Constructing identity of Russians in Soviet Lithuania: policy, population censuses, and historical memory

Abstract

This article analyses the aspects of identity of the Russian ethnic group in Lithuania during the first and second Soviet occupation (1940–1941/1944–1990). Obviously, Russians more often than any other ethnic group are identified by Lithuanian academic discourse and Lithuanian society (especially elder people) with controversial political events of the Soviet period. Massive repressions and deportations of population, as well as armed resistance, forced collectivization, and industrialization of Lithuania, immigration of Russians to Lithuania from the other regions of the Soviet Union after the II World War should be mentioned primarily. Because of the consequences of all stated processes, the image of Russians in Lithuania during the period of the Soviet occupation was negative. It usually included the worst selected patterns of their individual characteristics or collective activity (for example, violence against other-minded people, a lack of good skills and education, irresponsibility, drunkenness and etc.).
Similar images of Russians still exist in contemporary Lithuanian public and media discourse. Incomparably, less attention is paid not only in this, but also, academic discourse, to the research of social development of Russian ethnic group in Lithuania during the Soviet period. It is also necessary to add that images of Russians as a socialistic nation or “elder brother” by Communist authority of the Soviet Union in 1930s were constructed for political and ideological reasons. Political attitudes of Joseph Stalin were most decisive in building the so called socialistic nations and their hierarchy. Moreover, the population censuses in the Soviet Union that took place in 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989 were important sources of the nations’ identity building. Soviet political authorities developed in a large scale ethnic composition statistical data reflecting their interests.
It is concluded in this article that the identity of Russians in Soviet Lithuania should be considered in a wider historical and social research context than it is now. Clearly, this ethnic group consisted of Russian immigrants who came to Lithuania from the other regions of the Soviet Union and who are usually indentified by Lithuanians as communists, officers, industry specialists, workers, and so forth. Undeniably, there were different subgroups, also. So-called Old Russians and their descendents after the II World War in Lithuania possibly constituted not less than 1/3 of all Russians until the 1959 census. In this subgroup were supporters of the Soviet regime (especially peasants in rural areas), who congratulated the invasion of the Red Army in 1940. Otherwise, it is also important to acknowledge that there was also anti-Soviet intelligentsia in this subgroup that shared the fate of many Lithuanians who were repressed or deported by the regime in 1940s or emigrated from Lithuania to Western Europe and the United States in order to escape arrests. The loss of most prominent persons (officers, scientists, lawyers, ballet artists, priests, etc.) made prolific damage to the identity and intellectual potential of this Russian ethnic group. Those, who had stayed and lived in Lithuania during the Soviet period, could be described as an “invisible” part of Russian society. The Soviet regime did not trust most of them despite their Russian origin and tried to isolate them from public activity by, for example, thwarting occupational opportunities. 
Politics toward collectivization, industrialization and urbanization that took place in Lithuania after the Second World War made a big influence in the disintegration of Old Russians, which moved them from their historical places of living to urban areas. Before moving to towns, most of them worked in agriculture and lived in the countryside. As a result, old religious communities of Russian Orthodox and Old Believers lost most of their members. Old Russians (especially the descendents) could not escape contacts with Russian immigrants from other regions of the Soviet Union and the influence of the Soviet ideology. At the same time, they maintained a different historical memory, which was hidden until the 1990s for their safety and their children’s.
Russian and Russian-speaking immigrants of other nationalities (mostly Byelorussians and Ukrainians), who came to Lithuania after the II World War from other regions of the Soviet Union, did not constitute a homogenous population group. On the contrary, they differed by such markers as their arrival time to Lithuania, social status, education level, professional and language skills, and etc. Many were members of the Communist Party, officers and soldiers of the Soviet Army, representatives of NKVD/KGB, who were going to build communism and a “bright future” for the Lithuanian nation. Many local collaborators, who were not Russians, also joined these structures and supported the political regime. The presence of these groups in Lithuania during all of the Soviet period made a huge impact on the formation of a negative image of Russians.
As a result of industrialization in Lithuania, many specialists as well as unskilled labor force intensely migrated until 1990. Most of them resided in Lithuania’s largest cities, but Sniečkus (now Visaginas) city and atomic station in Eastern Lithuania represents a specific example of Russian colonization. In the 1970s, Russians made up 2/3 of its population. In addition, many people reached the territory of Lithuania just after the II World War not for building communism, but in hopes of escaping famine, which was wide spread in other regions of the Soviet Union. Also, there was a group, primarily of Old Believers, that resettled in Lithuania in 1941 from the occupied Nazi German territories of Poland. A sector of Russian intelligentsia of highly-qualified specialists, who had good relations with Lithuanian intellectuals, lived in small-scale; therefore, they did not influence the collective image of Russians.
In general, Russians constituted a well integrated group in the social sense. Many of them were delighted with their jobs and material wealth, and Lithuania because of its high standards of living was evaluated among them as “West Europe” inside the Soviet Union. Yet at the same time, they were not keen on learning local language and culture.