Borders

The beginning of October in Krasnogruda is a time when the surroundings of Milosz Manor, the park and roads leading to neighboring villages, slowly return to their natural rhythm. Summer literary meetings, lectures and concerts with Klezmer music give way to the developing autumn. The local “Song of Porcelain” café opens its doors not to numerous groups of visitors from different parts of the world, but to individual mushroom pickers and cyclists, who were brought to Krasnogruda by chance. This is also the moment when Milosz Manor can become a space for meetings organized by people not directly connected with the Borderland Center.

At the beginning of October, a Polish-Lithuanian seminar “Hear the Other” took place in Krasnogruda, over which hung a serious crisis of the borderland, the drama of our migration and multiculturalism policy. Anna Fedas, one of the originators and organizers of the whole project, told me about the origins of the seminar, the reasons for organizing such a meeting in this particular place:

The idea of organizing Lithuanian-Polish seminar on intercultural dialogue “Hear the Other” has been in our minds for quite some time, and it  emerged exactly during one of the online meetings in summer 2020. Together with Lithuanian operator of Active Citizens Fund, we found out that Polish and Lithuanian NGOs don’t have many opportunities to meet, to get to know each other, or to exchange experiences. Since we both, together with Sandra Adomavičiūtė (the director of the Active Citizens in Lithuania program on behalf of Atviros Lietuvos fondas), knew and trusted the work of the Borderland Foundation and had visited Krasnogruda and Sejny many times, we decided that there was no better place for a meeting of Lithuanian and Polish NGOs to discuss different methods of conducting intercultural dialogue. We wanted to organize our meeting around this topic, but along the way there were tragic political events in Belarus, and now we have the topic of the humanitarian crisis on the Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish border. So, organizing this seminar we knew that we would not lack difficult subjects to talk about…

On the first day of the meeting, when we all gathered together for the first time to sit together in a circle in the Krasnogruda Hall of Return and start the meeting, Sandra Adomavičiūtė spoke about the seminar project in a similar way. Sandra recalled the thought of Irena Veisaitė, her conviction that the work of the Borderland Center and the Krasnogruda space are primarily utopian projects – and utopian not in the sense of building an unreal, impossible vision of the world, but rather in the sense of creating an alternative horizon for being and thinking. The organizer also told me about the ideas of the seminar after the event:

In the framework of Active Citizen fund Lithuania, one of our country’s priorities  is to strengthen intercultural integration primarily looking at the ethnic minorities.  Open Lithuania foundation dedicated this year to emphasize intercultural integration, and more precisely , intercultural dialogue. Once we got strong support from Stefan Batory foundation and since Anna Fedas also had gone through magic experience in the Borderland  center in Krasnogruda, where intercultural dialogue thrives in its own beauty, we decided to bring civil society actors who deal with this issue from Lithuania and Poland. To reflect our values, to review the challenges of intercultural dialogue in Lithuania and Poland in times of division, to share experiences and generate ideas that could be mutually adopted by Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish practitioners : these were our expectations.

The title of the seminar “Hear the Other”  was chosen primarily to reflect the challenges that face the target groups of the civil society organizations that participated in the seminar: national/ethnic minorities, migrants, people of other cultures. Still, this training exercise of „Hear the Other“ resonates more and more in our polarized and fragmented societies we live in now. It is difficult to find a space or even opportunity to talk to someone who thinks or behaves differently, not to mention constructive dialogue.

In this Small Center of the World – Krasnogruda and Sejny – with its rich and tense history, diverse ethnic background and stories,  where natural relations of coexistence and solidarity are being  experienced every day, we gathered 30 representatives of civic organizations from Lithuania and Poland. They spent 4 intensive days, seeking inspiration, establishing new partnerships and gaining new practical ideas.  I do hope that the established contacts, the informal network will further build invisible bridges, and will seek to respond to the leitmotif that constantly sounded during the seminar – how to break stereotypes in our very homogeneous societies, how to hear the other.

Earlier, at the very beginning of the evening, the guests and visitors of the seminar were greeted by Małgorzata Sporek-Czyżewska and Krzysztof Czyżewski, the hosts of Milosz Manor. Czyżewski then talked about the meeting place, the Room of Return, which usually begins the story of Czesław Miłosz and Krasnogruda, a place we return to, because as the inscription on the porch of the manor reads, “Woe to him who sets out and does not return”. (Oskar Miłosz). He also talked about a borderland, a land which is common, connects people of different languages living together, a land with borders going inside rather than outside – it is not a borderline but a borderland. Finally, he also invoked the metaphor of a bridge, crucial in a borderland, and perhaps also crucial in the face of the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border crisis. In his words, a good bridge is not only the art of reaching the other side, but also the art of return, including the return to ourselves, which we have forgotten today.

The reflection on the border and borders, their role in understanding culture, creating a multicultural world open to listening to the Other hung over the whole seminar for me, updating itself with each workshop, with each story. It stayed with me for the rest of the evening as guests and visitors from different parts of our neighbourhood introduced themselves in different languages and words.

The opening day of the seminar ended with a trip to Sejny, where musicians from the Sejny Theatre Klezmer Orchestra were waiting for us in the former yeshiva building opposite the White Synagogue. In the hall of today’s Sejny Jazz Cooperative we could hear traditional Klezmer themes, opening a story about Jewish Sejny, about a town which used to be a shtetl but today there is not a single Jew left in it. The lively music was interwoven with the story of the double bass player, Michał Moniuszko. He talked about the course of traditional rituals of Central European Jews, about their most important holidays, about what and when klezmers played, for example during wedding ceremonies – which then lasted for several days in a row. The musicians performed forms which accompanied the bride leaving her family home, forms which were songs of passage. Klezmer musicians recalled traditional nigunim, but above all they recalled traditional Jewish dances of a tangled, multicultural tradition. Finally, when the bride and groom were chosen from among the guests of the seminar, the entire hall also began to dance, enacting the first dance of a Jewish wedding.

Sunday

The second day of the seminar opened with visits to the studios of Milosz Manor. Ksenija Konopek hosted us among the flora and fauna of the Krasnogruda park, in her workshop, where she inked local plants on paper, collected a list of species of creatures living nearby, and looked at the smallest ones under a microscope. Ksenija also showed us the bird atlas that she co-created with the youngest participants of her classes, because it is on working with children that her workshop is mainly based. It is from her workshop that meetings with naturalists, foresters and researchers who deal with each of the tiniest elements of the nature that surrounds us in the dwarf world come out. The workshop with Ksenija was a reminder of another possibility for storytelling about place, yet another method for dialogue with otherness. After her story we went to the park, to a nearby meadow, to pick one of the plants and then print it on paper. The thinnest stems and the most magnificent of leaves, withered flowers and remnants of roots formed surprisingly beautiful ink shapes. A dozen collected plants built a small world that stops time and gives it a different form with the help of a simple, creative method.

