Dr. Alfredas BUMBLAUSKAS, Vilnius University lecturer, is a noted Lithuanian historian who specializes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (for two centuries it united the Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Polish peoples) and that of the 20th-century Lithuania. He is also a good friend of Ukraine. The scholar reiterates that Lithuania, like the neighboring Baltic States and Poland, is vitally interested in the success of Ukraine’s European integration, because this “serves our common interest.”
Dr. Bumblauskas kindly agreed to what turned out to be an extensive interview with world politics desk editor Mykola Siruk and History and I desk editor Ihor Siundiukov. The main topics discussed related to common history (the modifier being more than relevant, all things considered) and understanding of the key aspects of Ukrainian and Lithuanian age-old history. Hopefully the reader will find it informative, even if disagreeing with some statements made by the Lithuanian historian (which is likely and quite natural) and, more importantly, come across a fresh approach to some highly complicated issues in the past of Ukraine.
Mykola SIRUK: “What role does history play in the formation of a nation state?”
Alfredas BUMBLAUSKAS: “There is a direct connection between history and the formation of a nation. As a hundred years back, the main role is played by historical consciousness and historical culture, ranging from prose to poetry. I mean the way we love Jonas Maironis and you do Taras Shevchenko. However, the current situation appears to be altering the role of history to a degree. Almost a century ago, our patriarchs didn’t have to look for a place for their people among the major historical entities (I mean historical regions and civilizations) – and the same was true of your Hrushevsky. After the fall of the Soviet empire the proverbial question – Quo vadis? – became topical again. Did our nationalist approach suffice? Whereas ideology doesn’t have to be nationalist, the historical approach per se is often referred to as methodological nationalism, in almost all countries.
“I often hear the word ‘self-sufficiency’ in Ukraine. When a group of Ukrainian historians visited Lithuania I asked them how historiographical self-sufficiency was faring. I think I know the answer to this question. Self-sufficiency means methodological nationalism, with Ukraine being a historical entity as an independent region, above metaregions such as Europe, Central Europe or Western civilization. This is also characteristic of Lithuanian historiography where self-sufficiency often manifests itself as being rooted in the time of Vytautas the Great (1392-1430). This is easy to explain. Between the wars the Republic of Lithuania created a cult of Vytautas. He became a hero of the new, modernist culture. We have lots of such concepts. They are no help in our quest for the European dimension in Lithuanian history – and, consequently, for European integration – to say nothing of all those pseudo-concepts. A lady historian visited Lithuania, traveling all the way from Venezuela, to inform us that we are not Lithuanians but Goths – or Gudy [pronounced Goodee, with the stress on the first syllable. – Ed.]. The point is not even that Gudy is the Lithuanian vernacular for Belarusians, but that we are thus turning into barbarians on a European scale, like those who seized Rome in 410. Personally, I prefer the joke about Lithuanians originating from Rome. This legend has a long history, from the 15th to the 16th century.”
AT THE EDITORIAL OFFICE DR. ALFREDAS BUMBLAUSKAS WAS PRESENTED WITH A COLLECTION OF TOP STORIES CARRIED BY DEN/THE DAY UKRAINE INCOGNITA. TOP 25. A VILNIUS PROFESSOR THANKED AND PROMISED TO CAREFULLY STUDY THE BOOK / Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day
Ihor Siundiukov: “We have enough amateurish historians in Ukraine who argue that the first Ukrainians lived in Ancient Egypt.”
A.B.: “Such ‘historians’ demonstrate narrow-mindedness and a flight of imagination. Professional historians, however, often act like a surgeon operating on a finger, knowing everything about this digit, but nothing about the others. That’s why they cannot refute such fantastic concepts. They say that’s not up my alley. It is then petty topics become predominant, when no strategic answers can be found.
