When I was looking for books about Vilnius, I came across this beautiful one published by Hanser Verlag: "Die Straßen von Wilna" by Czesław Miłosz. The curious thing is that I wasn't able to find any other information about the book and its contents. It is not included in the bibliographies of Czesław Miłosz that I found, and I don't know if it is a work standing on its own (it looks like it from the publishing information included in the book) or a collection composed by Hanser (which somehow seems more likely to me). Moreover, there is an English version shown on LT (Beginning with my streets), but upon a closer look, this is a different book containing different texts, at least in part.
Well, I read this German language one and I liked it very much.

This book consists of three parts that are interspersed by a couple of poems. In the first part, the author gives an overview of the history of the city, and like that, of Lithuanian history. This might sound a bit dry, but it is not, because Miłosz is a masterful storyteller and thus, this slice of history is immensely readable and highly fascinating. To be honest, I think most historical facts that I remembered during our trip came from this chapter and not from the travel guide we also had with us.
The second part is a description of some of the streets of Vilnius. Miłosz, who spent parts of his childhood and later also studied there, connects the streets with his personal memories, and thus, he paints a somewhat nostalgic picture of Vilnius before World War Two. He writes about the activities he took part in as a child, the people he met, the buildings and atmosphere of the streets.
The third part includes a letter Miłosz wrote to the writer Tomas Venclova, and Venclova's reply. Venclova is an ethnic Lithuanian, unlike Miłosz, who was of Polish descent and wrote in Polish (and is considered a Polish author). These two letters cover a lot of ground and deal with Lithuanian history, with many other writers the two have known, and especially with the ciity's position between Polish and Lithuanian culture, its unique status of being a provincial town, but also a capital, its changing hands for so many times. There are many interesting - and still relevant! - thoughts in these letters, especially when the writers reflected on possibilities of the future. The letters were written in the late 1970s, and they hoped for a democratic Lithuania with Vilnius as its capital, but also feared that nationalism would remain a danger to Europe. It was almost eerie to read their predictions now, 45 years later. ( )