bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Biliyer Darlık ve Zor Biliyer Taş Tedavisinde Yeni Nesil Dijital Kolanjiyoskopi Kullanımı
Authors: HÜLAGÜ Sadettin , ŞİRİN Göktuğ
Published: January 2020

Amaç:
SpyGlass fiberoptik versiyonunun, standart endoskopik retrograd
kolanjiyopankreatografi (ERCP) işlemine kıyasla tanı koyma ve tedavi etme
yeterliliğinin çok daha fazla olduğu kanıtlanmıştır. Kolanjiyo-pankreatoskopik
inceleme için kullanıma yeni giren SpyGlass Dijital (D-SpG) versiyonu, bu eski
modelin kullanım zorluğu ve görüntü kalitesindeki yetersizliklerinin üstesinden
gelinmesi için geliştirilmiştir. Ülkemizde bu modeli ilk olarak kullanan klinik
olarak, kullanım ile ilgili deneyimlerimizi paylaşmak istedik.

Yöntem: Bu
çalışma, yapılan işlemlerin ve hastalara ait özelliklerin prospektif olarak
girildiği hasta kayıt sistemindeki verilerin, retrospektif olarak
değerlendirildiği, tek merkezli bir çalışmadır. Tanımlanmamış biliyer darlığı
veya standart yöntemler ile tedavisi yapılamamış biliyo-pankreatik taşları olan
ve 18 yaşından büyük hastalar incelendi. Bu hasta grubunda olup, D-SpG ile
işlem yapılan hastalarda, işlem başarısı ve işlem güvenirliliği değerlendirildi.
İşlem başarısı, taş olan vakalar için taşların tam olarak temizlenmesi, taş
dışı vakalarda ise SpyGlass kataterin hedef noktaya ilerletilerek, yeterli
görüntü alınması ve gereken tanısal ya da terapötik işlemin yapılabilmesi
olarak tanımlandı.

Bulgular:
Toplamda, 22 hastaya 24 işlem yapılmıştı. D-SpG sistemi vakaların tamamında
başarılı idi. Taş dışı endikasyon ile işlem yapılan hastalarda başarı oranı
%100 (14/14) idi. Biliyer taşı olan hastalarda, tam olarak taş temizliğine 5
hastada (%100) bir seansta ulaşıldı. Pankreatoskopi 3 hastada uygulandı ve
2’sinde başarılı oldu. Sadece bir hastada kolanjit gözlendi (% 4,1).

Sonuç:
SpyGlass dijital versiyonu, deneyimli ellerde, kolanjiopankreatokopi yapılması
için güvenli ve başarılı bir şekilde kullanılabilir.
Jan Długosz and the first seven parish churches in Lithuania
Authors: Baronas Darius
Published: January 2020

This paper is part of a more comprehensive study intended as a renewed interpretation of the account given by the Polish chronicler, Jan Długosz (1415–1480) about the conversion of Lithuania in 1387. For the moment it offers a critical approach to one seemingly unproblematic statement advanced and upheld by Polish and Lithuanian historians alike, a statement according to which Jogaila, the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, established the first seven churches in Lithuania in 1387. This study is conducted on two tracks. First it shows that the documentary evidence for the churches in question (Ukmergė, Maišiagala, Nemenčinė, Medininkai, Krėva, Oboltsy and Haina) is scanty to the point that it does not allow us simply to believe that all the churches were established in one and the same year. Secondly, this article tries to intepret this piece of information supplied by Długosz in the light of a number of other accounts of the first steps in building the ecclesiastical organization of particular countries. It becomes clear that the number seven is a conventional number which has been evoked quite frequently in similar situations by other medieval bookmen and also by Długosz himself (e. g. while describing the conversion of Poland in 966). The final argument of the article calls for renewed attempts to gain a better understanding of the first decades of established Catholic organization in Lithuania, based on the extant source material rather than conventional clichés that were quite widespread in the chronicles of the Middle Ages.
‘Old Ways’ versus ‘Novelties’ in the Legal and Economic Sources of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ca. 1450–1700
Authors: Blanutsa Andrei , Vashchuk Dmitrii
Published: January 2020

Researchers investigating the sources of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) often come across the text-book phrase, старины не рухаем, а новин не вводим (we do not change the old ways, nor do we introduce novelties), which became a sort of motto defining central government policy in the annexed lands. This article deals with how historians have interpreted this policy claim and concludes on the basis of examinations of regional charters, and land contracts preserved in the Lithuanian Metrica that the gentry were willing to accept legal innovations as part of ‘the old ways’, when it was expedient for them to do so, whilst appealing against ‘novelties’, which did not suit their interests. Close attention is paid to changes in rights to dispose of entailed property. In conclusion the authors press for further research into this subjects as a way to understand society within the Grand Duchy better and how reforms introduced by the Lithuanian Statutes were implemented.
Views of Western countries on the 1926 coup d’état in Lithuania
Authors: Kasparavičius Algimantas
Published: January 2020

The analysis and evaluation of the 17 December 1926 coup d’état in Lithuanian historical scholarship to a large extent remain a relevant and controversial problem. The authoritarian regime formed after the coup has received various, yet not always well-grounded, descriptions and evaluations in historical writings. The aim of this article is (without attempting to answer at once all the questions pertaining to this issue) to tackle this problem from a different angle and as if from a distance, namely to analyse the political-diplomatic reaction to the coup d’état in Lithuania of the parties, which were not directly interested (foreign states).