“I believe the most important topic in our current historical culture (after regaining independence) is the hard way the European concept was established in Lithuanian history. Our number-one synthesis of national history (Adolfas Sapoka’s History of Lithuania, 1936) was created during the conflict between Lithuania and Poland over Vilnius. Poland is absent there as the closest territory, which Lithuania crossed to reach Europe. Even worse so, Sapoka doesn’t mention the Poles – and not only them. As an emigre, he published his book Senasis Vilnius (Old Vilnius) in Chicago that left the reader in the dark about the city, its origin and place. Not a word about the Civitas Rutenica, or the ‘Ruthenian Part’ of Vilnius which is to me the ‘Ukrainian town’ within the [Lithuanian] city, considering that the residence of the Metropolitan of Kyiv was there (he didn’t have it in Kyiv). Sapoka doesn’t even mention Ruthenians – from what I know, you don’t like the word ‘Rusyns.’ To me, as it was to my teacher, Dr. Gudavicius (although I’m merely a journeyman, so far as his concept is concerned), the main thing was to find the European dimension in Lithuanian history. For us a metaphor of this quest was an early 15th-century fresco in Strasbourg. It depicts European peoples marching to the Cross. The last one in the picture is named ‘Litavia’ (meaning Lithuania, of course) and the last but one, ‘Oriens.’ I believe it means ‘Ukraine’ and relates to the envoys Metropolitan Gregory Tsamblak (or Grigorij Camblak) of Kyiv sent to the Council of Constance in 1418 to negotiate a Church Union as proposed by Vytautas and Wladyslaw II Jagiello. There is very little to be found on the subject in Ukrainian and Western historiography (in fact, the latter does not mention Ukraine as a European entity created with the sword of Algirdas – or Olgierd – who plowed through the expanses of Old Rus’, whereupon Moscow and Kyiv would have different histories for the next 300-400 years.”
I.S.: “Thanks for mentioning Vytautas and Algirdas. We hold these historic personalities in esteem and Den/The Day has written about them on more than one occasion. They rank with the outstanding Lithuanian statesmen, starting with Gediminas. They are close to us because the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was part of our homeland for more than two centuries. This is very important because this is our common historical destiny.”
A.B.: “Back in 2006 I didn’t stress the point. I even didn’t know where Ukraine was headed. I wasn’t sure what political course you would set.”
I.S.: “Even after the first Maidan when the Orange team came to power?”
A.B.: “That’s right. I wasn’t sure. I did not know what I should do next, considering that the number-one conflict manager, Samuel Huntington, referred only to Halychyna as part of Western civilization. His concept read that Ukraine and Muscovy belong to the same historical region. The logical question was: ‘Why should Ukraine need nuclear weapons?’ Now we see that Mr. Huntington failed to properly assess the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Rzeczpospolita [Polish Kingdom] as a factor. Ukraine was structurally striding away from Muscovy, turning into a szlachta aristocratic democracy. There was none in Muscovy, as there was no Sejm, no rule of law, no Magdeburg rights, municipal government, no individual farming. Instead, there were the mir peasant communities. In other words, Ukraine had the main element of European agrarian civilization and Muscovy didn’t. Leszek Moczulski [controversial Polish historian and politician. – Ed.] has much more on the subject. What he writes about has very much to do with what we now have at the Donetsk front.”
I.S.: “Interestingly, Ukrainian historians note that the frontiers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a real meaning then and that they do even today, six hundred years later, marking the boundary line of prevalent European moods. At that time it did not include Donbas or Crimea, of course.”
A.B.: “Right. It is also interesting to note that Moczulski and Huntington have each drawn a distinct confessional boundary line. Huntington, however, draws it between the Western and Eastern Christians. I have always found this suspicious because there are fewer dogmatic differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism than there are between Catholicism and Protestantism. I’ve long been thinking about Moscow Orthodoxy as a different kind of Orthodoxy. After the Turks seized Constantinople in 1453, they [Moscow Orthodox patriarchs] said we’re separate and distinct from Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. I wondered whether Mr. Huntington considered the possibility of Kostiantyn Ostrozky and Lviv Orthodox patriarchs maintaining direct contact with Constantinople being proof that their Orthodoxy was differed from that of Moscow. If so, Orthodoxy can’t be regarded as a clear boundary line, as a factor. One glaring difference is that Moscow Orthodoxy, since the time of Peter I, has abolished the seal of confession (something I’ve just learned from my Ukrainian colleagues and regard as a major scholarly discovery during this visit to Kyiv).
“Getting back to Moczulski. It is safe to assume that he saw Europe’s confessional boundary line as that of the Pale of Settlement instituted by Catherine II of Russia in 1791, during the First and Second partitions of Poland. In other words, the boundary lines within which Jews were allowed to settle in the Grand Duchy and Polish Kingdom were similar to those in Russia. Jews spelled business contacts and money. Such contacts were not a necessity for a despotic state.
