THE VOICE OF INTERNATIONAL LITHUANIA
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Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite evaluated the year 2010 as financially and morally difficult, however, according to the head of the state, the most difficult period is almost over.
"The year 2010 was a difficult year for Lithuania, as for many European countries. I think we managed relatively painful, but well. Lithuania withstood the financial crisis, we managed to pay pensions, salaries, people were ensured they will have food and receive salaries. It was a financially and morally difficult year," Dalia Grybauskaite said.
The Lithuanian economy expanded at a faster rate in the third quarter than previously estimated as construction output grew for the first time in almost two years, revised data showed.
Gross domestic product grew 1.1 percent, compared with a preliminary estimate of 0.6 percent released on Oct. 28, the Vilnius-based statistics office said in an e-mail. The growth rate was unchanged from the previous quarter.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite praises the government’s efforts in reforming the energy sector but due to unfavourable international situation she iscalling for a pause in attempts of building a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania.
‘I don’t mean in any way that nuclear energy should be put aside, but perhaps now we’ll have to make a certain pause, rethink and wait for a more favourable international situation without sitting and waiting.
“The fact that we practically haven’t received real proposals and the last investor refused to implement the project only shows the current international situation isn’t favourable,” the president continued. The President believes that the nuclear power should have alternatives and that Lithuania should do more in developing alternative energy.
Where are the new ideas that could bring Lithuania forwards?
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OLD AND NEW LITHUANIA Photo: Aage Myhre
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Lithuania is a country built on ideas. In my opinion, creativity is this nation’s most fundamental natural resource. Through 800 years Lithuania has time after time been able to show the world that there is an underlying creativity and human power here that enables us to rise again after even the most dramatic defeat or tragedy, again and again to take initiatives that lead to glory, fame and new opportunities for Lithuanians and individuals from other nations and cultures living here. Lithuania needs today new ideas, and I want to challenge all of you who read VilNews to make your suggestions. I consider 2010 an excellent year to initiate a wave of creativity among all of us who want to contribute to this country's best interests. I have in my life invented only one new word. But in return this word was included in the Norwegian dictionaries and encyclopaedias already in the 1980s. The Norwegian Language Council even stated at the time that this was one of the best new Norwegian words they had seen in years, so it would be an understatement not to admit that I was a bit proud hearing this. The word was 'idédugnad', composed of the elements idea and dugnad. Dugnad is a well-known Norwegian word which in translation means something like 'voluntary communal work'. The American term ‘brainstorming’ is very similar, but ‘idédugnad’ somehow represents, at least for me, a more active and pragmatic following up of the ideas, into real action, after they have been put on the table. The reason for my 'invention' was that I 26 years ago initiated a rather huge session with top people from politics, business, culture, education, research, etc. in the Norwegian city of Trondheim, where I studied and lived for the years 1974-1985. As result, a large group of busy individuals met for an entire early spring Saturday to discuss and make proposals on how Trondheim best should be developed towards the city's 1000-year anniversary in 1997. It was a successful session that was later repeated and further developed, and what I think we all saw and experienced was that people from many different professions and cultures quite easily were able to sit together and agree on common objectives. ‘Team Trondheim’ became a real force that included a very broad cross section of people, and the results were quite impressive, as I see it - even today. My hope and desire is that we can get started with something similar here in Lithuania. I am convinced it is possible to also do this here which I think the following listing of some 14 top Lithuanian ideas represents excellent proof of, and I hope we all would be ready to join forces. Lithuania needs new ideas, of course followed by realistic implementation and the power to realise the best ones. I would also suggest for you to have a look at the web page http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/5 The page represents an American organisation called TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), with a very simple mission: SPREADING IDEAS. TED also explains: “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.” And, if you can, please spend a few minutes on this one; “William Kamkwamba on building a windmill”. It’s an amazing story about the young boy who one day got the idea to start supplying electricity to his family… http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_building_a_windmill.html PS: He succeeded! So, if you don’t mind, send us YOUR ideas for Lithuania that we can share with the other VilNews readers. I also believe passionately; in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, Lithuania.
Aage Myhre, Editor
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Are these the top 14 Lithuanian ideas throughout history?
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1200s King Mindaugas’ grand idea was to found the Lithuanian State! Lithuania’s only king is also credited with stopping the advance of the Tatars towards the Baltic Sea and Europe, establishing international recognition of Lithuania, and turning it towards Western civilization. |
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1300s Gediminas’ idea was to found Vilnius as one of the World’s most tolerant cities Grand Duke Gediminas was also the true founder of ‘The Grand Duchy of Lithuania’. He was a man of extraordinary knowledge and wisdom, offering free access into Lithuania to Europeans of every order and profession. |
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1400s Vytautas the Great’s idea was to expand ‘The Grand Duchy of Lithuania’ Vytautas the Great was the Grand Duke expanding the Grand Duchy‘s frontiers from the Baltic Sea south to the Black Sea and thereby creating the by then largest country in Europe. The Grand Duchy was at its largest by the middle of the 15th Century. |
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1500s Sigismund the Old’s idea was to connect Italy and Lithuania, with the help of Leonardo da Vinci!
When Lithuania’s Grand Duke, Sigismund the Old in 1518 married the Italian Princess Bona Sforza, this became an outstanding manifestation of the already strong relationship between Italy and Lithuania. The royal couple created together an Italian community within the court and Italian culture became the preoccupation of the Vilnius city elite.
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1700s The Gaon’s idea was to make Vilnius the intellectual cradle for world Jews The Great Gaon of Vilnius, Elijahu ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797) was the greatest luminary not only among the many Talmudical scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries, but also for many later generations.
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1875-1911 Čiurlionis’ idea was to describe Lithuania’s soul in his art and music During his short life Lithuania’s national composer and painter, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, composed about 250 pieces of music and created about 300 paintings. His works have had a profound influence on modern Lithuanian culture.
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1918 Antanas Basanavičius’ grand idea was to reclaim independence for Lithuania
As a member of the Council of Lithuania he was a signer of the Act of Independence of Lithuania on the 16th of February 1918 (signed in the building at the picture to the left). Basanavičius is often given the unique informal honorific title of the "Patriarch of the Nation". |
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1918-1940 President Smetona had the idea of again making Lithuania a successful, remarkable nation
President Antanas Smetona was undoubtedly Lithuania’s most important political figure between the two wars. He served as President from 1919 to 1920, and again from 1926 to 1940. Smetona was also one of the famous ideologists of nationalists in Lithuania. The country was truly flourishing under his presidency.
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1940-1945 |
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1945-1990 Lithuanians who were forced to leave their home country had the idea of keeping on fighting
The post World War II wave of Lithuanian immigrants experienced a surge of Lithuanian consciousness. They saw themselves as exiled communities and clung to their memory of two decades of freedom in Lithuania. They also made numerous efforts to support Lithuania’s freedom fight.
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1945-1990 Lithuania had the idea to improve its infrastructure even during Soviet years Despite huge post war difficulties, Lithuania managed to build around 450 km of four-lane motorways from Vilnius to Klaipėda and Panevėžys. Result? Lithuania got the best roads in East Europe! At the same time Klaipėda port was developed as a leading Baltic transport hub, connecting East and West..
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1960-1990 Despite the oppression, Lithuanian experts had the idea to make Lithuania the Soviet Silicon Valley Still today Lithuania is the world‘s leading exporter of femtosecond lasers. Among the clients is NASA, using Lithuanian laser technology for analyses of minerals on Mars! A country of 3.5 million people, Lithuania, has about 15 laser producers, employing about 300 laser specialists!
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1988 – 1991 Landsbergis had the idea that his masses of unarmed Lithuanians could win over the mighty Soviet army Hadn‘t it been for this peaceful fight by Professor Vytautas Landsbergis and his people for regained freedom against an occupation and a ruling the people of the Baltic States never wanted or agreed to, the map of Europe would most likely have looked very different today...