After the workshop with Ksenija, we moved on to another of Krasnogruda’s studios. Małgorzata Sporek-Czyżewska told us about Silva Rerum, a project she is implementing together with the inhabitants of neighbouring villages – Żegary, Dusznica, Krasnogruda. This work refers to the ancient tradition of household books. Silva rerum, or the forest of things, was a form that was supposed to contain the family’s memory, a kind of a common diary collecting the tiniest events from home life. And so, the participants of the project collect stories from their own homes and neighbourhoods. As part of the workshop, they travel to various places in Poland to look at archives and learn how to work with history and memory, and how to give them a living form. One of the rooms in Dwór Milosz is devoted to this kind of Krasnogruda, which was told by the neighbours and residents – after all, it is thanks to their stories that the actual, original shape and image of the manor has been recreated. Small models of the surrounding houses hang there on thin threads, creating another small neighbourhood cosmos.

Wiesław Szumiński, who introduced us to his exhibition on Old Believers in Sejny, talked about memory in a different way. From his story emerged a picture of a minority that, although it was always buried among the surrounding hills and rivers, in beautiful places at the foot of lakes, has been almost completely forgotten today. The memory of Old Believers returned clearly and dramatically only last year, when in Białogóra, in the place of the community cemetery, the construction of an agritourism was started and bones and human remains were dug up. Old Believers’ cemeteries, places usually administratively designated here as recreational plots, may seem like empty, unoccupied land. In the customs and beliefs of this minority, the cemetery is something completely different than in the Catholic tradition; it is a space which should rather not be interfered with by man, a space ordered by laws distant from those governing the fate of living people. Wiesław Szumiński’s work, crowned with the exhibition and the story about Old Believers, would thus consist, as it seems to me, in searching for and cultivating traces of the memory of this minority.

The exhibition is in fact a photographic documentation of such traces, with images of crosses and graves, symbols often overgrown, completely blurred in the surroundings. The artist searched for such places, reached them and documented them, in a sense, surrounding them with care and memory. Szumiński’s photographs were displayed in the upper room of the former yeshiva, the brightest of the rooms in the building, where light streams in through over a dozen huge windows. There, next to the photographs of cemeteries, hang linocuts, representations of Old Believers, which were made by children during workshops in the Sejny workshop. The Sunday workshop was primarily about working with memory, which uses local resources, looking for its form and language in what is closest, hidden deep rather than far away.

After these stories from Sejny and Krasnogruda, the time came for presentations and discussions on the work of the participants of the seminar itself. After the meeting with Wiesław Szumiński, the guests had some time to present the activities of the organisations they belong to, the problems they face and their local challenges often connected with the phenomena of multiculturalism, tolerance or migration. Karol Kwiatkowski, vice-president of the International Romani Union, spoke about Rrom p-o Drom – the oldest Roma magazine in Europe. He referred to the situation of the Roma minority in confrontation with the Polish education system, which uses a diagnosis that condemns Roma children in advance to study in special schools. Agnieszka Caban spoke about the organisation Towards Dialogue, which investigates the relationship between the prison system and the Roma minority and works with the memory of the Roma Holocaust. Karina Melnytska presented the activities of the Foundation Ocalenie, which is constantly confronted with new waves of xenophobia and anti-refugee attitudes. Aleksandra Zapolska argued how important programmatic activity is in work focused on protecting minorities – in this case, the Ukrainian minority. She described the structures of cooperation between voivodeship  administration and minority organizations.

The “Neighbourhood Circle ”, the name of one of the programmes she co-creates, opened a discussion among the participants about the language and names in which one can conduct one’s activity, and became an inspiration. Emilija Rusteikaitė spoke about the problems with sexual violence against Lithuanian women, with forced sex work. In response to questions from participants, she talked about “safe places’ ‘ created by the organisation for women who have experienced such violence – about the possibility of assistance in moving or providing a temporary hotel. Vardges Muradyan from the We are for You Foundation recalled various activities of his organisation during the pandemic, which provided the only space for seniors to talk and even metaphorically meet at that time.

The stories of the seminar participants, which I mention here only in fragments, were about the incredibly important and long-term work with the local community. In response to these presentations, other guests and organisation activists prepared inspirations, questions and problems that might arise from  the work. This opened up a wide space for discussion, exchange of ideas, experiences and concerns. The busy and rich programme of the seminar may not have allowed for the exhaustion of such a meeting, but it was probably intended above all as a starting point, a beginning of cooperation and blazing new trails. Vardagess, the last of the participants just mentioned, told me about such doubts arising from a whole bunch of positive experiences:

It was a great pleasure to meet all participants from Poland and Lithuania. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to meet so many nice people. It’s a pity that we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other better, to get to know more, to hear more about the activities of each organisation – because that’s why we all gathered together to present the activities of an organisation or a foundation. Two minutes is not enough to understand the problems existing in a given organisation and have an idea how to help and what to suggest to this organisation.

The Sunday visit to Sejny ended with a lecture by the director of the Pogranicze Centre, Krzysztof Czyżewski, about his book ‘Small World Centre’. The meeting closed the whole day of talks and discussions concerning small worlds of memory, the work in Sejny and Krasnogruda which nurtures what is the smallest and seemingly unimportant, invisible. It does not stand in the centre and does not seek practice in the largest national and European centres, but rather makes use of what is neighbourly, of the hospitality of the world of communities living together, side by side.

