Likimo Žaismas
Įsikūrimas
Settlement · 1950–1955
Published in 1953 during the Settlement period.
Likimo Žaismas is a 1953 Lithuanian-language novel set among Lithuanian diaspora emigrants in Argentina — one of the very few Lithuanian literary works documenting the South American diaspora experience rather than the more commonly represented North American or Western European communities. Published by the Lietuviškos Knygos Klubas (Lithuanian Book Club) in Chicago and printed at the famous Draugas press, the novel captures the hardships, humor, and cultural longing of displaced Lithuanians navigating a Spanish-speaking world. Its rich multilingual texture — weaving Lithuanian prose with Spanish dialogue and Argentine street vernacular — makes it a unique linguistic artifact of mid-century diaspora life.
What It Is
Likimo Žaismas occupies an unusual position in diaspora Lithuanian literary culture because it documents not the dominant North American experience but the far less-represented South American Lithuanian community — specifically Buenos Aires and its environs. The novel's explicit references to the Lietuvių Kultūros Ramovė (Lithuanian Cultural Ramovė) in Argentina and its depiction of the practical, daily struggles of Lithuanian emigrants navigating Argentine bureaucracy, economics, and language barriers constitute a rare literary ethnography of that community. That such an institution existed in Buenos Aires, and that a Lithuanian book club in Chicago deemed this subject matter worth publishing, reveals the astonishing geographic breadth of diaspora institutional infrastructure: a Chicago-based book club, printed by a Chicago Lithuanian newspaper press, distributing a novel set in Argentina, written by an author with demonstrable insider knowledge of Argentine Lithuanian life. The novel's preface — in which the author explicitly states that the characters 'never were born' in Lithuania or Argentina but 'live only in the author's heart' — is a culturally significant rhetorical move. This framing simultaneously protects real individuals while claiming emotional and experiential authenticity. It is a declaration that diaspora literature need not be confined to memoir or testimony to carry truth; fiction too can be a vessel of collective memory and survival. This positions the work within a broader diaspora literary philosophy that valued imaginative cultural continuity alongside historical documentation. The multilingual texture of the novel — Lithuanian prose punctuated by Spanish street phrases, Argentine place names (La Plata, Buenos Aires, Avenida Costanera), and institutional names — makes it a remarkable document of diaspora linguistic adaptation. Unlike many diaspora Lithuanian publications that struggled to maintain linguistic purity, Lukaševičius embraces the contact zone, modeling for readers how Lithuanian identity could persist within and alongside other languages and cultures. Published by the Draugas infrastructure, the work reached a subscriber network spanning multiple continents, functioning as both entertainment and proof that Lithuanian cultural life was alive, creative, and globally distributed.
Why It Matters
Likimo Žaismas matters first as a historical document of a diaspora community that has been almost entirely overlooked by Lithuanian cultural heritage preservation efforts. The Argentine Lithuanian community of the 1950s was real, institutionally active (the Kultūros Ramovė is a verifiable historical institution), and culturally productive — yet it exists in the shadows of the far more documented North American communities. This novel is likely one of the only surviving literary records of what daily life, aspiration, humor, and heartbreak felt like for Lithuanians who ended up in Buenos Aires rather than Chicago. Preserving and digitizing it is an act of historical recovery for a community that has largely dispersed.
Connected to Lietuviškos Knygos Klubas through shared publications. Lietuviškos Knygos Klubas published 24 works in this collection. The de facto capital of Lithuanian America for half a century. Chicago, IL — origin of 10 works in the archive.
