From Ethnicity to Society: A Rapid Circumnavigation of the Changes in Lithuanian Historiography from Perestroika to the Present Day

Abstract

Perennialism and ethnocentrism have been two of the dominant features of Lithuanian historical narratives throughout the 20th Century. Over the last thirty years, however, civic nationalism-inspired concepts have increasingly challenged the dominance of ethnicity in historical writing. The article investigates how these two opposite metanarratives actively contributed to the consolidation of two opposite models of citizenship in post-soviet Lithuania entailing two different approaches to the state, the nation, and Europe.