Censorship in post-Stalinist Lithuania: Framing Local Threads or Embracing All-Union Trends in Lithuanian Glavlit Activities

• In Event: Identifying the Enemy: Secret Policing and Censorship in a Frontline Soviet Republic

Abstract

The paper attempts to reveal the changes of ideological content in Soviet censorship during the post-Stalinist period (1956-1985). By analysing the activities and bureaucratic-social environment of the Chief Board of State Secret Protection (Glavlit) the main focus is concentrated on the themes deeply related with the mobilisation of Lithuanian national identity, variety of national narratives, the legacy of historic heritage, influence of Lithuanian emigre and Western ideas. The research helps to reveal several periods of censorship reshaping boundaries of control, defining prohibited areas and establishing new criteria and methods. This dynamic is discussed seeing the central regulation, interests and impact of Lithuanian nomenclature, and cultural elite, KGB, relation between centre and periphery, as well as identifying how routines, habitus structure influence the process.

Author

• Vilius Ivanauskas, Lithuanian Institute of History (Lithuania)