On the one hand, the majority of democratic governments in Europe and the US administration had at least reserved and unopposed, if not favourable, view of the events of the 17 December 1926 in Lithuania. On the other hand, public, labour professional organisations and a part of the media in a number of foreign democracies were critical about the unconstitutional change of the government in Lithuania and the dictatorial domestic policy of the government formed on authoritarian grounds. Thirdly, in the eyes of liberal and democratic citizens or societies of the Western Europe the 1926 coup impaired the international prestige of Lithuania since it prompted doubts over the democratic traditions of the young state, the maturity of its social and political culture as well as prospects of maintaining its statehood.
A Few Observations Regarding Woodrow Wilson’s Principle of National Self-Determination and its Application
Authors: Sirutavičius Vladas
Published: January 2020

This article briefly discusses traditional interpretations of the principle of national self-determination declared by President Woodrow Wilson. It is believed that the principle of national self-determination cannot be interpreted in isolation from specific historical conditions under which it was declared and implemented. Until the First World War the self-determination of nations was perceived more like the right to choose their (democratic) form of government (‘internal self-determination’). During the war years the ‘external’ aspect of self-determination gained dominance, i.e. the right of a nation to be free from any ‘alien’ rule. Thus, technically the principle of self-determination of nations was supposed to mean both consolidation of national consciousness and democratization of society. However, implementation of the principle demonstrated that national self-determination might become a threat to democracy.
German Eastern Policy, 1917–1918
Authors: Tauber Joachim
Published: January 2020

This paper analyzes German eastern policy in the years 1917 and 1918. It shows the German concept for the future of Poland and Lithuania that only took shape after German armies had occupied these countries. The Polish question remained the main problem for the German leadership not being able to decide how to cope with Polish national aspirations without ceding part of territory of the German Empire. The collapse of Russia and the two revolutions in 1917 still widened the German aspiration in the East culminating in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that clearly revealed German ambitions.
The Treaty of Brest-Lito vsk: Russia and Ukraine
Authors: Shubin Aleksandr
Published: January 2020

Communist strategy combined anti-imperialism and the programme of building a planned non-market economy. Until 1918 the conjunction of these two aspects –conquering imperialism and building a new society on its ruins – was undoubted. As long as there were no victories, there could be no socialism. The proposals of a democratic peace put forward by the Bolsheviks in Brest had to ensure a moral victory over imperialism and at the same time to create conditions for the implementation of a constructive programme of socialism. The course of events confronted the Bolsheviks with an appalling dilemma leading to a severe internal crisis. In this article the confrontational motives of factions are discussed from the viewpoints of ‘dogmatism’ and ‘pragmatism’, and utopia and realpolitik. Attention is also drawn to the differences of the political stances time and again emerging in the history of Russia after the rise of St Petersburg. From the northern capital the situation was often seen differently than from Moscow. In Moscow the strategic threats from the Baltic region and from Ukraine were treated as equally dangerous. From the point of view of the northern capital the situation in Germany was more vulnerable and the loss of St Petersburg would mean ‘the end of the play’. Such a viewpoint, differing from Lenin’s position after the transfer of the government to Moscow (when Denikin and Kolchak presented a greater danger than Yudenich), strongly conditioned the strategic ‘blindness’ of the Bolsheviks overlooking the potential menace posed by the Ukrainian Central Rada.
In 1917–1918 did Lithuania Separate From Russia or Poland?
Authors: Miknys Rimantas
Published: January 2020

The author attempts to reconstruct the rhetoric of national ‘separation’ of Lithuania in 1917–1918, and to inquire into its purports. To this end the article presents and discusses the facts underlying the circumstances of the separation formula, analyses the causes, and generally surveys the genesis of the ‘separation’ idea.
The Rada of Vilnius Belarusians and the Council of Lithuania: Allies or Adversaries?
Authors: Gimžauskas Edmundas
Published: January 2020

