“Welcome to Lithuania”: G. Mažeikis – good Russians fight together with Ukrainian soldiers
Gintautas Mažeikis, professor of Vytautas the Great University (VDU), reflects on what the Soviet Union was: a house, a barrack or a communal apartment. Is the collapse of the USSR already over or is it still going on?
– The Soviet Union was called the common home of a large family of various nations. One fine day these nations gained independence. In 30 years, the Baltic countries became members of the EU and NATO, and in Ukraine since 2014 there is a war going on.
– I would compare the USSR not with a house, but rather with a communal apartment or a barrack. A house is a kind of mythology, order, sympathy, nostalgia, and a communal apartment is something you want to seize or leave. I remember how communal apartments were seized in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the 1990s. It is not worth comparing with a barrack, because everyone wants to leave it. The Baltic countries did not consider the possibility of seizing this apartment or the possibility of seizing you. Better to get out as soon as possible with the least consequences. Those who remained, thinking that a communal apartment is their common home, overestimated humanity (you remember how M. Bulgakov wrote: “… ordinary people really… the issue of apartments only ruined them”). Empires always exist only because they seize new territories. What Ukraine is saying now, that it is impossible to negotiate with Russia, was discussed in Lithuania in 1990 and 1991, even under the leadership of B. Yeltsin, questions arose. Of course, Lithuania and the Baltic countries consulted, but fierce anti-Soviet supporters even then said that we needed to be vigilant, because it is a country (Russia – LB) with which it is very difficult to reach an agreement, and it is not clear how long these agreements will be valid. Even now, when Lithuania is already a member of the EU and everything in it – the Schengen zone, the euro zone and NATO, and it seems that it should be 100% because of that. guarantees, Lithuania nevertheless believes that NATO and the EU can maintain more intensive relations with the Baltic countries and Poland… If we look from the perspective of Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, we would see that these countries thought for a long time that something had happened. but maybe not completely, maybe yes, maybe otherwise. That everything can still be returned. Therefore, I agree with the few who say that the Soviet Union began to collapse in 2008. in Georgia, 2014 in Ukraine, and the end of the Soviet Union – 2022. Not for the Baltic countries, but for other former republics – the end, the beginning of the collapse of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the collapse of this organization is declared the point of this history.
Gintautas Mažeikis/Andriaus Aleksandravičius photo.
– One of the largest diasporas in Lithuania is the Russians, can it be said that Lithuania has already reeducated them?
– Here we are already entering the field of sociology, where it is necessary and possible to talk about the number of extreme leftists, extreme rightists, extreme nationalists or cosmopolitans, people who feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union, etc. Therefore, in public transport you can come across a representative of any group, and that’s normal. Abnormal is when a large percentage of a group, such as “ultras”, is observed outside of wartime: if it is more than 5% in Europe, it will be considered bad. In Lithuania, the extreme left has always fluctuated – approximately up to 1.5 percent, the extreme right – approximately up to 3 percent. until 2022 of war War always changes, civil war goes one way, predatory war goes the other. When you’re on the defensive, right-wing views become more important, and when there’s a protest, which can get very snotty, extreme left-wing views prevail. Around 2013-2014 a very sharp split occurred in the Russian-speaking diaspora. Many had to decide whether they were Russians, Belarusians or Ukrainians, Poles. Many did not fully understand who they were, their Russian speaking did not mean that they were Russian, they considered themselves Soviet people.
– And who is a Soviet man? Have you always been identified as Lithuanian?
– This is a mythological person. This is a man who believes in memories and mythology, he thinks that he is a Russian-speaking Soviet man, but he does not belong to anyone. If I came to Poland from Lithuania in the first years after the collapse of the Union, I was never confused with others there. A Lithuanian is a Lithuanian, whether he loves it or not is another question. The confusion originated somewhere in the United States. Where are you from? It is not clear from where, they have not even heard of such a country. I remember the one described. I was doing an internship at a university in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, and my family invited me to visit them. The children, hearing that I am from Lithuania, decided to find her. The parents explained that it was necessary to search by the Baltic Sea. However, it should be noted that the map looks different: the USA is in the center, and Euradalyta is divided into two hemispheres. Siberia has nothing to do with the European part of Russia, they are divided into separate continents. Therefore, Russia is greatly reduced on the map. Children find Lithuania, but they also find Russia, which is represented only by the Kaliningrad region. They don’t see the other part of Russia because it’s in another part of the map. They look at Russia and say to themselves: “Russia is so small, and it scares us so much. Look how small she is.”