Monday

 On Monday morning we left Krasnogruda for Maćkowa Ruda, another place prompting reflection on culture, form and art. We visited the house of Andrzej Strumiłło, a painter who died last year and who has always been connected with our region. This unusual habitat, situated right on the banks of the Czarna Hańcza river, opens up into a clearing where unique horses, the artist’s beloved animals and his fascination and passion, were grazing. The courtyard in front of the house, surrounded by a stone wall but also filled with a stone circle, on this autumn sunny day gathered special energy and symbolism. Waiting for us in Strumiłło’s studio was his daughter, Anna Strumiłło, who, among her father’s paintings and sculptures, told us about his life, method and outlook on art or culture. One of the seminar participants, Andrėja Taranda, wrote a poetic tale about this meeting, a concrete experience of the space of Maćkowa Ruda:

It was a warm and sunny Autumn afternoon. We entered Maćkowa Ruda and as for me, every time I came to that place, I felt like in a fairytale. The horses greeted us while we promenaded the alley, the Sun was casting shadows on the various rocks and the wind was gently moving yellow leaves of the trees and pushing us to the direction of the Gallery. Anna Strumiłło was waiting for us under a tree, looking as elegant as ever. She warmly welcomed us, as we entered the Gallery. We took our seats in an oval of chairs, the fireplace was softly cracking in the back. Sitting down, I began to look around at the various art pieces around. For a moment, I glimpsed at a photograph of the late Andrzej Strumiłło’s eyes, then at the paintings, the little sculptures, the beautiful books and my gaze stopped at creations made of stone: fireplace, walls, table; framing our experience in a cold, strict yet somehow nostalgic and mysterious manner. A. Strumiłlo stopped in the centre of the first third of the space, crossing her legs gracefully and resting one of her hands on a boulder on top of which little wooden birds were watching us. She began telling the story of her family, how her parents met each other, where they came from and how they settled down here, in a place where archeologists found 1000 years old evidence of a settlement.

Her father was an artist of all sorts: he called himself a painter but also created graphics, illustrations, photographs, sculptures. I feel that everything that he did had an essence of his peinture: strict composition, dark colour palette with tints of metallic, clear visual language containing symbols and hints of Asian and religious influences. One of the sentences from that workshop that keeps ringing in my ears is words by Andrzej Strumiłło: „The medium doesn’t matter, what you want to say does.”. I wrote it down in my notes app and pinned it immediately. As an artist, I found it wonderful how he discovered the world of Asia – he used to tag along with mountain hiker groups yet never hiked. This way, it was cheaper.

Coming back to the stones, it turns out Andrzej Strumiłło believed in the magic of rocks, he collected them and brought them back to his own estate. They have a wardrobe, full of rocks and pebbles and they are categorised by the origin place, his daughter told us.

 At a certain point my gaze wandered off to the paintings. I started to analyse the visual language, the symbols, the colours…  I felt like I could look at them for hours and still find new mysteries and passageways through the mind and dreams of the author. And then the workshop was over. I quickly glanced at one of the last paintings Andrzej Strumiłło did before his death and the red colour pierced through my heart as I was walking outside to the sunshine.

After lunch in the Vigry post-Camaldolian Monastery we returned to Krasnogruda. There we had a workshop with the Lithuanian Forum Theatre. This time, with the help of performative action, our group was stimulated to think and act on yet another level. The actors acted out scenes of escalating conflicts, arranged conversations, in which differences of opinion quickly made any dialogue impossible. The participants of the seminar were also involved in these activities, it was an open theatre without a clear division between the audience and the actors, who were only supposed to passively observe the events on stage. The short etudes were rather meant to open up discussion, to help in the search for creative ways to meet and talk. The scenes acted out by the actors also dealt with problems that were directly related to the work of the guests gathered at the seminar. This workshop was particularly remembered by one of the participants, Agnieszka Caban:

The workshop with the Forum Theatre from Lithuania was an interesting visual experience, but also a moving example of our experience. The theatre brilliantly illustrated contemporary problems, i.e. the migration crisis, prejudice and discrimination, and involved the audience in trying to solve them.

Krasnogruda evening was crowned by a meeting in the cafe “Song about porcelain” with journalist Ruslan Kulewicz from Grodno, who has a refugee status in Poland. He told us about his experiences in Belarus, the brutal OMON attacks he suffered last year during the protests he photographed. Kulewicz’s story, however, focused primarily on his work with memory, somewhat similar to that constructed in Sejny. In recent years, the journalist has been collecting photographs and stories of the oldest residents of Grodno, creating an archive of his city from the 1930s and 1940s, recalling the multicultural history of the place. He showed pictures of the people he talked to on the screen and turned on films with forgotten songs sung by the oldest residents. Kulewicz also connected Grodno with Bialystok, searched for analogies and drew a framework for transnational understanding. This is yet another story of intimate local memory eventually led to Krasnogruda, to which Czesław Miłosz once travelled along the Grodno road, a road which today is unreal and cut by the weight of a closed border.

Tuesday

The Tuesday day of the seminar started with a return to Sejny. This time the workshops were conducted in the Borderland Centre, in Dom Pogranicze. There Bożena Szroeder, who runs a workshop of animated films and the Sejny Chronicles theatre, talked about this form of working with the memory of the town. She started from the very beginning, from the first performances, from the model of Sejny consisting of clay houses, which was created by the first generation of the Sejny Chronicles. She recalled the first spectacles and the emotion they caused in the oldest inhabitants of Sejny, the grandparents of the actors co-creating the show. This is because it was their stories about the town’s past that made up the show, which continues to be updated with new stories. As she said, today it is the fifth generation of young people who, like the angels in the performance, tenderly guard the memory of Jewish and Gypsy Sejny, pre-war,wounded by the drama of the war. Working with the intimate family memory of the Sejny Chronicles actors were not only about creating the performance, the young people also prepared family cards which made up a game inspired by Herman Hesse’s “The Glass Bead Game”. During the workshop with Bożena Szroeder, participants of the seminar also created such cards. Agnieszka Caban told us about her own card. By drawing symbols associated with her, she gave form to her own memory, the memory of her present life and the memory of her family tradition.

The second part of the meeting with Bożena Szroeder concerned the later work of the Sejny Chronicles. Today, apart from the performance, young people are creating animated films based on home stories, Sejny’s multicultural traditions, legends and myths of the town. The difficult and painstaking work of animation was done by the children together with their friends from the group, but then also together with their grandparents, together with their parents. Each of the Borderland Fairy Tales collections dealt with a different sphere of memory and were made under the supervision of artists from different parts of the world. Lesia Shykiriava told me about this part of the seminar:

It was interesting to see how through art one can learn about the history of one’s city; how to involve children and the older generation, i.e. their grandparents, in joint activities and mutual learning. The meeting was held in two parts: in the first part, Bożena Szroeder told us about various workshops held at the Dialogue Centre, about the animation and journalism classes organised for local children… They collect information about their families and then write their own stories in artistic form in small books, like fairy tales, draw the most important events/associations on cards, create animations… We also received such cards and tried to draw in a dozen or so boxes what our history means to us. It was a real challenge and also a moment to reflect on who we are. In the second part we saw animations about cultures, nationalities, religions that are present in the history of the borderland. It is wonderful that in the form of a fairy tale you can tell about different events in the history of the city, especially about the difficult ones, which in the future, precisely, can help to understand cultural differences or historical traumas. It’s nice that after such workshops the work goes out into the world, for example, a book about families and the history of the Borderland is written – The Sejny Chronicles, or it goes to an animation festival, or appears in public in the form of a play. For me it was a very interesting workshop and I am sure it will be useful in my activity.

