The 100th anniversary of the birth of Gargždiški poet Antanas Surblis: what do we know about the talented native?

Poet, prose writer, playwright, translator Antanas Surblys, born in Gargždai 100 years ago, did not receive proper appreciation for his work while he was alive. During the Soviet era, few dared to publish the poems of Gargždšić, who was accused of anti-Soviet activities and suffered the suffering of the Magadan camps, and he was named a poet only 19 years after his death, in 1999. After the publication of the book of poetry “Laukas nesalaukus” in independent Lithuania.
Daughters keep memories
“He remained like this in my memory: armored from above with heavy, large, iron armor. Strong, unbreakable, firm, having his own opinion everywhere and always. Determined, tense, but grumpy, angry, scowling, never smiling, daydreaming, staring straight ahead, far, far ahead. And inside – so good, sensitive, gentle, honest, fair. A completely different person”, – this is how her daughter Aida Vyšniauskienė still remembers her father A. Surblis.
A quiet, thoughtful, solitary father, according to another daughter, Eglė Surblytė-Galminienė, was a great lover of nature, and contact with nature was the source and inspiration of his creativity. In the memories of the daughters – being with their father in nature, because he was very fond of mushroom picking and fishing, he cooked delicious fish himself, and stored several buckets of mushrooms for the winter. Dad taught Aida and Eglė not only to pick mushrooms and fish, but also to play checkers and chess, and revealed the mysterious world of books and theater. A visit to the old town of Klaipėda with her father’s friend, the actor Aleksandras Žadeikis, left an unforgettable impression on Egle, because then she saw a piano for the first time and was able to play it while her father was talking with a friend. And A. Surblys had a lot to talk about, after all, he constantly wrote poems, prose, dramas…
According to Aida Surbli’s daughter, people called their family strange because at least once a month they all went to the theater or to a concert together in the evenings. “Both parents were indifferent to poetry: father wrote, mother read. That’s how we grew up in such a cultural atmosphere, often in the evenings we read new poems written by my father, I didn’t understand others, as a child, they were too difficult for me”, says A. Vyšniauskienė.
The camps are kept secret
A. Surblys, the eldest son of poor parents from a small land, was inclined to books, not to earthwork, from his childhood. His desire to learn was so strong that his parents decided to send their son, who graduated from primary school in Gargždais, to Kretinga gymnasium. Realizing that his parents were making sacrifices and wanting to ease their burden, Antanas took up private lessons.
His biggest dream was to write a book, publish it, and repay his parents, brothers and sister for the money he received. Although A. Surblys was already creating, his dream was not destined to come true. in 1924 born Antanas was not destined for the romantic path of a poet, but trials both far from his beloved homeland and later in Lithuania. Convicted of anti-Soviet activities, A. Surblys was imprisoned in Magadan camps for ten years. in 1956 after returning from Siberia, he stayed in New Vilnius, but when it was annexed to Vilnius, he had to leave there and could not even come to Vilnius without permission. The persecution of the KGB did not allow him to live peacefully or to create.
From Vilnius, A. Surblys returned to his parents in Saulažolii, near Gargždai. He worked as a film mechanic, later at a building materials plant. in 1964 was the director of the Melnragė Culture House. After settling down with his family in Priekulė, he got a job at a cobblestone factory, then at the Gargžda cooperative, the Gargžda reclamation construction board.
Creativity is in the drawer
In Gargždais, A. Surblis was friends with writers of bright memory Jonas Lankutis (a childhood friend who lived in the neighborhood), Vytautas Rimavičius and Jonas Kudžmas.
A. Surblius avoided the topic when asked by his daughters about the years he suffered in the Magadan camps, but he talked about it with J. Kudzma, who spent 10 years in prison in the Arkhangelsk region and Komia camps. “Baba, my father’s mother, told me about my father’s experiences in the Siberian camps, but she did not learn from my father’s stories, but from another person with whom my father was in prison. According to this person’s stories and opinion, the father could not return to Lithuania alive”, recalls daughter Eglė.
Both Eglė and Aida still remember their father’s request not to ask questions, and if their daughters heard anything about the hardships in Siberia, to keep quiet and not tell anyone. And the years in the coal and gold mines brought up the hatred of Gargždish for the precious metal, so A. Surblys did not even give his wife Biruta a gold ring on the occasion of their wedding. According to the daughters, they used to say that gold is not worth its luster or price.
A. Surblis was not troubled by creative suffering, but by the fact that no one published his work after returning from Siberia. “He didn’t scream, he didn’t shout, he walked around the room with clenched fists for hours. He read a lot, there were no books in the library that he hadn’t read, and he wrote a lot. He didn’t sleep at night, the car howled all night. The written works were beautifully bound in a book and thus one by one they were loaded into the drawers”, – daughter Aida shares her memories of her father. Although touching the typewriter or dad’s manuscripts was forbidden, childish curiosity won out…
One other work by A. Surblis, however, reached readers or viewers even in the Soviet era. Since the native of Gargždi was in contact with the director Juoz Miltini, he had to stage A. Surblis’s plays.
There were more people who supported A. Surblis who wrote continuously, among them J. Lankutis, Vytautas Bačys, who helped to “push” his work, who worked at a radio station in Vilnius, one poem or a miniature appeared in the newspapers and magazines of the time “Pergalė”, “Jaunimo gretos”, “Soviet Woman”, “Literature and Art”, “Gintaro Lašai” supplement of “Soviet Klaipėda”, regional newspaper “Bangas”. The short story “The Horse” was published in “Tiesa”, but many editors wrote to the author that they could not print it at the moment.