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1990 – 2010 Lithuania’s sport and culture had the idea to remain on world level I let two of the most prominent figures within these fields represent the fantastic flora of ideas and pure guts sport and culture is playing for Lithuania; Music Professor Donatas Katkus (left) and former basketball player Arvydas Sabonis. Remarkable!!
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2000 – 2010 Zuokas’ idea was to build Lithuania’s Manhattan Vilnius’ former Mayor, Arturas Zuokas, earned his place in Lithuania’s history with his energetic efforts to build a new skyscraper city within the city.
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2010 - ? Ms. President & Mr. Prime Minister,
Please let us know what are your ideas and visions for the future development of Lithuania. |
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During a visit to Washing last autumn, Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius explained that there were some doubts about the US intentions toward the Baltic States after the United States signed the treaty with Russia on reduction of the nuclear arsenal in spring. However, those doubts were cleared by the US administration itself, Lithuania’s Prime Minister said during his interview to the public radio on 7 September.
‘When the US president and the Russian president signed the so-called nuclear munitions restriction treaty, there were some doubts over what Russia would get for it in return. The doubts were in connection to drafting of treaties on conventional forces but they were dispelled in a very efficient and proper manner by the US administration and its representatives,’ Kubilius said in the interview. The Prime Minster once again repeated that the US has been and will remain ‘among Lithuania’s most important strategic partners.’
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite that the main reason behind snubbing Obama’s invitation to join the dinner in Prague because, ‘Seeing that this (the US and Russia treaty) could conflict with the interests of at least Eastern Europe and the Baltic region, I did not want to drink champagne to this perspective.’
A reader who responded to one of our VilNews issues last year argued that our publication had begun to go in the footsteps of local Lithuanian media in describing Lithuania in a rather negative way. I can well understand such a reaction, but it must also be said that unfortunately there has been a relatively large number of cases and circumstances in this country that deserve to be described in quite critical terms.
• The Lithuanian people, especially the weakest groups, are very hard hit by the economic crisis that continues to affect much of the world. The country's pensioners and other disadvantaged groups continue to live under very miserable conditions, and one must be allowed to make critical remarks on how this country's authorities have acted in the handling of the crisis. It seems to me that Lithuania's government has been more concerned with finding their own solutions, trying to ‘reinvent the wheel' rather than to learn from what other nations have made with regard to stimulus packages, lowered interest rates, etc. in these times of crisis, which in my view unnecessarily sets Lithuania several years back in time compared to many other countries. Fortunately, it appears that the immediate panic that came to characterize both the government and the banks in 2008-2010, seems to be slowly taken over by more mature attitudes now in 2011.
• There has still been far too little done for increased foreign investments in Lithuania, even if there were some good efforts made during 2010. Also the country's own industry has largely had to fend for themselves without the kind of facilitation and support one sees taking place in countries frequently compared with Lithuania.
• The country has been constantly ill-placed on Transparency International's statistics on corruption and transparency over many years, compared with other European countries, a situation which clearly has hindered economic growth and a better society for its own citizens. That corruption and bribery is still a part of the country's 'culture' in business and public institutions is nothing less than a big shame!
• The country's press must, unfortunately, largely be described as underdeveloped, with too much emphasis on celebrity and scandal reviews, and too little emphasis on constructive and investigative journalism that focuses on corruption and other undesirable conditions that continue to hold this country down. But many would also say that the media focus too much on the negative, too little on all the positive things going on here.
• A huge proportion of Lithuania's population has emigrated in recent years, including many of those with higher education, and one can rightly ask what is done to create new jobs and make necessary provisions to keep these groups remain in their home country.
• One of Lithuania's most prominent human resources is undoubtedly the country's large diasporas around the globe, groups of people and their descendants who left their mother country because of war, difficult economic conditions, political persecution, etc. These diaspora groups are in my view too little listened to or consulted from the Lithuanian authorities, which is very sad for a nation that so desperately needs all possible support and assistance from the hundreds of thousands who still have Lithuania in their hearts.
• When Lithuania's Constitutional Court in November 2006 ruled that the country's Law on Citizenship should be interpreted in disfavour of dual citizenship for large groups of Lithuanians and their descendants having citizenships in other countries, this became the start of a still heated debate around the world, as many within the country's numerous diaspora groups felt that their country of origin did not want them back or did not want to appreciate them as full Lithuanians. Many felt that the Court's decision in its interpretation of the law was more influenced by hidden motives and intentions rather than common sense. As previously stated, Lithuania desperately needs goodwill from all of its huge diasporas, and should be more eager than most other countries to allow dual citizenship. Lithuania’s welcome-back-door must be kept constantly open, never closed. We need everyone who is ready to contribute and make an effort for the mother country.
• The Lithuanian school system, especially at higher levels, is still dominated by Soviet-era thinking and there is good reason to ask what has been done the last 20 years to make it more conducive to more advanced and modern education, research and collaboration between education, businesses and government.
• Health Service has major and serious deficiencies, and also suffers under the fact that many of the nation's doctors and nurses have emigrated to Western countries.
• The focus on travel and tourism has largely been unsuccessful, partly because of the disproportionately high airport taxes (the good news is that this was finally understood and these taxes were drastically lowered in 2010), under-developed ports for ferries and other ships in the Baltic Sea city of Klaipeda, poorly developed infrastructure and promotional activities, as well as little support to hotels and other tourist industries.
• Vilnius as European Capital of Culture in 2009, must also be described as a flop due to the fact that the number of visitors to the city was sharply down instead of up as expected, not least because of the unstructured and poor planning, and as several flights were cancelled due to FlyLAL's bankruptcy, too high airport charges and poor decisions by authorities. The planned main symbol of the year of culture, the re-created royal palace at the cathedral in Vilnius that should have been completed in all its glory during the culture year, still stands there as a ghostlike skeleton surrounded by construction cranes.
• The statistics for suicide and violent crime in Lithuania is sad reading, and the country is among those on the very bottom of all these statistics compared to the rest of Europe.
• Lithuanians make up for a disproportionate share of criminal gangs in Western Europe and the United States, something which increasingly creates major problems for the police and the judiciary in many countries and also leads to frequent negative headlines about Lithuania in the Western media.
• Lithuania is still suffering under a lot of pending historic "dirt", for example with regard to its dealings with the Holocaust and the fact that relatively many Lithuanians collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of the Jews here. There was also an extensive collaboration between the KGB and senior Lithuanian politicians through the Soviet time, and it is still missing a wide clarification of what actually took place in the post-war partisan war. Reconciliation must be the obvious target, but based on all the facts laid on the table in a most scientific, objective way so that whatever might have been of injustice or illegal actions come to light and can be reacted to. A firm and fair treatment of these historical conditions will provide Lithuania great honour both domestically and from the international community.
• Participation in voluntary organizations is record low in Lithuania compared to other EU countries, and it seems that people in this country has relatively little liking for and willingness to teamwork and to work jointly with others within their neighbourhoods, local communities or on a national level. Is it perhaps selfishness, greed and mistrust of other people behind this?
But, then, there is so very much positive that can be said about this country that many of us have become so fond of during the years after the liberation from the Soviet Union in 1990/91.
Lithuania has in many areas undergone an admirable growth for several years until the economical crisis started, which I recently saw very nicely symbolized by the many great new buildings that have shot up in the outskirts of Vilnius since I first came the same road into town in November 1990 on tour from my native Norway. Vilnius was by then a city that I experienced as sad, dark and worn, but is now a modern metropolis on a European level. An important part of this picture is the incredibly beautiful Old Town in Vilnius, which has now been renovated and re-emerged as one of Europe's finest and most attractive tourist magnets.
Also, coastal areas have undergone phenomenal change for the better. A summer stroll through the newly renovated Palanga city or at Europe's largest sand dunes in Nida are good experiences fully on par with what one finds in other countries' tourism destinations. The spa-town Druskininkai in South Lithuania has similarly undergone great improvements, and stands today as one of Europe's most attractive for anyone who wants to 'recharge the batteries' and at the same time enjoy the truly wonderful sceneries of Lithuania’s forest and lake landscapes.
