The Hill of Crosses

The Hill of Crosses, Kryzių Kalnas, located seven miles north of the small industrial city of Siauliai is the Lithuanian national pilgrimage center. The small hill has thousands of crosses, and they represent both Christian devotion and a memorial to Lithuanian national identity.

Siauliai was occupied by Teutonic forces during the 14th century, and the tradition of placing crosses dates from this period, probably starting as a symbol of Lithuanian defiance of foreign invaders. Since the medieval period, the Hill of Crosses has represented the peaceful resistance of Lithuanian Catholicism to oppression. In 1795 Siauliai became part of Russia but was returned to Lithuania in 1918.


The city was captured by Germany in World War II, and suffered heavy damage when it was retaken by Soviet forces. From 1944 until Lithuania's independence in 1991, Siauliai was a part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR, and during this time the Hill of Crosses became an expression of Lithuanian nationalism, despite the Soviets repeatedly removing Christian crosses placed on the hill.

Three times between 1961 and 1975 the hill was levelled and the crosses destroyed. But each time local residents and pilgrims from all over Lithuania replaced them. The arrival of glasnost meant that after 1985 the Hill of Crosses was no longer desecrated, and it has now become both a celebration of Lithuanian nationalism and international pilgrimage.

For more information and photos visit Sacredsites.com (on which the text above is based) and Englishrussia.com (whose photos are used above with thanks), and watch this YouTube video of the Hill of Crosses while ignoring the cheesey opening music.


Now visit another green hill far away.
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The view from Lubyanka Square, Moscow

‘Meanwhile, in the Lubyanka of Farringdon Road ….’ screams fellow blogger Jessica Duchen as she throws a tantrum about a Guardian article that questions the mono-culture of classical music. (For those of you over the water the editorial offices of the Guardian are in Farringdon Road, London).

Now, we all have our own views on the different media. For me the Independent, which Jessica contributes to, regularly appears ridiculous with sensational headlines about global warming juxtaposed with salivating reviews of gas-guzzling super-cars. While, over at the Guardian, the acres of public sector-speak are not always to my taste. And back with blogs I am sure On An Overgrown Path is not everyone’s cup of tea. Just as for me Jessica’s is one of several blogs currently in the ‘if I read another word about the new book or the cat I will scream’ category.

But, although I may have reservations about the views of the Independent, Guardian and Jessica, I will fight tooth and nail to allow them to express those views. I'm all in favour of colourful headlines, but let's understand what that Lubyanka simile actually means.

The Lubyanka is the popular name for the former headquarters of the KGB and the adjacent prison in Lubyanka Square, Moscow, seen in my header photo. The prison in the ground floor of the building is immortalised in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s study of the Soviet police state, The Gulag Archipelago. It was in this prison that Raoul Wallenberg, Father Walter Ciszek, and many others were interrogated and tortured as they were denied that fundamental human right - their freedom of expression.

Now read Shostakovich’s persecutor finally speaking out.
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Classical music can help change the world

A reader posted a very interesing comment on my recent article Music can change the world - Indeed, Harry Belafonte, and other pop music icons, have made a difference, and continue to, but what comparable influence have classical musicians had in the last 50 years? ... the last 100 years? - Bodie Pfost.

Now that is a good point. There have been many examples of classical musicians (and composers are excluded from this discussion) making media friendly gestures in support of human rights, but very few examples of musicians actually prepared to lose their freedom, and audience, in pursuit of what they believe in. But among the exceptions is Paul Robeson (pictured here), and his activism is particularly relevant with the controversy over the execution of Saddam Hussein still reverberating around the world, as Robeson founded the American Crusade Against Lynching.

Robeson is best known as an actor and singer, and for his powerful bass-baritone voice which reached down to C below the bass clef. He was acclaimed for his playing of Othello in Shakespeare's play, and his celebrated concert performances helped achieve a wide audience for Negro spirituals.

He was also a political activist. He campaigned for the rights of Asian and Black Americans, and as part of this founded the American Crusade Against Lynching. In 1948, Robeson was active in the presidential campaign to elect Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, and went on the campaign trail among ethnic minorities in the southern states. His political vews resulted in NBC cancelling his scheduled appearance on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s television program, Today with Mrs. Roosevelt, in 1950.

In 1950, after he refused to sign an affidavit that he was not a Communist, the U.S. government took away Robeson's passport. When Robeson and his lawyers asked officials at the U.S. State Department why it was "detrimental to the interests of the United States Government" for him to travel abroad, they were told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries". The travel ban ended in 1958 when a U.S. Supreme Court test case ruled that the Secretary of State had no right to deny a passport, or require any citizen to sign an affidavit, because of his or her political beliefs

As I described in a recent article Robeson was president of the English Pete Seeger Committee, of which Benjamin Britten was also a member. This committee sponsored Seeger's visit to the UK in 1961 while the singer was awaiting sentencing for contempt of Congress. The photograph here shows Seeger testifying to the House on Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. Robeson's support for the Soviet Union was controversial. He took part in pro-Soviet rallies to combat fascism and anti-semitism in the early 1940s, sung in the USSR in 1949, and was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952, and continued his support for the USSR after clear evidence of the Soviet regimes anti-semitism emerged.

Robeson, who died in 1976, was a fearless and committed campaigner for human rights. Even if some of his later activism was naive and misguided, he can truly be said to be a classical musican who showed that music can help change the world.

Now for more on classical music and ethnic diversity read BBC Proms - a multicultural society?
Pete Seeger photo credit New York Post Corp. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Soviet blacklist fatigue sets in

BBC Radio 3 is currently running a commercial radio style promotional trailer for their Sofia Gubaidulina festival next weekend, and this trailer uses Soviet blacklisting as a positive feature of Gubaidulina's music. Now I am a huge fan of Sofia Gubaidulina, and have already praised the festival here. But using Soviet blacklisting as an endorsement is a dangerous path to go down. Among the other contemporary musicians who could claim this particular endorsement are Village People (above), Donna Summer and Julio Iglesias. And does the fact that the Soviet state concert agency Goskoncert actively promoted Shostakovich's music from 1955 reduce his claim to be a great composer?

Now read about The frustration of the classical music industry
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk