Lietuvos idėja Aušroje
The idea of Lithuania in the newspaper Auszra

Summary/Abstract: This article presents major ideological postulates of the newspaper Auszra, which was often called a magazine and which was published in Prussia, but aimed at Lithuanians in the Russian Empire. I generalize those postulates under the term Idea of Lithuania. The article claims that Auszra embraced the majority of fundamental postulates characteristic of ethno-nationalism. The foundation of the Lithuanian linguistic community was comprised of peasants and intelligentsia. Part of Auszra’s editors fostered the hope that the Polish speaking nobility would be successfully returned to the Lithuanian nation. Dissociation from Polishness became the most important task in cleansing national Lithuanian identity. Certain minute anti-Semitic manifestations appeared on the newspaper pages, but those were isolated cases. Criticism of the Russian government was not frequent. Some of the editors anticipated that the imperial authorities would support Lithuanians against their common foe, the Poles. Even such things as lack of demarcation of national boundaries, indecisiveness in selection of a center for national Lithuanian activities (Kaunas vs Vilnius), and reiteration of loyalty to the imperial authorities, all attest that there was no program of political independence formulated on pages of Auszra as yet.

• Details
• Contents