Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the cross-crafting heritage of the Soviet era and shows how people through certain symbolic motifs expressed their national and religious identity. Cross-crafting as a living tradition testified that the Soviet regime's utopia for an atheistic society was a "fallen utopia".

Paper long abstract:

Soviet occupation was an extremely unfavourable period for religious life: atheist ideology was strongly inculcated, and people were prevented from conducting religious ceremonies. Visual signs of religious faith were also destroyed. Many churches were closed and turned into secular institutions. Small sacral monuments, especially crosses, standing in public spaces, beside roads and in town squares, were ruthlessly demolished, and it was prohibited to build new ones. Despite these obstacles people used to build crosses and other sacral monuments during the Soviet period.

In this paper it will be discussed the peculiarities of the cross-crafting heritage of the Soviet era. The intentions of cross building and decorative elements characteristic of the Soviet period will be highlighted. It will be revealed how people through certain symbolic and decorative motifs expressed their patriotic sentiments, hope for an independent state, as well as religious and national identity. Moreover, in the Soviet era the making and erection of a sacral monument by itself was an act of resistance against the anti-religious policy, which sometimes had a patriotic undertone - the remembrance or ambition of Lithuania's independence.

In other words, during the Soviet era people through the maintenance of cross-crafting tradition have expressed their religious and national identity as well as their hope for independence. The Soviet authorities, suppressing religious life, destroying sacral monuments, strived to embody their ideological utopia of the atheistic community. However, cross-crafting as a living tradition testified that this utopia was a "fallen utopia".