Tiltai

This study examines the influence of historical imprints on attitudes towards volunteering among Lithuanians. Using imprinting theory, we explored how the historically evolved Soviet imprints have influenced modern attitudes toward formal volunteering. Quantitative data analysis (N=358) revealed that some Soviet imprints might have decayed, while some were strong enough to survive until modern times to affect attitudes towards formal volunteering. This study examined three Soviet attitudinal imprints: negative attitudes towards non-governmental organisations, external power primacy, and the authoritarian outlook. The results showed that while some imprints might have decayed, some have survived until today. Our findings underscore the enduring impact of Soviet imprints, and suggest that addressing these historical influences is crucial for enhancing volunteering among citizens of post-Soviet regions.

In this article there are being analyzed the natural and social economic structures of Lithuanian coastal strip. The research is based on survey about the hindrances and proposed suggestions for sustainable development. There are presented authors’ results about geographic profile of Lithuania’s coastal region, degree of exploitation and processes of spatial planning, suggestions for improvement of sustainable development of coastal strip. There are distinguished the types of bad examples as institutional, projects related, shortage of financial issues, private housing and the types of good examples as legislative, institutional, projects related, NGOs related for exploitation and sustainable development of coastal strip.

This article presents the review of the development of Lithuanian higher schools during the Soviet period. Chronological data of establishment and transformations of Lithuanian high-schools in 1940–1990 are presented, beginning with the Soviet occupation and ending with the Revival events. The article highlights the structure and specifics of Soviet Lithuanian high-schools, the content of specialists training, provisions of science and studies. Chronologically integral, comprehensive scientific works about higher education development in Soviet Lithuania have not been prepared yet. Most of the information about this period is provided by individual archival documents, Soviet periodical press, commemorative books, different high school publications on the history of their institution, as well as individual researchers memoirs, some features of the development of higher education are revealed in individual scientific works. This article provides an summarized material of various authors and sources and integral analysis of Lithuanian higher education during the Soviet period.

The western European powers and their allies, including the Baltic States, were more concerned about the unavoidable economic losses of war, while Germany was a prisoner of its delusions about the potential economic advantages of war. The commanders of the Lithuanian army benefited from some tactical lessons during the Klaipėda crisis. The first and most important lesson was that it was nearly impossible to defend the country without some impact on the society as a whole and on the mobilisation of the economy. In reality, only a few units could be activated, and even those available to provide road cover had a shortage of personnel and modes of transport. The commanders realised that even if they were to develop plans for mobilisation, the implementation of those plans could not be assured, as the enemy forces were significantly more advanced technologically. The danger of a politically motivated delay or demands by a foreign country would postpone any plans and make mobilisation too late. The analysis of the principal problems demonstrated that the main issues were not even grounded in the clear technological advantages or differences between the Lithuanian and other armies. Quite the opposite: the most important problems were related to slow planning, a lack of coordination, late communications, and unclear subordination in the chain of command. Not less problematic was the basic discipline of the commanding officers, as well as a lack of political resolve in the climate of authoritarian dictatorship which paralysed the whole decision-making process. This combination determined the system’s outlook and its capacity to resist a foreign, that of German Reich’s, invasion in 1939.

This paper discusses recently published data on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) extracted from Stone Age burials in Lithuania in a broader European context, and data from modern Lithuanians on the basis of recent literature. Several major processes (initial Palaeolithic colonisation, recolonisation after the LGM and Younger Dryas cold relapse, the spread of the Neolithic, and possible small-scale migrations in the Eneolithic age) could have left traces on the modern gene pool. From four Lithuanian samples where data on mtDNA were available, one (Spiginas 4) belonged to haplogroup U4, and three (Donkalnis 1, and Kretuonas 1 and 3) to U5b2. In total, out of 17 individuals from Central and East European non-farming cultures (Mesolithic and Neolithic Ceramic, spanning a period from circa 7800 BC to 2300 BC), a majority of them had mtDNA type ‘U’. An exceptionally high incidence of U5-types (more than 45%) occurs among the modern Saami (Lapps) of northern Scandinavia, perhaps the closest modern European equivalent of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Genetic time estimates based on modern mtDNA have suggested that the U5-type arose by mutation about 50,000 to 40,000 years BP. This age implies that around the glacial maximum 20,000 years BP, U5 types were already present and could have repopulated Central and northern Europe as soon as northern areas were deglaciated. Both western (Franco-Cantabrian) and eastern (Pontic) refugia could be sources of this repopulation. In the recent Lithuanian population, U5 and U4 haplogroups are infrequent. The mtDNA homogeneity observed across modern Europe is a more recent phenomenon, less than 7,000 years old, according to these ancient mtDNA results. We can refer to the third millennium BC, internal European migrations from the Eneolithic that significantly modified the genetic landscape, as a time window little explored by archaeogeneticists. The imprecise chronology of mtDNA mutations should in the first instance be based on audited archaeological sources.