It pleases me very much every time I visit my in-laws lush garden outside Vilnius. The practice of garden-towns is still alive and well here, and represents, in my opinion some of the closest you can get to this country's soul. Worth a visit!
Let me also mention the fantastic cultural life that so much characterizes this country. Music festivals that mark the cities and towns every summer. Most professional theatre, ballet and singing performances that fill the country's many stages throughout the winter months. Art exhibitions of all kinds, and spontaneous performances of various theatre and music groups in courtyards, squares, settlements and villages across the country. One needs never get bored in Lithuania!
And, let me share with you what two late statistics say about Lithuania:
According to the “2010 Quality of Life Index” published by the “International Living” magazine http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/, Lithuania is among the 25 best countries in the world to live in, with better quality of life than most other countries of Central and Eastern Europe (even ahead of some West-European countries).
Vilnius can boast of the cleanest air in Europe according to the „Economist Intelligence Unit“ and „Siemens“ in a research study called “An Index of Green European Cities” in which 30 cities-capitals of Europe were participating. http://www.vilnius-tourism.lt/topic.php?tid=84&aid=2304
It is my hope that Lithuania's authorities, businesses and people in general seriously start to cope with the still remaining problems and negative conditions, so that we can put behind us the negative features and once again see and experience a Lithuania with similar positive guts, profile and multi-cultural constellations that this country was once so famous for.
The initial question was what we can do to improve Lithuania's reputation to the rest of our world.
Many would probably say that what we need is more positive attention in international media. And, in fact, over the years there have been spent large sums on advertising Lithuania and Vilnius on CNN and in other media. It has been printed countless brochures, and it has repeatedly been created commissions that should propose new logos, new slogans, new profiles and new ideas for international promotion of Lithuania. But I hardly exaggerate when I say that the usefulness of all this has been extremely limited.
My answer to the question would therefore rather be to open up for a broad process with the aim to overcome, and actively improve the problem areas I have outlined in my bullet points above. I believe this would be a far better starting point and professional platform for improving Lithuania's reputation. Such a process would in itself attract attention and recognition in international media, as well as among leaders and ordinary people around the world.
Nothing gives better reputation for a nation than when the country’s authorities and citizens join forces into a positive and determined development process based on openness, fairness, honesty, genuine concern for fellow human beings, true respect for law and order, hard work, and attempted professionalism on all levels.
Lithuania has the historical and contemporary power to again become a leading, prominent example nation for other developing countries and many others around the world. Let’s take the opportunity.
PS:
I am fully aware that I have embarked into a minefield by writing the above comments, but after living in Lithuania more or less continuously for 20 years now, I feel that I have some background to indicate an ever-so-small number of perceptions. Giving advice to others, however, is always a risk sport. To be a bit critical is even more risky. I have no roots in or from Lithuania, but I have my 'branches' here, and I would so dearly like my descendants and all other Lithuanians again to feel pride when they tell of their Lithuanian background. Therefore, I have written this, and I hope it will be well received as a constructive contribution with the best intentions and wishes for a brightest possible future in and for Lithuania.
A personal thank you note to Lithuania from David Telky, Scotland
David Telky, Managing Director of Scottish-Lithuanian manufacturing company Pentland, has over 35 years in the Clothing Manufacturing industry. David was born in Glasgow, Scotland where he has carried on the family business of 90 years to present.
Pentland is a Scottish based clothing manufacturing company headquartered in Glasgow with its production sites in Lithuania, Belarus and Moldova. Pentland has been manufacturing tailored clothing in Glasgow since 1973 and moved its production to Eastern Europe in 1985. Pentland produces for the European market for leading fashion retailers delivering tailored outerwear for men and women, with over 40 factories in Lithuania and neighbouring countries.
Text: David Telky
The above quote took over 30 years to occur. It covers activities in 14 countries and many years of garment production around the globe.
My background was in accountancy, but when my father, a tailor, phoned me to return to Scotland to help him start a large factory, I needed no second request.
Accountancy could not stand up to the thought of working with my father, starting a new factory and working in a manufacturing environment that had been a family trade for generations.
Two years later, after my training was over, the factory we designed was completed and my theory was to be put into practice.
To finance the project, at a very stormy time in the British economy , took every penny that we could beg and borrow but the beautiful factory was ours (and the banks)and now we had to staff and provide orders for it's production.
10 eventful years later, sadly after my wonderful Father died, the factory had expanded to 450 people and was making 10,000 jackets a week, but customers were moving to overseas production, mainly from China!
This was when the stresses of running a large enterprise in Glasgow bore the health problems that many find the hardest part of business management. The long hours the mental strain of multiple problems, the financial pressures, the staff aggravations.
The answer was to do what all similar enterprises in UK were looking at and out source production, but where?
Over the next 5years,after successful forays into China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Poland ,Portugal, Belarus Egypt and a few not so successful, I found the right place, Lithuania- my search was over!
The stress of all this had seen me in hospital with health problems, that linger to this day, so the expression "thank God for Lithuania ...without it I could be dead!" evolves from the joy of working with some of the best staff I have ever employed, combined with some of the finest and most loyal factories producing excellent products with an almost old fashioned loyalty and ethic that was so prevalent in the UK of my youth.
Altogether the move to Lithuania has not only been a work influenced move but the social aspect of the community of local and expats has opened my eyes to a life of harmony and peace that I thought was lost forever and fills me each day with happiness.
So Thank God for Lithuania in it's helping me develop not only a great company Pentland , a sum of it's fine employees ,but for giving me the chance to meet so many great and wonderful people not least the Editor of this fine Journal, Aage Myhre ,who I am honoured to count as my good friend .
May I say that the journal that Aage has developed tirelessly over many years is a fine demonstration of his love of Lithuania that I am proud to share with him!
Good luck to Vilnews and to you my friend Aage Myhre!
David Telky, Managing Director of Pentland – Scotland and Lithuania has over 35 years in the Clothing Manufacturing industry. David was born in Glasgow, Scotland where he has carried on the family business of 90 years to present. David participates hands on in his manufacturing companies from sales, production to delivery – producing fashion garments for the British and other western markets.
Text: Diana Koval
According to some publications, Lithuania has been named the EU murder capital. According to the Eurostat agency Lithuania saw an average 8.76 murders per 100,000 heads of population every year during the period 2002-8. However, this information, which showed up in various world media publications seem to be not completely up to date.
Death rate in Lithuania is among the highest in Europe. The only “good” news is that Lithuania finally stopped being the “murder capital”. According to Eurostat, in 2009 deaths due to homicide and assaults got the highest rate in Latvia (5.9 person of 100.000), while Lithuania stays behind on the 2nd place with death rate 5.6 person. Unfortunately, due to other causes such as suicide (31.5 of 100.000 comparing to Greece’s 3.0), ischemic heart diseases (305.1 comparing to Netherlands’ 42.8) and various accidents (68.2 comparing to Germany’s 14.6) Lithuania has the highest death rates in EU.
Statistics Department of Lithuania recently claimed that every day approximately 100 people are being born and 115 are dying (among them 1-due to transport accidents, 3 – committed suicide)
Lithuania still has the highest rate of death due to suicide in Europe, which was 31.5 of 100.000 inhabitants and then goes Hungary (21.8) and Latvia (20.7). Majority of them are being committed in urban area - Vilnius and Kaunas counties. People are killing themselves from various psychological reasons, desperation, bullying at school, depression, unemployment, and finance debts.
One of the biggest problems that Lithuania faces today is violence against women. Statistics claims that 63% of all women in Lithuania suffered from physical and/or psychological violence, whereas world average is 33%. According to Police department in 2009 there were approx. 42.000 police calls due to family conflicts and more than 8.000 of them were women who suffered from their husbands, partners or even from their children domestic disputes. Yet statistics are just the tip of the iceberg so one may wonder what the true numbers of such incidents are. The majority of people are more likely to think that domestic violence is a private family matter. Although there are laws prohibiting family violence, sometimes they aren’t as effective as they should be.
