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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 5 (179), 1181—1193

UDK: 94(4):94(470+571):94(474.5):342.7:329.1

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN SOVIET LITHUANIA 1970S: THE CATHOLIC DISSIDENT MOVEMENT AND THE LITHUANIAN HELSINKI GROUP

NECHESNYI Nazar

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4855-7825
  • Graduate Student,
  • Ivan Franko National University of Lviv,
  • Department of History of Central and Eastern Europe,
  • 1, Universytetska str., 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: nechesny@gmail.com

Abstract. Introduction. Human rights have been an important topic of public discourse since the late 1960s. In the early 1970s, the human rights strategy of dissidents became the main one in the USSR. The use of this strategy can be traced in many republics that were part of the Soviet Union.

Problem Statement Researchers rarely consider dissident movements in the USSR in terms of their human rights activities. And most of the studies that deal with this issue mainly focus on russian dissidents or sometimes ukrainian ones. However, the lithuanian case is no less interesting, as it provides new information for understanding the dissident movement in the USSR in general.

Purpose. To reveal the role and importance of human rights for lithuanian dissidents in the 1970s.

Methods. The principles of historicism, multifactoriality, theoretical analysis, generalization, and comparison lay the ground for our study.

Results. In Soviet Lithuania, the struggle for human rights was marked by two main approaches. The first approach, focusing on the protection of national and religious rights, was implemented through the activities of the Catholic Church. Catholics actively opposed the repressions using various forms of protest, including petitions and actions. In contrast to the Catholics, the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, founded in November 1976, represented a cosmopolitan approach to human rights protection. This group almost completely ignored the national question, focusing on universal human rights. In general, Lithuanian dissidents in the 1970s actively used the human rights strategy. It was attractive to Lithuanians because it offered a peaceful and moral character to the struggle against the Soviet system. Scholars call this the principle of «dissident legalism», which involves fighting against the system without going beyond it.

Conclusion. The Lithuanian dissident movement of the 1970s demonstrates how the adaptation of all-Union human rights strategies to local conditions ensured significant impact and scale. Religious activity and high public support in Soviet Lithuania contributed to the relative effectiveness of the human rights strategy. The experience of Lithuanian dissidents who integrated human rights principles into the context of national and religious issues is important for understanding the overall dissident movement in the Soviet Union, and highlights how specific conditions can affect the scale and impact of such initiatives.

Keywords: human rights, Soviet Lithuania, dissident movement, Lithuanian Helsinki Group, samvydav, national question.

Received 10.09.2024

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