The Šiauliai Cultural Center invites you to visit the century of song festivals in a photo exhibition

The traditions of Lithuanian song festivals are 100 years old. Our nation can be proud that this continuity of traditions has been protected by the Law of Song Festivals since 2007, which emphasizes the importance and influence of this unique phenomenon on the vitality of our culture, as well as on the spread of regional culture. However, all beautiful events hide a long historical journey, which is often full of ups and downs.

Šiauliai is a city where the event of song festivals has deep roots. The starting point for the first song festival in the city of Saules was 1933. Since then, the organization of song festivals in Šiauliai has experienced everything, but it has not ceased to exist - it flourished both during the interwar period and during the Soviet occupation. Similar celebrations were organized by students and schoolchildren. In the 1970s and 1980s, student groups from all over Lithuania gathered on the stage of the central park of Šiauliai and prepared for the "Gaudeamus" program of the Baltic high school student festival.

After the restoration of Independence, due to the lack of funding and places for organizing the festival, Song and Dance festivals were organized less and less often in Šiauliai. The last event of this kind organized in the city of Saulė took place 15 years ago. It was a prelude to the Lithuanian Millennium Song Festival "Amži sutartinė", which brought together more than 80 groups from the entire region in Šiauliai and presented an extraordinary spectacle.

In order to understand not only the traditions of the centenary Lithuanian song festival, but also their events in the city of Saulė, this rich history of song festivals will be reflected in a photo exhibition that will be exhibited in the central park of Šiauliai city, where on June 1. 6 p.m. regional song festival "Teka saulelė" will be held.

"In order to be able to travel to the future while creating a new tomorrow for the coming generations, we need to understand the present and get to know the past of the city and the country. Therefore, the 100th anniversary of the Song Festival opens an opportunity to see what was important to our parents and grandparents, what they cherished, what they enjoyed. The tradition of the continuity of today's song festivals is gaining new strength and hope that it will live for many more years, and the young generation will be the beacon of light that saves Lithuania. Guided by such thoughts, we arranged the echoes of memories in the photo exhibition. It's a short journey from the first Song Festival to Šiauliai city's active participation in it," says the director of the Šiauliai Cultural Center, Deimantė Bačiulė.

The organizers are intrigued that the journey to the exhibition will start from the Šiauliai Cultural Center and, like a bridge, will stretch to the central park of the city of Šiauliai, in the heart of which - on the stage - the spirit of song festivals has pulsated for decades. So, symbolically, the exhibition placed under the open sky will take you to the commotion of song festivals that took place a long time ago.

For the extraordinary exhibition, photographs have been carefully selected not only from the Šiauliai Cultural Center and the Šiauliai "Aušra" Museum, but also from the archives of the residents of the city of Saulė. One can only be happy that the people of Šiauliai shared the moments of the song holidays preserved in their family albums. This exhibition once again proves that each of us, contributing at least a small part, can contribute to big, common things, create together, nurture memory and traditions.

The organizers remind that it will be possible to enjoy the moments captured in the photographs, re-remember and experience the spirit of the song holidays until August 18. All information about the regional song festival "Teka saulelė" can be found on the Šiauliai Cultural Center website (www.siauliukc.lt).

The information is provided by Aušra Brijūnienė, head of the Amateur Art Department of the Šiauliai Cultural Center, mobile. +370 655 25 527, e-mail ausra.brijuniene@siauliukc.lt.

Photo by Liubov Yarmoshenko, Rolandas Parafinavičius, Šiauliai Cultural Center and A. Kildušis archive.