Lithuanian Diaspora Research Articles

Academic Community – the Target of the KGB of the Lithuanian SSR

Starting from the very beginning of the Soviet occupation, the academic community became the target of the Soviet government. The government aimed to break the elite of society because of its potential and real resistance against the system and to subject it to its policies. Education and science institutions, therefore, were very important in the fight of the Soviet regime for human consciousness. Education was to be used for Communist indoctrination and instilling the values of the worldview important to the Soviet regime both in the country and outside the country. In addition, science institutions had an important role to play in the Cold War race with the West in the areas of science, technology and industry. With their discoveries, scientists had to help create the superiority of the Soviet system against the West. Furthermore, in the guise of scientific relations with the West, there was an opportunity for “intelligence activities”. The KGB, using its resources, helped the Communist Party implement its objectives in conjunction with the academic community. The KGB paid great attention to the behaviour of the representatives of the academic community, their attitudes towards government policies and other issues, monitored their relationships, analysed anti-Soviet manifestations among students and lecturers, and sought to identify and eliminate people who according to the authorities were unreliable. A network of agents was established for the implementation of these tasks, but it was not as broad as the KGB desired. Lithuanian scholars and scholars of the Lithuanian diaspora served both as the tool and the target of the implementation of the Communist Party propaganda campaigns. Achievements demonstrated by Lithuanian scientists in the West had to declare the progress of the Soviet system and also to discredit political campaigns by the diaspora. Scholars recruited by the KGB had a none-the-less important role to play in carrying out the KGB tasks of technical and industrial espionage in the West and thus helping create the image of superiority of the Soviet Union. Conferences and internships both in the West and in Lithuania were the perfect medium for collecting a variety of scientific and technical information. KGB agent reports show that achievements in medicine and in particular in the laser area, dominated in the records obtained by the agents.

The Legacy of Lithuanian Architect Stasys Kudokas in the United States of America: Sacred Architecture Based on Hope and Expectations

Abstract Many Lithuanian intellectuals fled from the occupied Lithuania during the Second World War and after it, including the most famous architects who created the architectural language of interwar Kaunas Modernism. After escaping from the war-torn country to the United States of America, they resumed their professional pursuits while living in exile. Stasys Kudokas – one of the most prominent and productive architects in the interwar Lithuania – also pursued his carreer while living in exile. Yet his architectural heritage in the United States of America is still an under-researched topic. The Lithuanian diaspora press remains one of the most comprehensive sources exploring Kudokas’ professional path in the United States of America. By using descriptive and comparative methods, this study aims to examine the most important projects by Kudokas for the Lithuanian diaspora and the related expectations of Lithuanian communities, reflected in the diaspora press. This study will reveal that the reflection of Lithuanianness in the architecture designed for the Lithuanian community was the most important criterion for evaluating Kudokas’ legacy in the exile press.

Interaction of L1 attrition, language attitudes and identity in Lithuanian diaspora

Abstract Researchers note that the complex process of language attrition is influenced by a plethora of multifaceted factors, among which attitudes and identity play significant roles. The aim of this paper is to analyse the way in which language attitudes and identity are related to Lithuanian L1 attrition in Lithuanian emigrant communities residing in various countries worldwide. This is achieved by studying the extralinguistic factors, such as convictions about the importance of the heritage Lithuanian language in life, feelings associated with the Lithuanian language, identification with the culture and history of the native and/or host country and the country itself. The quantitative data comes from large-scale Lithuanian diaspora surveys and is used to analyse the link between self-perceived L1 attrition, language attitudes, and identity. The analysis is illustrated by citations from the in-depth interviews that constitute the qualitative part of the data. The study’s results show that there is a correlation between the perceived Lithuanian L1 attrition and both language attitudes and identity. The language attitudes of those emigrants who perceive their L1 attrition are less positive towards the L1, and they identify less with Lithuanian culture and Lithuania when compared to those who do not perceive attrition.

