Kodėl Vilniaus klausimu Stalinas buvo palankus lietuviams?

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Stalinizmas; Sovietizacija; Ideologija; Politika; Stalinism; Sovietisation; Ideology; Politics.

ENThe article discusses the issue that was debated in historiography before: Why did Stalin support the Lithuanians’ aspiration to get Vilnius back? It shows that in the mid-20th century Stalin’s favourable attitude to the Lithuanian nation was raised in Lithuanian communist apologetic literature. The propagandist thesis about Stalin as a friend and benefactor of the Lithuanian nation was useful for the Kremlin as it enabled it to mask complex geopolitical goals that determined Moscow’s decisions on the Vilnius issue for the benefit of the Lithuanian people. The article expresses an opinion that already before the First World War Lenin and Stalin discussed the issue of Lithuania’s autonomy as part of Russia, and the issue of the jurisdiction of Vilnius had to be raised in this context. Stalin’s decision in the autumn of 1939 to return Vilnius to Lithuania, planning at the same time to incorporate it in the USSR in the near future can be understood as the adaptation of the earlier “autonomisation” plan to the new conditions, giving formally occupied Lithuania the status of a Soviet republic. The goal of the Bolshevik leadership taking decisions concerning the Lithuanian capital city could have been influenced by the fact that Vilnius was surrounded by a compact Lithuanian-language area on three sides (starting several kilometres away from the city). The article emphasises that the war experience of Soviet Russia and reborn Poland in 1919–1921 revealed the importance of Vilnius in the conflict of a civilizational character between the Russians and Poles. In the article Stalin’s image in Lithuanian history school textbooks (partly also in geography textbooks) is also touched upon; the change of this image is shown (apologetics in the 1950s, hushing up in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and an absolutely negative image in present-day history textbooks). [From the publication]