Grybauskaitė à la Smetona?

Poles are occupants. They have lost the Lithuanian trust. They constitute the fifth column loyal to Poland. We shall overcome them by stripping them of Lithuanian citizenship and resettling them in their “historical homeland” – this is what conclusions arise after reading texts by professor Ona Voverienė, who is highly estimated in Lithuania.

It is not an accident that her ”scholarly” rhetoric is consistent with the anti-Polish political rhetoric of President Antanas Smetona, an authoritarian head of state of the interwar period, as well as with this of the current state leader, President Dalia Grybauskaitė.

Professor Voverienė is not interested in concealing her fascination with the figures of the former and present presidents. What is more, she believes that the parliamentary government should be abolished in Lithuania, and replaced with the firm presidential government.
“It seems that we are not ready yet for the parliamentary democracy. Maybe we do not need it after all? Maybe we should introduce the presidential government, by switching from the Constitution to referendum?” – we read in the article entitled “A hopeful turn in the Lithuanian politics” („Karštas komentaras”; 15.05.2013) by Ona Voverienė.

In the meantime, in her latest article, “President Antanas Smetona on the Lithuanian-Polish relations” („Karštas komentaras”; 17.09.2013), professor Voverienė expresses her fascination with the treatment of the Polish minority by the former Lithuanian dictator. She thinks that the Smetona-style practices applied to the Poles of the Kaunas district in the past, should be implemented against the Polish minority of the Vilnius region, who is now fighting for their rights. According to her, the Lithuanian Poles are disloyal to Lithuania. She contrasts them, “the foreigners and external occupants of the former Lithuanian land”, with “the ethnical Lithuanians”.

– Since the treacherous occupation of the Vilnius region, and especially since the Dubingiai massacre, which was the mass slaughter of Lithuanians by the Home Army [Polish: Armia Krajowa], in which even children were not spared, the Lithuanian Poles have lost our fellow countrymen’s trust. The aggressive political group led by Tomaszewski (the chairman of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – editorial note), supported by the highest authorities in Poland, looks back at that times with nostalgia. This faction incites the local Poles to experience such feelings, by means of the Pole’s Card it recruits them to participate in the fifth column, demanding their allegiance to Poland. And this fuels anxiety – writes the Lithuanian professor. She also accuses the Lithuanian authorities of not taking any measures against “the aggressive neighbour and insolent executors of the foreign country’s will, operating in Lithuania.”

The professor also reminds that in the act adopted in 1934, punishments were still predicted for those humiliating the Lithuanian nation and the Lithuanian government, as well as for those acting for the benefit of foreign countries, against the interest of Lithuania. Ona Voverienė quotes Smetona’s words concerning the loyalty of national minorities to Lithuania: “The rights of minorities are equal before the law to those entitled to the deciding nation. In return for the right to self-organization, as well as the right to education in their mother tongue, they are to remain loyal to Lithuania. This is the reason underlying the difference in the nature of two terms: a compatriot and a citizen. Such minorities are present also in Lithuania – it seems that we have given them more rights than the majority of countries would.”

In recent years, this statement by the dictator of the interwar Lithuania has often been quoted by the highest officials of our contemporary Lithuania. The former prime minister of the center-right government, Andrius Kubilius, as well as supporting him President Dalia Grybauskaitė, speaking about problems with the Polish minority, frequently claimed that there was no place in the world where Poles enjoyed as many rights as in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Poles were also accused of disloyalty to Lithuania.

– In 1994, Lithuania and Poland signed a very neat agreement, which I would like to quote. (…) Article 16 of the treaty: “Every person, belonging to the Polish national minority in the Republic of Lithuania and to the Lithuanian national minority in the Republic of Poland, is required, as is every citizen, to be loyal to the state in which he lives, and comply with the duties set out in its laws” – the president told in her interview with the Lithuanian Radio, still in 2011. She also claimed that the Poles did not comply with this “fundamental” provision.

– This is the very basis of our relations, which is currently under attack. There are attempts at inciting ethnic violence, and starting strife between two neighbouring countries – stated the president, contending that the civil loyalty is the only provision resulting from the Polish-Lithuanian Treaty.

– My aim was to remind you about this article, which lays the foundations for interpreting numerous different aspects, such as the question of name spelling. There were no additional resolutions signed after this agreement, which would deal with the issue of spelling in greater detail. Therefore, there exists no legal framework that would suggest that any specific promises were made. If they were actually made, it happened on the level of discussion or private contact. It would be wrong to treat them as the commitment of the whole state – explained the president.

Once again, she emphasized Smetona’s doctrine concerning each and every Lithuanian citizen’s constitutional obligation to remain loyal to the state, and to comply with the law, irrespectively of which national minority they belong to.
In the meantime, what professor Voverienė states in her article is that Poles have never been grateful for the rights they enjoy. Moreover, according to her, they have always aimed to enslave Lithuania.

– However, an appetite of the Poles of Lithuania for this (rights granted them – editorial note) has always been insatiable. A Polish imperialistic wish to subordinate Lithuania became especially visible after Lithuania regained its independence. The chairman of the EAPL, Waldemar Tomaszewski, lies spitefully and cynically on the topic of the Lithuanian history, incites hatred between the Lithuanians and the Poles. His animalistic hatred for the country which bred and shaped him, for the nation which did not pose any obstacle in his way to higher education and political career, is not understandable – we read in professor Ona Voverienė’s article entitled “President Antanas Smetona on the Lithuanian-Polish relations”.

It seems that professor Voverienė’s fascination with president Smetona and president Grybauskaitė’s policies concerning the Polish minority, as well as her animosity towards the Polish minority’s struggle for their rights, are not the products of her academic knowledge, which she gained at a Soviet university. The professor, just like the former and present presidents, has been educated in Russia – Voverienė graduated from State Institute of Culture named after N. K. Krupskaya; during the tsarist times, Antanas Smetona was a student of Saint Petersburg State University, which was known as Leningrad State University named after A. A. Zhdanov during the Soviet period. Dalia Grybauskaitė is also a graduate of the latter university.

This dislike may have clearly political grounds. Professor Voverienė was an activist and a candidate of the conservative party in parliamentary elections, and during the latest elections – in 2012 – actively urged people to vote, among others, for the common list of nationalists with the slogan: “For Lithuania in Lithuania”.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2013/09/18/grybauskaite-jak-smetona/

Tłumaczenie by Agata Weronika Chrobak w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Agata Weronika Chrobak within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.