1972 metų įvykiai Kaune šaltojo karo kontekste ir jų įtaka lietuviškai kultūrai

ENThis article is an attempt to provide some insights into the impact of Romas Kalanta’s self-immolation on Lithuanian national consciousness and social processes . The events of 1972 are analysed in broader historical and international context, stressing that Kalanta himself was influenced by cultural tendencies and his deed was a symptom of the deep international processes that eventually dismantled the Communist system. The article is based on the theory of International Relations and archival data. Despite such events as Kalanta’s self-immolation, the situation in the Communist Bloc seemed to be stable. The end of Communism was unexpected to most Sovietologists and other scholars in Social sciences. This could be explained by the relative success of the Iron Curtain and Soviet propaganda, as well as the fact that the analysis of the security of the Communist system was mainly focused on the military dimension. From the military point of view USSR seemed to be a powerful state. However, Barry Buzan’s typology , according to which political units are divided into strong or weak pow ers (according to their resources and armed forces) and into strong or weak states, can help to ground the claim that USSR, while being a strong power, was a weak state. Even though the USSR was not vulnerable to military threats it was not immune to the threats of political and social nature. Data obtained from the KGB archives serves as evidence showing that the Soviet authorities were aware of the Western influence in the LSSR and its threat to the Soviet regime. These data also confirm another insight found in the theory of International Relations, namely, that the Cold War was going on on several levels; Fred Halliday, a theorist of International Relations, claims that the Cold War had three levels - the interstate level, the economical level and the ideological-cultural level.Halliday claims that it was the ideological-cultural level that conditioned the fall of Communism. Using this model it is possible to interpret the deed of Kalanta as one of the manifestations of ideological-cultural confrontation between two competing political systems. The claim is made that Romas Kalanta for Lithuanian youth was the embodiment of a cultural symbol that united the values of the Western consumer society with national ideals and national values. This cultural symbol had an impact on national consciousness - Romas Kalanta became a national hero.