Shifts in religiosity in the face of Soviet type urbanization: the case of Lithuania

This article focuses on shifts in religious life triggered by the processes of Soviet urbanization in Lithuania, a country with a strong agricultural character. Based on an analysis of diverse sources, it explores the turning point of contemporary religious history in Lithuania during the1960s, which was connected primarily with the massive displacement of people meant to transform the traditional way of life in the Lithuanian countryside. The article argues that the main result of this displacement was not so much the collapse of religious life, as was intended by the Soviet authorities, but rather the dislocation of its center from the countryside to the cities.     

The Commission of Historians in Latvia: 1999 to the present

In 1999, the President of Latvia, Guntis Ulmanis, created a Commission of Historians and charged it with investigating the nature and consequences for Latvians and Latvia of the two occupations (the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) the country experienced during the years of World War Two and afterwards. Special focus was to be direct to the Holocaust and to the multiple forms of repression practiced by the Soviet Communist regime. The Commission consisted of some 13-15 local, regional, and international scholars with specialized knowledge and, in some cases, personal experience, with the double occupation. The findings of the Commission were to be published in the form of a book series, with each volume devoted to a particular topic and containing reports delivered at international conferences or generated by ongoing research. The historical knowledge thus accumulated was to be disseminated widely, in the hope that it would become a basis for further research on this crucial and still-controversial period of Latvian history. A quantitative analysis of the twenty-seven Commission volumes published to date offers a capsule view of the Commission’s research efforts and research strategies, describes the subjects covered so far, and summarizes some of the criticism attracted by the Commission as well as its contributions to the sum total of Latvian history.     

The economic output growth of Baltic countries in 1913–1938: a quantitative cross-country comparison

ABSTRACT

This article surveys and appends the available quantitative research on the interwar economic growth of Baltic countries to compare gross domestic product (GDP) (in 1990 Geary–Khamis dollars) growth in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania between 1913 and 1938 in a broad international context. Finland’s GDP per capita recovered to the 1913 level in 1923, in Estonia recovery was complete by 1922, in Lithuania by 1924, and in Latvia by 1924–1925. By high-end estimates, the growth performance of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was not weaker than Finland’s. By 1938, the GDP per capita of all Baltic countries exceeded the level of the Soviet Union with the possible exception for Lithuania.     

Assessing “Global Lithuania”: the strengths and weaknesses of Lithuanian diaspora engagement strategy

Diasporas participate in the home country’s development through remittances, philanthropy, knowledge transfer, investment, and political engagement. Based on the theoretical perspective of network governance, this paper argues that governments can enhance diaspora contributions by offering incentives to engage with the homeland. The paper then applies this perspective to assess the effectiveness of Lithuania’s diaspora engagement policy. Based on successful strategies adopted by other countries, the paper makes recommendations on how to strengthen the incentives for the diaspora to participate in Lithuania’s political, social, economic, and cultural life, and on how to create a better environment for the diaspora’s contributions.     

Explaining national preferences on the new European banking policy framework: the case of Lithuania

Utilising the Lithuanian case, this article analyses what determines a country’s position on the transfer of national competency over banking policy to the EU level. In contrast to dominant explanations in scholarly literature, this article argues that Lithuania’s support for the banking union can be explained by the general pro-European orientation of the political system in the context of ambiguous aggregate economic costs and the benefits of the new institutional framework. In 2013, the EU Presidency also positively affected Lithuania’s stance. Finally, the decision about when to join the banking union was subordinated to the process of euro accession.     

‘On the outskirts of the Empire’: Joseph Brodsky and Lithuania

This article explores the role of Lithuania in Joseph Brodsky’s life and works before and after his exile from Russia in 1972. As a former Soviet republic, Lithuania represented an intermediary space for Brodsky both culturally and geographically, contributing to his realization that it was a ‘rehearsal’ for his actual emigration. However, Brodsky’s notion of Lithuania changes when, after 1972, instead of representing a simulacrum of the ‘abroad,’ the poet sees Lithuania as a ‘home’ from afar. Emigration, in Brodsky’s case, thus became a realization of the myth of exile implicit in his earlier texts about Lithuania.     

Bourgeoisie as internal orient in the Soviet Lithuanian literature: Roses Are Red by A. Bieliauskas, 1959

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the concept of internal colonization is applied to the Soviet initiatives of re-socializing the large parts of the population and creating a socialist working class from peasantry, artisans, and residues of the bourgeoisie. The internal colonization, or the power relations between native Communists and their subalterns in Lithuania, is analyzed on the basis of Roses Are Red, a novel by Bieliauskas. Here, class is invented as substitute of race. The Soviet socialists stand for hegemonic standards of “normalcy,” whereas bourgeoisie is portrayed as subject of difference, as internal Orient and as internal colony, and the relationship between the two can be legitimately defined as internal colonialism.     

