It flew like a shooting star: glimpses from the 1965 visit of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

Study is an attempt to understand what Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoirs visit to Lithuania in the summer of 1965 meant to the Lithuanian intellectuals. Relying on the media coverage of the event as well as the memoirs that came out later, the study aims to recreate the details of that visit. The author of the study also discusses how this visit was reflected in literature and art. Since this material is available only in Lithuanian, longer quotes from Sartre and Beauvoir’ interviews, published in local press and reflected Lithuanian memoirs, are provided in the summary. A passage about the trip to Lithuania in the Beauvoir s book Tout comptefait (1972, English translation: All Said and Done, 1974) to some extent reveals what the guests thought of their trip to Lithuania. This visit, being of no major relevance (if at all) to Beauvoir and Sartre, was significant to the Lithuanian society: the country, occupied by the USSR in 1940 and closed to foreigners, was visited by the worldwide famous intellectuals. Lithuanian artists, mainly writers, who took part in hosting the two guests, interpreted this visit as a sign that the Lithuanian culture is unique and interesting and that despite the isolation from the West they are capable to take part in the European level intellectual discourse. Almost half a century later, the author of the study interviewed still living witnesses of this visit who were able to add scarce but significant details to their previously published recollections. Although the study author has tried to collect as many testimonies of the visit as possible, the main goal is not to “restore the truth” (“truthful story”) but rather to discover reflections of the visit in the press, photography, memoirs. [...