A History of Lithuanian Independence Interviewe

“We Started Our Resistance Fight for Gaining Independence and Freedom Again” A History of Lithuanian Independence Interviewer: G. Gedo Interviewee: Valdas Adamkus February 17, 2015 Table of Contents Interviewer Release Form…………………………………………………………………………2 Interviewee Release Form…………………………………………………………………………3 Statement of Purpose……………………………………………………………………...............4 Biography………………………………………………………………………………………….5 “Lithuania is Coming Back as a Free Nation”: Historical Contextualization…………………….7 Interview Transcription…………………………………………………………………………..27 Interview Time Index……………………………………………………………………………46 Interview Analysis……………………………………………………………………………….47 Appendix 1……………………………………………………………………………………….52 Appendix 2……………………………………………………………………………………….53 Appendix 3……………………………………………………………………………………….54 Works Consulted…………………………………………………………………………………55 Statement of Purpose Throughout history, countries have taken over other nations and oppressed the occupied nations’ peoples. Sometimes the abused states are lucky enough to become free after years of repression and tyranny. They then have to rebuild and cope with the deep impact and trauma years of injustice and suffering have created. Therefore, in order to understand a country’s declaration of independence and its aftermath, one must learn about the occupation of the country, the nation’s independence movement, and the country’s modern concerns. The purpose of this project is to provide the viewpoint of a Lithuanian who witnessed the occupation by the Soviet Union, the movement for Lithuanian autonomy, and the rebuilding of Lithuania. This project also intends to illustrate the emotional impact of the events during this time period. The work of President Adamkus, a Lithuanian immigrant to the United States and later the president of Lithuania, helps to explain the country’s development as it works to join the rest of Europe as a modern nation. Biography Valdas Adamkus was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1926 and grew up in free Lithuania. During World War II, he witnessed the occupation of Lithuania by both German and Soviet forces and eventually escaped to Germany with his parents. President Adamkus lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany until he and his parents were able to immigrate to the United States. Several years later, he graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a Bachelors of Science in engineering. After working briefly as an engineer, President Adamkus became a civil servant in the newly created Environmental Protection Agency and eventually became the administrator of the Great Lakes region. He remained involved in Lithuanian issues and was in direct contact with the leaders in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, on the night Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. After working for the Environmental Protection Agency for 27 years, President Adamkus left the United States to live in the newly free Lithuania and to run for office. In January 1999, President Adamkus was sworn in to office and began the first of his two five-year terms as president of Lithuania. He has honorary doctorates from a number of universities, including Vilnius University. President Adamkus currently lives with his wife in Vilnius, Lithuania, and still has an office in the presidential palace. “Lithuania is Coming Back as a Free Nation”: Historical Contextualization A famous New Yorker cartoon depicts Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis sitting in an office overlooking Vilnius, where oil is spurting out of the city’s television tower. He is on the phone with President George H.W. Bush, saying, “Mr. Bush, this is Vytautas Landsbergis, in Vilnius. Guess what” (Cartoon of Landsbergis)1. This cartoon perfectly illustrates Lithuanians’ frustration in the early 1990s, when the United States refused to recognize their independence. The Soviet Union had occupied Lithuania for 50 years, so when Lithuania finally declared its independence, it had high hopes of truly becoming free. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to declare independence, and this marked an important step in the fall of the Soviet Union. Lithuanian independence allowed a part of the Soviet Union to become a modern, democratic state that could share its opinions and participate in global organizations. It also gave people the opportunity to move, talk, and vote freely after 50 years of Soviet oppression. The events of the 1990s were integral to the creation of Lithuanian freedom, and they were heavily influenced by Soviet-Lithuanian relations and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Therefore, in order to understand the perspective of someone who participated in the Lithuanian independence movement and its aftermath, it is important to first examine Lithuanian-Soviet relations, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the declaration of Lithuanian independence. Imperialist Russia had occupied Lithuania until the end of World War I. After Lithuania became independent from Russia, it struggled to create a democratic system. For twenty years, Lithuania remained independent and struggled to create a modern, viable government. Because 1 See Appendix 1 Lithuanians had not had much opportunity to be politically active prior to this time period, leaders focused on culture as a means of building an independent nation (Lieven xiv). According to historians John Hiden and Patrick Salmon, Lithuanians needed to “construct new political systems, reconstruct their economies and settle their frontiers” after World War I (Hiden and Salmon 44). Building a new political system meant the formation of political parties. As the ideals of communism spread throughout the world, Lithuanians created their own socialist parties. These parties gained the support of the urban working class and the landless peasants (Hiden and Salmon 49). Lithuania’s democratic system was precarious, and, in 1926, Antanas Smetona, a former president of Lithuania, conducted a coup d’etat. He had military support and took advantage of the discontent created by a Soviet-Lithuanian pact signed earlier that year (Hiden and Salmon 54). Smetona’s dictatorship seemed to justify Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg’s assertion that “the absolute sovereignty of small peoples wedged between two great states [is] unthinkable” (Hiden and Salmon 109). The weakness of the Lithuanian government made the subsequent Soviet takeover easier. In 1939, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), signed a pact with Nazi Germany that split the countries of Eastern Europe between the two powers. A secret protocol of the Nazi-Soviet pact allowed Russia to occupy Lithuania once again (Hiden 110). As Hiden and Salmon state, some believe that “probably the best course would have been for the Baltic nations to fight the Soviet troops independently from the outset” (Hiden and Salmon 111). Instead, the USSR pressured Lithuania into signing a pact in order to allow the Soviets to exert their power over their new domain. The pact was a “mutual assistance” treaty that mostly favored the Soviets but did return much of Vilnius2 to Lithuania (Hiden and Salmon 110). According to Hiden and Salmon, “The return of Vilnius meant that in Lithuania at least, the new relationship with the 2 Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, which had been held by Poland after World War I (Hiden and Salmon 110). Soviet Union met with a large measure of approval” (Hiden and Salmon 112). Soon afterwards, the USSR completely took over Lithuania. After World War II until the 1980s, the oppressive Soviet regime came close to eradicating Lithuania’s sense of national identity (Hiden and Salmon 126). The Soviet Union was ultimately unable to do so, however, and this subsequently became a factor in the Lithuanian independence movement (Hiden and Salmon 110). From 1939-1941 and 1944-1990, the USSR did its best to suppress Lithuanian culture and spirit and to change the economy, while the Lithuanians resisted this oppression. Lithuanians were highly opposed to Soviet occupation, and some people reacted by becoming partisans and fighting in the countryside using guerrilla tactics. Although the partisans were extremely persistent, the Soviets eventually crushed the movement (Hiden and Salmon 128). In addition to the suppression of the partisans, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin began to deport Lithuanian “enemies of the state” to Siberia. This meant that opponents of agricultural collectivization, intellectuals, supporters of the partisans, the partisans themselves, and any others who might represent threats to the Soviet system were sent to Siberia or forced to escape the country. The Soviets compelled the Lithuanians to create and work on collective farms. Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, ended the Siberian deportations in the 1950s and allowed deportees to return home, but many people had not survived the harsh conditions imposed upon them in Siberia (Hiden and Salmon 129). The Soviets also attacked religion in Lithuania, which created significant resentment (Hiden and Salmon 135). This oppression created a strong sense of anger towards the Soviets, which helped fuel the independence movement later in the century. The Soviets industrialized Lithuania, which had important long term effects. Industrialization gave Lithuania a more Western outlook and modernized the country, which eventually assisted in its independence movement. The number of Russian immigrants increased, the new economic organization drastically changed and fragmented family dynamics, and the rapid pace of industrialization created environmental problems.

Load more