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Marija's birthplace in Vilnius, Lithuania
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1800's late, Marja's
parents born. Marija's mother Veronika was the youngest
of nine children -- when Veronika was six months old her
father died, and the mother raised the family alone. Veronika
and her sister Julija became two of the first female physicians
in Northeastern Europe -- Veronika was an occulist and Julija was a dentist. Marija's father Danielius
Alseika was a writer, folklorist and a physician. Marija's
parents met while they were both working on their doctorates. |
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1910, Marija's
parents married |
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1912, Brother
Vytautas |
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1914, Beginning
of WW1 |
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1915, Germans
take control |
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1917, Abdication
of Czar Nicholas the second |
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1917, Marija's
parents return to Vilnius |
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1918, Marija's
parents establish the first Lithuanian hospital in Vilinius |
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1919, Bolshevik
forces occupied Vilnius. Poles occupied Vilnius. Lithuanian
government moved to Kaunus. Hospital becomes a center for
Lithuanian resistance |
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1921, Jan 23rd.
Marija's birth in Vilnius |
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1927, Marija's
parents establish a Montessori School for her, piano lessons
begin. Her Mother has Sunday salons where all the great intellectuals
and artists of Vilnius gathered. |
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1931, Family begins
move to Kaunas because Vilnius is occupied by Poland. Father
refuses to move and continues to fight the Polish occupation. |
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Fleeing, 1933
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1933, Family in
Kaunus. Marija can only visit her father and Vilnius by hiding
in a horse and wagon to cross the border. |
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1936, Father dies. |
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1937/38 Marija
participated in ethnographic expeditions to southeastern
Lithuania |
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Marija's family fleeing in wagon
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1938, Chosen to
perform Beethoven's 4th Concerto |
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1938, Graduates
from high school with honors |
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1938, Began studying
at Great University in Kaunas -- first studied linguistics. |
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1939, Germany invades Poland |
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1939, Soviets
invade Poland |
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1939, Vilnius
is liberated and freed of Polish occupation after the German
invasion of Poland. |
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1939 Marija returns
to Vilnius. Collecting folklore from 1000's of refugees
from Byelorussia, which had been been taken by Russia. She
collects at least 5000 folksongs. Enrolls in the University
of Vilnius. "So there was a pioneer spirit throughout,
in the government, the universities, school systems everywhere.
And the young generation to which I belonged lived with
all that pioneering spirit doing more than was possible
to do." (That was only one year) |
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1940, Soviets invade
Lithuania, removing priceless treasures. Marija is swimming
in a lake when Soviet planes arrive, Lithuania is declared
a republic of the Soviet Union, Universitity is closed |
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1941, Joins
the underground resistance movement. taking part in Lithuanian
uprising, Russia begins excecution, arrests and deportations.
Marija hides in the woods, near Pazaislis. Her Mother carries
poison with her in order not to be taken away. Marija writing
her dissertation about burial rites during this time. Lithuania
is invaded by Germany -- Lithuanian uprising takes place.
25 members of Marija's family disappear in June. Marija
escapes to Kanus to hide. On June 22nd Germany attacks Russia.
Underground movement becomes very active, Germany occupies
Lithuania. Maria married Jurgis Gimbutas |
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1942, June: Completion
of her masters degree in archaeology, in Vilnius, begining her
post graduate studies and publishing articles. |
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1943 Birth
of first daughter, Danute. She has breastfeeding issues,
they are told she may be allergic to breast milk |
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1944, Soviet
army defeats Germany and occupies Lithuania. July 8: fled
Lithuania as a refugee. Dissertation under one arm and baby
under the other, she leaves her Mother on the shore sick
with the flu, fleeing on the Nemunas River on a raft. They
take a train to Vienna where they meet other refugees, and
then to Innsbruck Austria, where Jurgis gets some work in
a factory until it is bombed. They escape over the mountains
by bicycle and arrive in the farm country of Germany. |
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1945, On a farm
in Germany, go to Tubingen, Germany. |
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1946, Receives
her Doctor of Philosophy degree in archaeology at Tubingen University,
Her thesis was published the same year. |
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1947, Her second
daughter Zevile is born March 21st, the Gimbutas family
emigrates to America |
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1950, Recognized
at Harvard University, begins translating ancient text and wrote
on European prehistory. |
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1954, Birth to
a third daughter Rasa |
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The Gimbutas Family, 1951
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1955, Named Research
Fellow of Harvard's Peabody Museum (a lifetime honor). Harvard
years were very difficult but she received strength from Mother,
Aunt and Cousin....Meile and Inga, still in Lithuania. Mother
supported a draftsman to work on the Bronze Age volume. Mother
did the thousands of drawings in Lithuania, sending them to Marija
by mail. |
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1956, Marija's
Kurgan Hypothesis is presented in Philidelphia for the first
time |
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1956, "Prehistory
of Eastern Europe" |
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1958, "Ancient
symbolism of Lithuanian Folk Art" is published in Philidelphia |
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1960, Awarded the
Outstanding New American by the World Refugee Committee
and Boston Junior Chamber of Commerce |
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1960, Lectures
at an Orientalist congress in Moscow, seeing her mother for the
first time since 1944. This is a great story about how she had
to pretend not to know her Mother etc. Returns briefly to Vilnius
for 2 days. When she returned to LA she was accused of being
a Russian spy. |
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1963, Began to
work at UCLA |
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1965, "Bronze
age cultures of Central and Eastern Europe" |
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1967/68, Became
project director for excavations of Neolithic sites in Yugoslavia
and Macedonia, receiving a Humanities Endowment award from the
Smithsonian institution, and the Woman of The Year Award from
the LA times |
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1968/69, Excavations
at Sitagroi, Greek Macedonia |
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Marija collecting in the field
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1969, She was
an exchange professor with the USSR through the American Academy
of Sciences. |
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1969/71, Excavations
at Anza, Macedonia. |
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1973/75, Excavations
at Achilleion, near Farsala. |
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1974, "Gods
and Goddesses" |
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1977/80, Excavations
at the Scaloria cave sancuary near Macedonia, Southeast Italy. |
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1979. Organized
the first interdisciplinary conderence on "The Transformation
of European and Anatolian Culture". |
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1981, Returned
to USSR with the American Academy of Sciences on Fulbright
fellowship. Lectured in Vilnius University. "I counted
and I had in my audience something like 3,000 people, throughout
2 months of lecturing. And there is an organization now,
sort of a pagan organization which indirectly was influenced
by my being there or my writings. They are called Romuva,
which is the name of a sacred hill and also described as
a sanctuary in the 14th century. So this is the name for
this reawakening of pagan rituals." |
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Marija Gimbutas in Slovakia, 1991.
Photo by Joan Marler
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