In the captivity of the Matrix : Soviet Lithuanian historiography, 1944-1985

272 Pages·2014·22.364 MB·English

by  Švedas Aurimas

In the Captivity
of the Matrix
Soviet Lithuanian
Historiography,
1944-1985
AURIMAS ŠVEDAS
Amsterdam - New York, ny 2014
Cover illustration: The Library Courtyard of Vilnius University in 1979,
the 400th anniversary of the founding of the university. Photo by Vidas
Naujikas.
Translator Albina Strunga
Layout Tomas Mrazauskas
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
“ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence".
ISBN: 978-90-420-3911-7
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-1193-2
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2014
Printed in the Netherlands
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Historiography 5
PROLOGUE
What Forms had Lithuanian Historiography Taken on Prior to the Soviet
Occupation? 13
CHAPTER 1
Characteristics of Soviet-Era Lithuanian Historiography 23
External Characteristics 25
Internal Characteristics 40
CHAPTER 2
Formation of the Official Historical Discourse (1944-1956) 59
Position: Factors that Formed the Discourse 62
Opposition I: The Challenge Posed by the Older Generation of Historians
(“Lost in Time and Space”) 76
Opposition II: The Stance Taken by the “Ideologically Oriented Humanists” 87
Opposition III: “An Outsider” Who Wanted to do Small but Good Deeds
in History 97
The Search for Turning-Points in the Evolution of Soviet-Era Lithuanian
Historiography: 1956 (?) 104
CHAPTER 3
Processes within the Official Discourse (1957-1985) 115
Historians’ Behaviour Models and the Official Discourse 117
Scholars’ Attempts at Correcting the Official Discourse 123
“Janus” Challenges the Community of Historians and the Official Version
of the Past 129
Tensions in the Historians’ Community in the 1970S-1980S 145
CHAPTER 4
"Syntheses of History": Expression of the Official Discourse and the Search
for Alternatives 155
The Periodization Model in Soviet-Era Syntheses of Lithuanian History 157
The Spatial Model in Soviet-Era Syntheses of Lithuanian History 177
The Search for Alternative Periodizations and Spatial Models 183
CHAPTER 5
Alternatives to the Official Discourse in Research on Feudalism 197
Features of Research on the Rise of Serfdom in Lithuania 199
The “Latently Operating Paradigm” in Research on Early Grand Duchy of
Lithuanian Society 209
Conclusions 217
EPILOGUE
A Glance at Post-Soviet Lithuanian Historiography 223
Endnotes 233
References 259
Index 277
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
When looking back on the road travelled, one appreciates not just the dis­
tance covered, but also those who accompanied and helped one make the
journey possible.
Many friends and colleagues offered me their invaluable assistance dur-
ing preparation of the Lithuanian and English language versions of the book,
reading the drafts, sharing their ideas and expressing their valuable advice.
In this respect, I would first of all like to thank Alfredas Bumblauskas, Sigitas
Jegelevičius, Rasa Čepaitienė, Antanas Kulakauskas and Šarūnas Liekis. I am
indebted to them, but they are not in any way responsible for any of my errors.
Besides these people, the entire Vilnius University Faculty of History com­
munity deserves a separate mention whose support was felt throughout the
time spent researching Lithuanian historiography from the Soviet period.
I would also like to express my enormous gratitude to the Research Council
of Lithuania, as it is their National Development Programme for Lithuanian
studies 2009-2015 which financed the books translation, making it accessi­
ble to English readers.
My sincere thanks also goes to the books translator and language editor,
Albina Strunga, who worked tirelessly on this project and whose help I could
always count on, having found myself in the typically difficult situation of
having to transform a Lithuanian text into English.
I am also grateful to the talented designer of the book, Tomas Mrazauskas,
who did an excellent job stylistically expressing the particularities of the So­
viet science matrix.
The whole Rodopi publishing house went to great effort to ensure the
manuscript of In the Captivity of the Matrix: Soviet Lithuanian Historiogra­
phy, 1944-1985 could be released as a book. Many thanks also extend to Eric
van Broekhuizen and Leonidas Donskis for including my book in their dis­
tinguished series.
In writing any book, the sacrifices of ones closest family are always required,
which is why I would like to sincerely thank my parents, wife and daughter for
their patience and understanding which enveloped me as I worked on both
the Lithuanian and English versions of this text.
