Origins of Past Curious

When I was younger and lived in a corner of Samogitia in Lithuania, I was told that once there were great communities, great kings, who defended themselves from whoever tried to fight them, that there were pagans who had a strong connection with nature and its cycles, that there were castles, and churches, and palaces, forests so big that if you got lost no one would find you, that the land where I grew up was alive and the people were proud of themselves, that the kings were respected and became legends. But where I grew up I saw only flatland camps cultivated by tractors, a few forests on the horizon, and no historical artifact saying that this was all true. I became skeptical about the stories I was told at school, until I grew distant from them — other countries' histories seemed far more interesting to me because they had something material to show it was true. I grew up with the feeling that the grass is greener anywhere except where I am.

I left. First changing cities, then changing countries. When I eventually settled down, I started to notice two things. First, that living in a country whose culture is strong and known worldwide, I began to question my own culture, my own history, and my own roots. Second, that perspectives and opinions on the same events can vary depending on the environment one lives in. My perspective switched: from being near my homeland, I became far from it — and as a consequence, I became more curious about it than ever before.

Past Curious grew as an unstoppable feeling to put my interests into words, trying to look from more than one angle and trying to understand the reasons why something went as it went, and why we know it as we know it. I felt an urge to document the process of learning my own history.