, as well as a Colombian politician who is arguably the most successful ethnically Lithuanian politician outside Lithuania itself. Some of their names have been (or likely will be) etched in the maps of Colombia.

Colombia also has numerous locations named after Lithuania.

Medellin Lithuanian House and other sites

Colombia‘s only Lithuanian House (Casa Lituana) has been constructed in its second-largest city of Medellin, with the construction beginning in 1957. It consists of a chapel for Lithuanian religious Mass, secular halls, as well as an apartment building to house poor Lithuanians and is located on the corner of Carrera 72A and Calle 32A.

Lithuanian House of Medellin

The chapel is the most impressive site of the Lithuanian House with its stained-glass windows that incorporate Lithuanian patriotic symbols such as Vytis.

Near the entrance of the Lithuanian House, a Lithuanian cross has been built in 2010, commemorating the 1000 years anniversary of the first mentioning of the word „Lithuania“ in the written sources. The cross was donated by Klemas, Kulvietis, and Šernaitis families; moreover, the dedication thanks the community of Medellin region for its hospitality.

Lithuanian cross at the Lithuanian House of Medellin

The celebration of the anniversary of name „Lithuania“ was, however, also the final major Lithuanian event in the building. For several decades, Lithuanians were gradually losing their Lithuanian House. The fact is that while the building was built by Lithuanians, the construction was directed by Lithuanian Salesian priests and, therefore, the building was formally owned by the Salesian Order. While this order had numerous Lithuanian priests, Lithuanian community were the de facto owners of the building, using it at will not only for religious but also for secular circumstances (dance clubs, etc.). However, as the numbers of Lithuanians among the Salesians dwindled, it became more difficult to use the Lithuanian House. Salesians required difficult-to-get permits for secular events, while, as no Lithuanian priests were left, there was no Lithuanian-language mass anymore either. Without their own building to freely access at will, Lithuanian activities in Medellin began to die out.

A glimpse of Vytis stained-glass window inside the Medellin Lithuanian House

Eventually in the 2010s Salesians left the building and rented it out to a government institution that uses the Lithuanian chapel as a warehouse. It is no longer accessible for any events.

That said, if not Lithuanian (especially Salesian) priests, the Lithuanian-Colombian community would likely not exist at all. The first known Lithuanian in Colombia was priest Saldukas who came ~1930. After World War 2, he complemented his missionary work with striving to help all the displaced Lithuanians who were living in the European refugee camps. He thus spread the word that Colombia may be a good place to settle safely and helped Lithuanians to come there. Afterward, Lithuanian priests directed the major Lithuanian construction works which arguably few other people could have done as only the status of a priest offered an „automatic“ position of trust in the Catholic Lithuanian community.

Dedication of the cross at the Medellin Lithuanian House

The small square next to the Medellin Lithuanian House used to be known as Lithuanian Square but this name does not appears in the maps nor is anyhow marked anymore.

Medellin also has an apartment building named Edificio Lituania located at Carrera 77 near Calle 33A. The name „Lituania“ is written near the entrance.

Edificio Lituania apartment building in Medellin

Bogota Lithuanian heritage sites

Bogota has Colombia‘s largest Lithuanian community. Among its members is Antanas Mockus, two times mayor of this 7-million-strong metropolis, as well as many other intellectuals and businessmen. That said, no Lithuanian church, chapel, or club was built there. For some ten years after immigration, a club worked in the Santa Fe area, while Lithuanian priests held a Lithuanian mass in non-Lithuanian chapels. The plans to build a Lithuanian House like in Medellin, however, did not come to fruition, and various Lithuanian institutions on rented locations gradually faded away as the declining (due to emigration to the USA) Lithuanian community rendered them difficult to sustain. E.g. Lithuanian masses used to be held in a non-Lithuanian chapel on Carrera 5 between Calle 19 and 20, but the chapel has since been demolished.

The top Lithuania-related sites of Bogota are thus related to particular famous Lithuanians.

