On historical research – unprecedented struggle: there was talk of attempts by a very clear group to seize

At the beginning of the week, Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Director of the Institute of History, Loreta Skurvydaitė, Dean of the Vilnius University Faculty of History, Vasilijus Safronovas, Director of the Department of History and Archeology of the Baltic Region, Klaipėda University, and Vytautas Magnus University

“The available data suggest that the change of direction of the director general of the center in the summer of 2020 was not determined by the academic opinion of scientists, but by a politicized approach to sensitive and socially disruptive past events, ignoring basic criticisms of history sources, “they said.

Center staff, who approached LGGRTC head Adas Jakubauskas, also expressed public concern about the center’s activities. The center’s specialists noted that the center has a tense emotional climate, and experienced historians leave their work under pressure from management. Following this public address, Vidmantas Valiušaitis, Senior Adviser to the Director General, announced his resignation. According to staff at the center, a special position was created for him.

V. Valiušaitis, who resigned from the radio news program “Question of the day” and received public criticism, assured that the current situation is a sabotage. For his part, journalist Vytautas Bruveris pointed out that important but still unanswered historical questions and people of certain ideologies who are gaining too much political and institutional power in search of answers to sensitive and unanswered historical questions are becoming the axis of the problems. .

The core of the problem is clear

“The turmoil is understandable because things are important, especially these issues. These questions of history are unresolved, they are not put on our shelves, we, as a society and as a State, do not agree on them. The central issue in this context is the Nazi occupation, the Holocaust, the extent and nature of the participation of Lithuanian society and the puppet or “parallel” government in the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation, and the staining of that participation in that uniform resistance.

These issues are unresolved, these issues worry and excite part of society, mainly because a large part of society rejects these issues. It is these passions, various emotions that constantly arise periodically, signaling both the scale and the regularity, sometimes even stagnation, where we find ourselves as a society and as a State ”, defined V. Bruveris.

The journalist assured that he fully supports the historians who have questioned the activities of the LGGRTC.

“This center was not before a completely neutral institution from the political point of view, it usually obeyed and fluctuated with the general line of the party, the line of the party, I mean, the right side of society and the side of the elite Politics In most cases, he sought to behave in a manner that was particularly politically correct for that patriotic right. mainstream context, but this was not so noticeable.

Recently, in the second half of the last legislature, he was finally overwhelmed by a tendency of the right wing political wing, leaning towards a radical and highly primitive understanding of patriotism, instrumentalizing history for information wars and the like, seeing his mission to defend against anti-hostile in every attempt to critically raise the issues I spoke about at the beginning of the speech.

It is this trend, this political field has simply taken over this institution, which should be an institution of science, research and overwhelmed through specific people. It is natural that these questions have begun to be raised clearly, they are also being raised by the scientific community, the staff of the center itself ”, assured V. Bruveris.

He stressed that the tensions and bubbles inside the center due to the politically authoritarian and dictatorial treatment of the center’s staff by the new management and the directions of his investigation were known to him for a long time, but now it has exploded in public.

Valiušaitis: this is propaganda and sabotage

V. Valiušaitis, reacting to the articles and speeches that appeared in public space, assured that this is propaganda. According to him, all hits to the center are supported Currant arguments.

“Not a single quote or single fact would show what Valiušaitis did so specifically that it would have restricted the work of these scientists. No date got me out. I also say that yes, this question is not resolved, there are many things unanswered, they need to be scientifically investigated, the facts must be placed side by side and interpreted, and those things must be clarified in the scientific discussion. V. Valiušaitis explained.

V. Valiušaitis, as Senior Advisor to the Director General, emphasized that the dissatisfaction of the LGGRTC staff was caused by an attempt to review the activities of the center and the use of finances.

“I can name this situation as a kind of sabotage by the leadership of the research department. The leadership of the Research Department began to sabotage the new director from his first day on the job. In the meetings that were held to discuss our issues, I saw who do not get involved, do not get involved in the discussion of the problem, ignore and constantly show in body language that they are dissatisfied, but do not express what they are dissatisfied with.

