Klaipėdos universitetas

The paper aims to analyse various aspects of interdependence between the nationality and the citizenship of the residents of Klaipėda region by restricting the analysis to the political and economic factors of the 20th c. The analysis was carried out on the basis of little known archival materials. The article seeks to prove that nationality and citizenship, as the principal forms of the identity expression, have not always been a matter of free self-determination; they would frequently change depending on the external political and ideological pressure.

The aim of this article is to deconstruct the notions of blood and blood-kinship or Lithuanian descent, as it is understood in state institutions that apply the Lithuanian Law on Citizenship in practice. In particular the article will discuss how the state classifies people, how it fixes or destroys its relations towards different ethnic groups, and what ideas and criteria are employed in fixing this relationship. The starting point of this study is the Law on Citizenship, which creates or destroys the relationship of the state toward individuals and communities. I will not only deal with the textual representations of the Law on Citizenship, but will also take a look at the discussions in the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania while the Law of Citizenship has been processed and will present the opinions of politicians who were active in passing it. I will also try to show the instrumentality of the ideas around the notion of descent which in my point is more cultural rather than biological.