The rest of the seminar moved back to Krasnogruda, where the next meeting took place in the Return Room of Milosz Manor. There, Victoras Bachmetjevas was waiting with his lecture on the philosophy of politics, which drew, as is often the case within this field, on the thought of Aristotle. As Bachmetjevas said, it is there that we find the conviction that the public interest should take into account the interests of the many, taking into account future generations. Bad governance, bad policy, on the other hand, takes into account only the interests of a narrow group, of those who are in power. In the philosopher’s view, the community itself – civil society – does not want to have power, by definition handing it over to someone else, according to the principle of representation. What is important is what is public and not private, which includes individual desires and problems. “So if civil society does not want knowledge, what does it want in return?”, – Bachmetjevas asked. He argued that it should first and foremost function as an “ambulance” – since it operates at a different rhythm and time than the authorities, it can act more quickly in emergencies and emergency situations. Such a concept and thought seemed to be particularly relevant even in the case of the humanitarian crisis on the Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish border. On the other hand, however, it probably followed very rigid oppositions, and for me did not quite convincingly dissect the real essence of the private sphere in today’s politics. Bachmetjevas’ philosophy of politics seemed to me to be very pragmatic, adhering to the current world situation, but at the same time not very subversive, critical and not allowing for the search for real alternatives to other politics.

Such accusations were probably shared by one of the seminar participants, Karolis Dambrauskas, who asked after the lecture whether civil society presented in this way was not just a convenient management technique used by the authorities. After all, if the civil society performs the function of an “ambulance”, some of the duties that should be performed by the state are transferred to another sphere, blurred. So perhaps this is not a radical enough conception of the philosophy of politics? At the same time, of course, the philosopher’s lecture remained very important to me in the context of the entire seminar, giving it a theoretical breadth, touching on important points that opened up an interesting discussion and allowed for theoretical inspiration. Bachmetjevas’ answer to the question of the place of the agora today was creative and edifying. According to the philosopher, there is not and cannot be a single agora today, and as a real and metaphorical figure for such spaces can be used the basements of houses in Lithuania, where the residential community learns to talk, to live together with others. One of the participants, Ivanka Kyliushyk, also told them about her presence at this meeting:

Viktoras got us thinking about what civil society actually is today, who are the active citizens and what would it be like without them? Viktoras compared civil society to a guard dog and an ambulance. Active citizens are the guardians of society’s rights and interests, without them there would be tyranny, dictatorship. A strong, active and capable civil society is a prerequisite for a functioning democracy. It demands the expansion of equality and social freedom, the restructuring and democratisation of state institutions. Active citizens can also be compared to an ambulance. They can self-organise without state action and consciously act to support and meet the needs of community members, they have a sense of responsibility for our common good.

After the lecture we found ourselves in the Krasnogruda amphitheatre, next to the Krasnogruda bridge. There, Krzysztof Czyżewski talked about the Misterium Mostu (Mystery of the Bridge), which takes place every year, about how important it is to give artistic form to joint workshops, joint work with small and minority memory. He recalled this year’s mystery, which was crossed by a fiery line, separating the spectators sitting in a circle from each other, creating a tangible border of division and separation. Czyżewski referred to the present, to the dramatic situation on the Belarusian border, but he also looked ahead, thinking of the future Mystery of the Bridge, which could be created by the group gathered at the seminar together with the Borderland Ensemble, the inhabitants of Sejny and Krasnogruda.

In Krasnogruda amphitheatre the last workshop part of the whole meeting started. On the bridge there were spread sheets of paper with the topics of discussions during the seminar, with challenges faced by organisations dealing with migration, multiculturalism and tolerance (e.g. psychological support for activists on the Polish-Belarusian border or cooperation with schools towards intercultural training). Each of the Krasnogruda visitors had to choose one of the topics and in this way international groups were formed to discuss the problem together and then develop a potential project focused on working with this issue. However, this was not purely a workshop exercise, as all groups are later to receive financial support in realising this initiative.

The last evening of our seminar ended with dinner in the cellars of the manor house, in our cafe “Song about porcelain” . The Krasnogruda guests were farewelled by their hosts, Krzysztof Czyżewski and Małgorzata Sporek-Czyżewska, the same ones who had welcomed them on the first day. The farewell, much less official than the Sunday welcome speeches in the hall of return, but similarly solemn and hospitable, seemed more like an opening of sorts. A beginning which will continue the cooperation between Milosz Manor and the participants gathered at the seminar, building invisible bridges together, and perhaps also that tangible bridge which is built every August in the Krasnogruda amphitheatre.

***

Karina Melnytska

It is with pleasure that I return my thoughts to Krasnogruda, to Czesław Miłosz Manor with its characteristic red porch, or to the White Synagogue in Sejny, where in early October we had our international Polish-Lithuanian seminar. It’s hard to imagine a better place to talk about intercultural dialogue – in this charming place, especially in the Autumn, in the Polish-Lithuanian borderland, there is something that makes you more open to discuss difficult issues – this is probably its genius loci.

I went to this seminar with a heavy heart, thinking about the current situation on the Polish-Belarusian border and about all the human tragedies that are happening before our eyes, in the face of which we are often powerless. The seminar created a space for me to discuss my concerns with others in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, respect and openness. Not only to hear the other, but also to draw conclusions from what one has heard. Particularly inspiring – apart from the lectures and stories of the hosts of this place, of course – was the fact that we managed to create a common space for future action, for intercultural dialogue in the broadest sense.

Agnieszka Caban:

I am very happy about my participation in the Polish-Lithuanian seminar. It was an opportunity not only to visit places which are synonymous with the borderland, but also to find myself physically and mentally in it (the borderland). The seminar was an opportunity to meet people who have similar and completely different experiences from mine. Thanks to the presentation of the activity of social organisations from both Poland and Lithuania I got to know not only local problems they deal with, but also new possibilities and methods of activity, which I will use in my organisation. The people I met during the seminar are in constant contact with and even have plans for joint activities, which I am also very happy about.

