Soviet Lithuania Research Articles

This thematic cluster examines how domestic violence became visible under state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, 1950s–1980s. Microhistorical, bottom-up case studies of Czechoslovakia, the GDR, and Soviet Lithuania trace how communities, experts, and authorities defined and addressed domestic violence. Drawing on little-used sources, criminal and court files, local records, medical reports, and letters, the articles show how class, ethnicity, and expertise shaped recognition and response. They reveal tensions between the proclaimed “new socialist society” and everyday practice, challenge monolithic depictions of communist rule, and foreground agency and longue durée patriarchal continuities. Together, they promote a European history of family violence.

ABSTRACT The ‘second wave’ of war crimes trials in the Soviet Union in the 1960s led to the re-emergence of trial documentaries. This article examines how trial films made in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic represented the history of Soviet post-war justice and portrayed both Nazi collaborators and their Jewish victims. The article not only explores the production process of these documentaries by presenting the political, social and cinematic contexts of their creation, but also discusses their cinematic language, the process of censorship, the prescribed ideological function, and (albeit limited) the reception. It demonstrates that these documentaries, even if commissioned by the highest state authorities, managed to manoeuvre between the official representation of the history of the Second World War, the personal war experiences of the filmmakers, and their artistic skills of filmmaking. This article shows how the categories of law, cinema and the Holocaust were interrelated in Soviet Lithuania during the Thaw.

This article examines the spatial and functional transformations of rural libraries in Soviet Lithuania during the period from 1959 to 1987. Libraries are analysed not only as brick-and-mortar institutions, but also as evolving spatial and social practices that transcend the traditional concept of the library. The study seeks to reveal how they functioned not merely as tools of ideological control, but also as important cultural centres whose activities extended far beyond their premises. Emphasis is placed on the creation of expanded library spaces that encompassed reading, as well as broader social and cultural interaction. To trace these practices, the study draws on archival sources from the districts of Ukmergė, Širvintos, Švenčionys and Trakai – including annual reports, correspondence, and activity plans. It explores how libraries functioned in unsuitable premises, often lacking adequate infrastructure and resources. Despite such constraints, they organised events in schools, cultural centres, and collective farms, delivered literature to readers, and carried out mobile outreach activities. The distribution of books was also supported by the so-called ‘book carriers’ (in Lithuanian: knygnešiai), who were contributors delivering books to readers so that to fulfil the readership targets imposed from above. Mobility became an integral part of the library work, driven by practical limitations and the need to reach communities through various means. These findings offer a renewed perspective on the role of libraries in the everyday life of Soviet rural society.

This article examines the dissemination mechanisms and communication channels used by Soviet Lithuania to reach the Lithuanian diaspora in the United States. It focuses on the development and distribution of key propaganda tools aimed at the diaspora, including the periodicals Tėvynės balsas (renamed as Gimtasis kraštas in 1967), the domestic Soviet Lithuanian press, and foreign-directed radio broadcasts (LUL). The analysis centers on two primary channels of dissemination: first, these were Soviet Lithuanian institutions responsible for cultural relations with the diaspora, namely, the Committee for Repatriation and Cultural Relations with Compatriots Abroad (1955–1962), Lithuanian Committee for Cultural Relations with Compatriots Abroad (from 1963), and the “Tėviškė” Society (from 1976), which not only created propaganda material but also distributed it and managed diaspora subscriptions to internal Soviet publications; second, the bookstores operating in the U.S., which distributed Soviet literature and press were also used. The article also outlines the main target audiences of these efforts: the anti-communist diaspora (the so-called ‘dipukai’) and the pro-Communists, i.e., the so-called ‘progressives’.

The Colorado potato beetle, which spread across Europe after World War One and reached the Soviet Lithuania in the second half of the 1950s, eventually took over not only the potato fields but also the imagination of potato growers. The myths surrounding this pest have received some attention in foreign historiography, but, in Lithuania, the issue has been virtually untouched, although associative images such as collective searches, bottles of kerosene, and puzzling theories of how the beetle came to be, although faded, have survived to this day. The study seeks to reveal three key moments: the evolution of the discourse, the mechanisms (structures and principles of containment) that were supposed to realise the superiority of the planned struggle declared by the Soviets, as well as the practical, actual expression of the struggle.

