Statement of Kamilė Gudmonaitė about “Xata – Zuhause”

I was born in Lithuania, a post-soviet country. While I was growing up, most of what I got to know about Lithuanian identity was our constant fight for independence and sovereignty. Being more than 100 years under Russian Empire and 50 years under Soviet occupation taught us how precious is freedom. My generation is the first independent generation after collapse of Soviet Union and we know the price of transgenerational trauma which is passed by our grandparents and parents: we still carry the weight of being silent, we haven’t learnt how to talk about important issues in families and we need to learn it from the beginning.

When I was a kid, if I was asked if I speak Russian, I proudly answered I don’t, even though I understood. Only now I understand it was a political decision, made by child. From independence Lithuanians have tried to do everything we could to dissociate ourselves from Russia: both intellectually and economically. We knew we cannot trust the political decisions of the neighbour and were always fearful to face any of the history repeating.

When the war has escalated in 2022 February, our historical traumas were put on the surface: I quickly noticed myself that whenever I was meeting a Russian person, I was getting immediate physical body reactions full of anger, frustration, and pain. This was a moment of heavy awareness: I got frightened and interested in my reactions and wanted to address it: how can I look at those parts in me which gives me uncontrollable negative reaction? Can I talk to people who I am afraid of? What do they have to do with my fear at all? What is hidden behind my fear?

I decided for “Xata – Zuhause” to invite both Ukrainian and Russian people from Munich to talk about their experiences and what do they feel towards each other in the context of great, unimaginable, and unjust war. My goal was to investigate abyss which is formed by hundreds of years of oppression and try to face it. Apparently, participating in this project brought me into places I could never imagine I saw the big void which is difficult to be erased and clear realisation that in certain periods in history closure is not possible. Sometimes there is no time for a dialogue, and we cannot make it happen faster. Every healing takes its own time, it doesn’t have a linear process, it rather comes in big uncontrollable waves, and we need to respect the ones in pain.

In this performance Ukrainian and Russian people do not meet on stage, they do not meet in rehearsals and the infrastructure of the theatre is rearranged out of respect to Ukrainian people and their wish to have a strict separation.

After the beginning of war cancelling Russian culture in Lithuania became the most important narrative and probably this performance couldn’t be done in my country. I risk being misunderstood. But here I am myself: trying to understand.