Europos idėja lietuviškame XIX-XX a. sandūros diskurse

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Europietiškumas; Europos idėja; Europos idėja lietuviškame diskurse; Lietuvių savivoka; Nacionalizmas; Tautinis atgimimas; Europeanism; Idea of Europe; Lithuanian Self-Cosciousness; National Revival; Nationalism; The European idea; The Lithuanian discourse of the European idea.

ENIn the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lithuania, under Russian rule, was a clash area of various nationalisms. At the same time it is often noticed that 'the European idea' was conceived as an antithesis of nationalism and, in particular, of ethno-nationalism. Theoretically such a deliberation could seem logical, however, in reality, both at the present time and in the past one can find cases contradicting the above-mentioned statement. At the turn of the nineteenth century Europeanism in the Lithuanian context was defined both in cultural and political terms. The circumstance that all Lithuanian social currents localized Lithuania in Europe in regard to culture is of no wonder. That was a way of accentuating the difference between Lithuania and Russia. Moreover, placing Lithuania in the area of European culture, the rightwing Lithuanian politicians (in particular the clerical circles) attempted to refute the arguments about the importance of Polishness in the history of Lithuania. Meanwhile in the united Europe, the thoughts about Lithuania in the political sense come as a kind of surprise. True, on closer acquaintance, the variety of the visions of 'the United States of Europe' becomes evident. It was a union of the nations, which either had obtained or were seeking freedom, for the Lithuanian radicals, while for the clericals and national democrats it was a framework, 'given from above', in which there would be a place for the Lithuanian nation, described in ethnographic categories. [From the publication]