
19th-Century Lithuanians Who Smuggled Books to Save Their Language - lermontov
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/lithuanian-book-smugglers
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akoncius
it is important to remember this book smuggling as a symbol that even small
nation can resist against huge empire like soviet union. every effort counts,
and as a result, we in Lithuania still use our language.

~~~
jerry40
Not sure why you blame USSR in this topic, as far as I know, it supported
regional languages and printed many books, newspapers and magazines in the
languages of its republics. I bet that books at that period were much cheaper
than they're now.

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Mediterraneo10
"it supported regional languages and printed many books, newspapers and
magazines in the languages of its republics."

The big boom in minority-language publishing came in the 1920s and early
1930s, when there were major drives to improve minority-language literacy and
translate as a rule higher-education teaching materials into local languages.
However, starting from Stalin, minority-language publishing was reduced to
little more than a token effort, mostly socialist-realist poetry or fiction
and newspapers of exceedingly local concern. Furthermore, the print runs for
minority-language books were minuscule, even for very large minorities like
the Tatars. It wasn't until glasnost that minority-language publishing took
off again.

~~~
jerry40
I grew up in a little republic which is smaller than Tatar Republic and we
hadn't problems with the national literature. Of course it wasn't so rich,
I've never managed to find Ulysses in that language. I have an impression that
when Moscow sent plans like "to rise X new writers and to print out Y new
books in the ______ language" , local party members were catching people on
the streets to create new republican poets of them.

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FeatureRush
In the other parts of partitioned PLC similar fight for culture was happening.
Sometimes I even think, that some barricades were purposefully installed in
Polish culture so that it will win again. In school you learn about the
importance of Polish, how it was suppressed and people who learned it in
secret were heroes... In day-to-day life many people will oppose using English
words when Polish can be used, I even witnessed situation where foreign quest
was invited for a speech and during q&a someone not only asked the question in
Polish (there was a translator so no problem) but even stressed that the
question will be in Polish, because we are in Poland...

~~~
owenversteeg
When I visited Poland I found stuff like that very interesting. In particular,
the large, old city of Szczecin, which was completely German for many, many
years (and at times only had a few thousand Poles in it.) When I visited it
seemed 100% Polish, and it was almost as if there was no trace of German
anything in the whole city. This all despite the city being completely
Germanized for many years and being only 2.9 miles from the German border.

------
anovikov
I didn't know that, while i live in Lithuania for years. I know Russians tried
to destroy old Belarusian ("Ruskaya Mova") language similarly though, and
largely succeeded at that.

This reminds of the evils of Communism so much that it makes me feel like
Communist ideology in fact didn't mean much for Russians. It is an evil by
itself, before or after Communism too.

~~~
unabridged
It has nothing to do with communism, this is an example of authoritarianism.
People like to conflate the two terms.

~~~
asveikau
I think you miss the point.

I think the point is that what we today might think of as Cold War style
rhetoric and rivalry has antecedents in the Russian empire and points earlier.

I would even go so far as to say the whole thing is from the Great Schism. One
side has the Latin alphabet and Western churches. Another side has Greek-
derived Cyrillic and Orthodox church. Note in this article, the Russians are
said to be removing religious shrines and trying to get the Lithuanian
language to use Cyrillic instead of Latin characters. Both of these kind sound
strange, but it's not really accidental symbolism.

A couple months ago in the context of all the US-Russia political drama I was
thinking of this... Some people say the current tension is trying to re-live
the Cold War, but if you read about events from centuries ago the tension is
all still there mostly in its present form. What if the whole point of
conflict is really about how they learned to write and be Christians from
Greeks?

~~~
Mikeb85
It absolutely dates back to the Great Schism. And the (Roman Catholic) west
has constantly been antagonising the east. When the Orthodox requested
assistance against the invading Muslims, the crusaders instead conquered for
themselves, even sacking Constantinople. How about the Uniate churches? How
many times have western powers (Poland-Lithuania, Germany, France, Great
Britain, etc...) invaded or attempted to invade Russia? How many times has the
west even allied themselves with Islamic empires to attack Russia? Even in
modern history, there's a ton of anti-Serbian (read Orthodox) propaganda
relating to the Balkans, ignoring the atrocities of every other side. How
about the Greek default? The invasion of Cyprus by Turkey. The CIA in
Chechnya. Colour revolutions (which all targeting majority Orthodox
countries). And so on.

Yes, it goes back to the Great Schism, however it's not Russia which has
repeatedly attacked the west. It's not Russia which has a military alliance on
the US or Europe's doorstep.

And relating to Lithuania, the earliest conflicts between Lithuania and the
then Duchy of Moscow were initiated by the Lithuanians. And today, NATO troops
are in Lithuania. To respond to a 'Russian' threat we all know will never
happen, given the whole NATO thing.

Edit - Anyone want to explain how I'm wrong?

~~~
dimitar
History is long enough to dig up as many examples to "prove" a certain
antagonism exists.

How many times has Russia invaded or attempted to invade other Orthodox
countries?

* Ukraine 2014-ongoing

* Georgia in 2008

* Declared war on Bulgaria 1944

* In cooperation with Nazi Germany, it annexed Moldova from Romania 1940

* Genocide against Ukrainians 30s and 40s

* Ukraine and Georgia again in 1917, 1918

* Declared war on Bulgaria: 1915

* Supported the Serbian invasion of Bulgaria 1886

* Harsh military occupation of Moldova and Wallachia 1829-1834

* Annexed Bessarabia from Moldova 1809

* Annexed Georgia in 1800

* Invaded the Cossack Hetmanate in 1659

And so on, back to the Middle Ages, when Northern Russian princes sacked Kiev.

Does this "prove" that as a historical rule Russia invades any Orthodox
country it shares a border with? Should we blame modern-day Russians for
things their un-elected government did before they were born?

Also, Russia has invaded 2 Orthodox countries in the last 10 years, this is
very different from digging up ancient history.

~~~
Mikeb85
Most of these 'examples' are so revisionist they can't even be found online.

> Invaded the Cossack Hetmanate in 1659

You mean invaded the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth which the Hetmanate was
rebelling against in the first place, which is why the Cossacks joined the
Russian empire and were integrated into its army for generations.

As for everything about Bulgaria, Bulgaria was initially annexed by the
Ottoman empire, but the third Bulgarian state was created via treaty after a
war between Russia and the Ottoman empire. Later the Russians/Serbs/Greeks
supported them in a war against the Ottomans, although in WWI/WWII Bulgaria
was allied with the Central/Axis powers.

Ukraine/Georgia recently are more complicated, but the issues there go back to
the colour revolutions, which were rather openly supported by the west.