Lithuanians and Ukrainians living in exile: traces of political relations in the West

In raising the issue of Lithuania’s freedom the political diaspora of Lithuanians understood that seeking to maintain the relevance of this problem on the international plane it is important not only to further strengthen relations with other Balts of a similar fate but also to establish contacts with the emigrants of other Eastern European nations which live in dependence of the Soviet Union and by communicating with them to seek for concerted actions in the joint liberation activity. Developing relations between the Lithuanian diaspora and the Ukrainian one became one of the directions of such cooperation. The Diplomatic Service of the Republic of Lithuania followed the principle according to which close relations linking only the Baltic States were possible, excluding Belarus and Ukraine which were in the composition of the Soviet Union before World War II; this fact definitely confirmed the international recognition of the statehood of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. However, taking into consideration the emerging movement of the United States of Europe whose germs dated back to the period before World War II, and which promoted the idea of uniting the states of Eastern and Western Europe, including also Ukraine, the principles which were becoming predominant changed. Supporting the idea of unification, the Ukrainian side, at the beginning offered to apply this model in Eastern Europe, which, seeking to achieve liberation should strive for unity, come together and play an active part beginning with a smaller nucleus. The block formed on the basis of the region (the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea) was seen in which, apart from Ukraine, there should be Belarus (often referred to as Belorussia), Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and Poland – as an ally of the block. Therefore, approving of nonrecognition of Lithuania’s and other Baltic countries’ joining the USSR, it became important to support liberation of other nations under Soviet domination, including that of Ukrainians. Main factors of the Lithuanian diaspora – the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania or VLIK, the Lithuanian Freedom Committee (LLK), and later (from the 1960s) the Lithuanian World Community, in cooperation with the Lithuanian American Community – became engaged in a search for political relations with the Ukrainians who did not deny historical links and supported the idea of liberation. They expressed the expectations of their Motherland – Ukraine – in the West through the following organisations: the Ukrainian National Council (UNR), the Ukrainians World Congress, the Ukrainian American Congress. Raising the issue of independence of Vilnius and Lvov brough the positions of both the Lithuanian and Ukrainian diasporas closer together. Hence, it can be stated that since the end of the 1940s, Lithuanian political factors, in establishing contacts with the above-mentioned Ukrainian leaders in the West, spoke for promoting cooperation between themselves in the context of Eastern Europe. The course of the process itself was planned until full independence of Lithuania and Ukraine had been achieved, and after freedom for the nations had been regained, it was assured that cooperation would not be withheld and their historical friendship, which had become a tradition, would continue: cultural, political links would further be developed and strengthened and relations between both states would be fostered in the spirit of partnership that had been formed. It is very important that both Lithuania’s and Ukraine’s aspirations towards emancipation from the iron grip of Communism were professed while the diasporas of both nations conducted public anti-Soviet campaigns in the West. The Helsinki process that started in 1975 provided the movement of liberation of Eastern European nations, including Lithuanians and Ukrainians, with the new impetus. New forces that joined the movement did their utmost to strengthen relations between both nations and the dissidents who arrived in the West expanded their cooperation underlying the importance of a unified fight against the communist regime. At the same time the expectations and conviction of the Eastern European nations that Western democracy could be the best example of governance to that part of the old Continent were expressed.

Memory of Soviet Repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian Diaspora: Interpretations, Practices, Contexts

In this article, the focus is on the memory of repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian diaspora, a large part of which consists of the descendants of Lithuanians who were subject to repression. Based on data from a survey of semi-structured interviews,53 the interpretations, evaluations, and practices for the memorialisation and commemoration of the memory of the repressions among the representatives of the diaspora are analysed. The connections of this memory with Kazakhstan’s dominant collective memory discourses and the Lithuanian narrative of the memory of repressions are discussed. The analysis reveals how discourses of the memory of the repressions in the country impact the memory of the descendant of the migrants.