Vardges Muradyan:

I want to thank the organisers of this project very much, because I was in the right place. Thank you also very much to all the participants, without you this project would not be the same, so it was wonderful. The project achieved its goal – you integrated a migrant (that is me) into Polish culture and Polish-Lithuanian society. Among you, I did not feel different, I felt I was at home. Thank you for your hospitality, your openness and for everything.

***

Polish-Lithuanian seminar “Hear the other” took place on the 2nd-6th of October in Krasnogruda.

The organisers were the Open Society Foundation in Lithuania (the operator of the Active Citizens programme in Lithuania) and the Stefan Batory Foundation (the operator of the Active Citizens programme – National Fund in Poland). The seminar was hosted by the Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations Centre run by the Borderland Foundation in Krasnogruda.

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Rethinking values, reviewing the challenges of intercultural dialogue in Lithuania and Poland at a time of division and ethnocentric authoritarian tendencies, sharing experiences and generating ideas that could be mutually taken up by Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish practitioners building intercultural connections. These are the expectations that we, together with the team of the Stefan Batory Foundation (Poland), raised when organising in October an international seminar for Lithuanian and Polish civil society organisations working on the empowerment of national minorities, migrants and foreigners.

The venue of the seminar – the 17th-18th century manor house where Česlovas Milošas used to spend his summers, Krasnagrūda, the centre of Paribio – was chosen by chance. In these lands of the periphery, Krzsystof and Malgorzata Czyzewski, Bozena and Wojcecj Sroeder managed to restore the palaces that had been destroyed by time and to establish, as Prof. I. Veisaitė used to say, a utopian world, or, as K. Czyzewski himself calls it, the small centre of the world. It is impossible to describe the uniqueness of the place in a nutshell, because in this margin, through practice, culture and music, communication, intellectual and academic gatherings, it has been possible to bring together different and diverse people under the same roof of shared memory and heritage.

The title of the seminar “Hearing the Other” was primarily an allusion to the target groups of the civil society organisations participating in the seminar: national/ethnic minorities, migrants, people from other cultures. However, this concept is increasingly resonating in a polarised and divided society, as it is difficult to find a way to talk to someone who thinks, thinks or behaves differently. Not to mention entering into constructive dialogue and building a relationship.

“We are able to turn otherness into a household museum exhibit, a curiosity, a monkey in a cage, an attractive media topic, but not into a partner with whom we have a natural relationship, with whom we disagree, compete, defend or criticise,” writes Czyzewski in his recent book “The Little Centre of the World”, also in Lithuanian.

It is in this small centre of the world, in these marginal lands where different ethnic groups (Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, Russians) with tensions of historical memory have lived, that they are able to create natural relations of coexistence and solidarity. It was here that 30 representatives of civic organisations from Lithuania and Poland spent 4 intensive days seeking inspiration, forging new partnerships and gaining practical ideas through a programme of lectures, workshops, excursions and relationship-building.

I hope that the connections made and the informal network of common activities created will continue to build invisible bridges and respond to the leitmotif that was constantly heard during the seminar – how to break stereotypes in our very homogeneous societies, how to hear the other.

And we, the Open Society Foundations and the Stephen Batory Foundation, are considering the possibility of continuing this kind of dialogue a year from now.

Photo: Gabija Jakimavičiūtė

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In 2020 a research project dedicated to understanding the meaning of 1989 conducted a series of talks with intellectuals and scholars in Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. It collected witness testimony of these events as well as interviewing the post-1989 generation in order to understand their relationship to the history of the transformation. This essay is based on the outcomes of these discussions, focusing primarily on the role and meaning of citizen actions.

Go West!

“The was an idealisation of the West, as a land of prosperity and stability, rather than a direct longing for an alternative, democratic regime”

Professor Dariusz Filar, Gdansk University.

The current turmoil of democracy provokes somewhat nostalgic and idealistic recollections of 1989. It is often made into a sort of teleological narrative. Broadly speaking, 1989 represents a break-away of the entire region of Europe from political oppression and a leap towards democracy. On the other side of this spectrum is the meaning of 1989 as the promise of western standards of living that tipped a resistance movement of intellectuals and dissidents towards a mass protest movement. The later argument reduces the meaning of political action to economic and social motives. In turn, it serves as an at hand explanation of the democratic backsliding, as the democratic practices and institutional/constitutional erosion becomes secondary to the economic/social needs.

“If we look at intellectuals, for whom it was important to be heard politically, to engage in the political process, for them the build up to transition and the transition was connected to the values of democracy. I think also environmental groups belong to this group, because they were united in their urge to be heard politically. Generally, the workers, people working in the countryside, even now say that they did not ‘miss’ those intellectual freedoms, because that was not their way of life to begin with. For them the agreement with the Kadar regime [in Hungary] was significant, the sacrifice of personal determination and freedoms for exchange of assurance and consistence of minimum social benefits”

Daniel Oross, research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence.

It can be argued that the person who strived for civil liberties and the person who wanted better jeans are not necessarily two different people. What is common to both of them is self-determination, which comes in plural and diverse forms. Thus, 1989 can be viewed as a resistance to endless intervention of politics into the lives of citizens, when governments decide how one can get married, what songs to sing, or how much flour or sugar one can receive. Unsurprisingly the recent protests in Poland, for example, again reached the scale of 1989, when the ruling Law and Justice party attempted to change the abortion law, virtually subjecting a personal decision on reproductive health to total control of the state.

Revolt against a falsified reality

In the post-war world, the establishment of the United Nations and later the European Community were attempts to re-imagine international politics, rooted in shared principles, responsibility and common action. The revolts of the peoples in Central and Eastern Europe, from 1956 to 1968 to 1989, represent the moments of disruption by the people against all odds. Mixed with the post-modern political tradition, which sought to undermine any stable or final markers of reality, the idea that everything is possible and recreated through the innovation of language, symbols and rituals was being embraced. Intellectually, it was believed to be a path to avoid the blinding effect of ideologies that monopolise the idea of truth and reality.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the intellectual tradition moved in a radically different direction, unified in an effort to keep a grip on reality against the endless assault by ideology and continuous distortions of reality. In addition to direct criticism of the Soviet regime, dissident writers articulated the loneliness of dissonance, the effects of untruth on daily life, and highlighted the gap between the lived experiences and official speech and rituals.

1989 symbolises the limits of attempting to endlessly reshape and remake society and reattributing the meaning to prosperity, which in reality meant deficiency when a lack of choice meant freedom, military invasion. In 1989, the reality of lived experiences prevailed over ideology and fiction.