Another topic that needs consideration is incredibly high unemployment rates. According to Eurostat in November, 2010 unemployment rate in EU was 9.6% while Lithuania’s was 18.3%. Higher rates were registered only in Spain (20.6%), while in Netherlands unemployment rates were just 4.4 %. By January 2011, about 311.300 job seekers were registered by the Lithuanian Labour Exchange which is 14.4% of people of working age. Mindaugas Petras Balašaitis (Head of Lithuanian Labour Exchange) considers the situation at the state job market as very unusual: the unemployment growth slows down but somehow there is lack of qualified employees on Lithuanian job market (due to emigration, which is another deep problem for a country).
Furthermore, voluntarism rates in Lithuania are also incredibly low. Only 2% of population volunteered for some organizations comparing to Sweden’s 90%.
However, the situation in other Baltic states (especially Latvia) is also difficult. After the proclamation of Independence in 1991 Lithuanian society confronted sudden changes which were difficult to deal with. Psychologists claim that uncertainty and insecurity, worsening economic situation as well as rapid changes are the main reasons of this complicated status in Lithuania. Still it is merely (and mainly) a question of time when things will start improving.
This article is from the book “VILNIUS a Personal History” written by Tomas Venclova.
From reading Mr. Venclova’s Bio you can understand why we are excited and honoured to have him as one of the contributing writers for VilNews. In the future we will continue to post excerpts from his book for your reading enjoyment. We thank the publisher, The Sheep Meadow Press for their gracious consent in allowing us to share Mr. Venclova’s book with you and we would like to direct you to The University Press of New England who is the book’s distributor.
Published at:
Sheep Meadow Press
http://sheepmeadowpress.com/
Distributed by:
University Press of New England
http://www.upne.com/index_new.html
Text: Tomas Venclova
Vilnius was founded by Lithuanians, and in the Middle Ages they presumably established the tone of the city. Later, this changed radically. In Bakhtin’s* day, only about two percent of the citizens of Vilnius spoke Lithuanian. After the Second World War, everything changed fundamentally. As the tanks of several occupying armies rolled through the city, half of its inhabitants were murdered, the other half driven out or deported. Lithuanians from villages and small towns, intellectuals (my parents among them) who had earlier been drawn to Kaunas, the second largest Lithuanian city, streamed into the de-populated Vilnius. In short, thousands of people were getting to know their nation’s legendary capital for the first time and had difficulty gaining a foothold in their new surroundings which, quite apart from everything else, were being subjected to the hand of Communist power. Only now, several generations later, do Lithuanians constitute a majority in Vilnius and feel at home there. Today, the Lithuanian language predominates in the streets and has supplanted other languages on signs and public notices. (Despite the protests of philologists, these signs are often printed in English.)
In the surrounding villages, Lithuanian is certainly not spoken everywhere. You have to drive at least thirty miles north or south to hear the old language again. Its dialects differ greatly from one another: for example, the Aukstaiciai, who live in the northern coastal region, have long been known for their sensitivity and imagination; the Dzukai, from the southern pine forests, have always struggled with their sandy soil and sell their berries and mushrooms in Vilnius. The villages of these two groups extend all the way to Belarus―and Belarusian settlements extend into present-day Lithuania. From an ethnic standpoint, the border east of Vilnius follows a completely arbitrary course―even though it separates the European Union from a country still under dictatorial rule. Lithuanians and Slavs have always lived together in the areas surrounding the city. One can probably say that Vilnius has always been on the European border―a sort of transit lounge.
The second historic people of Vilnius called themselves Ruthenians. In the Middle Ages, their language was probably heard as often on the wooden sidewalks of the city as Lithuanian. The Ruthenians were already building their Orthodox churches when the Lithuanians were still heathens. In governmental affairs, the Slavic language predominated because writing was connected with Orthodoxy. It is hard to say just when the East Slavic tribe of the Ruthenians became a separate people. At first, the only thing that differentiated them from the Muscovite Russians was their dialect, but later, when they developed a greater affinity with the West, their political orientation followed suit. Ruthenian churches did not belong to the Patriarchy of Moscow but rather to the Patriarchy of Constantinople, which did not always agree with Moscow.
With the passage of centuries marked by turmoil and religious wars, the Belarusian people gradually formed out of the Ruthenians in the Vilnius area and further east. Even today, having settled among Russians and Poles―Orthodox Christians and Catholics, respectively―Belarusians lack a distinctive identity. Moreover, their contact with the Lithuanians also had consequences. There are many Lithuanian words in the Belarusian language, and many Belarusian or Ruthenian words in Lithuanian, especially ecclesiastical words. The grammar of the Belarusian language was only codified by twentieth-century nationalists; the nationalist movement they triggered was the latest to occur in all of Europe. The Belarusians―like their neighbors the Dzukai―held on to their archaic mythology, folklore, and customs; they were long known not only for their generosity but also for their poverty and their inability to subsist on the barren soil of a region where there were practically no roads. Up until the First World War, four-fifths of the population were illiterate. Politics determined how they were classified in passports and statistics. Whatever nation happened to be in power at the time would count the Belarusians among its own people, even if it looked down on them. Today, some Belarusians describe their nationality with the word tutejszy—“local.” Another Ruthenian dialect goes back to the origins of the Ukrainian people, but that is another story. The Ukraine is far to the south of my country.
The third historic people, the Poles, had the greatest impact on Vilnius and its surroundings for several centuries. Catholicism came to Lithuania from Poland and brought with it a different way of life. Relatively few Poles actually came to Vilnius―most of them priests. The local Lithuanian and Ruthenian upper class viewed the Polish aristocracy with great mistrust and tried to keep them from settling in their territory in every imaginable way. But at the very same time this local upper class, captivated by Polish Renaissance customs and freedoms, quickly decided to adopt the Polish language. This is a paradox rarely encountered elsewhere in Europe: the upper strata of society were in all respects Polish, but they stubbornly called themselves Lithuanians―as opposed to the “genuine” Poles from Krakow and Warsaw.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, city people primarily spoke Polish. Lithuanian and Belarusian were relegated to the rural regions and became a sign of peasant origin and backwardness. Actually, Belarusian is not very different from Polish and was considered one of its dialects. The Lithuanians faced a situation similar to that of the Irish: their language had about as much in common with Polish as Gaelic had with English, and therefore many people considered it just a historical curiosity―quaint, but doomed to oblivion. The Lithuanian intelligentsia managed to change this viewpoint (they were more successful than the Irish), but it was difficult and took a long time. In other words, there were two types of Lithuanians: the first type knew only Polish and couldn’t imagine a life without Poland, even though they were local patriots, whose forefathers spoke Lithuanian (or Ruthenian); the second type, who were less conspicuous, still spoke the old Lithuanian language and dreamed of an independent Lithuanian state. This social division resulted in considerable animosity. Later, it turned into armed conflict, which would determine the fate of the city.
Józef Piłsudski, who founded the independent Polish state after the First World War, saw himself as having Lithuanian origins, as did Adam Mickiewicz in the nineteenth century and Tadeusz Kósciuszko in the eighteenth. Piłsudski liked to say, “Poland is like a pretzel―everything that’s good about it is in the outer crusts, and inside there’s nothing.” Among these “outer crusts,” Piłsudski ranked Vilnius above all others. He had been educated in Vilnius, and it was there that he had first become interested in revolutionary ideas and was first arrested for taking part in a conspiracy. Another conspirator in that same plot, Lenin’s older brother Alexander, was hanged. But Piłsudski survived and eventually, weapon in hand, liberated his own country, brought Lenin’s Bolsheviks to a standstill at the Vistula, and marched into the city he had grown up in. For the next twenty years, Vilnius would remain a part of his country, Poland. Although Piłsudski’s heart is buried in a Vilnius cemetery, the Poles are today a minority in the city; they no longer form the upper class, nor even the educated class. For the most part, they are laborers, craftsmen, former peasants. The Polish language is still dominant in the surrounding villages, although it is difficult to establish precisely where it spills into Belarusian.
