Concern for the state of cultural life in the Lithuanian diaspora: the 1958 “Manifesto of Decline”

Abstract

This article examines a public collective statement that sparked extensive debate within the Lithuanian diaspora in the late 1950s and became better known as the “Manifesto of Decline” or the “Manifesto of Sixty.” Concerned about the steadily deteriorating state of cultural life in exile, sixty prominent Lithuanian émigré artists, writers, and scholars addressed the diaspora community in June 1958 through an open declaration bearing the slogan “Let us Resist Cultural Decline.” The signatories expressed concern about the lowering of cultural standards and the decline of the émigré press. They spoke out against the growing prevalence of amateurism in cultural life, the disappearance of professional analytical criticism, and the bias flourishing in the public sphere through the promotion of one’s own associates and artists, writers, and politicians belonging to the same ideological camp. They also criticized incompetence and the tendency to cater to popular taste. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the Lithuanian diaspora, representatives of different generations, ideologies, and professions united around a public cultural declaration. Among the signatories were 17 painters and sculptors, 15 writers and poets, 12 educators and scholars, 5 musicians, 2 architects, 1 priest, 1 physician, 1 actor, and members of the editorial staffs of various newspapers. This “Manifesto of Decline” touched a sensitive nerve in the cultural life of the Lithuanian diaspora and provoked a vigorous public response, the reverberations of which continued to be felt even several decades later.