Lietuvos šauliai tarpukariu: lietuviai, katalikai, visuomenės elitas | Lithuanian Riflemen in the Interwar Period: Lithuanians, Catholics, the Elite of Society

Abstract

During the struggle for Lithuania’s independence, defence and guerrilla units started forming inthe countryside, and fought against the Bermontian and Soviet forces and gangs of marauders.In 1919, intellectuals and public servants from Kaunas formed a sports-military guerrilla organisation,and called it the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU). The organisation accepted not onlynew members, but also people who had already fought with guerrilla units in northeast Lithuania.Therefore, the ranks of the LRU grew rapidly, and the new paramilitary organisation playedan important role in the struggle for Lithuania’s statehood. The LRU was active throughout theinterwar period, until 11 July 1940, when, after the Soviet occupation, it was officially disbanded.This paper deals with issues of the scope and structure of the LRU, which until now havehardly been dealt with in historiography. The paper has three objectives: 1) it tries to establishchanges in the numbers of riflemen in the interwar period, as well as the numbers of peoplewho belonged to the LRU in different periods, and their total number throughout the interwarperiod; 2) the ethnic, religious and social composition of the Riflemen’s Union is analysed, withthe aim of developing ‘a social portrait of a rifleman’; and 3) the internal structure of the Unionis addressed: the numbers of reserve and combatant riflemen. Key words: paramilitarism, Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, paramilitary organisational structure,social composition, ethnic composition. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.15181/ahuk.v28i0.923