Theater
Klaipėda Youth Theatre
Play ''Miškelis'' · Dir. V. Masalskis
About this event
The sketch based on playwright Mindaugas Nastaravičius's "Miškelis" (The Little Forest), which won the 2021 Dalia Tamulevičiūtė Lithuanian Authors Performing Arts Competition, has become a production by the Klaipėda Youth Theatre, bringing together dozens of young-generation actors. Directed by Valentinas Masalskis, the drama tells the story of the June 24, 1941, massacre in Rainiai and the life of one family in its aftermath.
The creation of the play was based on real events, the biographies of real people, interrogation files, and historical research; however, the creators of "Miškelis" call this work not a documentary, but a play of memory and imagination. According to V. Masalskis, it is like a hymn to memory, remembering the victims of Rainiai and attempting to touch upon the themes of 20th-century tragedies with care.
"Although the play is full of facts and events, twists and emotions, there is almost no action in it. The narrator of this story seems to shackle us from the very first sentences and compels us to listen, but we soon realize that this is not just his story. It is a story from all of our memories – from the memories of our grandparents and parents. A story that has not ended and still continues within us. In 'Miškelis', we hear a multitude of voices, and we wander among them until we finally hear that one voice that everyone around is singing about – about a murdered and buried man who returned home," says the play's director.
During the last week of the first Soviet occupation – June 22–28, 1941 – more than 1,000 prisoners and civilians were murdered in Lithuania. As the German army approached, about 3,400 prisoners were deported to Russian prisons and camps, even though a total of 6,000 people were imprisoned in Lithuanian jails at the time. While retreating from Lithuania, Red Army soldiers, together with local collaborators, carried out massacres in the prisons of Kaunas, Panevėžys, and Pravieniškės, as well as in Juodupė, Zarasai, and other locations.
The massacre of political prisoners at the Telšiai prison was marked by particular cruelty. On the night of June 24, 76 political prisoners were taken to the nearby Rainiai forest, where they were murdered and hastily buried. On June 28, with the Germans already in control of Telšiai, the victims were exhumed and examined, revealing that all the prisoners had been brutally tortured. Due to multiple injuries, 46 bodies remained unidentified. Almost all the martyrs of Rainiai were buried in a mass grave in the Telšiai cemetery, while others were taken by their relatives.
Playwright M. Nastaravičius began writing the play "Miškelis" after discovering memories from that time about several prisoners who unexpectedly returned home after the events in Rainiai. Unable to recognize the faces due to multiple injuries, relatives tried to identify the victims by other features – moles, scars, or remnants of clothing. After supposedly identifying them and giving consent to bury the body in a mass grave, relatives would see the person alive at their doorstep some time later.
