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Soviet Decolonization in the Baltics 11, 1990 Vytautas Landsbergis. Lithuania Independent Again: The Autobiography of Vytautas Landsbergis. Trans Anthony Packer and Eimutis Sova. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. xii + 387 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-295-97959-5. Reviewed by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius Published on H-Russia (June, 2001) Soviet Decolonization in the Baltics 11, 1990. In the following months, he led efforts to Ten years have now passed since the dramat‐ find international recognition for this political act, ic events in the Baltic Republics which led to their while dealing at the same time with Gorbachev's regained independence. The whole point of the imposition of economic blockade on the country, popular movements organized in Lithuania, the cool reaction of the Western diplomatic estab‐ Latvia, and Estonia was to underline for the world lishment, and an unsettled society at home. that these states were not, and never had been, Yet on January 13, 1991, matters came to a legally parts of the Soviet Union (having been head when Soviet security forces moved to reim‐ forcibly occupied in 1940). Readers of H-Russia pose their control on the country and killed un‐ will nonetheless fnd the memoir of a leading armed protestors in Vilnius, the capital. That Baltic politician interesting for the insights it of‐ night saw remarkable reactions among the popu‐ fers into the process of decolonization and resis‐ lation. Instead of feeing the killing, away from tance, which marked the last stages of the Soviet the guns and tanks of the stormtroopers, and Union's decomposition in the late 1980s and early scrambling to safety, ordinary citizens ran to the 1990s. places where danger was most extreme, to the With the distance that a decade allows, one of spots where the violence had occurred and espe‐ the main players in these political upheavals of‐ cially to surround and protect the embattled par‐ fers his memories and assessments of the momen‐ liament. There, parliamentary deputies and tous events that marked the road to full indepen‐ Landsbergis braced themselves for what seemed dence. Vytautas Landsbergis, as the leader of the the imminent assault on this center of govern‐ Lithuanian popular independence movement ment. Crowds of unarmed supporters -- masses of Sajudis and later Chairman of the Lithuanian par‐ men, women, and children -- stood around the liament, steered that republic towards its declara‐ barricaded building and sang old songs in defi‐ tion of the restoration of independence on March ance of the threat they were facing. In the stand‐ H-Net Reviews off that followed, further violence by the Soviet termination, even of small, nations over the forces was avoided, partially due to the effect on claims of realpolitik and imperial centers. international opinion of these scenes of undis‐ Landsbergis' approach is not strictly chrono‐ guised deadly force deployed against civilians and logical, as the memoir often moves to a thematic their elected representatives. consideration of discrete issues before returning Looking back on this moment of crisis, Lands‐ to the narrative of political events. His personal bergis reflects, "We can truly say that this was the background and genealogy make clear some char‐ night when Lithuania was reborn, to become a acteristic features of the role of intellectuals in the nation again...It is difficult to express in words the countries of Eastern Europe. His grandparents moral force of the occasion; it was as if the crowd, and parents had belonged to the often small cir‐ as it sang, became invincible" (p. 3). Only after cles most identified with the movement of "na‐ months of standoff, uncertainty, and political im‐ tional rebirth" at the turn of the century, as well passe would Lithuania fnd itself fully free, after as with the state-building of the Lithuanian Re‐ the failed putsch in Moscow in August 1991. public of the interwar years. A sense of social re‐ The experience of that remarkable night of sponsibility seemed to be already prepro‐ January 13, 1991 stands at the center of Landsber‐ grammed into this ancestry and lineage. Lands‐ gis' narrative of the path to the recovery of inde‐ bergis' family history and his own childhood un‐ pendence. It is fascinating to observe how that derline how the profound political cataclysms of night is today taking on a unique status in popular the twentieth century caught up individual des‐ historical memory in contemporary Lithuania, as tinies in their blasts. Landsbergis' family was sep‐ a touchstone of promise and determination. In the arated by the Second World War, as his father set currently popular song, "Trys Milijonai" ("Three off in search of a missing son arrested by the Million") by Marijonas Mikutavicius, the techno Nazis, while the author and his mother remained strains combine with poetic words to urge a re‐ in Lithuania when the Soviet army moved back newed sense of common resolve and solidarity in. Running as a leitmotiv through the