Hacker News Reader

Comment by kbart | Hacker News Reader

I was born and live in Lithuania. No, we don't have much in common with Russia. Sure, being occupied by Russia left some scars, but culturally and ethnically we are totally separate nation. USA and Mexico has about the same in common as we do with Russia. There are big Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia, smaller in Lithuania, but that's another topic.

EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.

View on HN

> EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.

There was no "150 years of occupation", AFAIK even Lithuania's government officially talks only about 50 years of occupation by USSR. And most of the countries that were part of USSR managed to keep their identities (basically everyone apart from Belarus), so integration efforts haven't really that "huge".

"There was no "150 years of occupation"

50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0]

"integration efforts haven't really that "huge"."

Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe Siberian winters), total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3], oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing against occupant government[4]. In my dictionary, that amounts to "huge" easily.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania#Under_Imp...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithu...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithu...

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB

Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia by 1795, the final step in partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1800's was a period of Russification, revolts, and crushing of those revolts.

Then, in World War I, Lithuania gained independence again in 1918.

That's >120 years of occupation or foreign rule.

Then Lithuani lost independence again, to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940, was rolled over twice in the course of WWII, and finally became independent again in 1991. That's another 50 years.

In Finland, we have a saying "We're not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians; let us be Finns". Same seems to apply to Baltic states.

I haven't followed up the development in Lithuania in particular, but Estonia had roughly the same population in 1959 as it had in 1939. The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals).

This is a fairly huge "integration effort", if we use that euphemism.

> Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia by 1795 > ... > That's >120 years of occupation or foreign rule. Especially in the era of colonialism/imperialism.

You are right, but foregin rule does not amount to occupation. Also, none of the "big players" in Europe has perfectly good consciousness with regards to borders, so we generally disregard everything that happened before 20th century. I understand that it's painful for smaller nations, but this is exactly the reason WWI happened, and we don't want that to return.

> I haven't followed up the development in Lithuania in particular, but Estonia had roughly the same population in 1959 as it had in 1939. The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals). > This is a fairly huge "integration effort", if we use that euphemism.

Yep, that's the famous "soviet reshuffling". People were incentivised to move to other regions. That was mostly done with positive things though, e.g. young family could get a free flat if they moved to other SSR. Also, drafts would usually send soldiers far from home, so that they could get to know a new region (and many stayed there after getting out of millitary).

Your explanation "The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals)." doesn't seem to be supported by facts though. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia we get 992,520 Estonians in 1934 and 892,653 in 1959. The 10% difference could be accounted if you take into account people that died in WWII, those that have emigrated when soviets came, reshuffling that I mentioned and just people claiming to be russians (which was a thing).

If you have other sources or more in-depth research, I would absolutely love to read it.

> That was mostly done with positive things though

Yeaaah... Like fill up space 'vacated' by people sent to Siberia or killed in Holodomor.

Totally positive things.

> 50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0]

Lithuania in fact was part of Russian Empire. That does not classify it as occupation. There is no mention of occupation in your article, nor it is called an occupation by Lithuanian government. Also, it's a bad idea to revision 19th century Europe, as pretty much every country (that existed at that time in Europe) had done some pretty outrageous things then (by modern standards).

> Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe Siberian winters)

Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet integration efforts? That obviously was a terrifying thing to do, but was completely irrelevant to russification/integration.

Also, the wiki article that you provide as a source quotes 28,000 that died in exile out of 130,000, that makes your statement about most of them dying in Siberian winters false (not that it has anything to do with this discussion anyway).

> total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3]

As for the press ban link, it's a bit misleading here, because what was actually banned in Russian Empire was Latin alphabet, which of course targeted newly acquired Polish/Lithuanian territories, but you were still allowed to publish books in Lithuanian language in cyrillics (and that was done). So, it was more of a language reform than a total ban of its usage.

In fact, this is pretty similar to how Japan after WWII tried to move from its Kanji hieroglyphical writing (which was associated with communist China) to romaji/latin (which was associated with their new allies - US).

> oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing against occupant government

Police in Russian Empire was ready to silently get rid of anybody standing against government, period. That has nothing to do whether that anybody happened to be/live in Vilnius or Moscow. Also, political oppression and scare tactics are pretty much irrelevant to discussion about russification/sovietization/integration efforts.

"Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet integration efforts?"

Because most of those deported were well educated people -- teachers, doctors, engineers etc. and their families. It was done to get rid of any influential people with authority, that could teach others and later cause problems. It's much easier to control uneducated people, especially when there's nobody around to counter-argument propaganda. Also, deported population was replaced by immigrant Russians. The rest of your comment is nitpicking not worth discussing.

> It was done to get rid of any influential people with authority, that could teach others and later cause problems.

I do not argue, that people were deported for political reasons. However, we were discussing cultural integration/assimilation, so I assume you imply that people were deported to prevent that. That's not the case though. There were three big waves of departations:

1. 1941, Soviets just came and were preparing for war. They didn't want to have near the front line people who might be less-than-patriotic, so they deported policemen, politicians, religious leaders, etc. Sort of how US sent Japanese to camps after Pearl Harbor.

2. 1944, Soviet forces reached Lithuania again and war was still raging, so they deported Lithuanian partisans, remaining Baltic Germans and so on. Again, they did not target teachers, doctors etc specifically.

3. 1948, war is over and Soviets are trying to implement collectivization - distribution of wealth and property, but many wealthy people resist. So, they are deported as well. These were mostly farmers as collectivization was mostly about abolishing private farms and making them comunal. Yet again, people haven't been targeted here for being "too Lithuanian" or refusing to speak Russian.

You are nitpicking facts again. Neither of your three points explain why artists, especially writers, were deported. Also, deporting might serve more than one purpose, so it might be both to get rid of political dissidents and help russification. Honestly, your comments sound just like classics from troll factory rule book: take some unimportant aspects of an argument and draw an opponent down the spiral discussing minor details to bury the original topic (which, let me remind you, was a) Baltic states are separate nations from Russia and b) were occupied by it).

> a) Baltic states are separate nations from Russia and b) were occupied by it).

I actually agree with both of these points. In fact, these are just basic facts, what's there to discuss?

But if you say "here is fact X and I prove it by Y" where X is true and Y - exagerration or outright falsehood, why is it wrong to challenge Y? I actually find this a form of trolling, because if you continue slipping an untrue with well known facts often enough, then some people might start thinking - that other thing must be true as well.

> Neither of your three points explain why artists, especially writers, were deported.

That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or writers that have been deported. Could you please name some of them? That would indeed invalidate my argument.

(Btw, this - learning something new - is exactly why I am trying to have a discussion at all, it's nice when people answer with facts, even if these facts change your position, instead of useless rhetorics.)

"That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or writers that have been deported."

I can't find source in English, but it's a well known fact taught in school in Lithuania. You can find it in on Lithuanian Wikipedia page[0], that states: "Iš viso sovietų valdžios buvo įkalintas ar deportuotas 81 lietuvių rašytojas."

My translation: "a total of 81 Lithuanian writers were imprisoned or deported by Soviet government".

To name few, well-known writers: Antanas Miškinis, Kazys Boruta, Kazys Jakubėnas. Of course, officially they received some formal accusations. Other writers were forced to write pieces glorifying Lenin, Stalin, Soviet Union and their heroes or be imprisoned/deported too. Some obeyed to avoid ill fate.

0. https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lietuvi%C5%B3_literat%C5%ABra

Thanks for the information.

> Of course, officially they received some formal accusations.

Well, according to Lithuanian wikipedia, Antanas Miškinis has been a member of partisan movement, which can't really be dismissed as "formal accusation". More interestingly both Kazys Boruta and Kazys Jakubėnas have been imprisoned multiple times during the Lithuanian independence for political reasons. Kazys Boruta even has been exiled for both Lithuania and Latvia! I guess he haven't been sent to Siberia only because neither of Lithuania or Latvia had their own Siberia.

Am I again being nitpicky? Is it only bad when Soviets do it?

Soviets targeted teachers too. Well, whoever they presumed would be opposed to occupation and/or pro-independence. Coincidentally, that was most of the educated people. Teachers, doctors, architects, lawyers...