Resurgence of post-crisis neoliberalism: labor law reform and the return to “business as usual” in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The economic crisis of 2008–2010 revealed the extreme vulnerability of Lithuania to global financial shocks. However, instead of reforming Lithuanian capitalism, the domestic political and business elites chose to write off the enormous social and economic costs incurred during the 2008–2010 crisis as an expense of continuing doing business in a way that was typical to the pre-crisis, booming years of ‘the Baltic tigers’ (2000–2007), i.e., relying on the unstable and inequitable growth model based on foreign capital inflows and remittances, suppressing and keeping wages and taxes on capital low and exporting cheap-skilled labour to the core EU countries. We illustrate this return to business as usual in Lithuania by analyzing the political process of contestation and eventual consolidation of neo-liberal consensus among domestic political actors that resulted in the passage of the new Labour Code enabling creation of ‘flexible’ labor markets. Social and political implications of the resurgent neoliberal hegemony in post-crisis Lithuania are discussed.     

On Political Terror during the Soviet Expansion into Lithuania, 1918–1919

This article deals with a noticeable anomaly of Bolshevik expansion in Lithuania during 1918–1919: the refusal of the Soviet authorities to resort to terror to subdue the local population in order to export the world revolution. The author argues that the Soviets avoided political terror in Lithuania because they did not treat the Lithuanians as a nation capable of sustaining their own state. In fact, anti-Bolshevik forces employed more terror than the Bolsheviks in their attempt to drive out the Reds and uproot Lithuanian support for the Communist regime. The Lithuanian left-wing government of Mykolas Sle?evi?ius sought to contain its radicalized military and to preserve a soft-handed relationship with the local Bolshevik government.     

Explaining community mobilization in the city of Vilnius: a search for social capital

The article explores community mobilization in the urban environment. Specifically, it examines community organizations in Lithuania’s capital city of Vilnius. Engaging with social capital theory, the article illustrates the actual community mobilizations, their stories, collective action strategies, and reasons for mobilizing. It challenges the assumption that mobilizations rarely take place in the urban environment of Lithuania due to low civil society and a nonparticipatory culture. This article shows that when mobilizations do take place, they can be short lived but still achieve significant results.     

Guarding the honor of the nation and the prosperity of the state: National Defense of Lithuania ‘Iron Wolf’ (1928-1930)

The radical right, semi-clandestine, and paramilitary organization called the National Defense of Lithuania ‘Iron Wolf’ (1928–1930) is, perhaps, the best known and the only example of an attempt to introduce a fascist form of governance in interwar Lithuania. Established and controlled by the Lithuanian Nationalist Union (Lietuvi? tautinink? s?junga) authorities, its first and foremost task was to protect the new nationalist regime from its political opponents, spread propaganda, as well as report any acts of societal disloyalty and disobedience. The short-lived organization was shut down due to conflict between the highest authorities and the threat that ‘Iron Wolf’ was beginning to pose to President Smetona’s rule.     

The use of oral data on life and thought in independent Latvia: A proposal for research

This article provides both historical and ethnographic views of Eastern religion in Lithuania. The historical component is an examination of the evolution of Lithuanian interest in Eastern religions from nineteenth-century studies of Indo-European comparative linguistics and mythology, which linked pre-Christian Lithuanian religion with India and Hinduism, to increasing literary, scholarly and popular interest in India and Asia in the twentieth century, before, during and after Soviet occupation. The ethnographic aspect utilizes fieldwork and interviews to examine three Eastern-inspired religious movements, (Pagan) Romuva, (Hindu) Krishna Consciousness, and (Buddhist) Diamond Way, demonstrating three different adaptations of Eastern religion in Lithuania.     

帝国研究视角下的苏联解体研究

苏联的建立与演进,似乎都与"帝国"有复杂的关联性。其前身——俄罗斯帝国是典型的陆上帝国。苏联成立后坚持反帝立场,但之后逐渐演变成为一个"社会帝国主义"国家。其标志就是形成了核心—边缘的帝国结构体系,以苏联统治中枢莫斯科及俄罗斯为核心,向外形成了三层边缘地带,其中第一层是苏联的加盟共和国,第二层是中东欧华约成员国,第三层是在亚洲和美洲的经互会成员国。苏联解体实际上是"帝国终结"历史的一个组成部分,是一次迟来的非殖民化,也是人类历史发展的自然进程。这方面的具体原因至少有以下三个:其一,苏联领导人对当时局势的认识及判断和采取的对策及政策;其二,边缘地区民族主义产生了重要的动员和发动作用;最后,"帝国的负担"成为难以承受的现实负担。     

