Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 38 (2019): Creating Modern Nation-States in the Eastern Baltic = Šiuolaikinių tautinių valstybių kūrimas rytiniame Baltijos jūros regione, pp. 117–128
Abstract
Estonia was a post-imperial country where the question of how to develop a citizen loyal to the new nation-state arose after the First World War. Seen by some as being composed of the ‘best part of the Estonian nation’, the army was considered to be a good tool for the effective training of citizens. In order to fulfil the idea of the army as a ‘school of nation’, the crucial issues were the creation of its own military traditions, language policy, and the education of personnel. The leadership of the army tried to eliminate the influence of the former Imperial Russian army, invented new military traditions in the national spirit, and actively cultivated nationalist ideas. The article analyses the education of Estonian military personnel in this regard, discussing how nationalism, language policy, cultural training and history lessons helped to embody the vision of the army as the school of nation.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 20 (2010): Studia Anthropologica, IV: Identity Politics: Migration, Communities and Multilingualism, pp. 112–122
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the growing concern over the treatment of multilingualism in the main cities of Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda) with the focus on the population’s national identity and self-consciousness identifying the prospects of preserving the language-related national identity. The main problem seems to be deciding on which language of instruction would be most beneficial to balanced communication. This is a task requiring thoughtful planning and is surrounded by debate. Somebody prefer instruction only in the official language, but some aim to foster linguistic and thus social diversity by encouraging teaching in several languages, emphatically amplifying the English.