Seen in this light, the year 2020 became a point of “1989 reoccurrence”, through a new wave of mass revolts against political fictions. The outrage of people in Belarus was sparked by the outrageous lies about the free democratic election and the blunt attempts to conceal the almost universal support for Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The commonality between the workers, students, women, and pensioners’ protests is the shared feeling of enough of living a double life – the private life of isolation, repression and shortage versus the performative public life of happiness, freedom and community. 

“The reassurance of politics by mass support was the key to such a regime as Stalin’s regime of terror. And yet, despite being always at the centre of politics, people lived in constant change, constant race from ‘darkness to light’, without changing a thing. The same now is happening in Belarus, where the voting, the procedure itself, does not move or changes things”

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi, PhD Candidate in Soviet history, Luhansk native, Ukraine.

Anti-utopian and anti-ideological nature of revolutions

When viewed as the breaking point of conformity with all the lies, 1989 contains multiple and legitimate meanings. This is the main conclusion that can be made from all the different perspectives gathered throughout the project. Talking about 1989 in a meaningful way, especially about the role of citizen’s actions, it is crucial we resist the temptation to search for a common cause of the revolutions. Viewed in a diverse and plural way, 1989 emerges as an anti-ideological and self-limiting revolution where the resistance to the simulated reality came in the form of self-determination.

Writing in 1978, a decade after the Prague Spring and over a decade prior to the fall of the Soviet empire, Václav Havel in The Power of the Powerless noted that no one believed the socialist fairytales, rather it was the dull repetition of conformity through mundane acts as hanging a socialist slogan poster in the shop every single day that sustained the illusion of the regime order. A resistance that is un-ideological came in many forms of civil engagement and disobedience. The self-organisation into a human chain across all three Baltic states, the gathering at the reburial of Imre Nagy on the anniversary of his execution in Budapest, or the series of peaceful gatherings in Prague on the anniversary of Jan Palach’s death, all took place in 1989; they are examples of non-violent civil disobedience and solidarity.

Politically organised lies affected different groups – the workers, the scientists and academics.  They also affected people in their everyday life. Subsequently, resistance acquired plurality of form: ecology groups, workers’ unions, women’s rights groups, intellectuals, etc. The resistance grew on a massive scale precisely because it did not require conformity to an overarching vision of the future and did not have an ideological rationalisation.  1989 presents a case of political plurality and action over ideological monism – it roots political action outside the ideological consensus. As such it also does not make democratic or liberal future inevitable.

“In the 1980s in Poland, if you asked people why they are engaged in civil movements – they would not answer that they are fighting for liberal democracy. I personally do not recall any debates about liberal democracy as a model … It was pluralism, that was a remedy against ideology in the 80s and the real power of the democratic movements in 80-81 and then 1989, the intrinsic belief in pluralism; but, as it turns out, it is not an easy lesson to learn. I would say that pluralism is the challenge of our time – it is hard to imagine the West without pluralism.”

Professor Marek Aleksander Cichocki, College of Europe, Natolin, philosopher, editor-in-chief of Teologia Polityczna.

What unites 1989 across different countries is the snowball effect of such acts of civil disobedience. The resistance first and foremost took the form of authentic and genuine action, against irresponsibility, unaccountability and corruption. The origins of mass and diverse disobedience came in the form of reclaiming responsibility for one’s own surroundings, which sparked the self-organisation of ecologists, workers, farmers’ groups through underground publications and the establishment of local committees and groups, like the ones helping political prisoners and detained after the workers strikes.

“Solidarity, even during the period of martial law, remained diversified. In 1989, Solidarity, the largest social movement in the history of Poland, was allowed to thrive via the citizens’ committees … It was the Solidarity-fostered sense of the sovereign presence in Wrocław that led to the ultimate openness of the complex and multicultural past of the city. For when you really feel at home, when you feel the true sense of ownership, the past, no matter if it is your past or the past of the place, will never prevail in taking that feeling or ownership away from you.”

Rafał Dutkiewicz, former Mayor of Wrocław and former Solidarity organizer in Wrocław.

“The memory of the Baltic way in 1989 and the tragic events of January 13th 1991 in Lithuania have shifted dramatically. Let’s say 20, 15 years ago, the Baltic way, originally held on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, signified an event of mourning and loss. In the past 10 years and today we see that these events are transformed into positive events, they are an integral part of the narrative of freedom and this change signifies the increased capacity for self-determination.”

Professor Alvydas Nikžentaitis, director of the Lithuanian Institute of History and president of Lithuanian National Historians. 

While history can hardly be a good teacher, it does offer some valuable insights. Today, the way out of disintegration we are experiencing may lie in our readiness and ability to refocus on political actions beyond ideological labels and the oversimplified right/left divide. Ideological polarisation facilitates the dehumanisation of the “other side”, prevents democratic societies from engaging in meaningful dialogue, reducing self-determination to pre-formulated judgements.

Locked in the ideology wars, citizens with strong convictions are willing to overlook assaults on democratic institutions or the rule of law, as long as their ideological agenda advances in the process. In addition, the history of civil action and disobedience – of 1989, 2013 in Ukraine or 2020 in Belarus – suggests that more focus needs to be diverted towards the dynamics between the personal experiences and political visions. Different myths aim to change our everyday lives, but their effects on us may become a point of resistance. 

Simona Merkinaite is a Rethinking Europe progamme expert with the Open Lithuania Foundation and is doing a PhD focusing on Hannah Arendt at Vilnius University.

*Orinally published in Issue 1-2 of New Eastern Europe at https://neweasterneurope.eu/in-the-magazine/

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Dr. Alvydas Nikžentaitis observes: “when we talk about epoch-making phenomena that are significant for the whole history of Europe, it is often the case that the chronological dates of these phenomena differ.”

However, a process of this magnitude should be looked at much more comprehensively. An isolated approach, detached from the wider political context of the time, is not only historically limited, but also a potential threat to democracy. For example, with Poland emphasizing the merits of the Solidarity Movement and Western Europe still remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall, it becomes difficult to establish a dialogue.

Unrecognized achievements are also disappointing, according to Nikžentaitis, “this allows the conservative elite to turn to nationalism, further promoting the asynchrony of memories.”

In this interview, Simona Merkinaitė, an expert of the OSFL program “Rethinking Europe”, talks to dr. A. Nikžentaitis on the relationship between cultural memory and political processes within Lithuania and neighboring countries. This interview forms part of the “Rethink 1989” project.