This text analyzes the relation between independent movements of Lithuanians and Belarusians in the period of the First World War. Lithuanians stood firmly for the ethnographic model of their future state, whereas Belarusians, whose national movement was weak, declared loyalty to the formula of the restoration of the historical GDL. Since the projected ethnographic Lithuania actually coincided with historical ‘Lithuania Proper’ and the boundaries of the territory occupied by Germans, the latter exploiting the national factor tolerated and promoted a certain political activity of Lithuanians and Belarusians maintaining a quite constructive dialogue between the two. The events of 1918 proved that Lithuanians objectively pursued interests of their developed ethnocentric nation and in politics attributed only an auxiliary role to Belarusians. Simultaneously, Belarusians received a strong impulse towards their independence.
Reborn Poland or Reconstructed Empire? Questions on the Course and Results of Polish Eastern Policy (1918–1921)
Authors: Nowak Andrzej
Published: January 2020

The article presents the main geopolitical concepts of Polish foreign politics and military strategy between 1918 and 1921. The author discusses two general programmes of policy towards Poland’s neighbours to the East: the ‘federalist’ option associated with Józef Piłsudski, and the ‘incorporationist’ option of Roman Dmowski. The analysis is concentrated around the efforts to realize the former programme. Starting from a detailed analysis of Piłsudski’s instructions to the Polish delegation to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of 1918, through a special mission of Michał Römer sent to Lithuania in April 1919, and reasons of its failure, the author turns to a history of the ‘Ukrainian card’, played by Piłsudski in 1919 and 1920 in order to achieve a geopolitical counter-balance to any Russian/Soviet imperialism. Finally, the article deals with the meaning of the Piłsudski’s eastern policy as one of the main factors which stopped the westward drive of Soviet Russia for the next 20 years.
The Spirituality of st Bruno of Querfurt
Authors: Šiūlys Fr Rimgaudas
Published: January 2020

This article analyses the spirituality of St. Bruno of Querfurt, as expressed in his writings. In his Life of the Five Brethren he presents the plan of Otto III to send some of St Romuald’s most zealous disciples to the Slavonic countries to build a monastery near the pagan lands. In this way the ‘three obligations’ seeking the Lord’s path, namely: for the new arrivals – the community life they desire, for those mature and seeking the Living God – golden solitude, for those desiring to be free and with Christ – preaching the Gospel to the pagans. We note the following symbols of spiritual life: community life – the monk’s habit, golden solitude – the hermitage, preaching the Gospel to the pagans – martyrdom. According to established monastic tradition, before becoming a hermit it is necessary to pass through the stage of community life. The Rule of St. Benedict states that the hermits are ‘no longer in the first fervour of their reformation, but after long probation in a monastery, having learned by the help of many brethren how to fight against the devil, go out well armed from the ranks of the community to the solitary combat of the desert. They are able now, with no help save from God, to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh and their own evil thoughts’. The second component of his life is his time as a hermit. For some while St Bruno followed the teaching of St. Romuald, who provided a rule for hermits. First of all, he offered them St. Benedict’s Rule, but the Life of the Five Brethren includes the so-called ‘Little Rule’, which describes the ideal hermit life compactly. The third component is preaching the Gospel – martyrdom. St. Bruno keeps mentioning two things: the preaching of the Gospel and martyrdom. It is thought that his primary goal was martyrdom, and he understood the preaching of the Gospel as a method to attain this goal. With complete sacrifice he begins to preach the Gospel to the pagan nations until finally in 1009 he meets a martyr’s death on the border of Lithuania and Rus’.
The Frescoes of Saint Bruno of Querfurt in the Monastery of the Camaldolese Order at Pažaislis
Authors: Paknys Mindaugas
Published: January 2020

This article investigates the story of St Bruno of Querfurt featured in the fresco cycle in the monastery church of Pažaislis at Kaunas, Lithuania. The frescoes were executed by the Italian artist Michelangelo Palloni in the latter half of the seventeenth century. They are to be found in a corridor linking the church with the monastery: eight of them present the story of the saint and three celebrate his apotheosis. The article examines the causes of the circumstances of the appearance of this cycle in the Camaldolese hermitage, the tradition of the veneration of St Bruno in contemporary Poland-Lithuania as well as a detailed iconography of the frescoes.
The Cult of st Bruno in Lithuania: Liturgical and Hagiographical Aspects
Authors: Jovaiša Liudas
Published: January 2020

The veneration of St Bruno of Querfurt has never been particularly prominent in Lithuania. Until the very beginning of the twenty-first century Lithuania had no church, chapel or altar dedicated to the saint. Neither were the images of this martyr saint known except those in the seventeenth-century cycle of fresco scenes in the Camaldolese monastery in Pažaislis. Nevertheless, St Bruno, generally known as St Boniface, the apostle of Rus’, has been mentioned in the liturgical calendars of Lithuanian dioceses and religious orders and also in various Polish and Lithuanian lives of saints since the late seventeenth century. The present paper deals with the liturgical and hagiographical aspects of the saint’s veneration.
The Jews of Lithuania During the Muscovite Occupation (1655–1660)
Authors: Meilus Elmantas
Published: January 2020

