Savo valstiečių beieškant. Dėl valstiečių simbolinio įpilietinimo Lietuvoje XIX a. pab.–XX a. pr.
In Search of Our Peasants. On the Process of Symbolic Peasant Integration in Lithuania (Late 19th Century – Early 20th Century)

Summary/Abstract: Between the late 19th century and the early 20th century Kościuszko functioned in the Polish discourse as a myth able to integrate both peasant masses and urban classes. In the Lithuanian lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), which directly depended on the Tsarist Empire, the myth of Kościuszko was not as successful as in Galicia or in the Kingdom of Poland. While in the Polish-language discourse the myth of Kościuszko did not differ profoundly from the image actualized in the mainstream Polish-language discourse, Kościuszko was only one of the lieux de memoire used for the integration of the peasantry in the ethnic Lithuanian discourse. The deteriorating relations between ethnic national movements within the Lithuanian lands of the Tsarist Empire stimulated the emergence of the independent “Lithuanian” myth of peasant integration – the abolition of serfdom by Alexander II. By underlining such a separate lieu de mémoire, ethnic Lithuanians sought to create such mythology for the Lithuanian peasantry which symbolically isolated them from the Poles.

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