This thesis focuses on the effects of sustained warfare on the consensual Polish-Lithuanian political system with particular attention to the 1715 crisis in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, when the Vilnius Confederation was formed to oppose the Polish king Augustus II's policies. Although the Confederation was stopped by the king in its early stage, it induced the Polish nobility to proclaim the Confederation of Tarnogród in November of 1715. This thesis offers a synthesis of economic, social, and political questions in Lithuania in the period preceding the Confederations of Tarnogród and Vilnius. The dissertation demonstrates that, because of the long-established tendency to neglect Lithuanian political history in favor of studies that focus on Poland, existing scholarship fails to reflect the reality of Lithuanian political culture in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. This study shows that, despite conventionally held beliefs which emphasise chaos and underdevelopment, Lithuania's economy and political system were functioning fairly well during this era. The thesis also disproves deep-rooted myths which portray the Lithuanian nobility as largely subservient to the magnates, and the Lithuanian magnates as entirely subservient to the Russian tsar Peter I. This thesis argues that the genesis of the Vilnius Confederation can rather be associated with the ignorant policy of Augustus who failed to engage in constructive dialogue with his subordinates most of whom suspected Augustus of planning a plot to transform his kingship into an absolute one.

Thesis (M.S. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): David S. Yost, Anne Clunan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-74). Also available online.

No / Lithuania restored her independence, after half a century of Soviet occupation, in the immediate aftermath of the failed Moscow coup in August 1991. As the multi-national Soviet state disintegrated Lithuania evolved, without war or violence, from a communist state and a command economy to a liberal democracy, a free market, and a society guaranteeing human and minority rights. Lithuania therefore offers a notable example of peaceful transition, all the more impressive in the light of the bloody conflict elsewhere in the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, where the aspirations to independence of the constituent republics were either violently resisted or dissolved into inter-ethnic violence. Equally remarkable has been Lithuania's evident determination to 'return to Europe' after half a century of separation, even at the price of submerging its recently restored sovereign rights in the supranational European Union. The cost of membership in western economic and security organization are judged to be.

This thesis offers new perspectives on the Yiddish poet and novelist Chaim Grade, examining his reflections on the world of historic Lithuanian Jewry from the outset of his career through his post-Holocaust novels. Chapter one explores the gap between the historical reality of interwar Vilna and its literary representation in his novel Di agune and questions the widely accepted view of this work as a credible historical source. / Chapter two deals with Grade's depiction of his experience as a student in a Novaredok Musar yeshiva, contrasting the depiction of this yeshiva in the poem Musernikes (1938) and the novel Tsemakh atlas (1967). The writer's shift from a fierce condemnation of the Novaredok Yeshiva to a more moderate and affectionate view as a post-Holocaust writer is explained as the older Grade's attempt to reconcile his art and identity as a modern Jew with the religious world he had forsaken.

The thesis Lithuania: the Rebirth of a Nation, 1991-1994 examines the first years of the rebirth and regeneration of Lithuania in the face of the legacy of the Soviet Occupation. It studies the essential components of rebirth: the creation of domestic, foreign and security policies and the revitalising of the economy as Lithuania broke away from the USSR. The Soviet Occupation grafted the mentality of homo sovieticus onto the Lithuanian people and its effect is charted when observing the processes surrounding Lithuania's rejuvenation. An additional chapter examines the evolution of homo sovieticus itself, studying bureaucratic societies, such as the Habsburg Empire and the USSR. The chapter also shows the manifestation of homo sovieticus in works of literature, art, music and humour and explores the concept of 'internal exile'. The thesis commences with a condensed history of Lithuania, as this history has created the distinct national identity which sustained the Lithuanian people during the decades of occupation. After the chapter on the evolution of homo sovieticus, its legacy is studied in a survey of Lithuania's domestic politics between 1991-1994. This chapter, however, extends until 1996 to demonstrate the changing political fortunes during the first post-Soviet years. Interlinking chapters on foreign and security policy appraise Lithuania's attempts to rejoin the international community and acquire an effective security guarantee. The influence of the presence of homo sovieticus is again noted both here and in the final chapter, devoted to Lithuania's transition to a market economy. The thesis concludes that while enormous strides were taken between 1991-1994 to return Lithuania to her pre-Occupation status, the damage caused by fifty years of the Soviet Occupation had created unforeseen obstacles which led to complications in the process of rebirth, many of which will be unsurmountable in the immediate future.

No description available.

Once regarded as a vibrant centre of intellectual, cultural and spiritual Jewish life, Lithuania was home to 240,000 Jews prior to the Nazi invasion of 1941. By war's end, less than 20,000 remained. Today, 4,000 Jews reside there, among them 108 survivors from the camps and ghettos and a further 70 from the Partisans and Red Army. Against a backdrop of ongoing Holocaust denial and a recent surge in anti-Semitic sentiment, this thesis presents the history and experiences of a group of elderly survivors in modern-day Vilnius through the lens of their stories and memories, their special places and their biographical objects. Incorporating interdisciplinary elements of cultural anthropology, social geography, psychology, narrative and sensory ethnography, it is informed, at its core, by an overtly spiritual approach. Drawing on the essentially Hasidic belief that everything in the material world is imbued with sacred essence and that we, as human beings, have the capacity through our actions to release that essence, it explores the points of intersection where the individual and the collective collide, illuminating how history is lived from the inside. Glimpses of the personal, typically absent from the historical record, are afforded prominence here: a bottle of perfume tucked into a pocket before fleeing the ghetto, a silent promise made beside a mass grave, a pair of shoes fashioned from parachute material in the forest. By tapping the material for meaning, a more embodied, emplaced, experiential level of knowing, deeper and richer than that achieved through traditional life history (oral testimony and written documents) methods, can emerge. In moving beyond words and gathering a bricolage of story, legend, artefact, document, monument and landscape, this research suggests a multidimensional historiography that is of particular relevance in grasping the lived reality of survivors in Lithuania where only the faintest traces of a once thriving Jewish heritage now remain.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 1990. / Thesis Advisor(s): Tsypkin, Mikhail ; Breemer, Jan S. "December 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on March 30, 2010. DTIC Descriptor(s): USSR, Security, Theses, Lithuania, Momentum, Baltic Countries, Estonia, Latvia, Europe, Equations. DTIC Identifier(s): Baltic States, European Security, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Balance Of Power, Post Cold War Era, History, International Relations, Theses. Author(s) subject terms: Baltic Question, European Security, Soviet Union, Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-108). Also available in print.

This paper is a case study of Soviet political influences on Lithuanian archaeology. The work explores the application of central political rules of the Soviet Union to Lithuanian archaeology and analyses the consequences of these applications in the Post-Soviet period. The result of the study reveals that under Soviet policy, Lithuanian archaeologists developed a highly descriptive tradition. In Post-Soviet Lithuania, archaeologists continue to practice the descriptive tradition and rarely engage in theoretical debates. The work suggests possible explanations and solutions to the current problems in Lithuanian archaeology.

No description available.