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Paper short abstract:

The presentation aims to show the complexity of the attempts to reassess the recent history of Lithuanian ethnology and folklore studies and the use of the reassessment to claim power in contemporary politics of identity and religion.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnology and folklore studies were considered as a field that contributed to the national awakening in the Soviet Lithuania after the country regained its independence in 1990, and the relationship of the disciplines with nationalism is still one of the main aspects defining their self-identity in the post-Soviet period. With the development of Sovietology and post-soviet identity politics, recently the reassessment of the disciplines started, and the motivation and arguments related to religion often play a key role in the emergent discourse.

Indeed, Lithuanian ethnographers and folklorists followed interpretations allowed by the Soviet regime and developed discourse that was often suitable for the purposes of the regime, including its anti-religious policy. This allows critics to claim the disciplines being basically tools for sovietisation and atheisation of the Lithuanian society.

However, critics’ motivation and involvement in post-Soviet identity and religion politics should also be taken into account: much of the critique is bound with the attempts to establish the image of the Catholic Church as the only actor that contributed to the regaining the Lithuanian statehood and to establish the Lithuanian national identity based on Catholicism.

In addition to the discussion of the conspicuous contribution of Lithuanian ethnologists and folklorists to projects of the Soviet regime, the presentation aims to show the complexity of the attempts to reassess the recent history of Lithuanian ethnology and folklore studies and the use of the reassessment to claim power in contemporary politics of identity and religion.