“A hundred years after the Pale of Settlement, Jews could no longer live in Moscow and other regions of the Russian empire. If you hear about Russian Jews, you have to understand that this has everything to do with Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jews. In fact, Moczulski’s Pale of Settlement is a mirror reflection of the boundaries of today’s Donetsk front.”
I.S.: “Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, was determined to crush what Ukrainian was left in Ukraine, whereas his Lithuanian counterpart Antanas Snieckus defended the national interest.”
A.B.: “Snieckus was number-one Lithuanian communist and he was involved in all deportations of Lithuanians. True, he wouldn’t always obey orders from Moscow. But there were our Forest Brothers – Lithuanian partisans [who fought the Soviets to the last man], and the Soviet authorities had to reckon with them. Beria ordered their leader [Brigadier General] Jonas Zemaitis (we refer to him as the fourth President of Lithuania) brought to Moscow in 1953. Beria said he was an enemy well worth talking to [rather than shooting]. This is proof that Moscow treated Lithuania differently, compared to the other [downtrodden Soviet] peoples. Solzhenitsyn writes in The Gulag Archipelago that Lithuanians and Ukrainians were the key force in the prison camps. Our Forest Brothers had 20 years of experience of the first Republic of Lithuania. They fought for freedom and independence; they fought in the front ranks against the communist anti-civilization, collectivization, terror, and deportation. The Forest Brothers defended the values of the Western civilization (I wrote an article on the subject). The same was true of the Ukrainian partisans who defended some of the values of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Polish Kingdom under Pilsudski.
“I think that Pilsudski was a godsend to Lithuania. Some of us often refuse to see that Vilnius would have become the capital of Soviet Lithuania in 1920 – just like Kyiv – but for Pilsudski’s victory over the Bolsheviks. Vilnius under Polish control was a thorn in the Lithuanian side, but one could look at it from a different angle. In 1921, Mykolas Slezevicius, one of the most far-sighted Lithuanian politicians between the world wars, said that Lithuania should not confront London. Otherwise Lithuania would find itself between Moscow and Berlin and neither would spare it. Precisely what happened 20 years later. Lithuania confronted London and the League of Nations spurred by flag wavers. We wanted the League to be the arbiter in our dispute with Poland over Vilnius and then refused the League’s proposal.
“However, this doesn’t diminish the achievements of the Republic of Lithuania without Vilnius. The years 1930 and 1940 marked the most dynamic decade in Lithuanian history. In 1940, Lithuania negotiated a purchase of warplanes with France. They had been commissioned by the Lithuanian aircraft industry. This is a phenomenal fact.”
M.S.: “We had our partisans, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. They wanted private property and fought the communist regime, yet we keep hearing criticism from Poland because our current administration recognizes the UPA’s role in the struggle for our national independence. What do you think?”
A.B.: “I think that Right Bank and even Left Bank Ukraine entered the 18th century without communal land tenure. That’s the gist of Ukrainian history. Stolypin’s reform made it perfectly clear how the land was to be redistributed. Nothing like that in the Ukrainian and Lithuanian gubernias [provinces in Russia]. Everything like that in Muscovy. If there was no redistribution of the land, there was no communal land tenure. This can serve as evidence of Western influence that came through Vilnius.”
M.S.: “We know that a history textbook was written by France and Germany. Could Lithuania and Poland follow suit?”
A.B.: “They could. Last year I proposed a book on the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with five views on it, like the Five Books. Let me explain. Our region includes five new states, five new peoples rooted in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Rzeczpospolita. If we discard methodological nationalism, we will have to say that among these new states are Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. Poles in the 19th-20th centuries are a far cry from their ancestors in the 13th-14th centuries. Also, Israel. Its history is inexplicable without Litvaks and other Jewish members of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Now that makes five states and nations. That’s how many brethren we have. With five partners I could write a common history of the region made up of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland. I could even identify each of them.”
I.S.: “Otto von Bismarck said that Russians were strong because they had minimum needs. Now that the West has imposed sanctions on Russia, making it pay an increasing price for the aggression against Donbas and hoping to force Putin to change his politics, do you believe that these measures are effective? Russians say they are prepared to endure all this.”
