Classical scholarship in Lithuania at the beginning of the Soviet era: the struggle for survival

ENAfter the annexation of Lithuania by the USSR in 1940 and again in 1944 the majority of intelligentsia were either exiled to Siberia or fled the country to the West. The scanty intelligentsia that stayed in Lithuania had to revitalize the Classical studies under the severe circumstances of the post-war period and experienced hard spiritual and physical terror. The intellectuals were forced not only to follow the communist ideology, but also to demonstrate the advantages of the Soviet system and the exclusiveness of the Russian nation. The minutes of the Department of Classical Philology, kept at the Vilnius University Archives, bear witness to the University life at that time and give the best insight into mental ways that helped the Department and Classical Philology in Lithuania to survive. Preserved texts are pieces of rhetoric, a peculiar sort of Soviet second sophistic. Nobody, including the speaker, was supposed to believe in what was said. The majority of Lithuanian professors managed to combine conformism with the so-called "conservationism". The Department remained as a most important cultural factor in its efforts to preserve the European dimension of the Lithuanian culture.