XXTH History Department

The main question examined in this article is how the Soviet
Union’s official pro-natalist policy coexisted and functioned in
Soviet Lithuanian society together with legalized abortions? I
analyze how propaganda portrayed the abortion practices; how
they were perceived and applied in a everyday life context; the
process of modernization (availability of the procedure and methods); official rhetoric about the women who sought family planning and the abortion itself; out of the system practices (illegal activities, their motivation and circumstances); main reasons for
seeking an abortion; expressed moral convictions.

This  article  presents  the  analysis  of  how  the  issue  of  vagrant  and  neglected  (“беспризорные  и безнадзорные”) minors in Soviet Lithuania was dealt with during the period of 1944–1954. After the Soviet oc-cupation of Lithuania in 1944, stencil measures of dealing with the issue were imposed. However, the problem of vagrant and neglected minors in postwar Lithuania was specific and had changed. Therefore, the research reveals the dynamics of the problem and, by taking into account the Soviet Lithuanian context, the measures taken to solve it. Up until the beginning of the 1950s, vagrant and neglected minors were mostly street children and orphans from WWII. A considerable part of them had migrated from Russian and Belarusian territories in search for food. The government’s aims were to reduce their numbers, move them from the streets and change their official status. But in the 1950s, the problem, as it was seen, had transformed to juvenile delinquency and required respective measures. The research discovers how the system of custody, imprisonment, accommodation and care of these minors worked in early Soviet Lithuania.

This dissertation  looks at abandonment of children from three standpoints: • Neglecting children or putting their upbringing outside the family. • Physical exterminatio - ninfanticide. • Artificial pregnancy termination. These approaches were chosen to reconstruct the overall tendencies how families tried to solve the situation of unwanted children, who were considered to be a disturbance or a burden. The problem of the research is the social milieu in Soviet Lithuania (1944-1990) available for the abandonment of children. When Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union, the society underwent numerous social, cultural, economic shocks: postwar disturbances, repressions, the process of Sovietization in different fields, escalated and expedited modernization. As usual, there were parents who did not want to have children, thus controlling or aborting pregnancies, and when unwanted children were born, deciding to limit their participation in raising them or abandoning them altogether. The state proclaimed that there were no redundant children for the system, and this notion, to some extent, became the basis for family policy and the concept of social care.

This article deals with the perception of cultural heritage in the contemporary postcolonial
and post-communist countries. Problems of its interpretation and preservation in
the field of professional safeguarding and also in public discourse are analyzed. Two main
blocks of problems are identified: 1) the specificity of heritage in given groups of these societies,
and 2) the relationship to the material relics of former colonial or occupying powers in the
territories of contemporary independent states.
In the first case the concept of “cultural imperialism” is used. In the first case the concept
of “cultural imperialism” is used, manifested in part by the definition of universal criteria of
heritage preservation, selection, and evaluation. These criteria seem to be appropriate for all
cultures and civilizations and are used across the world by major international organizations,
especially UNESCO.Resistance to Western norms and concepts based on “universalized
heritage” in the societies of the so-called “Third World” allowed these societies to expand
the field of the protected values and begin to apply the principles of “cultural relativism” and
“respect for cultural diversity” on a global scale.
Another important research topic is the perception and interpretation of the “dissonant”
and “contested”, “controversial” heritage. This issue is particularly relevant in postcommunist
countries, in societies having a whole range of relationships to the “Soviet”—from
the deliberate rejection to the nostalgic perception. With a focus on the experience of postcolonial
states, this article attempts to look at the legacy of the Soviet era in a much broader
context, identifying the similarities and peculiarities of this phenomenon.

THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION
IN THE POST-SOVIET TRANSFORMATION
The article surveys questions related to the situation of the communist elites of
allied Soviet republics during and after the collapse of the USSR. The author
analizes the questions whether qualitative and quantitative changes happened in the
highest layers of the power or the alterations were nominal. What actions had the
major significance for the maintenance of the Soviet nomenclature power during the
Soviet system’s fundamental breakdown – the character and strength of the local
nomenclature’s social networks, their flexibility and adequacy when reacting to the
sudden changes of the sociopolitical situation in the metropoly of the Soviet empire
and in the national borderlands, the authority and personal charisma of local political
leaders, the character of relationships between them and the political-administrative
establishment of the centre, and with the emerging alternative local forces or more
general geopolitical circumstances? The role of social groups involved into the
processes of the perestroika, democratization in the change or maintenance of the
communist elites are also discussed in the article.
With reference to the biograms of the “last” first secretaries of the CP of allied
republics, their generative, professional, and political experience is analyzed, and the
given information allows to label them as “ideological” or “technocracy” wing of the
party’s high nomenclature. The article shows the number of the „lasts“ first secretaries
of the CP who managed not only to keep their positions and real influence in the post-
Soviet transitional period, but also managed to become high officials, leaders and
even presidents of new independent countries. On the basis of the Baltic countries
transiting to the liberal democracy, the group of states ruled by so-called “competitive
authoritarianism” and the authoritarian Central Asian republics, the article analyzes
how and why national elites managed not only to adapt to the ongoing sociopolitical
changes, but also had been able to control and direct them to the profitable direction.
According to the latest studies of transitology and historiography of this topic, the
author seeks to explain why the real scale of changes of the highest power elites of
the former Soviet republics was relatively low.

