The Making of the Titular Nation Engineers in Soviet Lithuania and Latvia (From the end of the 1940S to the MID-1950S)

Abstract

The goals of this article are: 1) to examine the factors that formed the group of Lithuanian engineers compared with the case of Soviet Latvia, and to show what reasons determined the interests of the related historical geopolitical, republic government and institutions of higher education; and 2) to show the significance of training ‘excess’ Lithuanian engineers in the Soviet Lithuanian government’s policy of korenizatsiya (the promotion of members of the titular nation for their careers). The article states that the system that formed in Soviet Lithuania due to the historical geopolitical circumstances, albeit briefly, whereby two universities, in Vilnius and Kaunas, existed until 1950, was exceptionally favourable for the korenizatsiya of specialists compared to other Soviet republics, and the education of titular nation engineers. The ‘excess’ contingent of engineers trained in the republic’s institutions of higher education formed the basis of Lithuanian specialists that allowed the leaders of Soviet Lithuania to send Russian-speaking cadres away from the republic and ensure the korenizatsiya of national cadres.