Description
Paulius Širvys, the author of the poetic masterpieces “I Am a Birch,” “And the Forests Carried Away the Sun,” and “I Will Come on a Quiet Night,” was born in the village of Padustėlis in 1920. His parents were enlightened people—they read newspapers and books, even though they struggled to make ends meet. While expecting their future son—the poet—and believing that farming would go better in a new location, the newlyweds swapped farms with a relative from Padustėlis—Paulius Širvys’s uncle, J. Urbonas. However, farming at the Padustėlis homestead was not successful, and after more than a year, the Širviai returned to their farm in Degučiai (Rokiškis District). Paulius Širvys’s birthplace is characterized by a large, elongated rectangular floor plan with a gabled half-hipped roof. The interior space of the house is divided into three parts, with the entrance hall dominating the center. It separates sections of roughly equal area, in which the living quarters—the kitchen, common rooms, guest rooms, a storage room, and a small storage room—are arranged according to a layout typical of the Aukštaitija region. Four years after Paulius Širvys’s death, in 1983, his birthplace in Padustėlis was marked with a commemorative plaque, and in 1995, during the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the poet’s birth, a sculptural roofed pillar by folk artist I. Užkurnis was unveiled in the town of Dusetos in memory of P. Širvys. In 1997, Zarasai Secondary School No. 2 was named after the poet Paulius Širvys.
