Sovereignty and political belonging in post-Soviet Lithuania: ethnicity, migration, and historical justice

ABSTRACT

In this article, we review the history of building a post-Soviet sovereign state in Lithuania by institutionalizing social and political difference of some groups in laws, policy, and public discourse. We argue that an exclusive inclusion of national (ethnic) minorities and migrants have played an important role in defining political belonging to a post-Soviet sovereign state. Language and citizenship laws and policies have been the major sites through which national minorities and migrants have been categorized and integrated in a post-1991 society. We conclude with the analysis of the politics of historical justice, central in defining political belonging to a post-2014 sovereign state.

KEYWORDS:

• sovereignty
• national (ethnic) minorities
• migration
• exclusive inclusion
• historical justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Iceland was the first country (11 February 1991) to recognize the Republic of Lithuania de jure. The United States recognized the Republic of Lithuania on 2 September 1991, the USSR on 6 September 1991. On 17 September 1991 Lithuania became a member of the United Nations.

2. Our concept “exclusive inclusion” resonates with Giorgio Agamben’s concept “inclusive exclusion.” On “inclusive exclusion” see Agamben (1998). In our article, we focus primarily on Lithuanian Russians and Lithuanian Poles as “national minorities.” In 2011 people of 154 nationalities resided in Lithuania (Statistics Lithuania 2011, 20). We are critical of the categorization of people into distinct ethnic “categories.” We use “national minorities” following Lithuania’s and the EU official use of this term.

3. Our discussion builds on the studies by Budrytė (2011), Beresnevičiūtė (2005a, 2005b), Kasatkina and Leončikas (2003), Petrušauskaitė and Pilinkaitė Sotirovič (2012), Gudelis and Klimavičiūtė (2016), Žibas (2012), etc.

4. The Law on National Minorities (Tautinių mažumų įstatymas) issued in 1989 guaranteed national minorities the right to gain education and get information in their native language (Lietuvos TSR Aukščiausioji Taryba 1989b). This national minorities legislation, however, expired on 1 January 2010, and a new law has not been accepted yet.

5. On Poland’s and the Lithuanian Polish minority’s critique of Lithuanian policy, see Sirijos Gira (2011). On public protests see, for example, BNS (2015) and Lapinskas (2010).

6. On survey by the Eastern Europe Studies Centre/“Baltijos tyrimai/Gallup” on whether citizens of Lithuania would defend the country in case of a military conflict and loyalty among national minorities see Saldžiūnas (2016).

7. See party program summary for the Lithuanian Freedom Union (Liberals) (Lietuvos Laisvės Sąjunga (liberalai)) provided by the the Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Lithuania (Central Electoral Commission 2016, 10).

8. See the summary of party programs for the 2016 parliamentary elections in the pamphlet provided by the Central Electoral Commission: Central Electoral Commission (2016).

9. These issues are prominent in the debates on dual citizenship in the Lithuanian news media. For example, Žilinskas (2013).

10. The 2015 Amendment to the Citizenship Law grants citizenship to children of Lithuanian citizens without any age restrictions unlike the 2010 law which granted citizenship until the age of twenty-one.

11. In the media and public discourse, Lithuanians/return migrants are not considered “immigrants,” they are called emigrants. “Foreigners” are immigrants who do not hold Lithuanian citizenship, i.e., immigrants from other EU countries and countries outside the EU.

12. The qualification that endorsement has to be carried out “publicly and in a threatening, offensive or insulting manner, or it results in disturbance of public order,” according to Žilinskas (2012, 321), introduces a safeguard to balance with the freedom of expression. For a discussion of this law from a legal perspective, see Žilinskas (2012).

13. This article of the Criminal code was last amended on 9 July 2009 (Seimas Resolution No. XI-330).

14. See Rindzevičiūtė (2015) on the Museum of Genocide Victims, Šutinienė (2015) on minorities and Holocaust commemoration in Southeastern Lithuania. On recognition of Holocaust in Lithuania see Davoliūtė (2011).

15. See, e.g., the 2010 discussions on 9 May celebrations on the Internet portal veidas.lt at http://www.veidas.lt/tag/geguzes-9-oji (accessed 4 February 2017).

16. Šutinienė reports a plurality of opinions among Lithuanian Poles and their varied interpretation of World War II commemoration practices. See Šutinienė (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neringa Klumbytė

Neringa Klumbytė is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Havighurst Faculty at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, and Director of the Lithuania Program at the Havighurst Center, Miami University. She is the author of Authoritarian Laughter: Political Humor and Soviet Dystopia in Lithuania (in press); a co-author of Social and Historical Justice in Multiethnic Lithuania: Ideas, Experiences, and Contexts (in Lithuanian, 2018); and a co-editor of Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–85 (with Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, 2012). 

Kristina Šliavaitė

Kristina Šliavaitė is a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences. Her recent research addresses topics of ethnicity and ethnic identities, ethno-religious identities, multicultural education.