The Great War in Lithuanian Historical Memory
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The relationship between Lithuania and the Great War is problematic and ambiguous in several aspects. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lithuania did not exist as a state. Such circumstances led to that the Great War of 1914– 1918 in the Lithuanian historical memory functioned as a conflict of the great European powers, “strange” to Lithuania and Lithuanians. First of all, it was the war where “brother was forced to go against his brother, Lithuanian to kill another Lithuanian against his will”. The occupation and annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union (1940–1990) conducted to delete this war from the historical memory of “Soviet citizens”. Therefore the memory of the Great War (its separate fragments) still remained and functioned, most often in local (of villages and small towns) unofficial stories and in the forms of individual reminiscences. Since 1988/90 and the restoration of nationhood of Lithuania, the country is trying to recover a memory of the war; however due to complicated political, ideological and ethical perturbations, the memory about the Great War yet remains quite disordered, controversial and fragmented.
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