February 16th is a good opportunity to remember how far and where we have gone

 

Interwar Lithuania was a nationalist-fascist project. It is naive to believe that Smetona and other regime creators became fascists only after the anti-democratic coup. They were like that all the time.

 

Cunning actors from the lower classes used nationalist-fascist ideas to seize the country's wealth.

 

They took the land from the Poles and distributed it between themselves. They took away the businesses from the Jews, and, during Hitler's rule, those Jews were almost completely exterminated, with the help of the Germans. They introduced a cult of Smetona's personality following Hitler's example. They gave the lion's share of Lithuania's income to the pitiful army, impoverishing the people. Therefore, they had to flee Lithuania barefoot, wading through the border stream. Smetona became hated, the people did not allow him to leave the Motherland normally.

 

These arguments touch on the fundamental problems of the interwar period, but historians view this period through several different prisms.

 

Here are some facts and context for the topics mentioned here:

 

Nature of the regime: Although Antanas Smetona's rule after the 1926 coup was authoritarian, in today's Lithuanian historiography it is more often described as conservative authoritarianism than pure fascism. The Lithuanian Institute of History emphasizes that Smetona opposed radical Nazi ideas (e.g., in the Klaipėda region conflict) and did not have a mass party-militia, characteristic of Hitler or Mussolini, but with regard to Jews there was no difference between Lithuanian and German fascists.

 

Interwar period (1918–1940): The Lithuanian state pursued a policy of "Lithuanization of the economy" (promoting Lithuanian cooperatives and entrepreneurship). By the end of the 1930s, Jews controlled only about half of the country's trade and industry.

 

2. The Holocaust and German Occupation (1941–1944)

 

Mass extermination: During the years of Nazi German occupation, about 95% of Lithuanian Jews (about 190,000–195,000 people) were murdered.

 

This was one of the greatest tragedies in Europe in terms of the percentage of victims.

 

Local collaboration: The massacres were organized by Nazi operational groups (Einsatzgruppen), but local collaborators – the Lithuanian auxiliary police and other collaborators – also actively participated in them.

Public reaction: Although some residents participated in the crimes, others condemned the massacres or risked their lives to save Jews (Righteous Among the Nations).

 

More information about these tragic events can be found on the website of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi Regime’s in Lithuania and in the studies of the Lithuanian Population Genocide and Resistance Research Center.

 

Land reform: 1922 The reform did indeed expropriate most of the landowners' (often Polish-speaking) lands, but the official goal was to provide land to landless peasants and create a Lithuanian middle class, and not simply to "distribute wealth" without a national-political basis. The Lithuanian National Museum writes more about this.

 

Economy and military: Lithuania allocated about 25 percent of the budget to defense, which was a huge burden. However, historical data from the Bank of Lithuania show that the litas was one of the most stable currencies, and agriculture recorded growth until the occupation.

 

Withdrawal: Smetona's run across the stream in June 1940 became a symbol of moral collapse for many contemporaries and later generations. Documents about this event can be found in the Central State Archives of Lithuania.

 

Today's Lithuanian press describes these events as a miracle, as the emergence of a phoenix from the ashes of the nation:

 

“February 16 is a good opportunity to remember how far we have come, how much progress has been achieved since the declaration of independence. On the eve of World War I, a neutral observer would have considered the Lithuanians to be one of the most backward ethnic groups in the European part of the Russian Empire.

 

The Lithuanian elite was bent, even the clergy did not consistently support national aspirations. According to the 1897 census, Lithuanians made up 11.5% of the urban population in Kaunas Governorate, 9.2% in Suwalki. Without cities, culture cannot flourish; you cannot build opera houses, museums, universities in the countryside, or establish editorial offices there. Cultural poverty was programmed.

 

Literacy was low, there were very few schools in Lithuania, and even fewer Lithuanian students. There was no sign that the situation would improve soon. will improve. On the eve of the First World War, so 30 years after the release of "Aušra", the Lithuanian school population was small, its national understanding was limited. In 1913, only 8 Lithuanian graduates graduated from six gymnasiums in Vilnius, and only 9 from Kaunas schools. Even in the most Lithuanian gymnasiums in Marijampolė and Palanga, Lithuanians made up only half of the students. The situation of Lithuanians was even sadder.

 

The people were becoming denationalized, Slavized, especially in the east. In the mid-19th century and the 19th century, 35 percent of the population of Vilnius province were Lithuanians, and by the end of the century the percentage of Lithuanians had halved. According to the 1897 census, there were only 17.57 percent Lithuanians. Denationalization did not stop and continued until the First World War, in 1909 there were only 12.9 percent Lithuanians. Lithuanians were disappearing not only in the east. And somewhere in central Lithuania the number of Polish speakers in the surrounding areas was growing, and a mixed Lithuanian-Polish population was spreading.

 

After seeing the power of the Russian and German armies, most Lithuanians found their own independent state an impossible goal. It was not clear whether they would be ruled by the Russians or the Germans. These doubts about the fate of Lithuania influenced the call for volunteers after February 16. In 1919, Lithuanian youth volunteered in the Lithuanian army in varying degrees. There was no shortage of volunteers in Užnemunė and Alytus. Elsewhere, indifference prevailed.

