World War II Memory in Lithuania (1990–2025)

• In Event: From Soviet Legacy to National Memory: World War II in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The paper examines the changing attitudes toward World War II in post-Soviet Lithuania, from the rejection of the Soviet memory model to its integration into the Western, cosmopolitan model. Although the events preceding the war (the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols, which allowed the two aggressors to destroy the independence of the Baltic states) and those following the war (the anti-Soviet resistance, which lasted until 1956) can be considered much more important in Lithuania’s collective memory and politics of history, the question of the country’s subjectivity during the war remains relevant to this day. Two key issues are central to this discussion. First is the permanent topic of responsibility for the crime of the Holocaust, in which the majority of Lithuania’s Jewish community was killed. Second is the question of the June Uprising of 1941, the evaluation of which remains controversial, even among professional historians. Both topics are actively exploited by Russian propaganda to create an image of Lithuania as an untrustworthy state that has failed to shed its “Nazi” past.

Author

• Rasa Cepaitiene, Lithuanian Inst of History (Lithuania)