There are also genuine Russians in Vilnius. The first Russian probably came to Lithuania from Moscow as early as the sixteenth century: Prince Kurbsky, the patron of all Russian dissidents and political émigrés. After a dreadful falling-out with Tsar Ivan “the Terrible,” Kurbsky wrote letters to his former ruler from nearby Lithuania. The Tsar replied with angry, but impeccably literary outbursts. This was the start of a polemic between tyrants and their opponents that has continued in Russia ever since. About a century later, émigrés appeared who disagreed with the reform of the Orthodox Church and had decided to preserve the old liturgy and morality. These so-called “Old Believers” put down roots in Vilnius but continued to speak their own language, which is quite distinct from Belarusian and Polish―and not at all like Lithuanian. The Old Believers gained a reputation as quiet, hardworking people. Their churches are modest and do not resemble Orthodox churches at all. One of them, behind the train station in an out-of-the-way section of Vilnius, is surrounded by high walls that formerly protected it from attacks by followers of the New Orthodox Church who threw stones at the Old Believers.
When the city was under Tsarist occupation in the nineteenth century, these New Orthodox Russians came to Vilnius in great numbers. They built churches, usually in the most conspicuous locations: even today their threatening, onion-shaped cupolas loom high above the city―in sharp contrast to the graceful Baroque of the Catholic churches. During the Soviet era, Russians made up at least one third of the population. The majority had moved to Vilnius only after the end of the Second World War. At the time, all public notices and signs had to be printed in Cyrillic lettering as well as in the Roman alphabet. Lithuanian and Polish schools devoted considerable time to learning Russian. I wasn’t too upset about that because I was just beginning to love Alexander Pushkin, as well as the later Silver Age poets Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam, who were not listed in the syllabus or mentioned in school at all. But I was an exception; my classmates equated the Russians with the unbearable Soviet government. When it collapsed, the majority of Russian civil servants and military personnel left Lithuania, accompanied by their daughters, who had piqued my youthful interest. But quite a few intellectuals―who were, as a rule, closer to Kurbsky’s tradition than to that of Ivan the Terrible―remained, and this too is still noticeable in the city.
Two tiny ethnic groups are also among the historic peoples of Vilnius: the Tatars and the Karaites. Though the city is far from the Balkans, some Moslems live there. Tatars, followers of the Prophet, settled here as early as the Middle Ages. They even had a wooden mosque and a cemetery in their own city district near the bend of the Neris River. For many years it was known as “Tartaria.” I can still remember seeing in the cemetery the abandoned stone grave markers, decorated with a crescent moon. During my time in Vilnius, the mosque was torn down and the graves were transferred to a distant suburb, but they still exist. Even now you can still find Tatars―fewer perhaps in Vilnius itself than in its vicinity, where there are still mosques that face Mecca. The Tatars have forgotten their Turkic language and now speak Belorussian, but they still read the Koran. (There are even Belorussian manuscripts using the Arabic alphabet.) Incidentally, the most famous participant of the struggle against the Soviets in 1991, Loreta Asanavičūtė, was descended from Lithuanian Tatars. She was the young girl who was run over by a tank and killed when Gorbachev’s troops sought in vain to suppress the independence movement. It is easy to identify the Moslem name “Hassan” in her surname.
The Karaites, one of the smallest ethnic groups in the world, are even more unique. There are scarcely three hundred of them, but in this case quality compensates for quantity: the Karaites stubbornly cling to their language and religion, and one cannot confuse them with anyone else. Their Turkic language is quite similar to that of the Tatars, but their religion is unique. The Karaites call themselves the “People of the One Book,” for they recognize only the Torah. Although they consider both Christ and Mohammed prophets, they hold neither the New Testament nor the Koran sacred. Theirs is, in effect, the oldest pre-Talmudic Judaism―in a significantly altered form, of course. The Karaites, it is said, were a remnant of the mysterious Khazars―a nomadic people (about whom we know almost nothing) who adopted this faith in the early Middle Ages. Whether or not this is true, the Karaites have remained in the Lithuanian forests as an enclave of the Asiatic Steppe. Once warlike, today they are primarily farmers. Most of them live in the little town of Trakai, although they also have a synagogue in Vilnius. A relatively large number of them are intellectuals. Present-day Lithuania has three Karaite diplomats―one is the ambassador to Turkey. (Her native language allows her to understand Turkish.) It would be difficult to imagine another ethnic group of which one percent are employed by the diplomatic service.
I have not yet mentioned the seventh historic people; today, hardly any of them are left in Vilnius. For several centuries, they formed one half of the city’s population—and sometimes more than half—namely, the Jews. They called Vilnius Jerusholayim de Lite, Lithuanian Jerusalem, and the city actually resembled Jerusalem in size and had a self-contained Old Town, whose walls enclosed a veritable oriental maze of streets and alleys. The Jewish quarter was a considerable part of this jumble, with arches that extended over the walls and with numerous houses of prayer, among them the Great Synagogue. Eighteen Torah scrolls were stored there, and among the Great Synagogue’s columns five thousand of the faithful could find room to pray. Small stores were clustered around the synagogue, along with tradesmen’s workshops and libraries. The largest of the libraries, founded by the Enlightenment philosopher Mattityahu Strashun, housed Hebrew incunabula and manuscripts.
Lithuanian heads of state and bishops issued detailed regulations restricting the rights of Jews. For example, a synagogue could not be higher than a Catholic church; that is why one had to enter a Jewish house of prayer as if one were going downstairs into a cellar. Still, on the whole, Jews were able to lead a more peaceful life in Vilnius than anywhere else in Europe, and when they lost their homelands in Cordoba and in the Rhineland, Vilnius became the most important Jewish center in the world. In many ways the city could indeed call itself the Lithuanian Jerusalem when describing its spiritual life. But today, all this is only a memory.
My parents were still able to witness the old Jewish quarter of Vilnius, unchanged since the sixteenth or seventeenth century. But my experience was something different. At the beginning of the Nazi occupation, when I was five years old, my mother and I met a man walking not on the sidewalk but in the gutter, a yellow six-pointed star sewn on his sleeve. My mother greeted the man, and after we had passed him I asked her what the yellow star meant. “He is Jewish,” my mother answered, “All the Jews are ordered to wear it.” Not until after the war did she tell me that she herself had been arrested because the new rulers suspected her of being Jewish. She could have been shot. My mother managed to save herself by having one of her former teachers testify that she was Lithuanian and Catholic―which was true.
In the post-war period, I was already attending school. On the way there, I had to walk through an overgrown area of ruins, in the center of which rose the remnants of a massive white building with vestiges of columns and arches. By the time I understood that it had once been the Great Synagogue, it had already been razed. The Soviet State supported the Jewish faith as little as it supported any other religion. Jews lay in mass graves in the pine forests of the suburb of Paneriai; very few still lived in Vilnius. Some went abroad; many emigrated to the real Jerusalem. The ruins became a barren land, and no one spoke of its past. A very dilapidated Strashun Street has survived—under a different name, of course. Today if you were to scratch the paint off the walls, here and there, below the windows you would find Hebrew letters.
* Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian philosopher 1895-1975
VIOLENCEAGAINST WOMEN
63.3 % of Lithuanian women have been victims of male physical or sexual violence or threats after their 16th birthday. This represents today such a severe problem that, in my opinion, President Grybauskaite should personally get involved and take the necessary measures to turn around this devastating trend. Klaipeda municipality wants to be a pioneer- municipality in terms of focus on domestic violence and abuse of women, and I believe it could be a good idea for the President to support these good efforts and make Klaipeda a positive show case for constructive focus on domestic violence and violence against women.