 

The Joniškėlis partisans, who formed the main unit opposing the Bolsheviks in Northern Lithuania in the first half of 1919, numbered only one and a half hundred men. One partisan later wrote that “not a single father forced his son to join the partisans,” although there were some who did not allow their children to take a horse.

 

The arc of history is neither predetermined nor incapable of sudden change and unexpected turn. Even the most astute observers may fail to notice and underestimate hidden processes that create conditions for hitherto unimaginable radical changes. Hegel was not mistaken in noting that the owl of Minerva flies only in the twilight.

 

The lack of state consciousness was disappearing very quickly. Having had the opportunity to taste even a brief taste of independence, the Lithuanian peasants succumbed to the spirit of patriotism. Just a year and a half after the first steps of establishing Lithuanian power, what seemed completely unrealistic became an extremely important matter. After L. Želigovskis took Vilnius, Lithuania was swept by spontaneous patriotism, mass rallies were held, resolutions were adopted, expressing the determination of Lithuanian society to sacrifice not only their property, but also their lives. The Polish advance into the depths of Lithuania was stopped.

 

The country's economy was slowly being restored, although a rather radical land reform played a positive role, taking land from Polish landlords and transferring it to Lithuanian peasants. Land reform did not occur in the Vilnius region occupied by the Poles, because you cannot take property and land from Poles in order to give them to Lithuanians, Guds, Tuteis and other foreigners.

 

Lithuania remained a poor agricultural country, its industry remained a stepchild. During the global economic recession that began in 1929, the demand and prices for agricultural products fell sharply, and so did farmers' incomes. Some small-land peasants went bankrupt and lost their farms. Lithuania managed to stabilize the situation without catastrophic consequences, but it remained one of the poorest countries in Europe, a kind of

 

provincial backwater, which unfortunately shared a border with Europe's greatest predators, who one after another crushed Lithuania.

 

Despite the government’s great efforts to win support and nurture pro-government scouts and riflemen (the activities of student futurists were banned), dissatisfaction with Smetona’s sclerotic rule grew from the right and the left. It was hoped that the popular army commander, General Stasys Raštikis, would persuade Smetona to step down and take over the country. But Raštikis was not a man of action; he was more of an observer of events than a determined seeker to steer them towards a desired conclusion.

 

It is easy to list the shortcomings of the years of independence, because there were quite a few. On the other hand, Lithuania’s starting position was so unfavorable that there was no reason to believe that the country would be crowned with victories and laurels. Life is not like H. C. Anderson’s optimistic fable, “The Ugly Duckling,” in which an ugly bird, after long trials, finally realizes that it is not a duck, but a beautiful swan.

 

The December 1926 coup buried democracy. There were more attempts to tighten the country's governance than to restore democracy. Voldemarin's supporters repeatedly tried to seize power. The armed forces, including the officers, were allocated a lot, perhaps even disproportionately large amounts of funds, but this yielded little benefit, and the occupation by the Soviet army was not resisted. Generals and officers passively watched the burial of independence, few of them participated in the partisan battles of the post-war years, and the role of ordinary riflemen in the resistance was proportionally larger and more significant.

 

It is easy to list the shortcomings of the years of independence, because there were quite a few of them. On the other hand, Lithuania's starting position was so unfavorable that there was no reason to believe that the country would be crowned with victories and laurels. Life is not like H. C. Anderson's optimistic fable, "The Ugly Duckling", in which an ugly bird, after long trials, finally realizes that it is not a duck, but a beautiful swan. Backward and oppressed countries often remain so, Africa and Asia are full of examples.

 

There was one very important and irreplaceable achievement of the first years of independence. Lithuanian culture and ethnic consciousness were consolidated, Slavization, becoming Poles, Guds or Russians was stopped forever. There will always be renegades eager to please their new masters, even to the point of being willing to give up the most important collective identities. While a conscious national identity based on statehood and self-government may be rejected or widely denied, forms of ethnic identity representation are deeper and more resistant.

 

For many people, abandoning them is not a realistic option, as it creates a deep void that needs to be filled, often with what has just been rejected.

 

The Act of February 16 is usually presented as the final and unchangeable choice to create an independent state. It was not. In 1918, Germany had already conquered vast areas of the Russian Empire, sought to finally defeat the French and British on the Western Front, and it would have been impossible to resist it. Although the Council of Lithuania had declared Lithuania independent, on July 11, 1918, it invited Ulrich von Urach to become the King of Lithuania, giving him the title of Mindaugas II. The intention was to create a constitutional monarchy, but Ulrich never arrived in Lithuania, and his coronation did not take place. On November 2, 1918, (After Germany clearly lost the war) The Lithuanian Council revoked the decision on the monarchy, finally choosing the path of the republic. February 16 was immortalized in the memory of the nation, conveniently and wisely forgetting the subsequent hesitation. Sometimes clarity and simplicity are more important than accuracy and context.”