The aim of this article is to shed light on the role of the so–called Suwalki Triangle of the 1980s, consisting of our autochthonous compatriots living between Suwalki, Sejny and Punsk, in the cause of Lithuanian freedom aspired by the diaspora. At the same time, an attempt was made to describe the sentiments of Polish Lithuanians and their attitude towards Soviet Lithuania.

ABSTRACT Drawing on extensive archival sources, ego documents, interviews and Soviet publications, this article explores the peculiarities of adoption practices in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania (LSSR) after the 1944 reoccupation. By analysing the social and cultural context of the LSSR, public discourse dictated by the political aims of the occupation regime towards children left in state care, and the problems associated with children left without parental care, it reveals how and why the distinctive social practices of giving up and adopting children were developed and embedded. The article argues that alongside the Soviet legal system, which was intended to regulate the possibilities and conditions for adoption but failed to meet the needs of different social actors, a form of social self-organisation emerged and evolved in Soviet Lithuanian society. The illegitimacy of some of these practices was not politicised and even partially maintained in a systematic manner.

The Tėviškė (Homeland) Society for Lithuania’s cultural relations with compatriots abroad was set up in Soviet Lithuania in 1976 on the basis of previous analogous institutions. Through the society, attempts were made to control the cooperation with emigrant compatriots, disseminate the Soviet propaganda, restrict the spread of objective information, and discredit the right-wing emigration organizations that nurtured the idea of restoration of Lithuania’s independence. The aim of this paper is to review the programme of cultural exchanges with emigrants in the USA, implemented in the Soviet times, by highlighting the musical aspect. The research is based on the Cold War paradigm, the work of historians who analysed the topic, the still unexplored documentation of the Tėviškė Society, and the letters addressed to it and currently stored in the Lithuanian Special Archives. The cultural cooperation programme also included the field of tourism, which was especially useful for governmental institutions wishing to demonstrate the achievements of Soviet Lithuania to foreign visitors. It was partly supervised by the Tėviškė Society. However, this is a subject for a new study and will not be analysed in the present paper.

Based on oral history narratives and original archival research, this article discusses how the Soviet medicalization of homosexuality has affected the self-identification of queer women and how it currently features in the narratives that lesbians tell about themselves in post-Soviet Lithuania. The article shows that the medicalization of homosexuality in Soviet Lithuania was inseparable from the broader pressures of Communist morality, which aimed to guide the private lives of individuals, and that the pathologizing of female homosexuality was tightly interrelated with the social pressure on women to fit into their gender role and adapt to the frameworks of femininity. The article also reflects on how the medicalization of homosexuality, as imposed by Soviet modernity, continues to be felt in the region and how it affects the current state of the LGBTQ community.

Extending activities of fights for freedom, resistance organisation initiated broadcasts of programmes in Lithuanian by radio stations abroad. As a result, the Voice of America started its programmes as early as February 16, 1951 and the radio of Rome on May 4,1952. In 1951 they were transmitted on 26 frequencies per day. For consolidation of Lithuanians abroad programmes were broadcasted both in Lithuanian and in the language of the country they resided. Soviet ideological structures took counter-measures against the words of truth by launching mass radio interference, followed by other means of terror. The process lasted till the 90-ies. Its character reflected changes in home and foreign policy of the SSRS in certain historic periods. During the last years of Soviet regime, the SSRS employed well over 3 thousand transmitters with power total to 600 thousand kilowatts for the interference purpose. Broadcasted radio programmes were focussed on the issue of Lithuania's statehood and condemnation of Soviet occupation and annexation. They also disclosed and explained the ways the Soviet propaganda justified the destroy of statehood, like: class struggle; biased interpretation of certain historic events (occupation issue in particular); and teachings on the advantages of Soviet Lithuania's stability. Disintegration of colonial system throughout the world brought about the issue of Soviet neocolonialism and its denouncement. The Voices had estimated economic, social and political relations in occupied Lithuania as the manifestation of Soviet neo- colonial policy, supporting their evidence with economic and political analyses. The idea that aspirations of freedom will come true, that the communist system shall inevitably collapse, and Lithuania sooner or later will peacefully restore the lost statehood, provided by favourable historical situation, had never died throughout the existence of radio world services for Lithuania.