Today, the 8th of March, is International Women's Day, a day marked by women’s groups around the world. The day is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the very beginning of the 1900s. But in Lithuania the 8th of March is not at all characterized by women's struggle for emancipation and equality, or any sort of fighting against violence and abuse. Believe it or not, but here you will experience no single parade, no placates with demanding lines for equal rights, or any stirring speeches from women's rights activists. The Soviet leaders were probably very anxious that the Women's Day could turn into a demonstration against the system and the many elderly, grey haired men at the top of the Kremlin. These men's smart move was to instead make the 8th of March a feast day, something in between Mother's Day and St. Valentine Day. So, even today, 20 years after the Soviet collapse, the 8th of March in Lithuania is the day when all women receive presents, flowers, poems, text messages and lots of kind words and wishes from their men or lovers. While this day over the rest of the world makes the important point that this is a day for equality and justice between the genders, this is in Lithuania a day of romance and sweet music - a day when people celebrate more the difference than the equality between the genders.
WOMEN’S SHELTER IN KLAIPEDAKlaipeda municipality wants to be a pioneer-municipality in terms of focus on domestic violence and abuse of women. Lithuania's port city has for years had a women's shelter for women, but has now taken a huge step forward and is already well underway with the planning of what is probably going to be Lithuania's most modern and advanced crisis centre for women.The municipality has been joined by the EU and a Danish fund, the Espersen Foundation, to finance the project, and everything is now arranged for Klaipeda at the end of 2011 to have a women's shelter most other Lithuanian municipalities should study further as soon as possible. For the problem of violence against women is an extremely serious, nationwide problem that needs immediate attention from authorities, communities and the very families throughout every corner of the country!Let me also say that I consider it admirable that the Espersen Foundation so actively contributes financially and otherwise in a community where the foundation's commercial arm, the Espersen Fish Factory, during the last few years has built up a state of the art fish processing company that provides work to a large number of production workers and several external companies within fishery, transportation and many more. Klaipeda has for years benefited from this company's investments, that now in an exemplary way also shows how commercial businesses can demonstrate social responsibility and involvement in the communities in which they are established and located.SEMINAR 23 MARCHThree of the speakers at the Klaipeda seminar 23rd of March1) H.E. Ms. Marja-Liisa Kiljunen, Ambassador of Finland to Lithuania.2) Ms. Dorte Scharling, Director Bornholm Kvindekrisecenter, Denmark.3) Ms. Dalia Puidokiene, a teacher at Klaipeda University and adoctorate candidate at the Lapin University in Finland.“Dialogue as attempt/effort to combat violence against women” is the main topic for a seminar that will be held in the Klaipeda municipality building the 23rd of March. Klaipeda municipality will through this seminar in an exemplary way show that they want to put the situation of women and the new women's crisis center in a broader context and understanding. The seminar will emphasize dialogue as the most important instrument in the effort to achieve improvements in the very tragic situation of women abuse in Lithuania. Dialogue, communication and information are certainly very important elements in these efforts, but then there has to be such a dialogue initiated at all levels of the Lithuanian society. The ones I've talked to about this subject, say that a very serious weakness is that the laws are far from satisfactory. The Social Affairs Ministry will participate in the Klaipeda seminar, so it is to hope that it then will be clarified how the Lithuanian government now wants to go into a more constructive process of legislation that more effectively prevents domestic violence and violence against women. It is my opinion that this problem is so very deep here in Lithuania that the country's president – who also is Lithuania's first female president - should immediately engage in pressuring the lawmakers to come up with a bill that could represent real significance to this murky area for Lithuania's families and communities. Aage MyhreEditor
Hard facts about women’s situation in Lithuania
- The Law on Equal Opportunities was adopted in 1999, but the system of implementation of the legislation and the mechanism of protecting women’s human rights are not sufficient enough to achieve optimal results. - A very important step forward for the implementation of gender equality in Lithuania was done by the Government in 2003 by adopting the “National programme for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 2003-2004” and 2005-2009. - An inter-Ministerial Commission on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men was established in year 2000 to coordinate the implementation of the gender mainstreaming policy. - In May 2009 Dalia Grybauskaite was elected Lithuania's first female president.
Lithuania has made it to the top-twenty list of countries worldwide in terms of security of equal opportunities for men and women, outmatching its neighbours and some of the EU’s old-timers. According to the World Economic Forum that estimates economic, legal and social gaps between the genders, in 2007 Lithuania placed 14th, advancing by 7 places from 21 in 2006 as the BNS reported. Lithuania has been given a 72.3 percent score, while 100 percent means absolute equality and 0 percent — total discrimination. Latvia (73.3 percent) has moved up by 6 positions over a year to the 13th place, Estonia (70.1 percent) placed 30, one step above its position as of last year.
Population and families
Education
Employment and labour market
Participation in administration and decision-taking
women traffickingLithuania has become in recent years a country of women export and transit between Eastern, Central and Western European countries. Poverty and unemployment force many women into prostitution. Different sources suggest that women from different social-demographical levels are involved in the sex-industry, mainly by young girls and women (average age – 24.5 years old) from so called risk groups. Experts claim that the geography in trafficking women from Lithuania is changing: if earlier it was Israel, Greece, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey, now main flows extend to Germany, Holland, Great Britain, France, Sweden, and Spain.
One of the problems in dealing with trafficking issues in Lithuania is lack of statistics and reintegration of victims into the society. As a public opinion survey done in 2002 by request of International Organization for Migration (IOM) suggests, up to 53.4% of Lithuanian people think “many” or “very many” girls are trafficked abroad to work as prostitutes by deceit, and 6.7% of people face this phenomenon in their close social environment, i.e. there were attempts made to traffic their close friend, relative, colleague, acquaintance. (“Trafficking in women: problems and decisions“ IOM, Institute for Social Research, 2004).
violence against womenViolence constitutes one of the most actual problems in Lithuania. Most people of Lithuania have suffered from violence at least once in their life. Males usually experience violence in public places, boys in parents’ families. Women are usually victims of sexual violence or violence in their own family… Domestic violence
Violence, especially domestic violence, is one of the main problems women are facing in nowadays Lithuania.
Violence based on gender conflict, such as battering or any other domestic violence, sexual depravation and abuse, trafficking of women and children, forced prostitution and sexual harassment are incompatible with honour and dignity of a person.
There is lack of high-skilled officials, capable to assess situations of domestic conflicts, to find out sources for such behaviour and to assist victims or counsel the population in this field; insufficient training for judges, police officials, social teachers and social workers and doctors capable of dealing with violent men. Police and courts are avoiding the cases of domestic violence unless the victim is severely beaten or killed. All possible police measures against the perpetrator are very restricted and underused to protect the victim of violence.
The network of crisis centres providing support to victims of violence is insufficient. Many crisis centres were established and are operating on the initiative of non-governmental organisations. According to the data gathered by the Women’s Issues Information Centre, there now are 15 Crisis Centres and 6 Shelters for battered women, but they do not cover the whole territory of the country and only 2 of them are supported by Municipalities.
Crisis centres providing support to the victims of violence and working with perpetrators should be established following the territorial principle with active participation of municipalities. A multiplex approach towards violence, covering support to violence victims, application of sanctions on perpetrators, awareness raising of the public, specialists and violence victims, education and training, law enforcement systems, strengthening the role of legal institutions and, health care, is still rather limited. Therefore, it is obvious that there is lack of appropriate complex programmes addressing the issues and covering the respective areas including coordination of actions of various public and non-governmental institutions.
Victim survey report – the sad reading
* 63.3 % of Lithuanian women have been victims of male physical or sexual violence or threats after their 16th birthday.
* 42.4 % of all married and cohabiting women have been victims of physical or sexual violence or threats of violence by their present partner.
* 53% of all women who had lived in relationships which had already terminated experienced violence or threats by their ex-partners.
* 11 % of Lithuanian women had at least once, after their 16th birthday, been victims of male physical or sexual violence or threats, perpetrated by a stranger, 8.2 % - by a friend, and 14.4 % by an acquaintance or relative.
* 71.4 % of Lithuanian women after their 16th birthday have been victims of sexual harassment or sexually offensive behaviour by a stranger, and 43.8% by a known man.
