The crowd at Lithuanian Days 2021, including reenactor Casey Zachowski. PHOTOS BY LINDSEY SHUEY
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on August 16, 2021.
Wes Cipolla
BARNESVILLE - The year was 1992. The Men’s Basketball Team of Lithuania, a country still in its infancy after gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, qualified for the Olympics in Barcelona. Lithuania had the talent, but not the money. Over 5,000 miles away, an unlikely group of basketball fans would read a newspaper article about Lithuania’s plight, and become national heroes. The Grateful Dead funded the Lithuanian Team’s Olympic journey - with a dash of Deadhead symbolism. The Lithuanians, wearing tie-dye shirts with skeletons on them, won the Bronze medal and became known as “The Other Dream Team.”
The 1992 Lithuanian Men's Basketball Team in Grateful Dead uniforms. PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS HISTORY WEEKLY
On Sunday, at the Lithuanian Days festival in Barnesville’s Lakewood Park Campground, it seemed like everyone was wearing those tye-dye shirts. Everything has come full circle. The sport introduced to Lithuania by the Americanized descendents of those who fled it is now wildly popular there - and Lithuanian-Americans, who Schuylkill County has a higher concentration of than anywhere else in the country, are celebrating the achievements of their homeland.
Lithuanian Days, featuring the food, crafts and culture of the nation sandwiched between Latvia, Poland, Russia, Belarus and the Baltic Sea in northeast Europe, is the longest-running ethnic festival in American history. In 1914, when it was first celebrated, Lithuania was not even an independent country, but territory of the Russian empire.
“That history of Lithuania, of strength, of tenacity, of resistance to oppression, paid off,” said Paul Domalakes, Treasurer of the Knights of Lithuania Council 144 as accordion music filled the Catalpa Grove Ballroom. “Last year, even COVID did not stop us, and so we are here after 108 years.”
Paul Domalakes
“This is the best and healthiest food you can eat,” Domalakes told the crowd, gesturing to the Lithuanian buffet. “There are no calories - no excess calories. It makes you sing and dance. Therefore you should buy as much as you can.” The crowd roared with laughter.
Lithuanians came to Schuylkill County in droves in the 1870s to escape the iron fist of the Czar. The hills reminded them of their homeland, and coal mining was perfect work for unskilled laborers who did not know English.
“They came like so many European immigrants to get away from the constant warfare, and the oppression of the Russian government that tried to Russify them,” Domalakes said. He looked at his sheet music and lyrics of patriotic Lithuanian songs. They spoke of pride, the light of Lithuania’s sun and the hope that the country’s sons and daughters may live in freedom.
Outside, it was clear that the Lithuanians were part of the fabric of the Anthracite Region. The Mahanoy Area Historical Society played cassette tapes of the Mahanoy Lithuanian Orchestra. Records of Lithuanian traditional music were for sale, along with “Polka Bonanza!” starring Bobby Stavins and his orchestra. The women at Lithuanian Days wore ornate necklaces of amber, the country’s national stone. Lithuanians have traded the amber of the Baltic Sea since the days of the Roman empire. Men and women in Lithuania are named Amber. There is a legend in Lithuania that tells of a forbidden romance between a fisherman and a mermaid. When the mermaid’s jealous father learned of their love, he destroyed her castle in a rage, causing its amber remains to tumble to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Christine Luschas carved the famed margučiai Easter eggs. She decorated them with exquisite patterns of flowers (Lithuania’s pride and joy) crosses (the kind that are common on the side of the road) and bees (who made the honey that became Krupnik, which became boilo when it was brought to the Coal Region).
“What became, I think, to the good,” Domalakes said, “is that the different ethnic traditions began to be blended and preserved.”
So why are Lithuanians so good at basketball? It depends on who you ask.
“They just have a natural ability and they love the sport,” said Gail Domalakes of Frackville, eating bundookies (Lithuanian meatballs) and watching her friend Cindy Dimsmore spin wool on a Lithuanian wheel. Dimsmore has no Lithuanian heritage, but, as she says, “Spinning wool is spinning wool.”
Cindy Dimsmore spins wool.
“I guess it’s just in our veins,” said Laurynas Misevičius, who grew up playing basketball in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city. “It’s the sport number one. We have a small country, we cannot be the best in everything, so that was one of the sports we did well.”
Misevičius was born in 1971, when Lithuania was under Soviet control. That same year, a man set himself on fire in front of Misevičius’ apartment building, in protest of the Soviet regime. Kaunas was the center of the Lithuanian independence movement. In Misevičius’ parents’ generation, even the suspicion of opposing the government would send you to Siberia. In the 1980s, he watched along with the rest of his country as Lithuanian basketball players beat athletes from Moscow three years in a row. The victories galvanized the people against the Communists.
“That was how this whole movement for Lithuanian independence started,” he said. “By defeating the Soviets on the basketball court.”
In 1994, Misevičius came to America to play basketball. He was amazed by the limousines in front of JFK Airport, the yellow taxi cabs of New York and the existence of a city with more people than his entire country.
“Everybody rushing like ants,” he said. “It was only something I’d seen in the movies.”
Misevičius now lives in Portland, Ore. A daddy longlegs crawled over the Lithuanian-English dictionaries, DVDs of Lithuanian historical dramas and a medal commemorating the 25th anniversary of the national fishing festival.
“Those are things near and dear to our Lithuanian hearts,” Misevičius said. “I think when you’re in a different country, you become more patriotic of your former culture. You hold onto your traditions more, because you realize that you have lost something, thousands of miles away.”
The spider eventually reached a sticker of a mudflap girl in the colors of the Lithuanian flag and CDs by the Lithuanian-American band Steel Wolf, including “Midnight Train to Siauliai” and “The Spotlight Tapes,” featuring the single “Kur Tas Kugelis?” (“Where is that potato pancake?”) Siauliai is famed for its Hill of Crosses. Every night, Soviet officials would remove crosses from the hill, only to have more crosses waiting for them the next night. The crosses became symbols of Lithuania’s resolve in the face of Soviet oppression.
“And if you like ice cream,” said Michael Konsavage, who came all the way from Germany to attend Lithuanian Days for the first time in 30 years, “theirs is the best in the world.”
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