Things are very simple: the team arrived that first tried to calculate the economic costs, they looked at how public money is used, how much the magazine costs, how much it costs the department, how much the research that is being done costs, how much is relevant. The strange question is that people are now raising the issue of managerial competence. For the first time, the institution is headed by a person from the academic world, a university professor who understands how the academic system works. Nobody questioned when the institution was directed by a biologist ”, he said.

V. Valiušaitis noted that no one had previously asked whether the previous managers were suitable or not.

Problem elsewhere?

V. Bruveris, responding to such position of V. Valiušaitis, affirmed that the problem lies elsewhere.

“It’s a traditional way of saying that everyone who is active, who is unhappy with future progress, saving money and everything else because before there was an inefficient use of funds, everyone who was parasitized, they don’t know what worked. and a new dynamic. A well-understood management has arrived and all the dark and evil forces rebelled, and a kind of propaganda apparatus was installed that contained the propaganda spokesmen (..)

Seriously, we are not all translated to young children, we all understand everything perfectly here. It is a group, a group of very clear-minded people who have recently gained considerable political and institutional power. He has long been known to all: members of the Seimas from the camp of the radical conservative right, whose most prominent leaders are Azubalis, young Saudargas, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, let’s say, peasants, the main ruling forces at that time, president of the Commission of Fight for Freedom, Eugenijus Jovaiša. They gathered everything under their wings propatrijinį youth: radical, right, active, noisy. Ideologically, these people are perfectly clear. Mr. Valiušaitis also belongs to the ideological-political field, “said V. Bruveris.

V. Valiušaitis assured that such speeches are intolerable. “His attitude is very strange,” commented V. Valiušaitis, asking if some opinions were better than others.

“I do not arm myself with state institutions and political power, and I do not try to make them an element of state policy,” Bruveris replied.

“The Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience for everyone. We have the right to think. If we think in any way, then we cannot act in public space?” Reacted V. Valiušaitis.

“People like you, who have unfortunately gained too much political and institutional power recently, are of the opinion that history, and especially the themes of history that we have been talking about, must be politically instrumentalized and protected from all attacks by hostile influences.” Said Mr. Bruver.

V. Valiušaitis emphasized that he is being attacked simply for his opinions. At the same time, he told me about the circumstances in which he came to work at the center.

“It just came to our attention then. I would like you to take one of my articles and make a quote about the fact that you misrepresented. What you said is a continuous interpretation. This is your opinion. You take me as a constant, a person with points of You see it wrong and you interpret it accordingly: that person cannot hold a position, cannot judge history, he is not a historian. My greatest reproach for what attacked me is that he is not a historian (..)

Adas Jakubauskas has known me since Sąjūdis times and I came back from vacation – call me: listen, you will come to my team. I say that I did not come because I have a position in my current job. That says maybe part, maybe half of the job. I consulted with my management, he says well if he wants, “he said.

Guilty ideology?

“The main reason is ideological: it is not convenient for people to have these opinions and here are the things that have been raised, some economic problems, cargo problems, there has been no alignment of what is being investigated with the management. This is a man from the academy, he immediately tells how it can be that the planning of an institution is carried out without the knowledge of management. It was an attempt to combine that. Nobody wanted to impose themselves.

I’d like to hear the fact, what has this leadership done to narrow your field of inquiry? I just wanted the management to participate in the discussion. There was no such tradition. One more thing: there has not been and is not yet any cooperation between departments. This is a direct violation of the law ”, defended V. Valiušaitis his position.

According to V. Valiušaitis, the scandal was caused by only four people who work at the center, all the others who support them, in his opinion, are only statistical. Journalist V. Bruver disagreed.

“In my opinion, the point is what Valiušaitis himself was talking about: he says, people with such views are not suitable. Don’t exclude a persecuted minority. Nobody is chasing you for non-Soviet times, I hope. The bottom line is that like-minded people cannot have the same power in a democratic society and use it the way you tried to exercise it.

Here are the great and broad trends of society as a whole. This trend, represented by Mr. Valiušaitis and others, would also be half the problem. The main problem is that he has recently acquired too much unacceptable political-instrumental power, which he has used in his understanding and behind which, in my opinion, many of our society and the political elite, the military elite, support him. . That is the big problem and the danger here, ”said V. Bruveris.