Lietuvos kaimiškų teritorijų kaita po nepriklausomybės atkūrimo

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Posovietinės kaimo teritorijos; Regioninė diferenciacija; Regionis pasiskirstymas; Socialinės ekonominės permainos; Socialinės ir ekonominės permainos; Vietinė bendruomenį; Vietos bendruomenės; Communities; Lithuania; Local; Local communities; Post-soviet rural territories; Regional differenciation; Socioeconomic transition.

ENDuring the 20th century, the Lithuanian rural spaces experienced three transformations due to a change of agricultural model. The last one took place in 1990, when the country launched social and economic reforms striving towards Market Economy. This change of socio-economic environment, together with the institution of private property in agriculture, led to rearrangement of rural spaces: this process manifests in the emergence of new regional production systems, in the change of the patterns of population and in the social destabilization of rural territories. The change of economic system predetermined the concentration of agricultural activity in the territories having the best social and physical conditions. At the same time, territories with a reduced role of agriculture have formed. In the first decade of independence, the crop areas have increased in Central and North Lithuania having most positive agronomic conditions. The crop areas have also increased in West Lithuania where dynamic family farming had emerged. The crop areas have decreased in East and South Lithuania because of bad agronomic conditions and declining demography. Transformation of collective (Soviet) model has manifested by the territorial diversity of new agrarian structures. The type of latifundium agrarian structure has formed in North and Central Lithuania. Transition of collective model into family farming model in Samogitia (Žemaitija) and south-western Lithuania had developed faster than in other regions of Lithuania. The mentioned transition is expressed by active formation of middle and big family farming. Small family farming replaced the collective agricultural exploitation in eastern, southern and coastal regions. A territorial rural system of population is resistant to economic and social changes.But the new demographic processes determined by transition into market economy will influence the changes of distribution of rural population. Three regions are defined according to new demographic tendencies in Lithuania on the basis of statistical data. Almost all the rural territories had a positive net migration in the period from 1991 until 2001. The process of "return to countryside" was very intensive in the rural surroundings near the big cities. Demographic decrease manifests itself in eastern and southern parts of the state. Three demographic characteristics are characteristic of these territories: a large number of old people, depopulation and low population density. The third region (Samogitia), contrary to the rest of Lithuania, stood out for a higher number of active age population and by natural population increase in the first decade of independence. [From the publication]