Memory of Soviet Repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian Diaspora: Interpretations, Practices, Contexts

In this article, the focus is on the memory of repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian diaspora, a large part of which consists of the descendants of Lithuanians who were subject to repression. Based on data from a survey of semi-structured interviews, the interpretations, evaluations, and practices for the memorialisation and commemoration of the memory of the repressions among the representatives of the diaspora are analysed. The connections of this memory with Kazakhstan’s dominant collective memory discourses and the Lithuanian narrative of the memory of repressions are discussed. The analysis reveals how discourses of the memory of the repressions in the country impact the memory of the descendant of the migrants.

Family Language Policy and dialect maintenance in the Lithuanian diaspora

In this article, we adopt Spolsky’s Family Language Policy framework and Curdt-Christiansen’s dynamic model to explore the situation of dialect maintenance in the Lithuanian diaspora of three emigration waves. The qualitative data from in-depth interviews with representatives of all the waves or their descendants, resident in different continents, is explored to reveal the family language policy and the main factors that influence it. Different family language policies concerning dialect have been adopted by the different emigration waves for a combination of reasons, such as motives for emigration, education, language and dialect situation and language ideology in Lithuania at the time of leaving the country. The internal factors would favour dialects in situations where the dialect speakers themselves emigrate, but the external ones often have a stronger impact in the complex context of heritage language maintenance concerning passing on the language to the younger generation. This study of family language policies applied in different historical periods adds to a better understanding of the complex and dynamic reality of language maintenance in diasporic contexts.

Lithuanian Diaspora in Uruguay During the Beginning of the Cold War

This article studies the problems behind the involvement of the Lithuanian diaspora of Uruguay in the political processes at the beginning of the Cold War (second half of the 1940s – early 1950s). The author considers the history of the formation of the Lithuanian diaspora in the South American country starting from the later period of the Russian Empire and its status in the interwar period in the context of the development of the Lithuanian statehood. Additionally, the article describes the emergence and solution of the problem of refugees and displaced persons after World War II in the international context. It is noted that the refugees and displaced persons were mostly representatives of the Soviet Union (including the Baltic states that became part of the USSR in 1940), Poland, Yugoslavia, and other countries of Eastern Europe. The study proves that in the new historical conditions, there was a change in the social composition of the Lithuanian emigration of Uruguay, which was replenished with political opponents of the Soviet regime, collaborators fleeing retribution, and “Westerners” (defectors). Formed as a result of a global conflict and a new system of international relations, this type of diasporas was called “communities of exiles”, “exiled communities”, or “political diasporas”. The politicised nature of such diasporas, which included post-war Lithuanian emigration to Uruguay, led to its participation in the information confrontation with the USSR in the framework of the Cold War that had begun. In this regard, the author examines the attitude of the Uruguayan authorities to the “emigration governments of the Baltic countries”, and, more particularly, the so-called “Lithuanian government” headed by Mykolas Krupavičius in the USA and his “mission” headed by Kazimiro Grauzhinis in Uruguay. The specifics of the situation with the problems of repatriation in the USSR, which is revealed using materials from the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and emigration periodicals, showed the reaction of the Soviet leadership to the position of Uruguay in relation to Soviet displaced persons (including within the new borders). The author concludes that in the context of intra-diaspora splits, immediately after the war, the nationalist-minded part of the Lithuanian emigration was an active participant of all anti-Soviet campaigns, using finances and all possible information resources for this (primarily, the United States). Hence, the unconditional orientation towards Washington of this part of the diasporas, including the Lithuanian one, which was called upon to sow anti-Russian sentiments and support the negative image of the USSR in the public opinion of the West, becomes obvious and logical.

