Savukynas, Bronys

Bronys Savukynas, renowned Lithuanian linguist, translator, and editor-in-chief of Kultūros barai since 1991, was born in the village Čyvonys in the Seinai district in 1930 and died in Vilnius in 2008. Savukynas's contribution to Lithuanian intellectual culture was considerable. Already a well-known academic, he joined the staff of Kultūros barai in 1968 and worked hard to make it the most open and critical journal possible during those difficult years. After the "singing revolution" in 1990, he re-created the journal, turning it into a publication of European intellectual format.
An author of numerous academic articles, an editor of eight collections of essays on language and semiotics, and author and co-author of several influential scholarly dictionaries and important translator of Johannes Bobrowski e.g., Bronys Savukynas was an active and prominent public figure in Lithuanian intellectual life right through to the last days of his life.

In 2007 he was awarded the Culture and Arts Prize by the Lithuanian Government.

Druktenis, Adomas

Born in Raseiniai in 1931, died in Vilnius in 2019. From 1953-1958 he studied German language and literature at Vilnius State University. He published his first translation in 1959.

After having been appointed to the Fiction Publishing House (later renamed "Vaga"), he worked as an editor until the end of 1977, editing 70 books of translated literature, the majority of them being translations from German. 1977-1981 he switched to “Science” Publishing House.

In 1992 he was retired after working at the Dictionary Section. Since then he has been working as a free lance translator, esp. for children's and juvenile literature. In 2008 he was awarded the IBBY Lithuanian Section Prize for the most artistic translation.

Patackas, Algirdas

Algirdas Patackas (born 1943, died in Kaunas in 2015) was a dissident, underground publisher and a political prisoner during the Soviet period. He subsequently became an activist in the Sąjūdis Movement, a signatory to the Act of Independence and a member of parliament. He now works as a journalist and writes articles about Baltic and Lithuanian culture as well as prose and poetry. He has published a study of  Baltic calendrical celebrations titled “Virsmų knyga” (Book of Transmutations, 2002), the collections of journalism “Pastogės Lietuva“ (Lithuania of Lofts, 2011) and  “Kas ir kada pagrobė Europą”  (Who Kidnapped Europe and When, 2011), and the collection of  poetry “Aisa” (2011). He has been awarded the Gabriele Petkevicaite-Bite medal for journalism.


Sruoga, Balys

Balys Sruoga (Feb. 2, 1896 - Oct. 16, 1947), born in the Biržai region of Lithuania, was a Lithuanian poet, dramatist, critic, theoretician in literature and drama, as well as professor at the University of Vilnius. Completing school in Panevėžys, Lithuania, he began his higher education in Leningrad, continued in Moscow and finished in Munich with a doctorate degree in Slavic studies, minoring in art history and dramaturgy. On March 16, 1943, Sruoga was arrested by the Germans and together with 47 other Lithuanian intellectuals held hostage in connection with the refusal of Lithuania's youth to join the German Army upon the Nazis' announcement of mobilization in an occupied nation. The hostages were sent to Stutthof Concentration Camp near Danzig. With his health ruined, Sruoga returned to Lithuania where he died in 1947. Till the end, he refused to cooperate with the Bolshevik demands to write propaganda for them. His wife, an historian, and his daughter, fleeing from Soviet occupation, had gone west as had thousands of other Lithuanian scholars, artists and writers. The cruelties of Soviet occupation, the trains with Lithuanians exiled to Siberia had forced Sruoga to send them a warning: "Don't return home." He never saw them again.

Mikučionis, Ugnius

Ugnius Mikučionis was born in Kaunas (Lithuania) in 1977, where he lived until August 2013. His studies in Scandinavian Philology at Vilnius University and partly at the University of Oslo ended with a master degree in 2001. From autumn 2001 to summer 2013 he worked as a lecturer of Norwegian language at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas and as a lecturer of linguistics and Old Norse language and literature at Vilnius University. In 2008, Mikučionis was assigned the “European Language Label” as the language teacher of the year. In 2012 he defended a thesis on modality and the Norwegian modal verbs, and received a doctor degree in humanities (philology).
Ugnius Mikučionis is a member of the Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators, Language Teachers' Association of Lithuania and Norwegian Cognitive Linguistics Association (NORKOG). His work as a literary translator includes translations both from Old Norse and from Modern Norwegian. Currently Ugnius Mikučionis lives in Oslo, Norway, where he works as a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo. His current research work is concerned with Old Norse literature. 

Gerulaitienė, Vilija

Born in Vilnius in 1958. German Studies at Vilnius University 1976 - 1981.

Lecturer at the Course for Foreign Languages 1981 - 1986.

From 1986 - 1993 editor at the Encyclopedia Publishing House.

Since 1993 employed at the Lithuanian Historical Institute. 

She published her first translation in 1993, translated among others Patrick Süskind, Ingo Schulze and Martin Suter and edited Matthäus Prätorius and Theodor Lepner in bilingual editions.