This article deals with the situation of the Jews in 1654 at the beginning of the Muscovite invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is maintained that that was the main reason to the disasters that befell the Jewry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The extant sources (mainly relating to Vilnius) show that in the occupied western lands of the GDL the attitude of the Russian authorities towards the Jews was more relaxed than in the eastern lands inhabited by the Orthodox. Seeking to win the favour of the population of the occupied territory, the Russians tried the Jews and the Christians by the same laws at least in areas where their jurisdiction was introduced. That could mean that Muscovy had no definite programme concerning the Jews at least in the western part of the GDL, inhabited mainly by the Catholics. Meanwhile, the Jews, despite the hostile attitude of the local population – that was attested by the plea of Vilnius authorities to the tsar to evict the Jews from the city – managed to find a way of coexistence both with the locals and the authorities of the occupiers. The sources show that even after the tsar’s indication to remove the Jews they continued to reside in the city.
Soviet Lithuania: A Failed Conservative Experiment?
Authors: Bulota Rytis
Published: January 2020

As scholars of international relations have noted, the Cold War, which ended with the defeat of the Soviet Union was largely a propaganda war (Halliday), based on conflicting values. Yet it was not a war between the communist and capitalist moral systems; rather, it was a war between the traditionalist conservative values, promoted in the USSR when Stalin came to power and liberal or, so-called ‘progressive’ values.

While the capitalist West was able to accommodate the values of the 1968 sexual revolution and the further spread of various rights, the Soviet Union clung to a version of Victorian morals in the USSR. When Stalin came to power, the Soviet Union was oriented not towards the future in terms of morality, (what Marxism is alleged to be all about), but firmly towards the past.

In the light of its values the period of Sąjūdis can be characterized, on one hand, as an uneasy alliance between the traditionalists, for whom the Soviet regime was oppressive mainly because of the loss of national sovereignty and the oppression of the Catholic Church, without having any major disagreements about morals, and the West-looking part of Lithuanian society, longing for developments similar to those in the West. To borrow the dichotomy from Isaiah Berlin, the Lithuanian independence movement had one part striving for collective, positive freedom and another, which was strove for negative, personal freedom and the advancement of human rights.

This dichotomy is still present in Lithuania and the system of morality, preserved by the Soviet period, is the base on which the traditionalist position stands.
The (Post-) Soviet Built Environment: Soviet–Western Relat ions in the In dustrialised Mass Housing and its Reflections in Soviet Lithuania
Authors: Drėmaitė Marija
Published: January 2020

This paper discusses the social, political and especially the technological aspect of the post-war Soviet industrialisation of housing, focusing on the relation to Western planning and technology. The chronological scope of the paper covers the thaw in Soviet architecture and construction that began in 1954 after the well-known meeting of Soviet architects and builders initiated by Nikita Khrushchev. This study presents Soviet architects’ study trips to the West, which became crucial in changing the entire urban planning and mass housing production system in the USSR. The text examines how pan-Union mass housing industrialisation policy and practice were carried out in the 1960s in the Western periphery of the USSR, namely Soviet Lithuania, which became the leader in mass housing urban design because of the Western-oriented ambitions of Baltic architects. Thus, in the paper the modern Soviet mass housing programme is researched from the perspective of (mutations in) modernist urban planning.
Lithuanian Writers and the Estab lishment during Late Socialism: The Writers Union as a Place for Conformism or Escape
Authors: Ivanauskas Vilius
Published: January 2020

This article analyses how the changes in the dominant attitude of local Soviet writers were encouraged, screened or restricted by the Writers Union [WU] through mechanisms of planning, control and even through measures of creating a secure daily environment. The author looks at the tensions and conflicts between writers of different generations, observing less ideology in the younger generation than in their predecessors since the development and dissemination of national images among the declared values of communism were increasing. The union as a system covered both aspects – conformism and the escape (manoeuvre). Though the WU had a strong mechanism of control, it managed to ensure for the writers such a model of adaptation where even those, who were subject to restrictions, had a possibility of remaining within the official structure, through certain compromises, while actually avoiding involvement in dissident activities or samizdat publishing.
Creat ing One’s Own Reality as Resistance: The Shape of ‘Parallel Society’ in Soviet Lithuania
Authors: Ramonaitė Ainė
Published: January 2020

This article aims at demonstrating that an alternative to Soviet society –a socium with expanded parallel institutions of education, information and culture that were independent of the regime and impervious to its ideology existed in Soviet Lithuania which answers the idea of ‘parallel polis’ developed by Vaclav Benda, the famous Czech dissident and theoretician. To substantiate the above statement, first of all the concept of ‘parallel society’, which is not widely known in Lithuania, is disclosed relating it to the conception of opposition to a totalitarian system that has been discussed also by Lithuanian philosophers for some time past. Secondly, the article briefly dwells on the structure of the primary components of parallel society – ethno-cultural movement and Catholic underground – revealing their scope and forms of operation at the same time disclosing the way alternative institutions of education, information and culture functioned. Finally, with the help of tools of social network analysis the symbiosis of these two movements is displayed validating the statement that they can be considered elements of one-piece alternative society.
When Formal Organisations Meet Informal Relations in Soviet Lithuania: Action Nets, Networks and Boundary Objects in the Construction of the Lithuanian Sea Museum
Authors: Rindzevičiūtė Eglė
Published: January 2020

