Forced migrations from Lithuania during the Soviet period, 1940s - 1950s
ENForced migrations from Lithuania in the 1940s – 1950s form the bitterest part of the fifty-year Soviet domination period (1940 – 1990) and one of the most tragic chapters in Lithuanian history. Repressive uprooting of Lithuanians started immediately after Stalin’s annexation of Lithuania in June 1940. Mass deportations of people were carried out with brutal consistency in 1940 –41 and 1945– 1953, following each consecutive stage of sovietization from elimination of former bourgeois elites to suppression of nationalist resistance and collectivization of Lithuanian agriculture. In total, between 1940 and 1953 the Kremlin organized thirty-five large-scale deportations from Lithuania. As a result, according to contemporary estimates, between 125.500 and 130.000 people were exiled to Siberia, the Arctic North, Central Asia and other distant and sparsely populated areas of the U.S.S.R. Many of them never returned to their homeland. In this paper I will outline the main historical issues related to mass deportations from Lithuania as well as discuss their major sociopolitical dimensions. In the post-Soviet period the problem of Stalin’s forced migrations has already drifted far beyond the realm of historical research. Currently it affects contemporary international relations and geopolitics not just in the Baltics, but virtually in the entire post-Soviet space. Sadly, before this problem entered the minefield of international politics, it had not been fully researched by historians and experts in related fields. In the meantime, it is a real time-bomb under the international and domestic security in the Baltic States, Russia, and other formerly socialist countries.
