Lietuvių tautinio tapatumo raiška antrojo pasaulinio karo pabėgėlių stovyklose, remiantis Šiaulių "Aušros" muziejaus medžiaga

LTDėl įvairių istorinių aplinkybių šiandien daugiau kaip vienas milijonas lietuvių tautybės žmonių gyvena už Lietuvos ribų. Pirmoji masinės emigracijos banga iš Lietuvos plūstelėjo XIX a. pab. – XX a. pr., antroji – po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo ir Pirmosios Lietuvos Respublikos laikais, trečiąjį išeivių srautą sudarė Antrojo pasaulinio karo pabaigoje besitraukiantys į Vakarus nuo sovietinės okupacijos. Atkūrus Lietuvos Nepriklausomybę 1990 m., prasidėjo ketvirtoji masinės emigracijos banga, kuri tebesitęsia iki šiol [p. 25].

ENDue to many different historical circumstances, more than one million of ethnic Lithuanians and people of Lithuanian descent nowadays live outside the Lithuanian border. The first wave of mass emigration from Lithuania arose in late 19th – early 20th c., the second one – after World War I and during the period of the First Republic of Lithuania, while the third flow of emigrants consisted of those who at the end of World War II retreated to the West in order to escape Soviet occupation. After the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990, the fourth mass emigration wave started and it still lasts up to this day. National cultural heritage scattered among the foreign lands is periodically coming back to the homeland. The first shipment of books from the United States reached Šiauliai “Aušros” museum in 1990. The most abundantly museum’s collections were supplemented in the period 1992–1998. Currently, “Aušros” museum counts over five thousand items related to Lithuanian diaspora. The collection comprises of a variety of books, periodicals and encyclopaedias, event posters, photographs, and documents.The present article provides another view of the museum collections, consisting of materials revealing the life of Lithuanians in the Displaced Persons (hereinafter also referred to as DP) camps, where everybody who retreated to the West at the end of World War II, was forced to stop. Lithuanians who found a shelter in different DP camps, attempted to discover new ways to live cultural- social life, to preserve ethnic and cultural values. They created professional, cultural and social organizations, educational and academic institutions, organized publishing of books and periodicals, established artistic groups and ensembles. The materials from Šiauliai “Aušros” museum’s collections witness, that the vast intensity of cultural and educational activities of Lithuanians in DP camps enabled to maintain Lithuanian identity and compensate the longing for the lost homeland. The life of Lithuanians during the DP period can be called as a continuation of the independent Lithuania’s living conditions in exile.