This study considers organisation in countries under the Soviet regime. The focus is on the creation of the Sea Museum in Klaipėda from the 1960s to the 1980s, a massive undertaking that required huge capital investments, use of rare foreign materials, cooperation between many different sectors (Soviet military, heritage preservation, seaport management, seagoing fishing vessels and zoos in Eastern bloc countries), and many innovations in designing the local sea aquarium system. The whole project was formally illegal: there was an all-union wide restriction on building so-called ‘spectator venues’. This article analyses the roles of formal and informal relations in the construction of the Sea Museum as a project concerning the public good. It suggests that the presence of informality did not undermine formal organising in the overtly centralised Soviet regime. Belonging to formal organisations was an important resource for actors who constructed action nets that went beyond the boundaries of these organisations. Although it is widely known that the successful functioning of formal organisations often depended on informal relations, this point raises complex questions about the identity and uniqueness of the Soviet system.
Citizenship and Unsystematic Action of Intellectuals in Soviet Lithuania
Authors: Šukys Aurimas
Published: January 2020

The subject of this article is an assessment of unsystematic action by intellectuals in Soviet Lithuania according to the criterion of citizenship. Unsystematic action is understood as an everyday, institutional and theoretical activity that is at variance with Marxist-Leninist ideology and the Soviet totalitarian state that embodied it in one or another form. Our research is based on the premise that the form of the totalitarian state, which Lithuanian society endured after the Second World War and especially after Stalin’s death, changed ever-more considerably with time creating some favourable possibilities for independent social action. Another significant term ‘citizenship’ is used here in a republican rather than liberal sense underlying the participation of the inhabitants of the state ‘from below’ in the activity of the society being formed in which it was sought to defend the general public interest, and human rights, as well as the rights of a citizen. On the basis of a theoretical analysis of different authors, a general model of the functioning of civil society existing in Western society is presented here and on this basis the statement is made that there were three manifestations of such citizenship in Soviet Lithuania: anti-systematic, unsystematic and systematic. The practice of unsystematic action, which was initiated by informal groups of the cultural elite, is considered in more detail.
Soviet Vilnius: Ideology and the Formation of Identity
Authors: Mikailienė Živilė
Published: January 2020

This article analyses the importance of historical narratives, myths and symbols in the process of the formation of the Soviet identity of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

Throughout the Soviet period Vilnius was one of the Soviet capitals where the regime made every effort to modify the identity of the city in compliance with the prevailing Soviet ideology: to establish the ideological centre of the country, to shape the city so that it would meet the needs of the new ‘Soviet citizen’ and to alter its historical identity – erase the old historic sites, historical memory and form the new identity of the city. The most obvious manifestations of ‘rewritten’ history can be observed in the physical shape of the city – its architectural/urban development, changes of street names and the erection of new Soviet monuments. The said tangible signs and symbols of authority as well as the intangible ones – new historic narrative of the Soviet city, myths about its having a revolutionary past, the Great Patriotic War and the idea of progress were aimed at the legitimation of the regime, the formation of the citizenry’s new identity and social indoctrination.
Protestant Propaganda in a Cold War of Religion: From the Hartlib Circle to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
Authors: Nishikawa Sugiko
Published: January 2020

This article considers how, impelled by confessional divisions caused by the Reformation, a general sense of pan-Protestant community grew across Europe, and its members launched a long battle against Roman Catholicism far beyond the 16th century. Indeed, it continued into the mid-18th century, the so-called Age of Reason. If it cannot necessarily be described as an open war of religion like the Thirty Years War, it was at least a cold war. From their points of view, the Protestant minorities threatened by the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, such as the Waldensians in northern Italy and the Lithuanian Calvinists, stood on the front line in this war. Thus, financial support was regularly offered by the Protestant churches in Great Britain and Ireland to their distressed brethren across the continent, university scholarships were set up for students from Catholicdominated areas, and plans were drafted for a Protestant union in Europe, from a military level to an ecclesiastical one. It is in this context that we must understand how apparently strange a phenomenon as British support for the translation of the Bible into Lithuanian developed. The author sees Chylinski’s activities in the tradition of learning and charity exhibited in the 1650s by the three leading members of the Hartlib philosophical circle, namely, Samuel Hartlib (originally from Elbing), Jan Amos Comenius (from Moravia), and John Dury (born in Edinburgh, he spent his early life in various places in northern Europe), who were, in a sense, Protestant refugees to England from north-central Europe. After Chylinski, British support for Lithuanian Protestants did not end. She traces the work of Robert Boyle and the foundation of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1699), which organised relief for Žemaitijan Calvinists in the early 1730s.
The Careers of Calvinist Stipendiaries from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th Century. The Example of Gabriel Dyjakiewicz
Authors: Bagińska Elżbieta
Published: January 2020

