Studentai varpininkai ir politika (1923-1940)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Autoritarinis režimas; Autoritarinis valdymas; Draugija; Korporacija; Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų sąjunga; Studentai varpininkai; Valstiečiai liaudininkai; Authoritarian regime; Authoritarian rule; Company; Corporation; Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union; Peasant Populist Party; Students the Varpininkai.

ENIn the inter-war Lithuania political parties sought to expand their influence on the youth, primarily in the prestigious national school of higher education, Vytautas Magnus University, and to rejuvenate the party with new intellectual forces in the future. Therefore, the organizations and corporations of university students were usually established following the ideological principle: Catholic, nationalist, social-democratic, peasant populist - organizations of students the Varpininkai, etc. The Nationalists protected the corporation Neo-Lithuania; the Social Democrats took care of Žaizdras and other students’ associations. The Lithuanian Peasant Populist Union, which sought to have as much influence on students as possible, thus growing the party members of a new generation, acted in a similar way. Whereas more active students of the Varpininkai movement used to join this party upon graduation, their activities were inseparable from politics. Historiography approaches the students of the Varpininkai movement controversially. The works of general type published in the inter-war period, as well as in exile, present them as the movement having nothing in common with politics. During the Soviet times, the activities of students the Varpininkai, like the overall activities of the Peasant Populists, received no attention, whereas the latest studies indicate that the association of the Peasant Populists Varpas was “a circle of intellectuals of Communist type”. In order to fill the gaps in historiography, it was decided to write this article, which aims to analyse the relations between the students of the Varpininkai movement and the Lithuanian Peasant Populist Union in 1923-1940.The chronological limits of the research are conditional: in 1923 the organizations of the students of the Varpininkai movement began their activities in the then University of Lithuania and in the summer of 1940, when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, the students of the Varpininkai movement as well were forced to terminate their activities. The article uses the term Young Varpininkai to refer to the students who were members of the organizations of students of the Varpininkai movement, the students of the Varpininkai movement upon graduation and the so called philisters. The study revealed that from the outset of their activities in 1923 until the mid- 1930s students of the Varpininkai movement were inseparable from the political Lithuanian Peasant Populist Union: more active Varpininkai used to join the Peasant Populists; the latter used to protect the Varpininkai organizations, financed their press, participated in the joint events of different types. However, the influence of the Varpininkai on the Peasants Populists grew at the beginning of 1936 only, after the parties in opposition, except for the Lithuanian Nationalist Union which was in power, were officially banned. Since then the activities of the students of the Varpininkai movement were targeted at politics to an even greater degree. In the second half of the 1930s the Varpininkai, like the whole Lithuanian Peasant Populist Union, underwent a huge ideological crisis. It was one of the key reasons that determined the withdrawal of a part of the Varpininkai, primarily their leaders, from the ideology represented by the Peasant Populists, frequent disagreements and the consolidation with the underground Communist Party. [From the publication]