‘The Tsar Would Not Have Taken Away Our Pensions’: Compensation for Russian Army First World War Invalids in Interwar Lithuania

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the support given to Great War invalids in Lithuania: how did veterans of the Imperial Russian army, injured during the First World War, act in order to procure social security (pensions), and how did Lithuanian legalislation change in reaction to their justified expectations. The social welfare situation of Great War invalids who became citizens of the Republic of Lithuania changed in three different stages: a) the period up to 1926; b) 1926 to 1929; and c) following the passing of a separate law on pensions for former Imperial Russian army war invalids in 1930. It was found that support for these First World War invalids in Lithuania was constantly compared to compensation for those who were injured in the Wars of Independence (1918–1920). The size of pensions for these two groups was never equal. Regardless of the fact that attempts were made to make the two types of pensions equal in 1925–1926, barely six months later, Great War invalids started receiving smaller pensions, until they were eventually suspended altogether before a separate law came into effect in 1930. In the article, the reasons for this are explained as a lack of money and political will, and the view of part of society that those injured in the First World War were ‘not fighting for Lithuania’.