Historical fiction follows Lithuanian struggles

Every country’s history is full of people who inspire loyalty and confidence, or who betray the people who trusted them the most. Lithuania, one of the Baltic states in the former Soviet Union, is no exception.

In Some Unfinished Business, Antanas Sileika uses fiction to tell the story of KGB spy Kostas Kubilinskas and his effect on a group of partisans attempting to keep Lithuania free of Soviet control in the 1940s.

Sileika is a Canadian journalist of Lithuanian descent and the author of five previous works of fiction, as well as a memoir. As a journalist, he became involved in the movement to free Lithuania from Soviet control. His book of short stories, Buying on Time, was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. He has reviewed books in print, as well as on radio and television, and he worked as the director of the Humber School for Writers until his retirement in 2017. Currently, he lives in Toronto.

Some Unfinished Business is based on a series of letters the author received from a stranger in Lithuania. The letter writer described the terror inflicted on the villagers of Lynerzeris, which Sileika translates as Lyn Lake, as they dealt with violence alternately from the Soviets and the anti-Soviet partisans in the 1940s. Although the story is fictionalized, it also portrays the very real suffering the villagers experienced as they dealt with one set of rulers after another.

The story follows the life of Martin Averka, who as a teenager meets the new village teacher, Kostas Kubilinskas. Together they join the resistance against Soviet rule, but Martin soon realizes Kostas is not all that he seems.

The murder of several of the resistance leaders and Martin’s own arrest and exile cause him to reconsider what he knows of the man who was once his hero. On his return, Martin finds that he, like other characters in the story, has unfinished business to complete.

The story begins with Martin’s visit to Kostas in a monastery in 1959 and moves back and forth between the 1950s and events set during the resistance in 1947. The beginning of each chapter includes the date and place of the action, helping to guide readers through a story that could otherwise become somewhat confusing.

Themes of silence, the tyrannies of both the gulag and overwhelming bureaucracy and betrayal are also an integral part of the story. Disappointed expectations of help from the outside could connect with many readers’ experiences of life, while the story of Lithuanians’ struggle to get out from under Soviet control is especially relevant in the context of the current war in Ukraine.

Despite the somewhat confusing timeline, Some Unfinished Business is a very readable example of historical fiction, with vivid characters and a compelling storyline. Sileika has combined history and fiction in a way that makes the events of mid-20th century Lithuania relevant and interesting, regardless of the current political situation in eastern Europe.

Susan Huebert is a Winnipeg writer and dog walker.

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