This article applies to a minister of the Calvinist Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gabriel Dyjakiewicz (1660–1724), who became the superintendent of Unitas Lithuaniae (the Lithuanian Brethren) in the Podlasie district and proved to be a remarkable figure. His career was launched successfully thanks to the scholarships given to him. The text is primarily based on memoirs written by him of almost his whole life, and archival documents in the collection of the Reformed Synod, mainly held by the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. The education of Dyjakiewicz consisted of several stages: first, only a twoyear study in the Grammar school in Slutsk, where he received a private scholarship for further education, this time in Protestant university centres. Second, studies at the University of Königsberg and the University of Leiden. In the last case, Dyjakiewicz most likely benefited from a scholarship which he had received from Unitas Lithuaniae. The author briefly characterises both the nature of the grammar school and the two universities, and the obligations which rested on bursary holders. The rest of the article is devoted to the professional and public activities of Dyjakiewicz.
Vilnius Intellectuals and the Early 19th-Century Concept of Lithuania: The Society of Scoundrels (Towarzystwo Szubrawców) and Local Society
Authors: Kaji Sayaka
Published: January 2020

This article reconsiders intellectuals around Vilnius University and their relationships with local society and common people in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the early 19th century. It focuses on the Society of Scoundrels (Towarzystwo Szubrawców) and its publication ‘Street News’ (Wiadomości Brukowe, 1816–22), a satirical journal criticising various social pathologies. Based on analyses of articles in ‘Street News’, it considers two issues: intellectuals’ opinions about the nation (naród in Polish) and the class system, and their attitude towards the history and folk languages of Lithuania.
The Castle in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Histo Riography, Search for Definitions, Research Model
Authors: Volungevičius Vytautas
Published: January 2020

This article aims to reinterpret the castle in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, at the same time as evaluating the state of historiography and trends in terminology used in historical sources. Historiographical problems are defined from a comparative perspective. The author emphasises interpretational issues which refer to the word ‘castle’ in different languages used in different sources. The newly formulated definition of the castle as a changing historical phenomenon expands the concept of the castle. This signifies that the castle was not a static subject. The castle is therefore perceived as an integral part of the historical social reality. This idea is based on certain material and socio-political assumptions.

In theory, the castle is understood as an object of structures and social history, research into which should embrace different aspects of social reality: judicial, military-defensive, political-representational, economichousehold. The proposed quaternary model of the research (1. The castle and its internal structure; 2. The castle and its external structure; 3. The particularity of the castles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; 4. The dispersion of castles in the territory of the state) presupposes the multi-layered perspective of the phenomenon of the castle, which guides from fact to process, from object to structure. The article states that the castle as a long time phenomenon cannot be perceived and interpreted separately from simultaneous socio-political circumstances which were formed by the local society.
The Role of Charitable Activity in the Formation of Vilnius Society in the 14th to mid-16th Centuries
Authors: Rowell S.C.
Published: January 2020

This article examines the development of charitable activity in the city of Vilnius and elsewhere in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania before the middle of the sixteenth century by studying the foundation of almshouses to care for the poor and destitute and foster the memory and salvation of pious benefactors. Almshouse foundations developed from increasing forms of practical piety within the GDL from the late fifteenth century, following earlier west European and Polish models. The first, dedicated to traditional patrons of such institutions, St Job and St Mary Magdalene, was founded by a Vilnius canon and medical doctor, Martin of Duszniki with the support of the monarch, Sigismund the Old, and his counsellors between 1518 and 1522. The almshouse swiftly became an established part of the city’s sacral topography. The fashion was adopted by Eastern Orthodox parishes in Vilnius too, and later spread to other confessional groups. Twelve charters are published for the first time in an appendix.
Hooligans, Hippies, and Immature Youth: Negotiating Communist Party Narratives of May 18, 1972 in Kaunas
Authors: Swain Amanda Jeanne
Published: January 2020