After the death – “Laukus laukaus”
The first and only book by A. Surblis published during his lifetime, “Windmill”, for children, appeared in 1965. Daughter Aida remembers that after this book, dad dreamed of publishing “The Tale of Flowers” and had already bound it and sent it by mail to the publisher. However, the book in which he composed poems only about flowers was never published. Of the manuscripts of the poems, only one other remains, and among them there is no one that Aida particularly remembers about the narcissus.
“Once I was angry with my father that he writes, that no one wants to print his writings and no one needs them. That’s why we lacked money, we lived hard. A lot of money was spent on paper, lime, ribbons, typewriter, papyrus and other things. Now I regret saying that to him, now I support him, he was a real talent, a real poet,” he admits in 1980. Aida, daughter of the deceased A. Surblis.
After the formation of the Lithuanian Persitvarkys Sąjūdis, many well-known people from Vilnius University, the Writers’ Union, etc. began to visit Surbliai’s house. and everyone was interested in the creative legacy of A. Surblis. The family received the news that his writings were in the archives, but what is their further fate? It is true that the poems were published in the anthology “Tremtinio Lietuva” (1990), in the collection of poems by political prisoners of Kolyma “Words of Amžino ķasalo” (2005), and in the almanac of literary works of Klaipėda district “Iš minčių ir akimirkų” (2009).
In 1999, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of A. Surblis’s birth, a collection of his poems “Laukas nesalakus” was published in a small edition at the initiative of Gargždai precinct and “Banga” editorial office, with the help of a group of supporters. It opens with the poem “Testament”, whose one-line words became the book’s modest thin-cover title.
“The former Banga journalist Jadvyga Surplienė, who put a lot of heart into preparing this book, asked her Lithuanian sister Irena Arlauskienė to select poems and write an annotation. “Let’s finally call the writer a poet”, – 1999 in the published book of Gargždiški’s poems “Laukus nesalakus” was written by its author”, said Vilija Butkuvienė, editor of “Banga”, during the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of A. Surblis in the Jonas Lankutis public library of Klaipėda district municipality, who once, as a schoolgirl, visited the parents of her classmate Eglė Surblytė at home. Coming to that house, the feeling that you are in the house of a special person, he says, remained throughout his life.

ECHOES
You haven’t said a word yet
Things are still not separated.
You still have the whole road ahead of you,
Which you can’t guess… And me
I’ve traveled half the world
I have seen hell without dying.
I know where people get their strength from
And how many of them do we need. However,
Although my seniority is long,
I am powerless to hand it over to you,
How small are these hands of yours
To earn bread… But I see
You look for the sun with your eyes
Still in the cradle… And with us!
1957

***

FOR THE FIR
You are a drop of my blood
Poppy seed.
Soft, delicate bud,
To which I – a tree broken by the winds –
I packed all my hopes and expectations…
I have not found anything more expensive,
I’ve never seen anything better
what on earth is
What I have is yours.
1962

Laima ŠVEISTRYTĖ
Photo of the author and personal archive.