Nationalism and nation building in contemporary Lithuania

ENLithuania, just like India is a postcolonial country. As postcolonial countries they share a crucial element in the struggles for freedom, or anti-colonial struggles – that is, nationalist movements, which were instrumental in attaining the independence. Lithuanian experiences, of course, are very different from the Indian ones, but India for almost two centuries was a colony of the British Empire, and Lithuania initially experienced Russian empire’s colonialism from the late 18th century till the end of the World War I, and later in the 20th century – as being incorporated into the Soviet Union. I am using these terms, though it is still debatable in academic circles if we could call Soviet Union a colonial empire similar to British, or French, and a post-Soviet period a postcolonial one (Kelertas 2006).