In the aftermath of the street demonstrations in Kaunas in May 1972, Communist Party leaders developed a narrative of the events that downplayed nationalism or political dissent as motivating factors for the unrest. Initially, Soviet authorities blamed marginal elements in society, specifically hooligans and hippies, for instigating what they called a ‘disturbance of public order’. However, the demographics of participants forced Party leaders to explain why young people who were students, workers and even Komsomol members would take to the streets shouting slogans such as ‘freedom for Lithuania’ and ‘freedom for hippies’. As a result, the Communist Party focused on the failure to inculcate Soviet youth with proper ideological values, making them susceptible to manipulation by ‘hostile elements’. In doing so, Party leaders were able to use the political practice of self-criticism to keep the events of May 1972 within acceptable ideological bounds. However, the recognition of its own weaknesses did not stop the Lithuanian Communist Party from blaming other groups, such as parents, schools and cultural organizations, for failing to provide a proper upbringing for Soviet Lithuanian youth. Although cultural and intellectual organizations were only one of the factors blamed for the political immaturity of youth and their susceptibility to corrupting influences, they were the ones to suffer the consequences of the Soviet authorities’ crackdown after the street demonstrations. Through a process of applying and discarding various discursive options, Lithuanian communist officials were able to use Soviet ideological narratives to protect themselves from criticism and to eliminate disruptive cultural and intellectual leaders in Kaunas.
The Activities of Fr Friedrich Muckermann in 1918–1919 in Vilnius: A Significant Application Towards a Civil Society? (The Phenomenon of the Christian Workers League)
Authors: Gimžauskas Edmundas
Published: January 2020

The activities of the German priest Friedrich Muckermann in Vilnius would belong to those cases when an extraordinary personality influenced crucially the development of the public process, by rallying an abundant crowd of followers. The assumptions of the social activities initiated by this Jesuit priest consisted of the transformation of the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 20th century from a confessional to a social category, and the conditioned general operation of the latter phenomenon. At the turn of 1918–1919 in Vilnius, due to the efforts of Muckermann, the League of Christian Workers appeared and gained more and more popularity in lower social strata. This seriously worried the Bolshevik government. Activists of the national movements conflicting with each other, in turn, understanding the prospects for the cultural-social consolidation begun by the priest to become political, naturally sought to influence the League. The arrest of Muckermann by the Bolsheviks not only encouraged a shift by the League to the Polish side, but also changed the nature of the organisation in the direction of radical action. Members of the League contributed actively to the capture of Vilnius by the Polish army in April 1919. And from that time, the organisation can be considered to be Polish, which in no way could be said about the League run by Muckermann. Leaving Bolshevik captivity at the end of 1919 in an exceptional way, he became not only a famous Catholic activist in interwar Germany, but also a symbol of the Christian resistance to Nazism.
The Hunting Club of Petras Griškevičius and the Consolidation of the Lithuanian Nomenklatura
Authors: Grybkauskas Saulius
Published: January 2020

This article focuses on informal practices and, in particular, hunting, which was perhaps the most important ‘extra-curricular’ activity of the nomenklatura. Hunting became an excellent platform for a new secretary to establish his authority in consolidating the nomenklatura, which was quite fragmented for many years after the death of the head of Soviet Lithuania A. Sniečkus (1903–1974). This article analyses the composition of the hunting clubs of the authorities, their organisation and their leadership in informal activities, and claims that the hunt served the interests of the Soviet Lithuanian nomenklatura, because it allowed the leader of the Soviet republic to structure and consolidate his clientele.

By manipulating the composition of the most important – first – hunting club, into which people close to him were introduced, but ignoring the possible contenders for the informal leaders, Griškevičius took over control of the members of this hunting club. He first introduced the regulations of the first club of nomenklatura hunters. The ‘normalisation’ of hunting was an effective strategy which allowed Griškevičius to establish his authority and power, limiting and restricting the potential of the grouping of the Lithuanian nomenklatura. The consolidation of the nomenklatura not only served to strengthen Griškevičius in the post of the new leader, but also lowered the possibilities for the centre’s intervention in the management of the republic.
Discovering the Empire: Julija Pranaitytė’s Guidebook to Europe and Asia
Authors: Paškauskas Juozapas
Published: January 2020

The significance of Iš kelionės po Europą ir Aziją (1914), the guidebook by Julija Pranaitytė, a Lithuanian intellectual from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, depended not just on the fact that the author was the first Lithuanian female traveller to comprehensively document the experiences of a modern tourist in the early 20th century, but that the book itself was the first guidebook to the Russian Empire to be published in Lithuanian.

The guidebook is an attempt by member of the intelligentsia with strong Catholic views to provide practical information about a modernizing and increasingly mobile world. Thus, the intended target of Pranaitytė book is twofold. Firstly, it is more mobile yet still poorly educated working-class reader who is being constantly warned about possible threads of being fooled or cheated. The reader could find advice in guidebook about things worth having while travelling, how to communicate, and what to expect. The guidebook also provides historical information about places visited, cultural insights, similarities and differences to Western society in such a way the book could be interesting and useful for middle-calls traveler as well.