This article explores the KGB’s use of undercover agents to forestall and investigate dissenting behaviour in the Lithuanian SSR during the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing primarily on declassified KGB documents from the Lithuanian Special Archive, it presents new details on the scope, methods, targets and results of agent work as the Soviet regime moved away from the mass repressions of the Stalin years, highlighting both change and continuity, as well as key successes and failings in this sphere.

The entire cinematography and documentary film production of the Soviet Union often created an analogue a country leading an autonomous life on the screen. It sought to integrate society by spreading Communist ideology and maintaining the vision of social order and progress. Based on interviews from the respondents who had worked in various cinematographic institutions in Soviet Lithuania, this article presents a structural analysis of the documentaries, with emphasis on the film-making processes. The high noon of the Lithuanian documentaries of the sixties was determined by interesting processes and falls within the general dynamics of the production of documentary films in the Soviet Union, the socialist East European block and in the Western world. As the research has revealed, the strenuous implementation of agitation-propaganda, the educational and cultural tasks of the regime were due to both political changes in the Soviet Union, the country's ideological doctrine and social-cultural processes, as well as internal factors which then existed in cinematography – protecting one self, a wish to represent the "positive" sides of life in the republic, and the personal likings and points of view of the censors. All this determined the methodology of "approving" and "correcting-cutting" the films. While analysing the structural documentary film-making process systematically, it is possible to assume that the system of the regime's directives and the approval of films operated on the principle of keeping a balance with the Party line.

The Soviet annexation of Lithuania was also manifested in aspects such as supplying the Soviet army with the required resources. The influence of the Soviet army and the relations between the armed forces and the local authorities in Lithuania has not been thoroughly investigated. A study of the relations between the Soviet Lithuanian government and the Baltic Military District draws on numerous archival materials of 1963–1986, and reveals the basic tendencies in the relations. The influence of the Soviet military ethos is the primary characteristic of the relations between the Soviet army and the local authority. According to the Soviet military doctrine, the Soviet Union was expecting the potential use of nuclear weapons by Western countries, and was preparing for war. The Soviet republics, including Lithuania, had to implement prescriptions initiated in Moscow for preparations for war. Changes in the military doctrine influenced changes in the military and military-social demands. The demands of the military involved mainly requirements to enlarge the land possessions of the Baltic Military District and its garrisons, to provide the military with accommodation, to improve the condition of the country's roads, the mobilization of agricultural machinery, and the mobilization of people into the Soviet army. To meet the demands of the military, the Lithuanian government usually used local resources. Relations between the Soviet Lithuanian government and the Baltic Military District in the sphere of land assignations had no united model. In the period 1963–1986 a substantial change in relations took place, increasing the number of failures to satisfy the military's requests. The consumption of Lithuanian forests by the military was one of the factors that influenced the changes in relations between the Baltic Military District and the Lithuanian government. The control of the exploitation of forests was a sphere where the Soviet Lithuanian authority expressed a particular position with regard to Soviet Lithuania's economic interests. The relations between the Soviet Lithuanian government and the Baltic Military District depended on the possibility of the local authority to provide the army with accommodation. To guarantee the military housing, the Lithuanian government established the „10 percent fee“ and also developed mass construction works. Nevertheless, in the Seventies, Lithuania fell into debt supplying accommodation to the Baltic Military District. The Soviet army did not always occupy a superior and inflexible place in Soviet Lithuania. In the Eighties some alterations between the Soviet Lithuanian government and the Baltic Military District relations in the field of mobilization potential were effected. Organizations and companies in Soviet Lithuania disregarded the implementation of military mobilization schedules. Periodically, in people's attitude towards So military service, changes appeared.

In Soviet post-war society many letters / complaints which had little to do with ideology or police were written. People who wrote those complaints did not intend to report or punish anyone. Rather they were concerned only with solving their own everyday life problems and improve it. Purely personal interests of those who wrote letters show that messages like those were simply grievances about everyday life. Often complaints became an officially legal form of blat (connections) and were promoted by those who did not have any strong social connections. Those who used blat resorted to personal connections, while the writers of complaints used official institutions. The authorities in Soviet Lithuania encouraged those who wrote complaints. Soviet citizens who saw some evil in society were urged to address higher institutions of power. The 2 August 1958 resolution passed by the Central Committee of the USSR “On serious shortcomings in dealing with ordinary people’s letters, grievances and reports” was to encourage people to complain about social evil. It attracted attention to the importance of the control dealing with grievances. One of the most important party and government chains, which was to ensure people’s confidence to write letters was the State Control Committee of the Council of Ministers of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party.