The dynamics of civic mentality in the Lithuanian diaspora: between activity and emotionality

Straipsnyje siekiama susieti pilietinio dalyvavimo formas ir platesnes politines nuostatas su migrantų klasteriais, suformuotais remiantis socialinėmis ir ekonominėmis savybėmis, tipologizuoti pilietinio mentaliteto požymius (būdingus kiekvienam klasteriui) ir jų skirtumus. Straipsnyje pristatomos ir aptariamos pilietinio mentaliteto dimensijos, atsižvelgiant į skaudžiausius ir problemiškus sovietinio palikimo aspektus. Tyrimas grindžiamas lietuvių, emigravusių į įvairias Europos šalis, kiekybine apklausa, remiantis socioekonominio statuso samprata buvo atliekama klasterinė analizė ir gauti trys klasteriai, kurie naudojami tolesnėje analizėje. Rezultatai parodė, kad klasterių atstovų pilietinis mentalitetas, nagrinėjant subjektyvias patirtis, skiriasi ir priklauso nuo jų pilietinių nuostatų. Viena vertus, nepasitikėjimas vieni kitais ir institucijomis neskatina asmeninio dalyvavimo, kita vertus, savos atsakomybės nesuvokimas ir (ar) ignoravimas perkelia atsakomybę už viešojo gėrio kūrimą ant valdžios pečių ir taip formuoja emocionalias reakcijas į savos valstybės veiksmus.

Memory of Soviet Repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian Diaspora: Interpretations, Practices, Contexts

In this article, the focus is on the memory of repressions in the Kazakhstan Lithuanian diaspora, a large part of which consists of the descendants of Lithuanians who were subject to repression. Based on data from a survey of semi-structured interviews, the interpretations, evaluations, and practices for the memorialisation and commemoration of the memory of the repressions among the representatives of the diaspora are analysed. The connections of this memory with Kazakhstan’s dominant collective memory discourses and the Lithuanian narrative of the memory of repressions are discussed. The analysis reveals how discourses of the memory of the repressions in the country impact the memory of the descendant of the migrants.

„Pasauliui reikėjo parodyti“: Lietuvos (antinacinės) rezistencijos politinių kalinių sąjungos veikla

The article focuses on the activities of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners of the Anti-Nazi Resistance in Germany and the USA, an organisation that has not been studied in the historiography so far. It was founded in 1946 to care for the repressed participants of the anti-Nazi resistance and their families but it went beyond the narrow boundaries of humanitarian aid to its members and became involved in the anti-Soviet struggle of the Lithuanian diaspora. In 1948 and 1952, the word ‘anti-Nazi’ was dropped from its name. The organisation united the Lithuanians repressed by the Nazi and Soviet regimes. The article analyses the circumstances of the founding of the union, its aspirations and achievements, and the reasons for its changing identity.

Lithuanian Research and Studies Center

With origins that date back to the 1970s, the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center is the only Lithuanian diaspora research institution in the world. Its emergence was determined by the Lithuanian heritage accumulated in the Lithuanian diaspora and the need to disseminate it, as well as the developing scien- tific potential of Lithuanians abroad and the consequences of the Soviet occupation. Representatives of the Lithuanian American scientific and cultural elite founded this institution at the Youth Center in Chicago in early 1982, uniting 12 departments under the umbrella principle. The goal was to collect Lithuanian material, make it available to researchers, bring the latter together for scientific work, and promote research both within the Lithuanian diaspora and among non-Lithuanians. Up until 1990, the Center took shape by pooling the Lithuanian base and strengthening Lithuanian research. After 1990, in the second stage of the lrsC’s activities, extensive and resilient relations were established with Lithuanian research institutions and scholars; Lithuanian libraries were supplied with Western literature and diaspora publications; books by Lithuanian and foreign scholars were prepared and published; articles and documents were scanned and microfilmed; and exhibitions were put together. The Center also became known to foreign scholars interested in Lithuanian studies.