recollec‐ for a small community of some three million peo‐ tions of childhood and youth in Stalin-era Lithua‐ ple. The memory of that night is presented by the nia is Landsbergis' devotion to music, leading him song as an unalloyed instance of heroism, an exis‐ to a professional career as a musicologist. tential moment in which national identity was For students of the Soviet system, the rich de‐ fortified once and for all, in absolute commit‐ scriptions of his education and career prospects ment. Landsbergis' autobiography, which opens in the millieu of the intelligentsia of a non-Rus‐ with a recollection of the scenes of that night, sian republic will be instructive. The uneasy inter‐ works outwards from that pivotal event, to show play of ethnic self-assertion with the ideological how it came to pass, and to illuminate the conse‐ demands of the political leadership and deference quences that followed, both in the short and long to the supposed primacy of Russian culture; the term, for Lithuania and for the world at large. wary atmosphere of the tentative thaws following Landsbergis insists that "the recovery of our na‐ on the death of Stalin; the challenge of opening tional independence is not an achievement for zones of freer intellectual community in an edi‐ Lithuania alone...What we have achieved in fice of conformity (and the conspicuous over-ex‐ Lithuania is something which we must share ur‐ ertion of some opportunists in this system, seek‐ gently with all humankind" (p. 5), a recognition of ing status as members of a privileged nomen‐ the precedence of human rights and the self-de‐ klatura) are evoked in Landsbergis' accounts of the debates and intrigues of the Vilnius conserva‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tory and other institutions. It is in this intellectual in Estonia, Poland, and other post-communist and cultural context that Landsbergis locates countries. some of the "tributaries" and currents which fed This autobiography offers some glimpses into into the establishment of the popular front, called the motivations of this political personality. In his Sajudis ("The Movement") in 1988. Landsbergis 1993 study, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, was elected its chairman, and when it won the Lithuania and the Path to Independence, Anatol 1990 elections for the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, Lieven made the claim that Landsbergis' ambition he became that body's chairman and the head of was to emulate his supposed model, Antanas Sme‐ state. tona, the dictator of interwar Lithuania after the In spite of the placid tone of philosophical ac‐ coup of 1926. Nowhere in this text does Landsber‐ ceptance which Landsbergis often assumes, there gis allude to such an ambition, so the evidence is are recurring moments of strong emotional dubious. In fact, one might make a better case charge in this narrative. These include his sense that Landsbergis cherished a far vaster ambition, of fervent involvement in the Sajudis movement to equal his namesake, the Grand Duke Vytautas which he led and the passion for his music. There the Great of Lithuania's medieval glory days. are also bitter emotions concerning the reactions Less extravagantly, another fgure seems to of the West during the endgame with the Soviet play an important role in Landsbergis' thought Union and the startling return of the ex-commu‐ and development, that of Mikalojus Konstantinas nists to power in Lithuania after the elections of Ciurlionis (1875-1911), the symbolist painter, com‐ 1992. Landsbergis has caustic, unsparing observa‐ poser, and graphic artist whose work Landsbergis tions of the way in which Western diplomats de‐ has made his life's academic study and whose rep‐ nied his government recognition, misunderstood utation he helped to revive by these efforts. What Gorbachev's true motives or changing strategy, appeals to him in this singular man is the way in and failed to comprehend the nature of Soviet which the multifaceted Ciurlionis insisted on "'the politics. parallelism of the branches of Art' and made pur‐ His attitude towards the West and Europe poseful use of this understanding, which was the represents something broader, however, than his conscious source from which his greatest works personal opinions. It also represents an important poured out" (p. 71). This Romanticism in action, and conflicted tradition in Lithuanian culture: an the insistence on the continuity of all striving, idealized identification with the West, coupled could have a political expression as well, and this with reproachful notice of its shortcomings or remained for Landsbergis to work out. Indeed, he amoral compromises. In reflecting on the results quotes a saying of the sister of the artist, Jadvyga of the elections of 1992, Landsbergis acknowl‐ Ciurlionyte, a former teacher of his at the Vilnius edges (from this distance) that the failures of land Conservatory, who laconically suggested that cul‐ reform and the restoration of property (stymied tural work could prepare political results.
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