First calculations of the total output of Latvia and Lithuania in the 1920s: a comparison

The contemporary system of national accounts (SNA) framework is used to compare the methodologies and to adjust the findings to allow for cross-country comparisons of the very first calculations of the total economic output of Lithuania in 1924 by Albinas Rimka (1886–1944) and of Latvia in 1925 by Alfrēds Ceihners (1899–1987). Ceihners’ notion of national income corresponds to the SNA concept of gross national income (GNI), while Rimka measured net national income (NNI). Rimka’s estimate has a downward bias, because he applied a fixed capital depreciation rate that was too high and did not include the value of noncommercial public sector services.     

The Sovietization of Lithuania after WWII: modernization,transculturation, and the lettered city

ABSTRACT

This article approaches the Sovietization of the Baltics in the light of two critical notions developed by the noted Latin American critic Angel Rama: “narrative transculturation” and “the lettered city.” By revisiting key moments in the development of Soviet Lithuanian culture and intellectual class against a backdrop of forced collectivization, urbanization, and modernization, the article aims at a novel interpretation of what Sovietization meant in the Lithuanian context, the significance of de-Stalinization and cultural modernism during the Thaw in the 1960s, and the cultural preconditions for the emergence of the popular movement against Soviet rule in the late 1980s.     

Religious change in Estonia and the Baltic states during the Soviet period in comparative perspective

Abstract

The article presents a comparative-historical treatment of the change in the religious life of Estonia from 1940 to 1991, when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. The article is based largely on documents of the archive of the Estonian commissioner of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults of the Soviet Union, documents which were not available to researchers before the collapse of the USSR. Religious change in Estonia has been compared to what happened in the neighbouring Baltic countries. The archival data shows an extraordinary decline of institutionalised religion in Estonia during the Soviet period (especially in the Lutheran and Orthodox Churches). Compared to the other republics of the Soviet Union (especially Catholic Lithuania), this fall was particularly drastic in “Lutheran” Estonia and Latvia. Also, some comparisons are made between Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the rest of Europe, in order to test the author's hypothesis that by the end of the Soviet occupation, Estonian society was among the most highly secularised ones in Europe (or possibly the most secularised).     

The official art of the Khrushchev Thaw: The Severe Style as an ambassador of the Estonian national school at Baltic art exhibitions in Moscow

In Estonian post-Socialist art history writing, the term ‘national’ has mostly been introduced as a defense mechanism against the Soviet regime. The aim of this article is to indicate that concept ‘national’ also played quite an important role in ‘official’ Soviet cultural politics, especially after Stalin’s death. The processes of cultivating ‘national particularities’ in the arts will be exemplified by the Baltic exhibitions in Moscow in the end of 1950s and 1960s.     

The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics

This essay works through some of the necessary preliminary questions in thinking about Soviet colonialism in the Baltics. It opens by tracing the prehistory of critical thinking about Soviet colonialism in the 1960s and considers why the topic of Soviet colonialism has not (or not yet) become a dominant way to understand Soviet history. The central question posed by the article is whether one can speak about the Soviet invasions of the Baltic States as ‘colonization’. It proposes that, initially, communist Russia did not in fact seek to colonize the Baltic States and instead ‘occupied’ them; however, this initial period of occupation later developed into a period of a colonial rule.     

Report on the conference on the Baltic area in World War II

Time and space serve as key identity markers of a nation. This article focuses on the construction of historical space in Estonian history textbooks. The aim of this analysis is to follow the trajectory of post-Soviet understanding of Estonia’s location on the European map. Rejecting the Soviet idea that Estonia belongs to the Russian Civilization, the post-Soviet Estonian national elite has offered the Baltic Sea region as a plausible alternative regional identity. The present analysis suggests that the last two decades are marked by an increasing tendency in Estonian history textbooks to present the Baltic Sea region as the nation’s historical space.     

The Saracens of the Baltic: Pagan and Christian Lithuanians in the Perception of English and French Crusaders to Late Medieval Prussia

This paper investigates the use of the term ‘Saracens’ to describe the Lithuanian opponents of the Western crusaders who took part in expeditions launched from Prussia by the Teutonic Order against the grand duchy of Lithuania in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It presents a variety of evidence from narrative and documentary sources to demonstrate that this usage was derived from existing images of Muslim opponents and was reinforced by epic and romance literature. The use of the term Saracens, which by the fourteenth century had become a generic designation for pagans, was both a convenient way for Western crusaders to imbue the Prussian crusades with a value commensurate with campaigns in the Holy Land, but also to blacken their Lithuanian opponents even when they had abandoned paganism.