The Descendants of Lithuanian Immigrants in Kazakhstan: Contours of Ethnic Identity


 
 
 Research on the forced migration of Lithuanians to the east of the former Soviet Union in the 1940s and early 1950s throws up a wide range of issues. Methodologically, most of such studies are similar in terms of the sample chosen, which consists of the former prisoners of gulags and exiles who have returned to Lithuania, but it usually disregards those who stayed. Accordingly, the Lithuanian diasporas that emerged in the east after the forced migration, including in Kazakhstan, have not been studied in detail. In this article, our aim is to answer the questions of how and in what private and public contexts processes of the ethnic identification of the Lithuanian diaspora in Kazakhstan are determined, how ethnic boundaries are drawn, and what cultural and social resources are used for this purpose. As the research revealed, the conceptualisation of ethnicity implied by the Kazakhstan state that has been adopted by our informants eliminates its cultural content, or at most reduces it to forms evident in festive culture, as well as the need and possibilities for its expression. As a result, ethnic identity is constructed on the basis of what is almost the sole criterion: Lithuanian descent in the form of ‘root’ or ‘blood’. For most of our informants, ‘roots’ are just a fact of origin, as shown in the practice of entering Lithuanian ethnicity in personal documents, an officially required practice which does not have and does not presuppose any enactment of ethno-cultural differences. Ethnicity, which is seen as ‘in-rooted’ but also as culture-less and as muted by a doubling of roots among ethnically mixed families of origin, enables a whole spectrum of manipulations of ethnic identity. One such manipulation is attempting to profit from the Lithuanian ethnic identity by turning it into a resource for acquiring benefits. The practice of profiteering from the Lithuanian ethnic identity, and thus its transformation into a resource for gaining benefits in the forms of Lithuanian citizenship and a hope of being repatriated to Lithuania, is probably the most frequent factor in becoming Lithuanian by remembering Lithuanian roots and activating the Lithuanian ethnic identity.
 
 

Post-diasporic Resilience to Assimilation via the Heritagisation of the Diasporic Legacy among the Descendants of Lithuanian Exiles to Trans-Volga Russia

Abstract The Trans-Volga Lithuanian diaspora has for more than 150 years traversed the challenges of assimilation into a majoritarian Russian society. However, in the contemporary era, the third- and fourth-generation descendants’ resilience to assimilation is focused on sensitivity to roots and a valorisation of the diasporic past. The role of agency in diasporic memory, place-making and cultural representations is of key importance. The aim of this paper is to focus on the post-diasporic domains of communality by highlighting the shared values and aspirations, strategies and experiences of the reclamation and heritagisation of diasporic legacy. Analysis of fieldwork among the descendants has shown that their resilience to assimilation is grounded in the dominant narrative of the heroic past of the diaspora firstcomers: in terms of—Lithuanians as pioneers of the Kazakh steppe; in the heritagisation of Lithuanian objects and places via collection and museumisation of ethnographic objects, and co-memorising; the re-Lithuanianisation of diaspora places through erecting Catholic chapels and crosses; and in the festive representations of traditional Trans-Volga Lithuanian culture at state-sponsored local multicultural festivals.

Antagonistic, Cosmopolitan and Agonistic Memory Modes in Postmemorial Third-Generation Holocaust Narratives of Lithuanian Diaspora Writers

This article examines the challenges of coming to terms with Holocaust perpetratorship as depicted in postmemorial third-generation Holocaust literature by Lithuanian diaspora writers Rita Gabis, Julija Šukys, and Silvia Foti. It also outlines the mnemonic strategies used to reconcile contradictory historical narratives from the perspectives of both the victims and the perpetrators. The analysis demonstrates the authors’ approaches to portraying victims and perpetrators, their choices in framing conflicting historical accounts, and their exploration of individual actions within the context of collective national identities. The main variations observed in the structuring of conflict stem from differences in writing styles, levels of personal connection to familial history, and collective experiences of suffering. These variations are also intertwined with the deliberate silence surrounding the individual-historical narrative which the collective voluntarily retreated into.