* 26.5 % of Lithuanian women after their 16th birthday had experienced sexual abuse by a stranger; 18.2 % by a known man; 17 % were attempted to be coerced into sexual intercourse by their date.
* 3.4 % of all victimised women reported that the experienced violence did not affect them, the absolute majority reported that this had caused hatred, helplessness, sorrow or other negative emotions.
* 10.6 % of the victims reported the most serious incident to the police.
* Women who were victimised in their parental families more often were victimised in their marital families; women whose mother was abused by the spouse, more often experienced violence by their spouses; men whose father had been violent against the mother, had been more often violent against their own partner.
* 75.3 % of adult Lithuanian women do not feel safe from risk of assault.
* 79 % of Lithuanian women believe that the home is the safest place for women and children.
Source: http://www.lygus.lt/ITC/files_smurtas/giedre1.doc
Dr. Giedrė Purvaneckienė
Aggression only moves in one direction –it creates more aggressionMargaret J. Wheatley |
From Lietuviai Sibire / Lithuanians in Siberia,
Chicago: Lithuanian Press, Inc. 1981, Dust jacket cover
During the period 1941-1953, some 132,000 Lithuanians were deported to remote areas of the USSR, in Siberia, the Arctic Circle areas and Central Asia. They were not allowed to leave the remote villages they were brought to. More than 70 percent of the deportees were women and children. Around 50,000 of the deportees were not able to return to Lithuania ever again.
During the same period, another 200,000 people were thrown into prisons in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Some 150,000 of them were sent to the Gulags, Soviet Russia‘s concentration camps, situated mostly in Siberia.
Altogether, approximately 600,000 prisoners were deported from the Soviet occupied Baltic States - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. There were some 10 million inhabitants in all three Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet occupation. Proportionately, the number of Baltic prisoners would have been equal to a loss of 20 million people in the United States or 5 million in Great Britain.
In October and November of 1940, the Soviet Russia ordered that “anti-Soviet elements” should be listed and reported on. This term included a wide spectrum of people:
1. Members of non-communist parties, including heretical communists;
2. Members of patriotic and religious organizations;
3. Former police and prison officials;
4. Former officers of tsarist and other armies;
5. Former officers of the Lithuanian and Polish armies;
6. Former volunteers who had joined anti-Soviet armies in 1918-1919;
7. Citizens of foreign states, representatives and employees of foreign firms, and employees of foreign embassies.
8. Those who corresponded with foreign countries or consulates of foreign countries as well as philatelists and those who know the Esperanto language;
9. Former high level officials;
10. Red Cross employees and émigrés from Poland;
11. Clergymen of all religions;
12. Bankers, members of aristocratic families and rich farmers.
Mass deportations continued until the death of Josef Stalin in 1953. In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided that deportees should be released. In the late 1950s, the survivors started to returning to Lithuania.
Life was not easy for those who survived and returned to Soviet occupied Lithuania, many were placed in an impossible situation as the government required them to register with the local municipality or face renewed deportation. In order to register, they needed an employer, but no one would have courage to give a work to former deportee. Many were forced to live and work illegally for many years – in their own home-country.
Russia, which officially proclaimed inheritance of all international rights and obligations of the USSR, shows no will to pay compensation to any of them.
Virtually no one has been called to account for what was done, and the West has paid little attention to the horrors of the Soviet times. Maybe it’s time?
“Soviet fascism killed many more people than the Germans, and the lies of Soviet fascism were mostly more severe than those of German fascism,” says Felix Krasavin, a former Soviet-time political prisoner.
During the Nazi and Soviet Russian occupations, including 200,000 Holocaust victims, the losses of the population of Lithuania amounted to 33 percent of the total number of the country's population in 1940. Lithuania lost 1 million people to deportations, executions, incarceration, the murder of the political opposition and forced emigration.
Dalia Kuodyte.
This article is based on a speech manuscript by Dalia Kuodyte,
Member of the Parliament, former Director General of the Centre of Genocide and Resistance (LGGRTC).
“In the trains’ cattle cars the passengers were hardly given any food except from a little water and some inedible soup. There was scarcely any air to breathe as everyone was jammed together and the cars had only a few small windows covered with bars. A hole in the floor served as a toilet. Some of the people, especially the infants became sick immediately and died. The bodies of those who died on the journey were left on the side of the tracks.”
The string of tragedies began in August 1939, when Hitler and Stalin concluded a cynical agreement that divided up Central Europe between the two totalitarian countries. According to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Lithuania was to fall into the Soviet zone of influence.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Lithuania was occupied three times: first by the USSR in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and finally by the USSR again in 1944.
Pre-war Lithuania’s position of neutrality on the eve of WWII did not protect the country from its sad fate. According to Lithuanian state institutions, the damage caused by the USSR‘s occupation to the Republic of Lithuania in financial terms is $278 billion. During Nazi and Soviet occupations, including 200,000 Holocaust victims, the losses of the population of Lithuania amounted to 33 percent of the total number of the country's population in 1940. Lithuania lost 1 million people to deportations, executions, incarceration, the murder of the political opposition and forced emigration.
The total number of persons registered as “anti-Soviet elements” reached 320,000 entries. There were teachers and professors, school and college students, farmers, industry workers and craftsmen among them.
June 14-18, 1941 were the dark days of the first massive arrest and deportation of the Lithuanian population. A cargo of 16,246 people were crammed into cattle cars. Moscow’s instruction required separate men from their families. So, 3,915 men were separated and transported to concentration camps in the Krasnoyarsk territory while 12,331 women, children and elderly people were transported to the Altai Mountains territory, the Komi republic and to the Tomsk region.
Forty percent these deportees were children below 16 years old. More than half of the deported died quickly. Pregnant women and babies born in the cattle cars were the first victims – they died in the trains. The deportation process was interrupted by the German-Soviet war.
The Soviets resumed mass deportations to Siberia and other eastern regions of the USSR after recapturing Lithuania from Nazi Germany in 1944. The partisan anti-Soviet war for democratic and independent Lithuania began in 1944. Some 22,000 Lithuanian partisans lost their lives in unequal war against the Soviet regular army and NKVD units. From 1949 the armed resistance started to wane. This guerilla war continued until 1953. The last resistance fighter refused to surrender and shot himself in 1965.
Partisans, their supporters and non-armed opposition made up a big group among those who were deported in 1945 – 1947. Another big group of deportees was those who tried to escape service in the Red Army. Ethnic Germans and members of their families, who did not leave Lithuania, were deported as well.
The situation changed in 1948. The most extensive deportation from Lithuania was held on May 22 and 23, 1948. Over these two days 12,100 families, numbering over 41,000 people, were seized from their homes and exiled. In 1948, 50 percent of deportees were accused not of their relations with the armed guerillas. Their official guilt was their social class – they were owners of private farms. In 1949, already two-thirds of the deportees belonged to this category while in 1951 they absolutely dominated the Soviet secret police‘s statistics.
Such change was due to the collectivization campaign in the Lithuania’s countryside. In 1948, the Soviets started to implement mass collectivization, appropriating land and livestock. This resulted in establishment of kolkhozes. In 1950, some 90 percent of land was given to kolkhozes. Mass deportations continued until the death of Josef Stalin in 1953.
How did the typical deportation look? The NKVD broke into an apartment or house and arrested all the family members. The NKVD marched them onto the back of a truck. In the railway station as far as the eye could see there were men and women clutching suitcases and bundles of hastily gathered clothing, the elderly and the disabled searching for places to sit and mothers holding their children, all surrounded by Red Army soldiers brandishing weapons.
Usually, the men were put on separate trains. They usually were transported to prisons and the Gulags (concentration camps) while females, kids and the elderly were deported to live in God-forsaken settlements in Siberia.
In the cattle cars the passengers were given hardly any food except a little water and some inedible soup. There was scarcely any air to breathe as everyone was jammed together and the cars had only a few small windows covered with bars. A hole in the floor served as a toilet. Some of the people, especially the infants became sick immediately and died. The bodies of those who died on the journey were left on the side of the tracks.
