Klaipėdos universitetas

Archbishop Mečislovas Reinys is one of the most outstanding personalities of the 20th century. He was a professor, minister of foreign affairs, priest and martyr. Throughout his life, Reinys tried to spread the truths of the faith. The quest to protect both Lithuania and the whole of Western Europe from the collapse of civilisation after the loss of its Christian foundations led Reinys to the martyr’s crown. Although the articles published in the newspaper Naujoji Lietuva between 1940 and 1944 were rather conservative, they emphasise the tragedy of a society that has lost God as a landmark and a foundation. Reinys not only warned about the imminent catastrophe of Western Europe losing the basis of its civilisation, God and Christian values, but also called primarily for a cultural-ideological struggle using all possible weapons, because matter without spirit leads to destruction. It should be stated that Reinys’ written legacy is not collected and systematised today, and his articles published between 1940 and 1944 in the daily Naujoji Lietuva especially lack a detailed and critical scientific approach. In this article, I do not aim to critically assess Reinys’ statements, but look at them with an apologetic eye in order to analyse and actualise the main topic: the fight against godlessness. The first part of the article discusses the historical context that undoubtedly influenced the publication of these articles. The second part of the article examines the content of the articles published in the daily Naujoji Lietuva.

When examining the causes of the revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire, and the course it took, we always face not only social but also national factors. The resolution of national aspirations was intertwined with the social aspirations of the revolution, and we have to admit that national mobilisation would often lose to social mobilisation. This paper shows the interaction between those factors, mainly on the basis of the Ukrainian and Transcaucasian cases, and reveals how the development of events on national peripheries directly affected events at the centre, and vice versa. The social explosion of 1917 that broke out in Imperial Petrograd was echoed by a national mobilisation that forced the centre to make concessions to the peripheries. The subsequent success of the Bolsheviks, and the national disintegration on the peripheries, was affected by the balance created between the unique social project and national factors, as well as the readiness not to block the way to national sovereignty and cultures, provided governance in the national area was arranged in compliance with the Soviet model.