At the end of last year, an updated part of the exposition “From the Ages to Us” was opened to visitors – “Education in Lithuania and the Diaspora in 1940–1990”. It presents the influence of the Soviet era and the periods of Nazi occupation on education and the development of society. At the heart of this project are educational systems, which have become a tool for ideological manipulations by totalitarian regimes in order to shape the thinking of society. Today, under the rubric of “Interesting Exhibit”, we present an illustration by Domicelė Tarabildienė dedicated to Žemaitė’s short story “Lekcija” from the collection of works “Tears of the Motherwort”. In Soviet times, political changes had a clear impact on culture. The works of the classics were adapted to the ideology – the corresponding prefaces, introductions were written to them, and the reviews gave purposeful insights. Carefully selected literature was supposed to spread a certain ideological message. The anti-clerical short stories of žemaitė’s period of 1907–1921 were especially suitable for forming the atheistic worldview of the “new Soviet man”.
One of such works is the short story “Lekcija”, which was illustrated in 1950 by the famous interwar artist Domicelė Tarabildienė. The short story tells the story of a priest who, when he came to school to “read the lectures”, not only preached to the children, but also brought them up with physical punishments – blows “lineika” through the palm of his hand in the classroom or “nagaika” through the crotch in the camaraderie. Illustration from the collections of the Lithuanian Museum of Education. The museum value is exhibited in the renewed part of the exposition “Education in Lithuania and the Diaspora 1940-1990”.
Illustration from the collections of the Lithuanian Museum of Education.The museum value is exhibited in the renewed part of the exposition "Education in Lithuania and the Diaspora 1940-1990".