Alvydas Nikžentaitis is Director of the Lithuanian Institute of History, Habilitated Doctor of Humanities, Chairman of the Board of the Polish-Lithuanian Dialogue and Cooperation Forum of Jerzy Giedroic. In his new book, the professor analyzes the specificity of the formation of, and the changes in cultural memory across six post-Soviet countries; and the study raises the question of the relationship between cultural memory and social and political change.

In this conversation, we discuss the transformations resulting from the Baltic Way and the memory of January 13^th, the evolving meanings of these events, the impact that memory can have on democratization processes, and current events in Belarus.

A decade ago, you hoped that the Baltic Way would become a slightly different pillar of our common memory – that unity and self-confidence would be at the center of this event. These events have the greatest potential to establish themselves in people’s memory as positive rather than negative, reflecting the strong positive feelings that unite us for collective action and direct our emotions to the future; and so they support a positive narrative of memory. A no less important fact, when it comes to the Baltic Way in particular, is that August 23^rd, as a day of nation-building, has taken on a new narrative that offsets the unequivocally negative meaning of the day which is associated with the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. How would you envision these events a decade later?

I think that this hypothesis of mine has been proven entirely accurate. Taking the key events of 1989–1991 (and this includes both the Baltic Way and January 13^th), we see a transformation in their assessment. Both Sąjūdis (Reform Movement of Lithuania) and revival confirmations began with the illegal occupation of the Baltic States. August 23^rd, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the secret protocols were signed, has a symbolic meaning. The early commemorations of this day were mournful.

The Baltic Way itself, i.e. the living chain of people formed from Vilnius to Tallinn, was emphasized as a day of mourning.

We saw the first signs of change a good decade ago, and today we can say for sure that emerging from this sense of mourning, the Baltic Way has taken on the form of a more positive phenomenon.

The moment of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as an event of mourning is being pushed aside by the Baltic Way, which carries with it the sense of victory. The same is true of the memory of January 13^th, with which a similar transformation has taken place.  A new generation is discovering its own relationship with these events. It is a natural process of transformation that takes place due to generational change, with a sort of distancing from events and the resulting change in relationship towards them. Both the Baltic Way and January 13^th have become an integral part of the narrative of freedom, and these events have a positive significance. It is now realized that the victims of this tragedy were not lost in a meaningless and vain way, as the latter event soon led to our independence. In a sense, this change also speaks of a change in the nation‘s emotional state, where we have evolved from a nation of victimhood and disaster into a nation that can achieve victory, and not only on the basketball court.

The Baltic Way connects Lithuania with Europe, with revolutionary movements in other Central and Eastern European countries, and to further west –with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War itself. Does our collective memory possess this dimension of Europeanness?

Undoubtedly, this dimension of Europeanness does exist, though perhaps it has become a little hidden under the veil of national stories at present. Ten years ago, I had to attend an international conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the time many wondered why this date was not being celebrated in the former post-communist bloc. This implies that ten years ago there was a feeling that not enough attention was being paid to the event. I provide this example to highlight that when we talk about epoch-making phenomena that are significant for the whole of European history, it is often the case that the chronological dates of these phenomena differ. As for 1989 and the dimension of Europeanness, it can equally be said that student protests in the former Czechoslovakia, roundtable talks in Poland, the Baltic Way, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany have a common meaning, while their chronological order may differ.

Attempts to synchronize these events, as we can see, often lead to conflicts. For example, one can understand how frustrating it is for Polish intellectuals, for whom the fall of the Berlin Wall, rather than the Solidarity Movement, is a symbol of the collapse of the Soviet system, because, historically, the merits of Solidarity far outweigh the fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany. Thus, it allows the conservative elite to turn back to nationalism, and further promote the asynchrony of memories.

With regard to a change in the cultural memory, the question arises as to whether it is possible that the significance of the Baltic Way was reasserted first by the events of Euromaidan, and now even more so by events in Belarus, and the experience of the further disintegration of the Soviet system not only lay the foundations for a degree of solidarity, but at the same time transformed this memory into a living and meaningful pillar of present identity?

We see “two-way traffic”. First of all, when it comes to the Baltic Way, there have been many attempts, some more successful than others, to restore and replicate the events of the Baltic Way in various parts of the world. So, in this sense it has become a kind of symbol that continues to be used. It should also be mentioned that whilst today the protesters in Belarus act in a non-violent way and renounce violence, the opposition seeks to transform the political regime through negotiations, and in this we can see the influence of the Lithuanian and Polish experience.

This is merely one side of the issue, and it would be harder to talk about the other side of this issue in a more global sense. Perhaps important here is that during the Solidarity Campaign with Belarus, several reflections could be observed of our own experience. I think that the success of this campaign is partly owed to the fact that those who took part in the Baltic Way wanted a repeat of that special experience, that is, the experience of surviving such an occurrence. Meanwhile, the post-1989 generation that had been regaled about the significance of this event by their parents wanted to experience such a feeling for themselves. So, finally, we can talk about how we continue to interpret this memory ourselves, including in our relations with other states.

Several schools of thought have emerged regarding the significance of “victorious” peaceful revolutionary movements. The first of these is pragmatic. According to this assessment, people were united by the promise of material benefit (usually the desire to “catch up” with the West in terms of well-being); according to the second, such national sovereignty was sought throughout the entirety of the occupation, and that an adequate historical opportunity was finally reached; and according to the third, the unifying motive was the desire for freedom, which was perceived as a guarantor of the possibility for a dignified human life, and this recurred during the events of Euromaidan – as featured in the motto of the human dignity revolution. How do you think it is possible to sift through these causes and motives in this way, and how can we talk about it without simplifying and falsifying historical reality?

I fully agree with the last part of the statement. It is impossible to distinguish one primary motive. The simple truth of the matter is that people are completely different, some with shared motives and others with differing motives. We must always try to see the totality of things. Therefore, in response, I would begin with the need to look at a certain emotional background. The Baltic Way, as well as the current events in Belarus, are accompanied by a certain feeling of euphoria. In Belarus, for example, various popular groups became involved in the pre-election campaign.

This is important because it allows us to ask, what emotions do these events evoke? There also exists an element of entertainment and adventure that deserves no less attention. Let us remember initiatives such as the Rock March. If we look at it in a strictly political sense, it is certainly the case that some participants had idealistic attitudes, while others had more pragmatic motives. But they were united simply by the desire to listen to music, to get together, and this acted as a kind of trigger to take to the streets and join the action. The same can be said about the campaign “Rock against tanks”. We can consider events rationally, using a variety of arguments and interpretations that, of course, have a place, but alongside which an emotional subject must be included.

