Religious incident statistics for Soviet Lithuanian schools

Abstract

RELIGIOUS INCIDENT STATISTICS FOR SOVIET LITHUANIAN SCHOOLS David Kinsella and Rein Taagepera, University of California, Irvine Incidents involving Roman Catholicism clearly do occur in Soviet Lithua- nian schools. Whether one wants to consider them persecution or harass- ment or legitimate suppression of unruly behavior (or a mixture of all three) depends on different definitions of what constitutes harassment and what represents acceptable social behavior on the part of schoolchildren. On the factual level underground publications have presented a wealth of detailed descriptions which in general have not been challenged by Soviet authorities. It is obviously difficult for any authorities to refute directly claims by sources the existence of which they do not want to recognize, but they could do it indirectly in cases where the underground descriptions contain gross errors. The very extent of descriptive detail given by the underground sources also argues against pure invention or magnification of vague rumors. Given their emotional involvement in the incidents, neither official Soviet nor underground publications are to be expected to repre- sent neutral information sources. In order to elucidate what is actually tak- ing place, one can systematically analyze the information available. A statistical analysis may help to bring out patterns not evident in case-to- case reporting, and it may also help to detect systematic bias on the part of the sources because a set of plausible accounts may lead to implausible overall patterns. The objective of this study is to analyze a major body of information available on the subject: the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. 1 This is the oldest Lithuanian underground periodical, publish- ed since March 1972 and reaching its 6lst issue in early 1984. It has thus averaged five issues per year. As the Chronicle issues reach the West, they are translated from Lithuanian into several languages. An English transla- tion is published by the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Priests' League of America. 2 Most issues include a separate section entitled In the Soviet JBS, Vol. XV, No. 1 (Spring 1984)