Opposition Movements and the Birth of the Lithuanian national movement

Abstract

Vladimir Efremov, a Russian actor from Vilnius, quoted a line from a well-known song, ‘Our address is the Soviet Union’ (as opposed to a specific republic or province).1 Returning to Lithuania in autumn 1988, after a stage tour in Russia, he was completely taken aback by the pro-independence events of that summer. Justinas Marcinkevicius, a Lithuanian poet who symbolised national reawakening in 1988, said that for him national reawakening started in 1964, not in 1988, when he realised that to be Lithuanian meant to be against the Soviet Empire.2 These two statements can be seen as very much characteristic of their national groups. The majority of Russians tended to see Lithuania as a part of the Soviet Union at a time when Lithuanians had striven for independence.