After one month the train reached some Siberian center - for example, Novosibirsk. In this case, scores of wagons were transferred onto enormous barges and sent up the River Ob to some remote settlement to live in a bug-infested hut.
The Soviets immediately put their prisoners to work. They forced women and teenage girls to march into the forest to cut trees. They worked in deep snow, even as temperatures plunged to minus 45 degrees Celsius. Prisoners cut up trees and later lived in huts made from those tree branches. Sometimes it was so cold they awoke frozen to the ground.
Some deportees collapsed while the guards pushed the others along to another day of work. The collapsed prisoners were then left for dead somewhere behind in the wilderness.
In exchange for their efforts, prisoners received a small amount of hard bread. They were working for food. A full day of hard work was equal to 500 grams of bread. Physically weaker prisoners could only earn 100 grams of bread.
Working prisoners shared their meager rations with those who could not work – the little children, the old and the infirm. Much of the time people had virtually nothing to eat and everyone suffered from constant hunger. Their bodies were swollen and covered with boils caused by malnutrition. Their skin was inflamed by mosquito bites.
The youngest children were affected the most by the harsh conditions and almost all of them were sick. Many of them died from starvation and disease. The elderly followed the children. Those who remained could only struggle to dig graves in the frozen earth.
Gradually, the survivors tried to adjust to life in Siberia. Deportees were permitted to use a patch of ground on which to grow potatoes.
In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided that deportees should be released. In late 1950s, the survivors started to return to Lithuania.
There is an old and cynical saying that one death is a tragedy, but a thousand are just a front-page headline. Well, of course, deaths of thousands of deportees began to make headlines only in late the 1980s. Let’s look to personal tragedies.
The Šiauliai Aušros Museum has 234 letters of political prisoners, deportees and partisans addressed to their family members and loved ones who managed to escape the Soviet terror in Lithuania.
Lawyer Ignas Urbaitis from town of Šiauliai was arrested on October 6, 1944. He was sentenced for 15 years of slavery work in concentration camps. He died in the Taishet concentration camp in the Irkutsk region in 1952.
He wrote letters to his wife Elena Urbaitienė. In 1947, he wrote, “I’m always walking in the room. Sometimes there is very little room left for it. Sometimes I can make just one step or even less because the room is covered by sleeping or lying bodies. I walk anyway. Other people find it strange. If you can imagine me, imagine me walking backwards and forwards like an animal in the zoo cage. Walking gives comfort to my nerves and heart.”
Urbaitis, like all prisoners of concentration camps, was allowed to write only two letters per year. These letters should be written in Russian because all letters were read by the censors. So, prisoners avoided to write about their sufferings directly because of this censorship.
The survivors of the Gulags and deportations can speak openly now. Former deportee Janė Meškauskaitė says that she and her family was kidnapped by the NKVD one night because her father was member of the ruling Tautininkų Party in the pre-war Lithuania. Her family was put on a train and dropped off at a remote village in the Tomsk region many days later.
They were among the more fortunate deportees, as Russian farmers from Kazakhstan who were exiled in the early 1930s for being to wealthy inhabited the village. They understood her family‘s plight and welcomed them into society. Nevertheless, food was scarce.
“My father once bought some meat from a local crook. He and a friend hid in the woods to cook and eat it so that thugs wouldn’t steal it. They found out later that they were eating a friend of theirs who had just died,” said Meškauskaitė.
Bread was also strictly rationed. “People in our village were allotted 300 grams of flour a day. One time the flourmill broke down so we were simply given whole grains. People were so hungry that they would just eat them uncooked. Of course, most had bad teeth and couldn’t chew them so they would end up undigested in the latrines. Many people would go and collect them, wash them, and make porridge,” she said.
Vytautas Stašaitis was a son of an air force major in pre-World War II independent Lithuania. The family’s spacious house was commandeered by Soviets troops in 1945. His family was exiled to Siberia but he managed to go underground as part of the resistance movement.
Shortly thereafter a supposed friend lured him into a trap. He was asked to supply ammunition for an assassination attempt on the head of the local NKVD. His “friend” gave him up and he was mercilessly beaten during his interrogation.
“I wanted to hang myself in my cell but they prevented me. They gave me 10 years forced labor for sedition and shipped me to Krasnoyarsk to cut trees. They marched us for six days with barely any food and water. Those who couldn’t keep up were shot. When we got to the labor camp they clothed us in the uniforms of dead soldiers. They still had bullet holes and blood stains,” Stašaitis said adding that political prisoners were forced to live together with aggressive Russian criminals who were sentenced for murders and robbery.
Life in Stalin-era labor camps was a dehumanizing experience. The diet allocated to prisoners was less than that required for survival. “As inmates we were chained in pairs. Once my partner and I thought a wolf was attacking us. It turned out to be a guard dog that had broken loose from its chain. We killed it with our axes and buried it in the snow. We returned many times to cook and eat it. Those were some of the best meals of my life,” he said.
Life was not easy for those who survived and returned to Lithuania. Meškauskaitė returned to Lithuania in 1958. “We were placed in an impossible situation. The government required us to register with the local municipality or face renewed deportation. In order to register, we needed an employer, but no one would have courage to give a work to former deportee. I lived and worked illegally for many years with the help of relatives,” she said.
Now former political prisoners, deportees and partisans receive an additional pension, which Lithuanian state finances can manage. Russia, which officially proclaimed inheritance of all international rights and obligations of the USSR, shows no will to pay compensation to them. The Russian state has never said a word asking for forgiveness for the Soviet terror in the occupied Baltic states. However, it was done by Russian dissidents.
Russian Duma MP Sergey Kovalev did it in the Lithuanian parliament in June, 2000. By the way, it is symbolic that in 1974-1975, Kovalev was jailed in the Vilnius KGB prison, which is the Museum of Genocide Victims now, for cooperation with the underground magazine The Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church.
Kovalev said in his address to the Lithuanian parliament, “It is not true that nations do not commit crimes. The Germans and we should understand it. If we don’t understand our guilt, we can’t expect victory over cannibalistic ideologies. We went to demonstrations in the 1930s supporting mass killings. We are guilty, our Western neighbors. It is my nation that occupied the Baltic countries. Please, forgive us.”
Felix Krasavin, a former Soviet-time political prisoner now living in Israel, spoke to the forum of some 5,000 former Lithuanian political prisoners and deportees in the Vilnius Sport Arena in June, 2000. “Soviet fascism killed many more people than its German brother. The lies of Soviet fascism were much bigger than those of German fascism,” he said.
During their nearly five decades of occupation, the Soviets killed or deported hundreds of thousands Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian men, women and children. However, this was only a fraction of the tens of millions of people in the USSR and Central Europe whom communists subjected to the midnight knock on the door, arrest, intentionally created famine and starvation, torture, slave labor, or execution.
Nicolas Werth, French historian and one of the authors of “Livre noir du communisme (The Black Book of Communism)” say the communists killed at least 100 million people in the world. During his lecture in Vilnius University in 2000, he said communism was born in Russia because this country had no democratic experience. During 80 years, one-third of the planet’s population lived under communist regimes. "The closer the country was to the center of repression [Moscow], the more the models of repression were similar to the Soviet ones: public trials, tortures, killings, deportations,” he said.
Virtually no one has been called to account for what was done. The West has chosen to forget these horrors. Nothing of these horrors is taught in their schools. There is no grand museum in Washington, D.C., dedicated to those whose lives were destroyed by the communists.
No Communist Party bosses in Russia have ever been made to pay for their transgressions. Not one labor camp commandant has been forced to answer for his inhumanity. There is no talk of reparations. The Kremlin objects whenever anyone raises questions about the injustice of the past.
The great crimes of Soviet communism are mostly just remembered in the hearts and souls of the victims.
Lithuanians are considering the Soviet terror corresponded to genocide. Most of those deported were doomed - a third of them to a speedy death and the rest to a life of misery in Siberia. One only had to be an honest Lithuanian citizen to face deportation. A lot of work has to be done to clarify world opinion.
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