MEMORIES OF THE GRANDEUR: THE IMAGE OF THE GRAND DUCHY
OF LITHUANIA IN THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF CONTEMPORARY
LITHUANIA
The article deals with the wide spectrum of questions connected with the
perception of memory and heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) in the
Lithuanian society in the late XIX — early XXI centuries. Special interest is given to
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multifarious relations of history and historical politics, from inheritance of statehood
to discussions connected with the «number of Lithuanian Republics» and polemics on
the use of the GDL image for various contemporary purposes: europeanization,
regional politics or civil society building within the country.
The author of the article goes to the conclusion that changes in the perception of
the image of GDL clearly represent the transformations in self-representations of the
Lithuanian state and society.
Keywords: Grand Duchy of Lithuania, memory, heritage, ethnolinguistic and civil
nationalism, empire, Republic, euro integration.

The City as Ideological Text: Theoretical and Interpretational Aspects
Summary. This paper examines the problems of impact of different ideological systems and political regimes (nationalism, communism, authoritarianism, neo-liberalism) on urban landscapes in XX-XXI cent. On the base of semiotics theory and collective memory studies (particularly using the theory by G.J. Ashworth) the public city space of the post-Soviet region is scrutinized. One of the important questions of the study is why and how different political regimes change the image of the cities, especially capitals, and what are the consequences of these changes in relation to citizens‘ way of life and self-understanding. Particular interest to this region is not accidental because of the especially sharp traces of the ideological manipulation with cityscape.
This research notably focused on the cases of ideological control of cities in totalitarian (Moscow, Minsk), authoritarian (Astana, Ashgabat), nationalist and multi-cultural (Vilnius) and contemporary neoliberal systems of values.

The article deals with several problematical units
concerned with commercialization of the past in the postindustrial,
postmodern consumer societies. Primarily, the process
of the commercialization of urban centres – especially old
historical cities and their images – is analysed in the context
of contemporary global culture economics; also, questions regarding
forms and shapes this process assumes are raised. Secondly,
the consideration regarding the meaning of this process
is given, in other words, what is it telling about the condition
of our society and attitudes towards the past? Undoubtedly,
an adequate assessment of the knowledge of socio-economic
tendencies, which have to cope with cities influenced by neoliberalism,
is very important and relevant to post-colonial and
post-communist countries, which, like Lithuania, are still
seeking for their identity in the face of economical and cultural
globalization challenges.
Keywords: historical cities, postindustrial society, neoliberalism,
commodification, consumerism, heritage industry,
cultural tourism.

Рассматривается восприятие культурного наследия в современных постколониальных и по-сткоммунистических странах. Анализируются проблемы его сохранения, а также интерпрета-ции в публичном дискурсе. Выявлены два основных блока проблем: 1) специфика наследия в определенной группе общества, 2) отношение к культурному наследию на территории незави-симых государств бывших колониальных властей. Вопрос о восприятии и интерпретации «спорного наследия» является актуальным в посткоммунистических странах, в обществах, имеющих целый спектр отношений к «советскому» – от сознательного неприятия до ностальги-ческого восприятия. Ключевые слова: культурное наследие, постколониализм, культурный империализм, культурный релятивизм, универсализм, права человека. 29 октября 1991 г. гаитянец доктор Алфонсо Арцелин посетил музей испанского города Баньолас, находящегося в каталонской провинции Жирона. Осматривая экспонаты, он обратил внимание на поставленного рядом с чучелами животных мумифицированного бушмена. Данный образец тахидермии, известный как Negro of Banyoles, попал в музей еще в начале ХХ века и ни у кого не вызывал особой реакции 2. Но в этот раз посетитель музея решился написать письмо меру города, выразив в нем просьбу удалить человеческие останки из публичной экспозиции. История скоро попала на страницы газет, в ситуацию вмешалась не только ЮНЕСКО, но и африканские страны, пожелавшие надлежащим образом захоронить тело война, что и было сделано в 2000 г. в одном из национальных парков Ботсваны. Эту историю можно считать свидетельством начала включения проблематики постколониального дискурса в контекст охраны культурного наследия. Место наследия в постколониальном дискурсе В англоязычных странах, где в основном появились и распространились постколониальные исследования, само определение объекта таких штудий менялось от «незападных» стран и обществ (non-Western) через народы третьего мира (Third world) до «меньшинств» (minorities) или, наконец, «недавно ставших самостоятельными» (emergent) и «развивающимися» (developping) [Мооre, 2006, p. 14]. Тематика постколониального дискурса первоначально зазвучала в сфере литературы, когда жители или выходцы из бывших колонии попытались художественными средствами передать свой специфический опыт [The Empire Writes Back…, 1989]. Но современные исследования постколониального уже охватывают очень широкое поле академических дисциплин и сюжетов. В них критически осмысливаются разные формы доминирования, владения знанием, политической мощью и символической властью. Это касается и сферы «колониального наследия». Сегодня общепринято считать, что наследие – это процесс коллективного и индивидуального воспоминания того, что помогает создать и поддерживать своеобразную идентичность, это также способ, при помощи которого люди и группы придают смысл своему историческому и нынешнему опыту. Но память о временах зависимости, унижения и безжалостной экспуатации вряд ли может объединять и помогать строить позитивные смыслы коллектива, если, конечно, он не хочет за-стрять в психологически хотя и удобном, но довольно опасном образе вечной жертвы. Сам колониализм никогда не был однородным явлением, оставленное им материальное и нематериальное наследие тоже разнообразно. Ю. Остерхамель выделает следующие его типы: за-хватческие колонии, первичная цель которых – экономическая экспансия и нажива; военные анкла