INTRODUCTION
Whats this book about?
Before sitting down to write about Soviet-era Lithuanian historiography, I re­
called the dark cyberpunk film and the following phrase, “What is the Matrix?
It is control”. This particular association stayed with me for a number of years.
We can look at The Matrix trilogy as paraphrasing a totalitarian society,
surprising us with its accurate insights and unexpected analogies with the his­
tory of the Soviet Union. The communist control mechanism that operated
in the spheres of public and private life that hid behind a curtain of lies is in
many ways reminiscent of the harrowing dystopia depicted in the film The
Matrix about a machine-led imprisonment of the human mind. The “thaw­
ing” process that was put into motion in the years 1953-1956 by the CPSU
elite prompts associations with the Architect’s decision to reload the Matrix
in order to destroy all anomalies that opposed the system and threatened its
existence, thus recreating the initial programme. The story line of an eventual
revolution emerging from the multitude of unresolved problems which man­
ages to establish a fragile peace between humans and machines can be likened
to the fate of the totalitarian state: Russia turned down the path of democratic
reforms, later returning to the “vertical scale of power” in the form of a new
Matrix which ideologues offered to the masses.
This book is about another, earlier version of the Matrix. It aims to un­
veil the formation of the Soviet-era Lithuanian historiographical official dis­
course (from 1944 until 1985, when the last Soviet synthesis was published),
to show how it was affected by the mechanisms that created it, and to discuss
what kinds of behavioural models historians chose under the duress of this
discourse, thereby answering the question of whether the resulting body of
unified claims - texts on the history of Lithuania - offer any alternative cases
of independent thinking.
In order to realize the afore-mentioned aim of this book, the following
questions (divided into five groups) are to be deliberated, which open the way
to taking a phenomenological and axiological glance at Lithuanian historiog­
raphy from the Soviet period:
What place and role in the Soviet states social system had the Communist
Party afforded the science of history? Which institutions formed the official
historiographical discourse, which had to live up to the wishes of the Party
elite and maintain its vitality?
2 Aurimas Švedas
What are the characteristics of the general ideology and methodology of
this official discourse that created the past and the thinking “masks” of the
scientists who researched this past? What were the ideological and method­
ological “errors” made by Soviet-era historians that ended up bringing down
the official discourse monolith?
What figures, and which conjunctural or non-conformist actions, chal­
lenges and conflicts can be considered fateful in the evolution of Soviet-era
historiography? Do the general schemes of political and socio-cultural devel­
opment in the Soviet period and the turning-points therein apply to the sci­
ence of history in Lithuania in 1944-1985?
What are the most important features of the temporal and spatial models
in syntheses of Lithuanian history that were released in the Soviet period? To
what extent are these models based on logical thinking, and consistent and
adequate in their expression of the details of the Lithuanian nations past?
Were attempts made in Soviet-era Lithuanian historiography to creatively
apply the ideas of Marx and Engels?
The answering of the questions listed above determined the structure of a
prologue, epilogue and five chapters. The first chapter “Characteristics of So­
viet-Era Lithuanian Historiography” gives a definition of the place and role
of the science of history in the Soviet state and in Soviet society, discusses the
total of institutions which formed the official discourse of the day and which
ensured its vitality, denotes the particular principles which empowered histo­
rians to simulate reconstructions of Lithuania’s past, and offers a typology of
some of the most important methodological and ideological “errors” which
eroded the official discourse.
Chapter Two, “Formation of the Official Historical Discourse” analyzes
the strongest ideological and methodological tensions which arose in the
community of historians in 1944-1956 as well as the ensuing critique cam­
paigns, presenting the figures behind them and discussing the reasons that
determined their effect.
In the third chapter, “Processes within the Official discourse”, the post-Sta-
linist period of 1957-1985 is discussed considering analogical aspects and the
processes underway during this period.
Chapter Four, “Syntheses of History”: Expression of the Official Discourse
and the Search for Alternatives” gives an analysis of the general works on Lith­
uanian history compiled by historians at the time, focusing mainly on two
elements in these historical syntheses - temporal and spatial models. Along­
side these texts which simultaneously reflected and falsified Lithuania’s his­
tory, there is also an analysis of the few attempts made by historians to search
In the Captivity of the Matrix 3
for alternative depictions of Lithuania as a historical object under the con­
stant influence of Russia, and alternatives to the economic formation change
scheme which unified the historical reality.
