Keeping Lithuania Upright.
An Interview with Karolis Kaupinison Culture and Morality
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Karolis Kaupinis. Photo: J. Stacevicius / LRT
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Karolis Kaupinis is one of those Lithuanian creators whose work brings together historical reflection and the moral questions of the present. From the documentary “Waiting for Freedom, or Smile for Us, Berlin” and “Mission Siberia’11”, to the short films “The Noisemaker” and “Watchkeeping”, from the television program “Pasaulio panorama” and the three-part audio documentary “Foreign Sounds on Air”, to the feature films “Nova Lituania” and “The Hunger Strike House”—his creative path consistently explores the intersection of politics, memory, and human responsibility.
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His stage work follows the same trajectory: “Radvila Darius Vytauto”, “Song Festival”, and the documentary play “Lithuanian Death Notices: The Story of One Performance”, which will premiere on the main stage of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in 2026, all examine how collective memory is formed, preserved, and sometimes forgotten.
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In recent months, Kaupinis’s name has also appeared in the wider discussions around cultural policy. As Lithuania’s cultural community gathered to form the Cultural Assembly—an initiative opposing the decision to hand the Ministry of Culture to the political party Nemuno aušra (*)—Kaupinis emerged as one of the movement’s clearest voices. For him, culture is not a privilege or ornament, but a foundation of democratic life, a space where a society’s conscience and historical awareness are shaped. That is why the question of who steers cultural policy, and by what values, has become not merely political but existential.
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This conversation is about creative responsibility and civic courage—about what it means to defend culture when it becomes a battleground for political interests.
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(*) – The party Nemuno aušra has demonstrated populist, antisemitic, and pro-russian rhetoric in its activities. In its programmatic documents, it has devoted little attention to culture and has never shown either the competence or the commitment to uphold the autonomy of Lithuanian culture, its diversity, and democratic values.
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J.P.: Today’s political situation is often described as hopeless: culture is being marginalized, dialogue with the government is stalling, and the voices of creators are increasingly being silenced. How would you describe this moment yourself—is it a temporary downturn, or a symptom of a deeper crisis of democracy?
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K.K.: In answering, I am speaking first and foremost about Lithuania. It is the society I know best.
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The voice of creators here is not being silenced. Not yet. In Lithuania, art—or culture in the broader sense (for example, museum work)—is not yet facing attempts by politicians to control it ideologically. We are not yet Hungary or Slovakia, countries that have moved much further in that direction. But the dialogue with the authorities, as you say, is, to put it mildly, stalling precisely because the government does not conduct such dialogue and does not want to. The Lithuanian Social Democratic Party operates like the Lithuanian Communist Party did in the mid-1980s—its structure is nomenklatura-like, its intellectual capacity is tragically low, its understanding of the world limited to the material level, its ambitions entirely self-serving and not oriented toward the common good, and it no longer possesses a left-wing ideology nor implements any coherent program; it moves inertly.
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A similar situation is unfolding with left-wing parties across the Western world. Instead of defending the working class, they engage in culture wars and identity issues. The radical right exploits this. It takes over the left’s electorate, even though it seeks a fascistic dismantling of state institutions, the elimination of consensus in political life, often relies on a single leader and cult-like loyalty to them, and encourages judging society not by what a person does but by which collective group they belong to—enemy or ally (after dividing society sharply and persistently into those two camps).
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Whether this is temporary depends on us. If we want it to be temporary—if we resist, refuse to accept it, and work to change the situation—then it will be. It will be a passing eclipse. If not, democracy will not survive.
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Cultural community protest. Photo: Žygimantas Gedvila (ELTA)
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J.P.: When the political authorities show blindness toward culture and the system sinks into cynicism, we see that the Lithuanian cultural community is more united than ever. You yourself have stepped to the front line and become one of its key voices. I have no doubt that this requires exceptional courage. What drives you forward? Is it faith, determination, or simply refusing to give in to hopelessness?
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K.K.: Equal parts fury and faith. I despise scoundrels, and I believe the world can be made better. Not turned into a paradise—but we are obliged to constantly resist scoundrels and make the world better. I am a religious person. I believe that the meaning of human existence in this world is to limit and control the human instinct to pursue personal gain as much as possible, and to cultivate the pursuit of the common good as much as possible. The common good must stand above personal benefit—in our everyday lives, in our families, in any community, and in politics. That is the kind of world one wants to live in. That is the kind of world worth dying for. And to die for such a world is not frightening.
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As for courage—it’s simply a way of acting. Courage is created by will, by an effort of will. Courage is not something given. One must dare. The more you dare, the more you are liberated. The more you are liberated, the more you dare.
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J.P.: When people of culture come together today in the Assembly, parallels inevitably arise with the Sąjūdis era—when a civic movement was born out of dissatisfaction and a sense of responsibility for the state. Does the current situation remind you of the spirit of Sąjūdis (*)?