The home of a Lithuanian-Colombian artist Nijolė Šivickas (mother of Antanas Mockus) is kept in a state it was when she died at Carrera 43A-#22A-46. It is full of her sculptures as well as drawings and paintings. It can be visited with a prior arrangement (imockus@hotmail.com). A film „Nijolė“ has been created about Šivickas in 2018.

Works by Nijolė Šivickas. 'Ponia' ('Lady') on the left is part of the exhibits at her home, while 'Confluir' (right) is built in the Chia school (named Los Caobos)

No streets in Bogota are named after Lithuanians as the streets in Bogota are typically numbered. Juozas Zaranka, a Lithuanian philologist and Ancient Greek expert, has a condominium named after him on the initiative of his wife. Some of the other famous Lithuanians were caricature painter Juozas Olinardas Penčyla (buried in Jardines del Recuerdo).

Lithuanians are mostly buried in Jardines del Recuerdo cemetery, and some of the earliest burials took place at the German cemetery (Calle 26). There is no common area where Lithuanians are buried and the graves are spread across cemeteries.

Edificio Juozas Zaranka in Bogota

Villavicencio Lithuanian heritage sites

Interestingly, a small provincial city of Villavicencio (pop. 300 000), the capital of Colombia‘s farming plains (Los Llanos), arguably trumps even Bogota in Lithuanian heritage sites.

While Villavicencio only had several Lithuanian families, these families managed to build a modest Lithuanian chapel, where priest Vaičiūnas, invited by them, used to live and work ~1960s. In 1980, no longer served by a priest, the chapel was sold and is now a residential home, with a family store built in front of it. It is located at 4.184924089249816, -73.6074087879908.

The former Lithuanian chapel of Villavicencio

At ~ 4.2029183, -73.5752209, a 130 ha farming complex is called Granja Lituania („Farm Lithuania“). It was established by the family of Vaclovas (translated into Spanish as Wenceslao) Slotkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who started as a farmworker and moved on to amass a large landhold. The landhold was later spread among his seven children, so the Granja Lituania today has multiple houses and areas with different agricultural activities, ranging from fruit growing to cattle ranching. Multiple Lithuanian symbols exist there. Most are, however, in private area, but the sign "Granja Lituania" is visible at the entrance.

Moreover, Vaclovas Slotkus donated some 5 ha of his land to build a school nearby. Believing in anonymous donations, he did not allow the school to be named after him, although the school‘s library was later named after Wenceslao Slotkus. The Los Portales school is attended by ~250 students, ~20 per grade and is now a rather prestigious school in the area.

School library dedication to Vaclovas Slotkus

The Slotkus family grave area at Jardines de la Esperanza cemetery is marked by a large Lithuanian sun-cross, very unique for that Colombian cemetery where graves are marked solely by small plaques. Among the graves, there is that of Vytas Slotkus, one of Vaclovas‘s sons, who was murdered during the bloody communist (FARC) rebellion in the 1990s.

Slotkus graves at Jardin de Esperanza

Colombian villages named after Lithuania

Colombia leads the world in the number of localities named after Lithuania. The maps show four additional such localities (named „Lituania“ as the country is known in Spanish), one of which, in Valle de Cauca, is a rather large village. The other places seem to be in rather faraway locations, one of them in the Los Llanos area inaccessible by roads.

So far, we have been unable to establish the circumstances of how these localities received their names and when. Lithuanian-Colombians have provided different guesses, among them:

*The places were named after Lithuania due to the work of Lithuanian priests-missionaries, the first of whom arrived in the 1930s. In fact, it was them who invited Lithuanian refugees to Colombia in the late 1940s but beforehand they may have worked in various inaccessible places of Colombia, possibly establishing villages.

*The places were named due to Lithuanian-Colombian post-WW2 farmers who named their own farms „Lituania“ (as in the case of „Granja Lituania“).

*The places were named by „randomly“ assigning a name by e.g. looking at a map of Europe.

It may be that different localities were named „Lituania“ for different reasons.

If you know more about the circumstances of the naming of Colombian localities „Lituania“, please write in the comments.

'Global True Lithuania' authors and Slotkus family at the Granja Lituania sign