The Non Fictional

in Memory

Decoding Lithuania: a tiny country with reminiscences of greatness

To my humble understanding, Lithuania and most notably Lithuanians can be comprehended through two major pillars: (1) a long history of statehood and (2) collective trauma unleashed by 50 years of Soviet occupation.

Essay 7 min read History · Lithuania · Politics

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Among the earliest memories I hold dear there is one of my elementary school teacher and her yearly class on the chronology of events that occurred in Lithuania. From the very first occurrence of Lituae in written in the year 1009 to 1990-91 when Lithuania led the Soviet Empire to its demise, she would pick a day of national importance to tell the story of a country that resisted. Such emphasis on collective reminiscence must have been as much of a moral duty as the freeing to speak openly after decades behind the iron curtain. After all, oppressor was a con liberator, silence was salvation and ignorance was the utmost virtue.

It irritates me a great deal when one claims to be proud to be a national (Lithuanian, French, Russian - you name it). Nationality is arbitrary. And one cannot be proud of what is given, merely of what has been achieved by one’s individual efforts, by its very own definition (thank you, Ayn Rand). Yet, the newly independent state I happen to be born and grew up in equals context that shaped not only my inner nature and relationship with both (my)self and the rest, but also the perception on endless odds and hazards. Hence, I yearn likewise to tell a story of a nearly unknown yet anticonformiste country that resisted.

To my humble understanding, Lithuania and most notably Lithuanians can be comprehended through two major pillars: (1) a long history of statehood or the « myth » of the ancient Baltic tribe, arguably speaking the oldest surviving indo-European language - the very last pagans of Europe - who once ruled the largest medieval European state stretching all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea and (2) collective trauma unleashed by 50 years of Soviet occupation, worse still, exacerbated by international ignorance and attempts to shake off the shackles of the homo sovieticus.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LITHUANIA

My intent is not to bother you with heavy historic facts, but rather to introduce the narrative.

011009 – 1253

Nearly unknown to most, the history of the statehood of Lithuania goes all the way back to the 13th century when a soon-to-be king Mindaugas consolidated Lithuanian lands. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania emerged.

0214th century

Skilled merchants, craftsmen, farmers and traders from Western Europe were invited to settle in Lithuania in exchange of tax concessions and pieces of land, among other privileges, under the rule of the duke Gediminas. Think of it as a sort of free economic zone of the 14th century with favourable tax conditions.

0315th century

Underpinned by great tolerance towards diverse religious and ethnic groups, the prosperity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania reached its peak in the 15th century, with a territory stretching all the way to the Black Sea.

041569

Later on, as new threats emerged, Lithuania entered into a union with the Kingdom of Poland in 1569, forming a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

051791 – 1795

While the Union adopted the very first written European constitution on 3 May 1791 (you cannot beat that, France), a burdensome political system alongside with a series of lost wars eventually led to three partitions orchestrated by Prussia, the Russian Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. Lithuania fell under the Tsarist Russia rule by the end of the 18th century.

061795 – 1918

With the 40-years press ban, which forbade Lithuanian publications and the usage of Latin alphabet, in place, Russian empire attempted to suppress the very core of Lithuanian culture, yet in vain. Russification was met with a resistance movement of book smugglers « on the front lines » who illegally carried books through the border - a unique and unprecedented phenomenon.

071918 – 1940

As soon as the 1st World War ended and the Russian Revolution was born, Lithuania seized its chance to recreate what was forcefully formerly taken - its statehood and independence. 1918-1940 may be renowned as the period of a brief prosperity.

081940

Brief, as shortly thereafter while the whole Europe was plunging into chaos, Lithuania ended up caught in between the Soviet and Nazi empires. In 1940 Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union and hence, forgotten by the world and erased from the map.

091940 – 1990

The onset of the occupation was two-fold: (1) on the one hand, it is a story of mass arrests, interrogations, deportations and executions of the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians, (2) on the other hand, it is a story of ardent resistance, this time, with Lithuanian partisans on the front lines and in the woods. The years behind the iron curtain resulted in a long and continuous process of shaping a homo sovieticus, detrimental to any form of individualism and fostering indifference.

101990

Accelerated by perestroika, Lithuania declared independence on March 11, 1990, laying the foundations for the dissolution of the entire Soviet bloc.

Your turn. Choose a date to see what happened.

This brief historical prologue is crucial to understanding Lithuania.

Lithuania · 1009 – 1990

Through centuries, in and out of statehood

1009First written mention
1253Mindaugas crowned king

A Lithuanian stateRuled by others

WE TOLD YOU SO, YOU FUCKING FOOLS

Never was I so confronted with the Western ignorance regarding the Soviet era as when I left Lithuania as young as 19 years old. Worse still, I chose France as my destination - a country that has been flirting with communists and communism, at times, for all the wrong reasons. It took me a fair amount of time to comprehend, if not accept, that both the size and the economic stance in the international arena is somewhat proportional to the level of ignorance, let alone rarely efficient governance. Small is beautiful after all.

Yet, living in a totalitarian regime for over 50 years left a non-negligible mark on Lithuanians: it suppressed both initiatives and incentives, frightened the society and set people against each other, violated the generational transmission of the cultural and national identity. As a result of the wicked Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, also known as le pacte germano-soviétique, Lithuania was annexed and occupied by Soviet troops in 1940. During the period 1940-1953 Lithuania lost ⅓ of its total population, or approximately 1.2 million people perished in prisons, were deported to Siberia, murdered for political reasons or forced to emigrate.

The following testimony of a survivor of Siberia puts in a nutshell the ghastly horrors what have been kept dormant:

While we were in the Arctic and people all around us were dying of starvation I remember my mother once asked the guard « Why have you gone through all the trouble of bringing us out here to Siberia only to starve and work us to death ? ». He answered and I’ll never forget it. He said « We do not need your death, we need your pain and suffering ». That is how cruel and evil it all was.

Irena Valaitytė-Špakauskienė

There was no liberation of the people deported to Siberia. Those who survived spent up to 15 years in the Arctic prison. In the mid-1950s people were gradually allowed to return and then reduced to silence. Everything was lost. And that is a strategic « superiority» of the communist playbook in action. How much more complicated does it become to overcome a collective trauma shared by millions if one party acceptance never truly takes place?

Against all odds and the orthodox belief, in 1968 a renowned historian Robert Conquest detailed Stalin’s crimes and the horrors of the Soviet Empire in « The Great Terror ». 23 years later when the opening of the archives proved him right, he was asked to come up with a new title. His pal suggested a says-it-all: « I Told You So, You Fucking Fools ».

For some, Russia was and still remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, for Lithuanians and other former Soviet-bloc countries, well, we told you so, you fucking fools.

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