The research disclosed the controversial tendencies of the Soviet regime’s policy towards cultural ties with the West. On the one hand, during the period under investigation the possibilities to receive Western culture were gradually increasing in Lithuania. More books of fiction were published, more theatre companies and musicians came to Lithuania, and there were more direct ties between Western and Lithuanian intellectuals. More objective publications about Western culture appeared in the print media of Soviet Lithuania. On the other hand, the system of ideological control was promptly adapted to the new situation, which enabled a rather effective control of disseminating Western culture.

The article deals with two important spheres of the Soviet rule which have been little investigated in historiography. Their existence, besides central planning and centralised decision-making define well the Soviet system. The coercive nature of the system and its inner logic implicated the use of such control levers as the punishment of members of the Communist Party and the importance of using compromising information gathered by the KGB in the “work with the cadres”. The article is also concerned with the origins of corruption and informal ties during Soviet times, which is being widely discussed by the general public. Although informal ties and social connections formed by the functionaries are also characteristic of other political-economic systems, the vague system of inflicting punishment which existed in Soviet time made the heads in the economic sector look for possibilities of establishing close ties with party functionaries. The informal relations between the patron (a party functionary) and the client (heads of enterprises) made partly up for the indefinite situation of the latter, giving them certain ideological security. The inflicting of punishment by the party on its members, the KGB activities and the practice of informal ties in industrial enterprises between 1965 and 1985 are analysed.

One of the most important tasks of the KGB’s intelligence and ideological counter-intelligence units was to weaken the diaspora’s anti-Soviet activities, to prevent it from raising the issue of Lithuania’s occupation at the international level and from supporting the different-minded people in Lithuania. It was also important for the Soviet government to change the diaspora’s attitude towards Soviet Lithuania and to break its policy of non-recognition.

One of the main tasks of Lithuanian KGB was to weaken, discredit and suppress political activity of Lithuanian émigrés to liberate Lithuania, to change their attitude toward Soviet Lithuania. Propaganda, the formation of positive public opinion about the Soviet system, politics, achievements and a negative opinion about émigrés were one of the main weapons against the political activity of émigrés. To form such public opinion, the KGB used mass media, tourism, and the Lithuanian language and literature courses at Vilnius University, science exchange, cultural activity, tours of Lithuanian artists to Western countries. Speeches of famous Lithuanians (some of them were forced to speak positively about Soviet achievements) and émigrés were also used by the Soviets as a means of propaganda. The return of the valuables of art was also used as propaganda, to set at variance the émigrés and to break their isolation policy toward Soviet Lithuania. Propaganda actions were politicized and used against the émigrés, since the time of their implementation coincided with the important émigrés events. KGB developed wide propaganda actions against the world Lithuanian youth congress and the Baltic cruise of freedom and peace. It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of KGB actions due to the lack of objective sources. Although KGB paid great attention to propaganda activity, the results, however, were inadequate to their efforts.

Šiame straipsnyje siekiama KGB archyvinės medžiagos pagrindu nušviesti sovietinio saugumo komiteto veiklą pramonės įmonėse. Nors dėmesio objektas – KGB veikla pramonėje, šis tyrimas taip pat atskleidžia agrindinius KGB darbo principus ir etapus, nes veikla pramonėje mažai skyrėsi nuo bendrųjų jo veikimo principų. Tyrimas nepretenduoja į išsamią KGB veiklos analizę, juo siekiama įvertinti saugumo kaip ekonominės sistemos veikėjo vaidmenį, atskleisti tam tikrą jo vykdytos šios srities kontrolės kaitą.

The archival documents related to the development of cinema in the Lithuanian SSR have not been extensively studied. There has been no comprehensive research into the specifics of the development of Lithuanian cinema in the Soviet era. However, such research is possible on the basis of the extensive documentation on the activities of the Ministry of Culture of the Lithuanian SSR, the Lithuanian Film Studios, and the Union of Cinematographers. The documents in the collections of these institutions include correspondence between Lithuanian institutions responsible for the development of cinema in the republic and the USSR’s central cinema management bodies, minutes of film review and evaluation, resolutions, orders of the USSR’s central cinema management bodies, etc.