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K.K.: It reminds me in the sense that everything then began with a handful of the disobedient—those who never reconciled themselves to Lithuania’s occupation. With the dissidents who always said “no”: occupation is not normal, lies are not normal, the pursuit of personal advantage at the expense of others as the basis of Soviet society is not normal. This refusal ignited the first people who dared to say “things are not right.” In the early days of Sąjūdis, fear was immense. And then it began to recede. Courage liberated. Then Sąjūdis rose like a wave and seriously shook that Russian empire hiding behind the euphemism “the Soviet Union.”
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But at that time, we sought to restore our state. Now we seek to preserve it. Today we are closer to the threat of 1940, when our state collapsed under attack from the Russian empire because society, weakened by authoritarianism, had lost all will and faith in resistance. Today feels similar. And we can face this 1940-like threat with the tools of 1988—by uniting and engaging in broad civic action against what we clearly understand to be a threat. If we do that, we will not lose the state. The struggle will not be easy, but it will be victorious.
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(*)- The Sąjūdis (Lithuanian: [ˈsâːjuːdʲɪs], lit. ’Movement’), initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis), is a political organisation which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on 3 June 1988 as the first opposition party in Soviet Lithuania, and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis. Its goal was to seek the return of independent status for Lithuania.
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J.P.: The Cultural Assembly, at least from an outside perspective, seems like the last place where the community’s backbone and moral clarity are still intact. Do you feel that the Assembly could become not only a defender of culture, but also a broader model for societal renewal?
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K.K.: It already has. But I wouldn’t agree that the Assembly is the only one. There are many such groups whose moral clarity and communal backbone are firmly in place—they’re just small and scattered across Lithuania, within its institutions and community centers. They are unorganized, they feel lonely, powerless to change anything on a larger scale. The Assembly will bring them together into one powerful whole.
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J.P.: A part of society still views the protests of cultural workers with skepticism—claiming that artists are merely defending their own interests. How would you respond to this criticism? After all, this struggle is not about cultural funding or any potential material benefit, as protest critics and propaganda outlets keep insisting. This struggle is about the moral face of the state.
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K.K.: We will overcome this criticism only through work, through results, and through facts. This is not a battle of words. Unfounded criticism can be countered with reasoned argument, but nothing dispels it better than accomplished work.
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Gintarė Masteikaitė and Karolis Kaupinis – leading voices of the Cultural Assembly / Photo: Robertas Riabovas / BNS
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J.P.: In this interview, I cannot avoid touching on your work, which I deeply admire. In your films, the theme of the relationship between the state and the individual is often palpable—the solitary person facing the system, the responsibility for a shared fate. Has this motif become a personal reality for you today, when you must speak not through films, but directly and publicly?
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K.K.: Of course. But it has always been that way for me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made films on those themes. You say what matters to you, what you live by. For me, that is one of the most important principles of a person’s life. One must do what one says. One’s words must not be far from one’s actions, and the two cannot contradict each other.
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Excerpt from the film “Nova Lituania,” dir. Karolis Kaupinis.
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J.P.: When it feels as though political reality no longer offers hope, what does it mean for you personally to say, “it is still worth trying”? Are there moments when you feel tired of the public role—the activist, the one who speaks out?
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K.K.: Not yet, because my public engagement is still producing good results. People in Lithuania are becoming braver; things are becoming clearer to them—what is a lie and what is the truth, what is moral and what is immoral. Clarity is returning. For a long time, we lived in a fog—both in terms of truth and in terms of meaning. Now everything is slowly beginning to fall into place.
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J.P.: It seems that culture is increasingly becoming a “niche field” rather than the backbone of society. Why do you think this has happened? Do you believe the state perceives culture as a strategic field at all, rather than as “soft” policy?
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K.K.: First of all, this happens because culture is being commodified. When a work of art becomes, above all, a product—something that either sells well or doesn’t. When the value of a cultural center is calculated only in financial terms. When a person who says that their guiding principle is one of values, who aims to cultivate a value-based position in society, becomes a failure because such a position cannot be measured in money, and money has become the main measure of worth. When it becomes the primary measure, it becomes very difficult to prove the value of culture. The value of culture is demonstrated using a different, non-economic vocabulary. But when we begin to assess our reality solely through an economic lens, then culture becomes merely a trinket, a commodity, an expensive painting on the wall of a banker’s home. He didn’t buy that painting because he genuinely liked it, or because it contained something—either thematically or emotionally—that truly resonated with him. He bought it because it was expensive. And it was painted by an artist who sells for a high price—therefore, he must be a good artist. That banker has no other criteria of evaluation. And then this way of thinking spreads into every sphere. Politicians begin to see culture as a tool for achieving their own goals—not as the core of society, the force that upholds its moral backbone, but as a decoration that may or may not be worth buying and selling. I believe that is the essence of the problem.
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In the photo – audiences at the Odessa Film Festival and in Kyiv support protest in Lithuania
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J.P.: Who, in your view, still keeps Lithuania standing on a moral foundation today—culture, people, or something harder to define?
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K.K.: People who cannot be bought. Those for whom values are more important than calculation, spirit more important than matter, dreams more important than “reality,” faith more important than resignation. All of these people have always upheld Lithuania and will continue to do so, ensuring it does not get lost, even if they are in the minority.
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J.P.: Thank you .
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