A.B.: “Suppose we take a closer look at the problem. The next question will be: What do we do next? Is there an alternative to the current policy in regard to Russia? We Lithuanians know even better than the Americans that Russians may spend another hundred years wearing the same jersey sweater. No American who can’t go to battle without a roll of toilet paper will understand this (laughing). Reagan has to be credited for finding an approach to the Soviet Union. I’ve been trying to find his alleged quote to the effect that he would make his fellow Americans take off their neckties and the Russkies take off their pants. Maybe he never said that, but politics show that that was the case.”
M.S.: “How do you think Russia will evolve from now on? Where is it heading under Putin?”
A.B.: “Russians under Putin have demonstrated their desire to become a separate civilization. This is clearly apparent by all criteria, including political practice, and ideology. They don’t want to be part of Europe. Do the Russians want war? Polls show that they do: 56 percent respondents support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Horrifying statistic. To say that the [Russian] political elite loves its civilization would be a lie meant to fool the man in the street. This elite doesn’t believe in its civilization, so they prefer to keep their money on bank accounts in the West. Then I think we should hit that elite, hit their bank accounts in the West.”
M.S.: “What do you think the state should do to make national history known to the people? Knowledge of this history would produce responsible citizens, wouldn’t it?”
A.B.: “Nothing can be done using Putin’s methods. History has never been uniform and never will be, because there have been and will always be different approaches to it. And I mean approaches other than scholarly ones, because there are different people, different ethnic groups, different professions, different age groups. I’m writing a history textbook for Grade 6 and I know there won’t be a uniform clear-cut textbook on the subject. However, there must be opportunities for those who want to study history. The state should be responsible for providing extensive answers to topical questions.”
I.S.: “Do you have a Polish diaspora in Lithuania?”
A.B.: “We do, but these people are more like autochthons. This is rooted in the policy of the Radziwill family of the 16th century. They said we are Lithuanians, but we must use the Polish language. In 1563 they had the Holy Bible translated into Polish (it became known as the Brest Bible) before any such translation was undertaken in Poland. This explains why Polish became the official language of Lithuania in 1697. I know this and the Lithuanian Poles are my most favored fellow countrymen.”
I.S.: “Would you care to comment on your political leaders after Lithuania regained national independence? We regard President Dalia Grybauskaite as a true friend of Ukraine. She calls a spade a spade and says Russia is an aggressor state.”
A.B.: “Right. I’d also mention Valdas Adamkus with his countless visits to Kyiv. These are outstanding personalities.”
I.S.: “Mr. Adamkus came from the United States. Has this played any role in Lithuanian history?”
A.B.: “It certainly has. He brought with him an entirely different political culture. His predecessors, Brazauskas and Landsbergis, were locals. In fact, Brazauskas was an ex-commie who had passed the historical exam. Landsbergis came from the intelligentsia, he was a music professor. Both are subjects of numerous doctorates. Let’s say these are paradigms of foreign political culture. Three such paradigms: Brazauskas, Landsbergis, and Adamkus. No fourth one (I’m not discussing Ms. Grybauskaite). Adamkus cuts the most interesting figure. He represents the liberal emigre trend that has generated a number of ideas. These ideas have helped us better understand the historical issues of Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Adamkus started by studying these issues to figure out the cultural diversity of old Lithuania. He came to know them better than Brazauskas or Landsbergis.”
M.S.: “There are foreigners in our government and our public opinion on the matter is divided. What about Lithuania?”
A.B.: “That’s perfectly normal. I even joked once that our parliamentary elections are a terrible mess, that we have to hire Cabinet members abroad. In fact, I welcome foreign presence on the upper echelons of power. I know how Mr. Saakashvili acted during the war in Georgia. I heard from the locals that there is no corruption on the Georgian police force. Do you know why Estonia is on top of the Baltic list? Because there were two Finns at every ministry of independent Estonia, period. Once again, what I can’t figure out is your self-sufficient policy. I don’t think it’s the right path to take. It could be a bad mistake. I think it’s most important to have a fair degree of self-criticism in regard to one’s society, geopolitical position, and capabilities. The sooner you do that, the better for you.”
