Modern Lithuanian History

The paper examines the evolution of Lithuania’s spatial conception in the German-language discourse during and after the First World War. Before
the war, “Lithuania” was usually seen as a part of German territory, i.e. one of the regions in East Prussia. Later, however, the existence of Prussian Lithuania was half-forgotten, as attention shifted to Lithuania as an area of the (former) Russian Empire. The paper connects the beginning of this process of the “title relocation” with the march of the German Army into Russia during the First World War. It was the “Great Retreat” and its aftermath that opened the existence of “another” Lithuania to Germans and encouraged them to concentrate their attention to it. In 1915–1918, in the occupied area called the Ober Ost, a gradual territorialisation of “Lithuania” took place. Although it was carried out by purely administrative decisions, the territorialisation was increasingly masked by ethnographic criteria. This was a way to demonstrate the exclusivity of the territory since it was certainly not to be treated as Poland. These German policies in the Ober Ost area stimulated the consolidation of the Lithuanian nation-state. When the founders of Lithuanian national state, however, began to lay claims to Prussian Lithuania, the conception of “Lithuania” as a region in Prussia was challenged. Consequently, the article suggests that, in the early 20th century, not only the implementation of Lithuanian national aspirations, but also the German attempts to prevent them levelled the diversity of the concepts of Lithuania that characterised the long 19th century.

Imperijų žlugimą paprastai suvokiame kaip esminį postūmį buvusių „pavergtųjų tautų“ valstybėms susikurti Vidurio Rytų Europoje. Klausimas, kaip buvę imperijų pavaldiniai šiame kontekste transformavosi į nacionalinių valstybių piliečius, dažniausiai atskleidžiamas per nacionalinių sąjūdžių puoselėtų idealų įgyvendinimo perspektyvą. Visgi ne visi šie piliečiai buvo vienodai pasirengę atsisveikinti su imperijų palikimu. Ypač jis slėgė tuos, kurie transformaciją paspartinusiais Didžiojo karo metais patyrė fizinių ir / ar materialių nuostolių bei tikėjosi, kad jie bus kompensuoti. Straipsnyje analizuojama, kaip šis klausimas spręstas Klaipėdos krašte – teritorijoje, kurios gyventojai dėl Pirmojo pasaulinio karo rezultatų atsidūrė tarp dviejų valstybių – Lietuvos ir Vokietijos.

The bibliography presented here aims to record both publications about the Great War which appeared in Lithuania and printed material about the Lithuanian experience (or Lithuania in general) during the First World War. The list includes publications that came out before the end of the Second World War.