Appearing on the world stage in 1918, Lithuania suffered numerous invasions, border changes and large scale population displacements.The successive occupations of Stalin in 1940 and Hitler in 1941, mass deportations to the Gulag and the elimination of the Jewish community in the Holocaust gave the horrors of World War II a special ferocity. Moreover, the fighting continued after 1945 with the anti-Soviet insurrection, crushed through mass deportations and forced collectivization in 1948-1951. At no point, however, did the process of national consolidation take a pause, making Lithuania an improbably representative case study of successful nation-building in this troubled region. As postwar reconstruction gained pace, ethnic Lithuanians from the countryside – the only community to remain after the war in significant numbers – were mobilized to work in the cities. They streamed into factory and university alike, creating a modern urban society, with new elites who had a surprising degree of freedom to promote national culture. This book describes how the national cultural elites constructed a Soviet Lithuanian identity against a backdrop of forced modernization in the fifties and sixties, and how they subsequently took it apart by evoking the memory of traumatic displacement in the seventies and eighties, later emerging as prominent leaders of the popular movement against Soviet rule.

Lithuania suffered in the course of the twentieth century successive horrific invasions, significant border changes and large scale population displacements. One consequence of these traumatic events is that different protagonists constructed radically different historical narratives, which have in turn been used by ruling regimes and oppositions, to reinforce their own identity. This book discusses these various constructed historical narratives and identities, focusing especially on the construction, and dismantling, of "Soviet Lithuania". Because Lithuania was fought over so much, it exemplifies the degree to which the identity of both regimes and oppositions is a mental construct.

Appearing on the world stage in 1918, Lithuania suffered numerous invasions, border changes and large scale population displacements.The successive occupations of Stalin in 1940 and Hitler in 1941, mass deportations to the Gulag and the elimination of the Jewish community in the Holocaust gave the horrors of World War II a special ferocity. Moreover, the fighting continued after 1945 with the anti-Soviet insurrection, crushed through mass deportations and forced collectivization in 1948-1951. At no point, however, did the process of national consolidation take a pause, making Lithuania an improbably representative case study of successful nation-building in this troubled region. As postwar reconstruction gained pace, ethnic Lithuanians from the countryside - the only community to remain after the war in significant numbers - were mobilized to work in the cities. They streamed into factory and university alike, creating a modern urban society, with new elites who had a surprising degree of freedom to promote national culture. This book describes how the national cultural elites constructed a Soviet Lithuanian identity against a backdrop of forced modernization in the fifties and sixties, and how they subsequently took it apart by evoking the memory of traumatic displacement in the seventies and eighties, later emerging as prominent leaders of the popular movement against Soviet rule.

Making Russians is a valuable and insightful examination, based on a solid archival foundation, of the nationalities policies in tsarist Russia's northwestern borderlands of Lithuania and Belarus. Making Russians explores the various strategies of Russification that the imperial government pursued largely unsuccessfully in this region. The book is essential reading for all students of imperial Russia. It has applications for the present as well, when issues of national identity continue to engage the citizens of both Russia and the states of the Former Soviet Union.John Klier, University College London

Population Displacement in Lithuania in the XXth Century: Experiences, Identities and Legacies is an edited volume written by historians from several countries offering a series of ground-breaking case studies on forced migration in Lithuania during and between the two World Wars. Starting with the premise that the mass movement of peoples during and after the Second World War needs to be understood in relation to the population displacement of the First World War, the authors draw on theoretical perspectives ranging from entangled histories, cultural theory and studies of nationalism to trace the ethnic, social and cultural transformation of Lithuanian society caused by the displacement of Lithuanians, Poles, Jews and Germans. Contributors are: Tomas Balkelis, Daiva Dapkutė, Violeta Davoliūtė, Andrea Griffante, Ruth Leiserowitz, Klaus Richter, Vasilijus Safronovas, Vitalija Stravinskienė, Arūnas Streikus and Theodore R. Weeks.

This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. This volume is about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

This book explores the impact on different generations of Lithuanians of the fifty-year Soviet modernisation project which was implemented in Lithuania from 1940 to 1991. It reveals the specific characteristics of ‘the last Soviet generation’, born in the 1970s, and sets this generation apart from those who were born earlier and later. It analyses changes in attitudes, choices and relationships in a variety of social spheres and contexts and the adaptation skills which were required during the late Soviet and post-Soviet transformation processes. Overall, it presents a great deal of detail on the social experiences of different generations in late Soviet and post-Soviet society.