2 Pilies Street
Photographer – Tomas Kapočius
2 Pilies Street. 2018
Lithuanian Art Museum
The first building was erected at this site in the late 14th century, when, with the introduction of Christianity, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila granted the exclusive right to some of the houses along Pilies Street to the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter. In the middle of the 18th century, in place of the fire-damaged old building, the prelate Antoni Józef Żółkowski rebuilt the house that ended up being named after St Anthony. The last reconstruction of this building was in the late 19th century.
In 1922–1939, the building housed the editorial offices of the Słowo (The Word) periodical. In 1931–1934, the literary supplement Żagary was released here, compiled by the Polish avant-garde literary group of the same name whose work were also published there. One of its most active members was the future Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz, who in 1933 released his first book of poetry called Poemat o czasie zastygłym (A Poem on Frozen Time). During the years of Nazi occupation, the building served as the offices of the Naujoji Lietuva (New Lithuania) newspaper, whose editor and frequent contributor Rapolas Mackonis and writer Balys Sruoga, along with other members of the Lithuanian intelligentsia, were imprisoned by the Nazis at the Stutthof concentration camp in 1943–1945.
Individuals
CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ (1911–2004)
A writer and diplomat, Nobel Prize Winner (1980). He studied law at Vilnius University in 1929–1934, and had published poems in the press from 1930. He belonged to the Vilnius avant-garde writers group Żagary, which in 1931–1934 released a monthly by the same title – a literary insert to the Słowo (The Word) newspaper that had its editorial office at 2 Pilies St. In 1940 Miłosz fled USSR-occupied Lithuania for Warsaw, after the war he was a diplomat of the People’s Republic of Poland in the United States and France. In 1951 he broke all ties with the communist regime and lived in France, and from 1960, in the United States. Whilst abroad, he maintained contact with Lithuania and cooperated in publishing. He often visited Lithuania after it had reinstated its independence and Poland, in 1993 he settled in Krakow. He wrote poetry works, novels and philosophical works. Lithuanian and Vilnius motifs are common in his poetry.