Lit�ua.nian Papers Volume 8 - 1994 ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE LITHUANIAN STUDIES SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA • Making Crosses In Ltthuanla (Story, Page 37). Illustration by Edward Radclyffe. Telecom: The company through which you can be connected to the world 24 hours a day. When in Sydney, visit the LITHUANIAN CLUB 16 - 18 East Terrace, BANKSTOWN, N.S.W. Telephone (02) 7081414 Meals - Library - Entertainment Visitors Welcome Don't miss out on the best sourceof news,analysis and commentfrom the BalticStates! r- T/ie One-year (51 issues) subscription rates � ftpv� IND TT\ENT to Australia onlyfor -'-r;?"- ----..::::...12.d.;::_:.:=�LJ - � =-.:..::::- e 102AUD Ondividuals) 156 AUD (companies) Evay week, we bring youthe latest litical • po an, Telecom is a company that serves Whether your telephone needs economicand cultural news in the region, Fill out the box belowand send it to: are private or commercial, Telecom presented in crisp, well-written English. TB! TheBaltic Independent, you 24 hours a day and is your link Business seclion keepsyou i n touchwith the PO Box 45, TallinnE E0090,Estonia with the world. is the company that knows your latest newson the busBaltic inessfront Phone +(372 2)683073, 683 074 needs and one you can trust. Telecom Australia provides a �--·········-·········· ···········································- ' : Pleasesend me a one- N;;;; , Telecom's services are for ever Address complete telephone service and most : year subscripti.onto ---------------- . : TheBaltic importantly, all of its profits work 1mprovmg. : INDEPENDENI forAustralia. That is wb we. trust Telecom [TCOM TI:L MEM IJMll1T 1 ISSN1031-3958 Lithuanian Papers ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE LITHUANIAN STUDIES SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA Volume 8 1994 EDITOR: AlgimantasP.TA �KUNAS, O.A.M PUBLISHER: Tasmania University Union Lithuanian Studies Society. EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS ADDRESS: P.O. Box 777, SANDY BA y, Tas. 7005(Australia). Phone (002) 20 2076, a/h25 2505. Fax (002)20 7863. PRINTED in Australia by AdvancePublicity Co., 550 East Derwent Hwy. Lindisfarne,Tas. 7015. Telephone(002) 43 6083. © TUU LithuanianStudies Society,Sandy Bay, Tasmania. I am delighted to congratulate the Lithuanian Studies Society for publishing the 1994 editwn of the Lithuanian Papers and welcome this opportunityto send my greetings to readers. Contents The Lithuanian Studies Society was established in 1987 and its A Message fromthe PrimeMinister 3 success in promoting academic interest in matters Lithuanian is Lithuania: A Fact Sheet an example to us all. From modest beginnings as a students' 4 organisation, the Society is now effectively a Centre for Lithuania and the New Order in Europe Rohen F. Miller 5 Lithuanian Studies in Australia. It has achieved this status on Lithuania's Economic Restructuring meagre resources and by cooperating in a focussed manner RaphaelShen, SJ. and.AngelaEaton with selected faculties each year. This strategic t1pproachhas 18 gained it internationalrecognition from a range of insti.tutwns, Out of the Catacombs RutaB. Virkutis 25 including more recently the World Bank. Letters to the Editor 29 The Lithuanian Papers are now regarded as the leading (O'Brien) Aldona Zakarauskas 31 English-language Lithuanian periodical in the Southern Hemisphere. Lithuania's EasternNeighbour Edward Lucas 34 The Last Cross-Makers? RimasKabaila 37 The Society'sachievements are a good example of the Common­ Non-OffensiveDefence as a Strategy for Lithuania? wealth's Productivity Diversity concept at work. Here we have Bj/)rnM¢/ler local expertise bringing together the academic, cultural and 45 linguistic resources of our Tasmanian population to satisfy both Cultural Oppression and Education in Lithuania domestic and international demand. A/donaBernaitis 58 Much Morethan ColourfulCostumes Daina Pocius Once again congratulations. I 67 The Lithuanian Singing Tradition JenniferRakauskas 71 Our Thanks 73 Bibliography of TIJULSS Publications 74 P .J. v�KEATING, Prime Minister of Australia. 