Vydūnas Cultural Center in Kintai

Contacts
Address: Kintai, LT-99050, Šilutės rajonas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 441) 47 379.
E-mail: vydunas@delfi.lt
Vydūnas cultural center of Kintai is in the very center of Kintai town, near the Bus Station.

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 10–18, lunch hour 12–13.
In every concrete case the visits can be agreed upon by a telephone call.

Admission:
adults – 4 Lt;
pupils, students, pensioners – 2 Lt.

Guided tours:
adults – 6 Lt;
pupils, students, pensioners – 3 Lt;

Additional services
Every visitor, upon request, will be acquainted with the life and creative work of the enlightened of Lithuania Minor Vydūnas, with the past of Kintai and the littoral, will visit exhibitions in the gallery “Palėpė” (“Loft”), children art school of Kintai, will get acquainted with pupils’ works and their authors.

Collection
The collection of the museum consists of displays telling about the writer and philosopher Vydūnas (1868–1953), his personal things, photographs, memoirs, books, magazines published by him.
The museum also accumulates displays telling about the main stages of history of Kintai, Lithuania Minor and the littoral.

Exposition
Stands of the exhibition reflect different periods of Vydūnas’ life and activity; visitors are acquainted with his creative works. Vydūnas’ books and photographs showing various episodes of his life are displayed.

The Gallery “Palėpė” (“Loft”)
The gallery functions on the upper floor of the building. Art exhibitions, chamber events, meetings with artists are organized, and anniversaries of the most important cultural events are celebrated.
Painter pleinairies are held in summer, during which the painters are involved in creative work, get acquainted with Kintai. At the end of such events a part of works created is left in the center. In this way art collection which is going to merge into the art gallery of Lithuania Minor in Šilutė is enriched.

Art School for Children in Kintai
Art school for children in Kintai functions since 1994. About 50 children living in Kintai and its environs attend it, 2 teacher teach them. This is a school of supplementary training. Children get acquainted with art history, drawing, painting, modeling and other trends of art in a course of four-year studies. After four years every pupil has to present the final work evaluation of which is included in the diploma.
Exhibitions are arranged in the museum, co-operation with other educational institutions of similar type is developed. Pupils of the school take an active part in creative competitions. Traditions of the school: novice christening, discussions on mid-year works, farewell banquet. Excursions and cognitive trips are organized.

Music School for Children in Kintai
The school functions since 1983. Children are taught basics of music and to play piano.

History of the Museum
Vydunas museum was opened in 1994 as a branch of the museum of Silute.
In the beginning of 1998 an independent Vydunas cultural center was established by the municipality of Silute district. It started functioning in the old school of Kintai built in 1705. The philosopher and writer Vydunas worked as a teacher here in 1888-1912.

Vydūnas
Vydūnas – one of the famous Lithuanian Cultural Worker. Vydūnas (pen name of Vilhelmas Storosta).
Vydūnas (1868–1953), philosopher and writer, leading figure in the cultural life of Lithuanians of East Prussia (Lithuania Minor), born in Jonaičiai, county of Šilutė (then under German rule).
He graduated from the Ragainė (Ragnit) teacher’s seminary in 1892 and in 1896 in Konigsberg passed the qualifying examinations for high school principal.
From 1892–1912 he taught English and French at a boys’ gymnasium in Tilžė (Tilsit). During summer vocations he took humanities courses at Universities of Greifswald, Halle, Leipzig and Berlin, at which time he developed a life-long interest in Sanskrit and the religious philosophy an ancient India. From 1917–1919 he taught Lithuanian language and literature in the Oriental department of the University of Berlin and worked on the preparation of a textbook entitled Einfuhrung in die litauische Sprache (1919). Subsequently he returned to teaching from time to time, but spent most of his time writing and working with Lithuanian social and cultural organizations. 
In 1895 he had founded the Lithuanian Singers’ Society at Tilžė and organized its chorus, which he himself directed for over 40 years. He had learned to play piano, violin and harp in his early youth. Every year the chorus gave at least ten concerts throughout Lithuania Minor and occasionally even visited Berlin and towns in Switzerland. Furthermore, Vydūnas supplied amateur theater groups with original plays and published a number of periodicals: Šaltinis (The Source, 1905-1906), Jaunimas (Youth, 1911–1914), Naujovė (Novelty, 1915), and Darbymetis (Season of Toil, 1921–1925), all of which carried his philosophical tracts, stories, and ethnocultural speculations.
As a community leader Vydūnas was only interested in cultural affairs; however, since his activities fostered and strengthened the Lithuanian national spirit he began to be persecuted when the Nazis came to power (1933), Tilžė being under German control. The Lithuanian Singers’ Society and other organizations were shut down in 1935. His volume on German-Lithuanian relations in historical perspective, Sieben Hundert Jahre deutsh-litauischer Beziehungen (1932), was confiscated. He had written two other historical treatises earlier: Litauen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1921).
In 1938 he was arrested, charged with violating the foreign exchange laws, and imprisoned. Released after a few months, he remained under police surveillance. 
In 1944, as Russian air attacks on Tilžė became more frequent; he withdrew to West Germany.
Vydūnas the philosopher was an individualist, deeply preoccupied with moral and religious problems. He fused Oriental, especially Indian, metaphysics with Christian and neo-Platonic medieval mysticism. His outlook is expressed in a number of philosophical-theosophical works: Visatos saranga (The Structure of the Universe, 1907); Slaptinga žmogaus didybė (The Mysterious Greatness of Man, 1907); Mirtis ir kas toliau (Death and Thereafter, 1907); and Žmonijos kelias (The Way of Humanity, 1908).
In his philosophy Vydūnas distinguished two parts of reality: physical or cosmic and spiritual.
Dramas occupy center stage in Vydūnas ’ literary output. The most important of them are Prabočių šešėliai (Shadows of the Ancestors, 1908); Amžina ugnis (The Eternal Fire, 1912); and Pasaulio gaisras (World Conflagration, 1928).
The first play takes place in the 13th–14th centuries, when Prussia and Lithuania were being attacked by the Teutonic Order and subjected to an alien culture. Serfdom in 18th century Lithuania Minor is the subject of the second. The final play deals with the Lithuanian national rebirth.
Amžina ugnis, another trilogy, transposes events from 14th-15th century Lithuanian history (introduction of Christianity, destruction of pagan temples, penetration of foreign cultures) onto a fantastic and symbolic plane. Its message is that the moral and cultural traditions of the forefathers must be preserved because only respect for the past ensures a people’s continued vitality.
In the tragedy Pasaulio gaisras the action takes place during World War I: the main character, a strong-willed, heroic woman personifying the Lithuanian nation dies in her burning home, refusing to leave her native abode. The play conveys the idea that a nation survives on its distinctive culture for which it is worthy to die. 
Vydūnas ’ view of humankind in which all nations merge and rise together towards perfection and divinity is expressed in the mystery Jūros varpai (Bells of the Sea, 1920).
Another group of works consists of short comedies, usually one act in length and based on realistic circumstances. Nearly all of them were staged in Lithuanian Minor under the author’s direction. These comedies ridicule loss of national identity and Germanization.
Vydūnas made his literary works vehicles for the expression of ethical and didactic principles. In his view, a man of letters is called upon to exalt that which is beautiful, true, noble, and good, while condemning that which is ugly, false, ignoble, and evil. He must raise his eyes towards the divine powers and thus open up the ways of humanity to true love, wisdom and self-fulfillment.