Lietuvių diasporos dokumentinis paveldas: susigrąžinimo, pažinimo ir tyrimų problemos

During the three decades of independent Lithuania, a lot of important work was done in preserving and researching the documentary heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora. Various state institutions have expressed concern about the fate of the archival heritage of the diaspora, and the documentary heritage of the diaspora, its search, and the accumulation of information in state strategic documents, have been identified as significant barriers to the activities of state institutions for almost two decades. The work of identifying and recovering heritage important to Lithuania abroad is successfully underway, and collections of diaspora cultural heritage are returning to Lithuania from various parts of the world. During these decades, many important studies of the cultural history of the diaspora have been conducted, and a number of books and monographs have been published. Still, the history of the Lithuanian diaspora, its documentary heritage, remains a little-known and rather foreign thing to Lithuanian society. The article discusses the issues of the fate of the documentary heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora and analyzes the relevance, dispersion, preservation, accessibility, research, and dissemination of cultural heritage, which are faced by the institutions protecting the documentary heritage operating both in Lithuania and abroad. From the end of the 19th century to the present day, many cultural values were created through emigration. Only a small part of the documentary heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora has been preserved and known, part of which was inevitably destroyed by time, and the rest is kept in various institutions and private archives in Lithuania, Canada, the USA, Australia, Germany, and other countries. The heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora, which is disappearing rather rapidly in various countries, remains one of the most pressing problems to this day. As the number of representatives of the Lithuanian diaspora who created and preserved this heritage decreases, the questions of the fate of this archival heritage become more and more relevant. In Lithuania, there is still no unified information archiving system of the documentary heritage related to Lithuania located abroad: there is a lack of information on which and how many are the diaspora archives, and in which institutions they are stored. Archives that have returned to Lithuania are scattered among various cities and towns, museums, libraries, state archives, and scientific institutions, where their storage, management, and digitization work is strongly influenced by the availability of financial and human resources. Institutions protecting the historical heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora are increasingly faced with the problems of identifying and evaluating this heritage, because: a) the ranks of the actors of the cultural life of the diaspora who created, preserved and can recognize this documentary heritage are constantly thinning, and the young generation of diaspora is almost not interested in the legacy of their parents; b) in Lithuania, there is a decrease in the number of specialists working and researching the history of the diaspora. In order for the documentary heritage of the Lithuanian diaspora not to be condemned to oblivion, it is not enough just to take care of the preservation of these diaspora archives, their transportation to Lithuania, and their safe storage in archive storage facilities: it is necessary to research and get to know it so that this heritage becomes its own, important and necessary part of the historical legacy of the Lithuanian nation.

Lithuanian Postcard in the struggle against Imperial Russia

The article is devoted to a peculiar episode of the struggle of Lithuanians against the policy of persecution based on nationality which was pursued by Imperial Russia between 1864 and 1904. Its participants were representatives of the parts of the Lithuanian nation separated by the border between Germany and the Russian Empire – Martynas Jankus (1858–1946), a German citizen, a Lithuanian of East Prussia, the owner of a printing office in Tilsit (Lith. Tilžė, currently Sovetsk, a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian Federation) and a group of Lithuanian young people who were operating illegally, a group of citizens of the Russian Empire. The time under discussion is the 1890s. During that period, the Lithuanian national movement was rapidly developing and strengthening while striving to bring together both parts of the nation and the USA-based Lithuanian diaspora community. One of the most important measures of the common struggle was the distribution of publications printed in Latin characters in the Lithuanian language which were banned to be published in the territory of Russia but were legally printed in East Prussia and smuggled across the border into Lithuania. From there, the publications were sent to Lithuanian communities all over the Russian Empire. This struggle resulted in victory: the ban was lifted by Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Russia issued in 1904.
 To strengthen the political opposition, Lithuanian intellectuals printed not only books, brochures and newspapers but also various minor publications – political leaflets. Students of Russian universities and Lithuanian intellectuals graduates of these higher education institutions prepared texts and sent funds intended for their publication to the printing offices of Lithuanians and Germans in East Prussia. The number of such leaflets surviving to the present day is very small. One of these publications was an anonymous card of the size of a standard German postcard (95 x 140 mm). Thus far, three of them have been found in Lithuanian libraries and archives, and one has been discovered in the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. A composition of two illustrations is printed on one side of the card: a Lithuanian countrywoman and a Cossack standing in front of her with a raised whip and a bottle of vodka as a gift for obedience. This symbolised a spread of orthodoxy and the deportation of Lithuanians from their native land. The following exclamation of the Cossack is printed: Are you a Lithuanian? Go to Russia! The explanation of the content of the illustration and the encouragement (first of all, to Catholic believers) to oppose the plans of the authorities are printed in small characters. They are related to the colonisation of Siberia. The statements are well-grounded, the exposition of the subject is logical and written in the correct Lithuanian language. Most probably, it was created by the graduate of the Faculty of Law of the University of Moscow Vladas Mačys (1867–1936).
 Vaclovas Biržiška, Professor of Law at the University of Lithuania in Kaunas and Director of the University Library, was the first to describe this publication bibliographically. The author regarded this publication as a postcard, attributed it to Martynas Jankus’ printing office and dated it ‘1892’. A more precise description was publicised in the fundamental work of Lithuanian national bibliography Lietuvos TSR bibliografija. Serija A: Knygos lietuvių kalba (Bibliography of the Lithuanian SSR. Series A: Books in the Lithuanian Language; vol. 2: 1862–1904. Book 2 (Vilnius, 1988, p. 401, No. 4065). It was compiled in the Soviet era, and the only available copy stored in Mikhail J. Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library (currently renamed the Russian National Library in Sankt Petersburg) served as the basis for it. The present author amended the publication date of the postcard (1891) and specified the circumstances of its distribution, while also ascertaining that the artist of the illustrations was the lithographer of Tilsit Johann Mai.

