Vilniaus universitetas sovietinės valdžios metais (1944-1990)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Vilniaus universitetas (VU; Vilnius University); Vilniaus universitetas (VU; Vilnius University); Vilnius University during the years of Soviet rule.

ENIn the grip of the Stalinist regime. On 13 July 1944, the Soviet Army occupied Vilnius. Hopes cherished by the Lithuanian society that the United States and Great Britain would discharge their obligations assumed in the Atlantic Charter of 1941 and restore the former independent states as they had been prior to the outbreak of the war, and hence the state of Lithuania, collapsed. This was the beginning of the Soviet re-occupation that brought many miseries and disasters to the country and required numerous human victims.'Ihc resumption of the University activities took place in these conditions of re-occupation. The University premises had been devastated during the battles and even after them. Lots of study facilities and tl'c remaining dormitories were taken by the military personnel or other institutions. The University administration was appointed: the Rector (prof. K. Bicliukas) and vicc-rcctors. The academic year started late. After repeated calls and personal invitations to join the ranks of the staff of the University, 31% of the professors and associate professors who had been employed there before the war, 22% of junior research staff, 31% of the facility andrhe administrative staff and about 18% of the students came to work there. The were eight faculties (History and Philology, Law, Economics, Physics and Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural Sciences, Medicine, Forestry). The University was meant to become a standard peripheral Soviet school of higher education. The aim was to focus not on business and professional issues but rather on the ideological schooling of students. Therefore, the University was expanded in an effort to sovietize young people. Moscow regulated meticulously the activities of the university, completely disregarding the local conditions, imposed standard curricula and programs, which the University had no right to alter.The Communist Party structures and their functionaries were openly engaged in the supervision of the University. They required to develop and strengthen the ideological and political education of the teachers and students and to combat the manifestations of the bourgeois and nationalist ideology. The formation of the student body was regulated by the Communist Party structures through the restrictions related to the social origin, class and political reasons for University enrolments. The censorship authority removed from the University Scientific Library "ideologically and politically hazardous" publications and hid them in the special fund. The Library was completed extensively with Soviet literature. Censorship, ideological supervision and, finally, lack of foreign exchange highly limited the influx of scientific information from abroad, reinforced the isolation of the University from scientific centres of Western Europe and other parts of the world. In 1945 the Central Committee of the Communist Party established the post of party organizer ("partorg") that was directly subject to it for the daily supervision of the University administration, its professors and students. These officials were experienced old communists who earlier had had no attachments to the academic community. They were often replaced because they usually failed to meet the expectations.that were invested into them. In 1946-1950, the Communist party organization was created at the University. In the global atmosphere of fear and suspicion of that time, the party organization was doing its best to sovietize the University, shamelessly interfered in all its affairs and forced the Rectoratc to obey the Communist Party directives. To accelerate sovietization, "staff aid" - teaching staff - was sent from Moscow.Those newcommers were appointed training and education vice-rectors. Before long, most of those "imported" people would get compromised as people of poor manners, alcohol addicts, generally unable to work in the higher education system and lacking the necessary qualifications. They used to be withdrawn back to Moscow. The scientific and pedagogical staff of the University had to work in the difficult spiritual, political and physical conditions of terror. Their past was meticulously investigated, "compromising information" that could damage their reputation was collected. The old professors were pressed to change their mentality fundamentally. They were forced to attend the evening Marxism-Leninism university. Already back at the beginning of 1945, the first wave of arrests swept the University professors. Professors were arrested at a later date, too. Scientists who had studied and defended their doctoral theses at the famous universities of Western Europe were required to pass the "loyalty test" organised by Moscow officials, then had to wait for a long time for the nostrification of their scientific degrees and pedagogical titles. Moscow refused to recognize earlier obtained academic degrees and "tics of numerous persons. A number of the University research and teaching staff workers were criticized and accused of the theoretical-methodological and conceptual shortcomings in their work, indifference towards Politics, objectivism, non-recognition or marginalization of the Soviet scientific achievements, promotion of the scientific theories recognized in the West, and other "crimes". This kind of criticism was more often than not followed by dismissal. T he persecuted and intimidated University community were not enthusiastic about their involvement into the scientific research. [...]. [Extract, p. 972-973]