Those Who Lived in the Cold
The Lithuanian Dissidence 1953–1980
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Lithuania is not Hungary. What sounds banal was cruel reality. The Soviet Union repressed the will to freedom in the Baltic republics even more so than in the East Central European satellite states. Therefore, after the defeat of the partisan struggle against Soviet occupation, many nationally minded Lithuanians considered open resistance pointless. They behaved as if they had conformed to the system, in order to expand the limits of what was allowed. Only in the 1960s did noteworthy underground groups again come into existence. A year after the 1975 CSCE Final Act, several dissidents, together with the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, dared to found the first non-conspiratorial association of non-conformists. Unlike most Lithuanian dissident groups, they struggled not only for national independence but for the freedom of the individual as well. With that, they laid the cornerstone for modern Lithuania.
(Osteuropa 2-3/2009, pp. 41–52)