There is also a more general problem relating to the author’s approach to the guidebook: what representations of different cultures and nations did early 20th-century Lithuanians share, and what did these representations mean in the religious, imperial and international contexts of the time? As is often the case in travel literature, history is presented here selectively, taking into account the dominant cultural monologue. It has a clear purpose in Pranaitytė’s guidebook: to spread a vision of the moral and religious superiority of Western and Christian culture. However, having in mind that growing number of workers and middle class were engage in Lithuanian national movement at the beginning of 20th century, this prejudges becomes paradoxical because Empire’s religious and cultural values are shown as cultural foundation for discovering new parts of late Russian Empire.
The Lithuania Buffer Problem of 1920
Authors: Laurinavičius Česlovas
Published: January 2020

The Curzon Line is usually identified as the line of 8 December 1919 (similar to the current eastern border of Poland), running to the east of the Daugavpils-Vilnius-Hrodna railway. Typical historiographical texts state that the Soviet government decided to ignore the Curzon Line after 17 July 1920. But in fact, the Red Army crossed the Curzon Line on 13–14 July and continued to occupy Vilna (Vilnius). Another inaccuracy follows from this one. The prevailing trend is to interpret the Lithuanian state’s situation in 1920 as facing one of two ideology-based alternatives: either Lithuania is sovietised, or it is ‘saved’ by Poland, which occupies Vilnius and separates Lithuania from contact with Soviet Russia. But this raises a whole swathe of questions: how should the Lithuanians’ struggle for Vilnius during the whole interwar period be viewed? How should assistance to Lithuanians from other countries, such as Germany, the USSR and Great Britain, be assessed? Finally, how should the return of Vilnius to Lithuania in 1939 be viewed? There is no answer to these questions, but the possibility of Lithuania as a buffer zone thanks to the Curzon Line, is ignored or hardly analysed at all. Using historical documents from Lithuania, Great Britain and Russia, and referring to the studies by Alfred Erich Senn, this article aims to find an answer to the question, why was the idea of Lithuania as a buffer state not realised in the summer of 1920? The idea that it would be more appropriate to call the line alongside Lithuania established at the Spa Conference ‘the Lloyd George Line’ is also discussed.
Soviet Passports and Their Implementation in East and Southeast Lithuania (1944–1989)
Authors: Stravinskienė Vitalija
Published: January 2020

There was one very special document in the life of each adult citizen of the USSR. This document was the internal passport, which was a short chronicle of a person’s life. It reflected almost the whole life of an individual: from the place and time of their birth, to the duties the holder had to their children (indicated by a stamp in the passport about any underage children and any duty the parent had to support them financially). This article presents an analysis of the development of the Soviet passport system in east and southeast Lithuania in the period 1944 to 1989, and efforts to introduce modernisation, revealing the functions and some details of the universal obligatory registration of citizens based on their place of residence.
The Place of Past Events in International Information Wars
Authors: Nikžentaitis Alvydas
Published: January 2020

This article presents an analysis of the role memory culture plays in information wars. Based on the examples of Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, it finds that the phenomenon of using the past in information wars can be explained as a fighting measure to entrench the authority of a given country in the eyes of the global community. This requirement emerged among countries in this region following the collapse of the old global systems and with the creation of new political blocs. Associations have been noticed between information wars that exploit the past and the growth of a country’s economic potential. For this reason, this foreign policy tool has not been used to the same degree in different countries in the region, nor did it start being used at the same time. Almost all the countries in the region started to massively exploit the past as a means of soft power only in the 21st century. This tool is especially significant in Poland and Russia, being used less often in Lithuania and Ukraine, and hardly at all in Belarus. The storylines of the past being used in information wars can be divided into two categories: Global identities, whose symbols have become Holocaust and Gulag figures; and symbols associated with the memory cultures and identities of separate societies, such as the idea of Slavic unity (in Russian-Ukrainian relations) or the past of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (in Lithuanian-Belarusian relations). The author predicts that the use of the past in information wars is set to intensify in the future, and as such, the teaching of expert skills is necessary to address this; at present, these skills are lacking in countries in the region.
National Education Day in Poland: history and traditions
Authors: Kashtanova Olga
Published: January 2020

The article recounts the history of celebrating the Day of National Education in Poland, which is marked on 14 October. On this day in 1773, the Education Commission — the first ministry of education in Europe — was created. In the context of the abolition of the Order of the Jesuits, who had played a major role in the development of primary and secondary education in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Commission faced the task of reforming public education and giving it a secular character. The reform of education in Poland was of great importance. An orderly education system emerged, subordinate to the state and of a secular nature. Some elements of reaching across the socio-economic classes were introduced. The education system created by the Commission was the basis for the development of education in subsequent years, when, after the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 and until 1918, its former territories were ruled by Russia, Prussia (known as the German Empire since 1871) and Austria. A national holiday dedicated to teachers has been celebrated
in the Polish Republic since 1957, every year on 20 November, the international
day of the Charter of Educators. In 1972, a Teacher’s Day was officially enshrined
in legislation, and its date was moved to 14 October to honour the creation of the
Educational Commission. In 1982, the holiday was renamed the Day of National
Education. In Poland, since 1997 International Teachers’ Day has also been celebrated on 5 October by teachers working in the field of higher education.