2 3 Lithuania and the New Order in Lithuania - Main Facts Europe Location - On eastern shores of the Baltic sea. Robert F. MILLER Area - 67,788 square kilometres (26,173 square miles). Australian National University, Canberra Greatest distances: east-west 336 kilometres (210 miles), north-southl92 kilometres (120 miles). In the years since independence and the finaldisintegration of the Climate - Temperate, mean annual temperature 5°C (41°F). USSR Lithuania has undergone a number of changes in her Capital - Vilnius (500,000 inhabitants). domestic and international orientation. The transformations National holiday - February 16 - day of restoration of involved are similar to those in the other Baltic States and in other Lithuania's independence (1918). countries of the former Soviet empire in Central and Eastern Population - 3,539,000, urban - 64%, rural - 35%. Europe, as well as some of the states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The transition - to full independence National Language - Lithuanian. political democracy and a functioning market economy - has not Religion - Catholic 85%. been easy. The legacy of economic dependence on Russia and Nationality - Lithuanian 80%. Moscow's continuing attempts to limit their freedom of action in Agriculture - 24% - barley, cattle, flax, oats, pigs, potatoes, foreign policy have affected most of these countries to some rye, sheep, wheat. degree; in some cases Russian behaviour has impeded the patterns Forest Products - birch, fir, pine. of change; in others, it has, paradoxically, perhaps accelerated them. Manufacturing and Processing - agricultural and forest products, electrical products, machinery. For a number of reasons the transformation process has been National Flag - three horizontal stripes, coloured (from top to especially complicated in the Baltic States. Because of their heavy bottom) yellow, green, red dependence on Russian energy and raw material supplies and technological inputs, as well as markets for their agricultural and industrial exports, these countries have been particularly vulnerable to economic pressures from Moscow. Moreover. the presence in each of them of substantial ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations has constituted an important source of leverage against them. Russia has not hesitated to use these people, in the name of concernfor their human and civil rights, as hostages for the withdrawal of the large Russian military contingents stationed on their territory and for other forms of pressure on their domestic and foreign policies. Each of the Baltic States has, like other countries of the former Soviet empire, its own specific strengths and weaknesses in handling these kinds of issues. Lithuania is certainly no exception. While it has a significantly smaller Russian-speaking 5 4 population than either Latvia or Estonia (about 10% as against 30- guarded secret - one evidently never shared with the Soviet 45%) and has accordingly been less constrained by this 'hostage' Lithuanianauthorities. Some sourceshave mentioneda figure of factor in dealing with Russia on troop withdrawals and other 40,000; others, 100,000.2 The withdrawal from Lithuania and bilateral issues, Lithuania has an additional problem with its large Latvia was scheduled to begin in February 1992, before the ethnic Polish population (some 280,000). They have been a conclusion of a final agreement on the matter with the Russian source of complications in relations with neighbouring Poland, Government.3 However, the withdrawal process was never a whose support is valuable for responding to Russian pressures. smooth one, and its periodic interruptions and threatened Furthermore, the large Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast (the reinforcementsof remainingforces became partof the armouryof old German province of East Prussia - 'Krolewicz' to the Poles). standard Russian tactics in negotiations with what came to be adjacent to Lithuanian territory along the Baltic Sea coast and called by Moscow the 'nearabroad' (blizhnee zarubezh'e - the accessible by land and air to Russia mainly through Lithuania, has successor states of the former USSR, even those like the three become a serious security issue for all Baltic Sea states, but BalticStates which had not joined the CIS. especially for Lithuania. The situation there and the opportunities the enclave presents for Russian military-strategic ambitions are The eventually successful completion of the withdrawal process somewhat analogous to Ukraine's problems over the Crimea. was undoubtedly linked to the replacement of Vytautas Landsbergis by former reform-communist boss Algirdas The initial euphoria over Russian Federation President Boris Brazauskas as a result of the parliamentary elections in the Yeltsin's speedy recognition of the three Baltic States' secession (Northern) autumn of 1992. The circumstances of this radical from the USSR in the aftermath of the August 1991 putsch and his change in the domestic political situation have been described. apparent willingness to accord them full diplomatic relations elsewhere. Suffice it to note that the failure of Landsbergis's unfortunately proved to be rather short-lived. Once Yeltsin had efforts to solve Lithuania's worsening economic problems was a got rid of his rival Gorbachev and the USSR' s old central major factor in the popular vote for the Lithuanian Democratic communist power apparatus, the imperatives of Russia's Labor Party of Brazauskas, who was evidently co�sidered better geostrategic position (as