Chapter Five, “Alternatives to the Official Discourse in Research on Feu­
dalism” analyzes cases of the creative application of the ideas of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels in Soviet-era Lithuanian historiography.
5
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Features of Soviet-era historians’ (auto)reflexion. Researchers of the past who
lived through the Soviet period were not particularly aware of historical the­
ory or methodology or the development of historiography. Nevertheless, one-
off attempts at historiographical (auto)reflexion can be identified, which are
classified into seven groups:
1. Articles that recorded the process of knowledge accumulation and in­
crease in topics of research during the Soviet period, which are mostly lim­
ited to listing actual or imagined achievements in different fields of research.1
2. Attempts at conceptually thinking over the forms of Soviet-era histo­
riography.2
3. Commissioned critical essays which were intended to expose the works
of “bourgeois historians” (For more on the body of these texts, see pp. 47-48
in this book).
4. Texts in which battles against ideological and methodological “errors”
and “heresies” in Soviet historiography were waged.3
5. Attempts at disclosing the actual problems and maladies existing in the
science of history at the time.4
6. Texts devoted to the discussion and resolution of specific issues or re­
views of research conducted on a particular epoch.5
The opinions ofémigré historians. Lithuanian historians in trying to estab­
lish their relationship with Soviet historiography6 and discuss its nature often
maintained two positions:
1. A predetermined critical, negative approach which blocked the potential
of noting any positive aspects at all.7
2. A unique “good-will tactic” which allowed them to notice a particular variety
in methodology, differences in opinion and cases oft he presentation of new facts.8
Sometimes the same diaspora historian would uphold the first position in
one article, and revert to the second position in a subsequent article. Often
this kind of behaviour would be determined not by the inability of a certain
scientist to settle on one approach, but the details of the historiographical
phenomenon being analyzed in a specific text.
6 Aurimas Švedas
The efforts of Lithuanian historians after regaining independence. Reflexion on
Soviet-era historiography to have been disclosed after 1990 is thus far quite
meagre.
Contemporary Lithuanian historiography gives us at least three models
for the relationship of research of the Soviet past:
1. Attempts at conceptualization (Bumblauskas, Aleksandravičius, Ku­
lakauskas).9
2. Empirical research (Ragauskas, Selenis, Vyšniauskas, Rudokas).10
3. (Auto)reflexions - recollections/assessments (Gaigalaitė, Jučas, Merkys,
Eidintas, Savukynas, Tyla, Zaborskaitė, Gudavičius, Genzelis, Plečkaitis, Jege-
levičius, Kubilius).11
The most important event to have taken place in the intellectual life of in­
dependent Lithuania in terms of assessing the Soviet-era historiographical
legacy is the conference organized by the Vilnius University Faculty of His­
tory on May 31-June 3,1995 titled “Reading Zenonas Ivinskis ’95”, from which
followed a book containing various announcements and discussions from the
conference. The insights into Soviet-era Lithuanian historiography declared
in this collection of articles remain very important to this day and in many
cases determine the depiction of the situation of historians and humanities
scientists in the Soviet period in the Lithuanian academic tradition.12
Also worthy of discussion are the articles and studies analyzing various so-
cio-cultural and political Soviet-era Lithuanian history problems.
First of all would be the few attempts at compiling syntheses which pre­
sented the general “background” for the research conducted for this book.13
An important body of texts covers the changes that took place in Lithuania
in the 1950s (research on “thawing processes”) that were analyzed by various
authors from different aspects (Puzinavičius, Streikus, Kubilius, Sprindytė, Ba-
liutytė) and the attempts made at identifying how the modernist cultural-ar­
tistic program was expressed in various sočio-cultural environments in the
1960S-1980S (Lubytė, Kmita, Drėmaitė, Petrulis, Tutlytė).14 The latter studies
create an important context for the search for turning-points in the develop­
ment of Soviet-era Lithuanian historiography that is carried out in this book.
Deliberation on the dynamics of the relations between the Soviet leadership
and the community of scientists of the day would not be possible without the
studies by members of the Lithuanian Communist Party nomenklatura (Ti-
ninis, Antanaitis, Grybkauskas, Ivanauskas)15 or the analysis of the situation