Propaganda Russia spews similar statements about whatever it wants and wherever it wants.
– Russian mythology is based on the greatness of the territory, language, history, and culture. however, pseudo-empire can be misunderstood. Lithuanians immediately answered the question about the state language: it can only be Lithuanian.
– Of course, yes. I was recently in Warsaw at a conference on the perspective and future of Ukrainian culture. We considered the question of decolonization of Ukrainian culture, because there are many Soviet and Russian metastases, some, if not all, of which need to be removed and even destroyed. I was asked if there was also talk of decolonization in Lithuania. This topic did not catch on with us because there was no such strong colonization. In Lithuania, everything was clearly different because of surnames, first names, the literature written by Lithuanians was very different. Another thing is that Lithuanians also wrote Soviet literature. There are many ways to identify them. When we talk about Ukraine, we see a huge problem there: A. Pushkin, and J. Semionov, and J. Brodsky… To mention or not to mention, to talk about them or not to talk about them. A mixture of the most complex relationships. In principle, Ukraine can still carry out decolonization, it has this power. Compare, for example, with Belarusian culture. In Belarus, decolonization can end in its own death, because the ties are so strong that it will be necessary to leave cultural periods out of history. Language barriers in Ukraine have been removed. It is not the first conference I am attending, where everyone coming from Ukraine must not speak Russian, even if it is quite difficult for some. At the same time, at Belarusian conferences, three quarters of people speak Russian among themselves, for them language is not yet the most important factor. When back in 2014 Russia attacked Ukraine, Lithuania began to talk about how we conduct an information war against Russia. Then I said that the only means of defense is language. Therefore, the purer the Ukrainian language will be, the fewer options Russian propaganda will have.
– Russia announced that it may not recognize the treaty due to Lithuania’s independence. How serious is this and other statements?
– Propaganda Russia throws similar statements about whatever it wants and wherever it wants. This is because of Japan, and because of the fact that they will bomb Washington, about the fact that they will seize the Baltic states – endless delusions, I will not even talk about fighting mosquitoes. If we look at the Soviet experience of Russia, its historical experience, we pay attention to the civil war. At first, everyone thought that the civil war ended in 1922. However, I agree with those who say that the Gulag can be considered a continuation of the civil war. If we read the philosophy of the Gulag – the extermination of class enemies – then this civil war lasted until 1953-1956. According to other calculations, almost until 1988, when the last political camp in Perm was closed. The civil war went from pure gulags to the number of psychiatric hospitals. If earlier it was necessary to be deported to the Gulag, then later the diagnosis of “chronic schizophrenia” was written, and the classmates were sent to psychiatric hospitals. Until 1984, such hospitals existed in Lithuania. issued so-called wolf tickets to anyone who tried to escape from the Soviet army. That is, they changed their profile for a long time: instead of being repressive, they became resistant. Of course it had to do with corruption and other things. During the Soviet era, even psychiatric hospitals in the Baltic countries and Lithuania often tried to work in a different regime than prison criminal psychiatric hospitals.
– Is the name “good Russians” legal? Is there such a thing?
– He is already legal. Many analysts are now studying, for example, the story in Latvia with the Dožd channel, which for a long time, along with Echo Moskvy, was an indicator of good liberal Russians who are good, intelligent, understand what is happening in the world. If we sacrifice them and listen to them, we would see what kind of changes are taking place in their demand, they cannot decide who owns Crimea: they call it one thing, another, they are intoxicated by “our Russian army”, they buy socks for their army… Of course, they will play , at least in Latvia, no matter what the Russian opposition says, which is everywhere – from Switzerland to the United States. Their example shows that “good Russians” (in quotes) are undecided. For me, good Russians are a February morning, those who are in Kyiv, who are fighting with Ukrainian soldiers and weapons, understand that V. Putin can be overthrown in a decent way. The “good” Russian liberals do not see any chance yet.
The project “Welcome to Lithuania” is partially financed by the Press, Radio and Television Support Fund.