COURAGE

connecting collections

After leaving secondary school in Mažeikiai, Virgilija Stonytė studied the Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius Pedagogical Institute. She graduated from the institute in 1984, and since then she has been a secondary school teacher. Stonytė was familiar with Professor Vanda Zaborskaitė from 1980. She participated in various events as a family member, and was involved in networks the intelligentsia of that time. According to her, there were two main annual events that gathered a close group of intellectuals: the birthday and the anniversary of the death of the Lithuanian writer Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas. At these and other meetings, members of a trusted network discussed freely many important political and cultural issues, shared their opinions, and devised verbal strategies for supporting informal cultural initiatives. Stonytė thinks that Vanda Zaborskaitė was one of the leaders of the cultural opposition at that time for at least three reasons. First of all, she experienced persecution by the regime during the 1950s and early 1960s. Secondly, as a professor of literature, Zaborskaitė promoted the importance of the poet Maironis. Thirdly, she was in touch with some Catholic priests and kept up a correspondence with them.
After the death of Professor Zaborskaitė, Stonytė inherited a huge private archive that holds personal correspondence, manuscripts, and Zaborskaitė's diary. Understanding its great importance to the history of culture, Stonytė started to collaborate with researchers at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, in order to deal with this archive and publish books about Vanda Zaborskaitė.
According to Stonytė, cultural opposition is related to the search for an authentic national culture, preserving and understanding its importance.

Dimitar Vasilev Stoyanov (1910-1971) took to anarchism already in his youth. He became a member of the Federation of Anarchists-Communists in Bulgaria (FACB). After the Bulgarian coup d’état of 1934 (Devetnadesetomayski prevrat), all political parties, including the FACB, were banned. In the beginning of 1942, Stoyanov, Hristo Kolev, and other activists of the anarchist federation were arrested; the prosecutor sought death sentences under the State Protection Act. Eventually the anarchists received 10-year terms and were sent to prison in Varna. They were released on September 8, 1944, when the prison was taken by forces of the political resistance movement, the Fatherland Front.
The new government declared war on Germany. Dimitar Stoyanov was mobilized and served in the Bulgarian army until the end of the Second World War. Because of his political opinions, he was again arrested, this time by the communist authorities, in 1945. He was sentenced to forced labor in the Bogdanov Dol labor camp near Pernik. Released after one month, he started to work in a glass factory. However, in 1948 he was declared "an enemy of the Fatherland Front" and a court sentenced him once again to forced labor, first in the Kutsian camp in Pernik, then in Mini Nikolaevo, and ultimately in the infamous Belene camp on Persin Island in the Danube.
Dimitar Stoyanov was released in August 1953 during a partial political amnesty after Stalin's death and the (temporary) closure of the Belene camp, when thousands of prisoners were set free. Stoyanov left the camp in worsening health. His remaining 14 years were leukemia stricken.

Nelu Stratone (named Ion Stratone on his identity card, born 6 August 1949) graduated from the Statistics Section of the Faculty of Economic Calculation and Economic Cybernetics of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest in 1973. At high school and in his first years at university he performed as solo vocalist and bass in various obscure bands. For almost twenty years, starting from 1973, he pursued a career in the field of informatics, and was one of the pioneers of Romanian informatics, an analyst-programmer (specialized in Cobol), then project head at CENTROCOOP (1974–1981), and later at the Computing Centre of the Ministry of Electrotechnical Industry (1982–1991). After the fall of communism he was employed by Cavcoop, Kruger Brent, and Mixt Com. Among the important works that he designed, programmed, and implemented may be mentioned the automated system for salary calculation in consumer cooperatives (1975–1978), which was introduced in all the counties of Romania and remained in operation until 1989, and the distributed automated system of the machine construction ministries using the RENAC/RENOD network (1986–1988). Nelu Stratone was one of the first certified IBM PC teachers in Romania, with the result that in the period 1986–2004 he delivered over a hundred training courses for IBM PC users. In the period August 2007 – August 2014, he was a higher expert at the Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA)

Nelu Stratone has also had a career in the field of radio, being a musical editor at Radio Nova 22 (1991–1992), Radio Tinerama (1993–1999), Radio România Tineret (Radio Romania Youth) (1999–2007), Radio București (2001–2007), Radio Vacanța Costinești (2003–2004), and Radio România Actualități (Radio Romania News)(2006–2008) with specialized programmes promoting Romanian rock, “A lu’ Nelu” (Nelu’s) and “Top N,” as well as weekend morning shows. He has a good knowledge of the history of musical clubs before 1989 and has been involved in the activities of a number of them since 1989. Since the fall of communism, Nelu Stratone has collaborated with numerous newspapers, magazines, and specialized periodicals, such as Puls Rock (1992), Tinerama (1993–1996), Vox Pop Rock (1994–1996), Art & Roll (2003–2005), Sunete (Sounds)(2006), and Arta sunetelor (The art of sounds)(2009–2016). On top of that he is the author of materials about rock music and its history that have been included in volumes coordinated by other authors, including Ioan Big’s two volumes Era punk (The punk era, 2003) and Blue, Black & White: Povestea Rolling Stones (The Rolling Stones story)(2006), two anthologies by Radu Lupașcu, Pe urmele lui Hendrix (On the trail of Hendrix)(2005) and Arta Sunetelor (The art of sounds)(2014), together with Culorile Sunetelor: Muzica și artele vizuale (The colours of sounds: Music and the visual arts)(2015), coordinated by both the authors mentioned above. He also collaborated on the trilingual volume Eleganța sunetelor (The elegance of sounds), which was published in Paris in 2013, coordinated by Traian Marinescu.

Above all, Nelu Stratone is the author of a trilogy on the history of Romanian rock, Rock sub seceră și ciocan (Rock under the hammer and sickle)(Timișoara: Hyperliteratura, 2016), Rock în timpuri noi (Rock in new times)(Timișoara: Hyperliteratura, 2017), and Rock în mileniul 3 (Rock in the third millennium)(in course of publication). He is also the author of the “Stratonelu” series of volume-interviews with personalities of the world of Romanian rock, including Aurel Gherghel, Ștefan Mardale, Costin Petrescu, Iulian Vrabete, and Sandu Grosu, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare. Finally, he has also written the volumes STRATONELU – un rocker atipic: Nelu Stratone în dialog cu Florin Silviu Ursulescu (STRATONELU – an atypical rocker: Nelu Stratone in dialogue with Florin Silviu Ursulescu)(București: Casa de Pariuri Literare, 2016)  and  Top T – Buzău: Festivalul Rezistenței rock (Top T – Buzău: the festival of rock resistance)(București: Casa de Pariuri Literare, 2017).

In 1987, the human rights group Helsinki-86 started to publish the periodical Auseklis (Morning Star). It was the first uncensored periodical in Latvia since 15 May 1934 (since the authoritarian coup by Kārlis Ulmanis). It aimed to be an 'independent socio-political, literary and religious magazine'. Since photocopiers were rare and were controlled by the KGB, one of the best ways to make copies for distribution was to take photographss. Vaira Strautniece (b. 1942) was a professional photographer who worked in the photography and film unit of the Academy of Sciences in the 1980s. Her colleague Zigurds Vidiņš (b. 1943) asked her to make 20 copies of each issue. She kept one copy for herself, and handed over the remaining 19 to Vidiņš, who looked after the distribution of the magazine. Vaira Strautniece was one of numerous people who were involved in the distribution of Auseklis.