Concept and Self-Consciousness of the žemininkai Generation

The article analyses the origins of the concept of the žemininkai generation (the so-called Earth generation of Lithuanian literary modernism), in order to assess the validity and suitability of this traditional concept for the research of Lithuanian literature and culture. The notion that the group that published the literary anthology Žemė (Earth, 1951) represents a much wider literary and cultural generation born in the 1920s has been established in Lithuanian literary studies since the 1950s, but it has not been sufficiently critically examined. From a socio-cultural point of view, the question arises as to whether this actually corresponds to an authentic collective phenomenon of generational consciousness of these authors. For this purpose, the development of the concept of the žemininkai generation in the post-war Lithuanian diaspora and post-soviet Lithuania is investigated, the concept of generation formulated in the cultural sociology works of Karl Mannheim and Norbert Elias is discussed, and cases of generational identification in the early texts of the žemininkai, written during the Second World War, and in their later ego-documentary texts are analysed. Aspects of critical period experience, generational solidarity, socio-cultural location, intergenerational relations, and literary impact are considered. It is concluded that the expression of a complex generational self-consciousness indeed appears in the texts of the žemininkai group.

Fighting for Visibility: Lithuanian Artists in Argentina

The paper analyses the role of the Lithuanian diaspora and its artists in the art field of Argentina in the 30’s and 40’s, and overviews their input into the development of the nativist discourse. The paper employs social art history to show the impact the transatlantic migration had on the social mobility of migrant artists and their careers in South America and Lithuania.

Lithuanian Diaspora Role in Sustainable Development of Country

The world wide experience of communication and cooperation of diasporas and origin countries shows various ways and forms how diasporas can contribute towards sustainable development of origin country. Lithuania also has relatively huge diaspora and faces increasing emigration every year. However, it still neglects the potential of it’s diaspora involvement in contributing to well-being of the country. In order to reveal the potential of Lithuanian diaspora the qualitative research was conducted. It used expert interview method with 12 leaders of foreign Lithuanian communities and organizations. The research revealed that Lithuanian diaspora is willing and could contribute significantly to the country’s sustainable development in various areas: scientific, business, cultural and social ones. In order to facilitate this cooperation, Lithuanian government should decrease barriers for cooperation and implement measures that would take into account the diversity of diaspora groups interests and possibilities, provide relevant information about means of engagement and support already existing and new diaspora networks and their initiatives.