At this point, to my mind the example of Poland is also very relevant: I am thinking of the role of John Paul II in the Solidarity movement. One can think idealistically, say, that people’s religious feelings, and an opportunity to meet the pope, gave them the urge to take to the streets, and it was only when they gathered that they saw how many they really were, and that they were not alone, and that dissatisfaction with the situation at the time was massive. But we must not forget such a simple thing, that the Round Table negotiations were already taking place at a time when the economic situation was simply catastrophic. These economic, material factors certainly remain important.

There is often a bit of unreasonable euphoria about that era, as if Lithuanians had destroyed the Soviet Union themselves. But here it is important to consider the context – the economic situation, the Chernobyl disaster and simply the fact that the lives of ordinary people had deteriorated by then. By no means do I mean to discredit any perspective, but rather I offer the suggestion to look at events as a multi-layered cake. After all, a cake made from only one ingredient will never end up a success, nor will there ever be an explanation that singles out one factor at the expense of others.

You are completing a study of contemporary cultural memory across six countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. What can you tell us about this study for now?

This study shows very clearly that there is a fundamental difference between methods in the formation of cultural memory. This difference exists on the basis of regimes, the difference between ways in which different regimes, either authoritarian or democratic, can shape the culture of memory. In authoritarian states, there are no qualitatively new elements introduced into the cultural memory of regimes. They tend to get by on “old baggage”, without updating the cultural content of their memory. One might ask, what does this preservation of cultures mean? Well, it means the deterrence and repression of the naturally maturing changes in a society. Such preservation may hinder new generations from “rebellion” against the established forms of culture, and reaction to the changes taking place in a society, and this may later result in various revolutions.

Attempts to retain certain aspects of identity can lead to a retrograde mentality. The identity of a person, and a nation as a community of people remain viable even while they are constantly changing. Culture itself retains its social impact only if it takes into account change and opportunity, as tensions eventually form between culture and society, and especially in the face of generational change, when it can simply be thrown away, because conservation, in such a case, means rejection.

In a democratic society, the relationship with cultural memory is more liberal and, looking at memory, we can observe its transformations. We have just started the conversation on the Baltic Way, and the 13^th of January, and the transformation of the memory of these dates, which shows a fundamentally positive impetus and the democratization of society itself. One indicator of this transformation is the opening of society towards topics previously seen as taboo, when new topics emerge that were previously silenced. For example, the memory of partisan resistance, which was completely inviolable as far back as fifteen years ago.

In democracies, we can observe the process itself, which transforms images of the past. A very positive sign is when certain episodes enter the field of public debate, include new perspectives, and various groups in society try to establish their perspectives as being legitimate among others.

Another important thing for me, as a person trying to grasp the past with all its contexts, is the dominant radical and strict approach to the Soviet legacy. For example, sculptures on the Green Bridge were simply taken and removed. I am a proponent of public involvement. Ideally, a culture of memory is formed through public debate. This path, of course, requires the intervention of politicians, but in this case, they are observers, and when a new consensus is formed, by monitoring public sentiment, they should take decisions to implement changes based on the views of the public. This would be an ideal and self-contained path for the formation and transformation of a culture of memory.

You argue that often the way Europe, especially the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, talk about the history of the 20^th century, depends on the relationship with and appreciation of communism, so how do we stand out from other countries in the region in this regard? To what extent can this difference affect the way we view not only the transition and its success, but also the democratic order?

On the one hand, the answer to this question is simple. And this answer would be this: in countries that have embarked on a process of decommissioning, the transformation has been successful. Where it was delayed, the transformation failed. It is not necessary to look far here, it is enough to compare Lithuania with Ukraine and Belarus. In Ukraine, decommissioning was long delayed and only really began after the Revolution of Dignity.

On the one hand, unbelievable things are happening in Belarus now: we are watching the people of Belarus fight for their dignity, they think and talk about democracy. But when it comes to democracy, quite a few want to maintain good relations with Russia, where democratic values are void. There is often spoken of as an idealistic process of democratization, but the importance of fundamental geopolitical choice is left out. When we analyze different processes, we must always distinguish between goals and means. What I see in present-day Belarus, is that, perhaps for tactical reasons, and perhaps realistically, the goal is associated to means. People want free elections, but elections are a precondition for the democratization of society itself, and it is impossible to pursue democracy by engaging with authoritarian regimes that are also enemies of democracy and of all the colored revolutions, which are the extreme and effective means of human transformation.

Democratization itself can be viewed as a period of transition. However, from a historical point of view, it is impossible to create a new order without completely denying the previous political system. And since that old order involved violations of fundamental human rights, coercion, it is impossible to fully renew it without emphasizing or publicizing these things.

And for how long did the vision of democratization exist in Lithuania three decades ago?

These things were also shrouded in fog at the time. But the difference with Belarus is that we had a certain model of public life. For example, the aspiration of the Poles or Hungarians was to return to Europe. This is a slogan common to all countries, and especially during the transition period it was orienting, directing and mobilizing.  Certainly, material motives also played a significant role here, seeing the difference between the West and the East. Thus, it is possible to lay out a mosaic of reasons, but still the liberation movements were united by the desire to be involved the world we want to be a part of. This aspiration forced us to transform the very concept of democracy. The desire to return to Europe has led to the transformation of post-communist societies into both society itself and the concept of democracy. Undoubtedly, during the period of independence, the integration of the post-communist countries into the European Community had a major impact, in accordance with the established democratic criteria of the political system, in accordance with the Copenhagen provisions, which gave impetus to democracy.

But when it comes to the regime, if we go back 30 years, there was a very lively debate at the time about the choice between restoring the nation-state, and democracy. It was often repeated that it was necessary to restore national sovereignty first, and then to think about the form of the system and to look for a common model of life. This discussion began immediately after March 11, 1990. I do not want to idealize A. Juozaitis, but at that time he was the one whose article appeared, which considered the question, which was more important – statehood or democracy? He presented his arguments in favor of the latter, but at that moment he found himself in an unpopular position, where his opinion did not reflect the aspirations of the majority. This Lithuanian discussion confirms that the concept of our democracy was primordial and underdeveloped.

So Lithuanians seem to be in a win-win situation, having chosen a good model of life. And I don’t want to be a prophet of doom, but the question remains in society, will reforms lead our neighbors toward democracy? The inability of a society to focus on certain priorities is dangerous. This shortcoming puts society in a precarious situation that will be felt particularly strongly when the strict boundaries of the current authoritarian regime are gone.

Dr. Alvydas Nikžentaitis. Photo of the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman.
Translated by Irena Alperyte

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