Klaipėdos universitetas

The paper develops the insights laid out in the chapter The Trauma of Nation’s De-localisation in the book Dramaturgy of National Identity (2005). In the contemporary world, delocalisation of nations is unavoidable and, in that sense, it represents a natural process of civilisation which reproduces national identity in a transnational form both in the country of emigration and of origin. However, for the nations with an incomplete story of territorial consolidation, the opening up to supra-nationalisation, emigration, and globalisation in general was unexpected and seemed infinite and destructive for the nation. The Lithuanian nation was affected by delocalisation, among other things, primarily by especially large-scale emigration. The nation is losing the feeling of integrity. Just 25 years ago, the ideal of the localisation of the nation – its concentration on a sovereign territory – prevailed. Global life economization, European supra-nationalization, and the failure to successfully complete the post-communist transformation dealt a blow to the national ideal that actualised “one’s own state”. The “breaking up” of the nation was so unexpected that even nationalism did not actualise ethnocentrism. It was expected to be just temporary costs of post-communist transformation. However, presently, we have increasingly more arguments to prove that the post-communist transitional period has expired, therefore, the current trends have long-term prospects. The de-localization of the Lithuanian nation takes place not really as a natural process of civilisation, but rather as a response to the mainly unsuccessful end of post-communism in Lithuania. The situation is to be characterised by the metaphor of trauma. Trauma is experienced at unexpected “discovery” of one’s own ethno-social disability (the term by R. Grigas) when one clings onto the traditional ethnocentric ideal of the nation and is unable to evaluate and project the delocalisation of the nation as a natural process of civilisation. The trauma implies the threat of a break in the building of national identity and the decline of the nation. For the Lithuaniannism to survive, it is necessary to “incorporate” a perspective of the network of its agents, open to transnationalism and stretching all over the world, into the content of the nation.

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.

The article analyses the transformations of the European science of philology in relation to the strengthening of nationalism, as well as the reflection of the trend in the context of East Prussia and Prussian Lithuania. The developments in comparative philology presupposed researchers’ interest in the studies of Baltic languages, Lithuanian in particular. The establishment of the Department of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Königsberg University both formed the tradition of academic Baltic studies and united the efforts of the intellectuals of East Prussia for the preservation of linguistic and ethnic-cultural heritage of Prussian Lithuania. The text Aus Baltischen Ländern by lawyer and cultural worker Ludwig Passarge is a characteristic example featuring the reflection of the ethnic-cultural model of Prussian Lithuanians against the background of predomination of comparative linguistics typical of the intellectual context of Europe in the 19th c.

The purpose of this article is to show the process by which Roma elite members actually construct political and cultural boundaries and at the same time propose a deterritorialised version of a Nation across state borders. As a result, the nation-building project and the process of ethnicisation promoted by Roma activists and members of the elite can be understood as a process of challenging borders and setting up boundaries. On the one hand, state borders may represent the barrier to surmount in order to accomplish an alliance based on a supposed ethnic category. On the other hand, the analysis of Roma identity and political strategies reveals the different forms of boundaries that may exist and how they may in fact be created and manipulated.

Since its origins, archaeoastronomy has been influenced by nationalist traditions in archaeology. This paper addresses the consequences of these political influences, considering several important questions: To what extent is this quest for past astronomies influenced by nationalist political agendas? How should those of us studying past astronomies respond to these external pressures? To what extent is comparatively recent ethnographic and folkloric evidence suitable for the recovery of past astronomies? The author considers that awareness of these influences and limitations is essential for any scholarly attempt to recover past astronomies.

This paper, extensively employs articles and studies by Lithuanian historians of the period that are regarded as a heritage of Lithuanian historiography, examines the national ideas and concepts of Lithuanian historians and concentrates on Lithuanian-Polish discussion on questions such as: How they understood nationalism? How they analysed and evaluated political programs for the re-establishment of statehood of Lithuania, i.e. for political autonomy of Lithuania and for Polish-Lithuanian federal state? What kind of arguments they used against the Polish territorial claims toward Vilnius and its district? What are the main features of Klimas’ concept of nationalism?