My grandgrandparents were on the list just because they were teachers in a small town. They didn't end up in Siberia just because some of their ex-students ended up in local police and pulled strings to remove them from the list. They were kicked out of their jobs and had to work shitty jobs for the rest if their lives though.

A remote relative was a lawyer. Small time solicitor in small town in the middle of nowhere. Direct ticket to Siberia. Eventually he was allowed to leave Siberia, but not allowed to settle in Lithuania. He did get permission to get back to Lithuania late in life though.

Neither of them actively supported anti-Soviet resistance or Nazis. Not wealthy either, unless you count a small townhouse in province towns as wealth. They got in trouble just because they were educated and seemed to be a threat to Soviet establishment.

user: nj923f

created: 1 hour ago

karma: 3

about:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-...

Or a Russian living in Latvia and uneasy about all the flames "Ruskies" are getting in their former empire. Probably little point in arguing and even less in accusations of shilling for Putin.

> As for the press ban link, it's a bit misleading here, because what was actually banned in Russian Empire was Latin alphabet

Today I've learned that Ukrainian language uses Latin alphabet...

More wonders from Russian state-sponsored history.

The U.S. and Mexico have a lot in common. Seriously. A lot. A good portion of the U.S. was Mexico. The U.S. Southwest and the Mexican El Norte are in many ways more like each other than the other parts of the U.S. or Mexico.

So you might want to pick a different pair of countries.

For instance, the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania portion of the U.S. probably has more in common with Russia than Lithuania has in common with it. There are nearly ten times more ethnic Russians in New York City (600k) than there are in Vilnius (62k).

>says a lot of how different we are. //

Yet we all live and love, eat drink, sleep. We all laugh and cry, breed and bleed.

Humanity needs to focus on what unifies us rather than what separates us.

Saying this is essentially dismissing someone else trying to correct the ignorance that Estonia, Latvia, etc. are the same or have similar cultures. This isn't highlighting differences any more that someone correcting someone else that USA and Mexico are not the same countries because they were both colonialozed by europoean countries.

I'm not dismissing it.

Where I am people have a centuries past idea that our neighbouring regions are our enemy, we're so different, look hire different it cultures are. Having traveled more widely than is the norm here (an area of the UK) it seems very similar and the supposed differences in culture look like similarities.

It's like people tell me my kids are very similar in appearance, to me they seem very different. The differences in human culture in some areas are like "well they a clog dance wearing bells but we do it with ribbons, see how different we are".

We seem often to look for the differences and use them as a way to "other" people, that is to separate from them. I think we should be guarded towards that, particularly when the differences are things politicians have decided for us to emphasise and express.

I'll bet there are many similarities between people either side of USA borders. However, as you say you are then looking at long-term indigenous populations compared to more recent immigrants (European settlers). The cultural aspects influenced by conquistadors and those from French and British culture will bear some similarity, I'd expect.

Well, Latvia and Lithuania are not Slavic in culture, save the culture pushed on to them via Russian domination. Their languages are related to each other, but are completely different to the Russian (and other Slavic languages) being in a different branch of Indo-European, with almost the same relationship as say, French and Dutch have with each other. Their folk culture has similar roots, but then so does the culture of say, Romania - another Eastern country in Europe that is not Slavic. I know a bunch of Latvians, and they are very different to the Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs and Russians I know, both ethnically and in attitude to life in general.

To be honest, even lumping the Slavic cultures together isn't really satisfactory, because even the Czech/Slovaks I know are culturally quite different to the Poles, and they are from a similar region in Europe and speak languages that are relatively close to each other.

Estonia is even less related. Their language is in a different language family, same as Finnish, and their culture is again very different to Russian.

I'd be uncomfortable with erasing the entire cultures and identities of millions of people against their will and forcing them to only care about boring mammal-level similarities with strangers.

I love diversity. The idea of forcibly eliminating it like that gives me a terrible feeling.

"Humanity needs to focus on what unifies us rather than what separates us."

Sadly, humanity is not a one, big, happy family and you can't dismiss hundreds or thousands years of history to create one. Globalization is the first step towards unified world, but as we can see now, it doesn't work so well. It just doesn't happen overnight. The first thing to a better world should be accepting difference and stop trying to force our values on other people. Invading and occupying neighboring countries does not help to achieve that and divide world even more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com