Augintiniai: atsikratymas vaikais sovietmečio Lietuvoje

LTAugintiniai – tai ne naminiai gyvūnėliai. Taip vadinti vaikai, kurie buvo palikti ar apleisti artimiausiųjų, taip pat ir tie, kurie niekada neužaugo. Šis dviprasmiškas pavadinimas neatsitiktinis – jis nurodo santykio su gyvybe bei silpniausiaisiais nesuderinamumą, kuriam apibūdinti augintinio metafora, rodos, tinka labiausiai. Dr. Ieva Balčiūnė bene pirmą kartą Lietuvos istoriografijoje drąsiai ir kompleksiškai atsigręžia į slepiamą, ignoruojamą, nematomą ir neretai pamirštamą šeimos gyvenimo pusę – sprendimą apleisti, atskirti, panaikinti vaikus. Knygoje atskleidžiamas tyrimas, kuris išryškina sprendimo prielaidas, situacijas ir tuos, kurie tokiu būdu sprendė asmenines, šeimos, visuomenės ar valstybės problemas. Svarbiausia šio tyrimo aplinkybė yra sovietinis režimas Lietuvoje, tad pasakojimas apima 1944–1990 metus. Pasitelkus daugybę šaltinių – sovietmečio publicistiką, sakytinius liudijimus, spausdintus prisiminimus, įvairių institucijų dokumentus, atveriamas nevienareikšmis laikmečio visuomenės pjūvis.

ENThe book analyzes the phenomenon of child abandonment in Soviet Lithuania from 1944, when the Soviet political regime was installed in Lithuania, up to 1990, when the country declared independence. The umbrella term "child abandonment" encapsulates modes of parental practices aimed at minimizing the costs (both material and immaterial) of having children, raising them, or avoiding having children altogether; these include neglecting children, putting childcare outside the family, or physical extermination: infanticide or artificial pregnancy termination. Four chapters in the book discuss different aspects of child abandonment to uncover the dominant causes and social circumstances behind the phenomenon as well as theoretical and practical modes of work employed by the state's social care institutions. I look at how parents, the state and society interacted in dealing with the problem of unwanted children and which solutions were used in practice. Statistical data presented in the book reveal the scope of the phenomenon and its dynamics. Finally, the book looks at public discourses around the abandonment of children to analyze how the problem was represented to the society and discuss the ideas and political aims behind those representations. Child abandonment has not been previously explored in Lithuanian historiography and only sporadically studied in other former Soviet countries, usually with a focus on separate issues: abortion, boarding schools, neglected children, etc. This study, meanwhile, draws on extensive sources to examine the problem comprehensively.The research is based on archival documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, the Council of Ministers, the Ministries of Education, Social Welfare, Health, the Ministry of the Interior, special commissions, and prosecutor's offices: orders, reports, resolutions, acts of inspection, internal correspondence, complaints and replies, analyses of various social campaigns, etc. The sources are complemented by published data and diaries, archival ego documents (letters), Soviet periodicals, oral history collected through semi-structured interviews. The assumption I draw on in order to organize these limited and sporadic, yet vastly diverse sources is that the attitude towards children is set by their perceived value. A child's value in society depends on the cultural context and may vary due to the social status of a family, the dominant ideology, personal relations, other emotional and social aspects. It is also closely tied to social, political processes and the state's policy on children and childhood. Therefore, child abandonment is analyzed as a part of the larger process of modernization and seen as partly shaped by the Soviet regime. This study uses several different meanings of value, exploring abandonment cases in light of a child's cultural, social, economic, ideological, etc. value to the parents and the state. The analysis reveals a rather pragmatic attitude towards children. Decisions to put children into care institutions were mostly motivated by economic, social conditions and a lack of opportunities to combine work, studies and childcare.Additionally, the Soviet regime propagated the authority of education and medical experts on child rearing at the expense of that of the parents, encouraging them to entrust children's education, care and, in some cases, overall upbringing to the state. As a result, some parents tended to delegate all parenting to care and education institutions and to lose interst in the child’s life after the transfer. Such situations indicate fractured emotional bonds within the family [p.246-248].