Vilnius – a city of communist and anticommunist legends

In the 19th century Vilnius lost its grandeur and became a backwater town of the Russian Empire. At that time it became a breeding ground for revolutionaries of various kinds and also a city of fierce revolt against communism. Worldwide fame – and infamy – was brought to Vilnius by two pupils of the same Vilnius 1st Boys Gymnasium (high school) – Felix Dzerzhinsky and Józef Piłsudski. They both started their political life joining different socialist parties, and a quarter of a century later they came head to head fronting opposite sides. In 1930, one of the first institutions of Sovietology – Vilnius University’s Institute for East European studies was founded in Vilnius; the founders of criticism of Sovietology and Communism in a global context Marian Zdziechowski and Stanisław Swianiewicz worked there. Their ideas largely influenced the creative work of Czesław Miłosz – the fate of freedom in the 20th c. featured strongly in his work. In the outcome of World War Two, Vilnius became part of the Soviet Union. At that time a new battlefield of communism and anti-communism emerged – armed resistance of Lithuanians against the Soviet occupation, which lasted a decade and is considered the longest resistance fight after the war. The head commander of armed resistance Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas was arrested only in 1953. To stress the longevity and purposefulness of the armed resistance, Jonas Žemaitis was awarded the Status of the President of Lithuania recently. At the same time, a phenomenon of communist leader Antanas Sniečkus is becoming a symbol for the Soviet nostalgia. Once more, the fight between communism and anti-communism was replayed in times of Perestoika and Sąjūdis. The audiences around the world know well the antagonism between Vytautas Landsbergis and Michail Gorbachev, made famous by cartoonists of various countries. Although Landsbergis position is often understood in the West as nationalism alone, Landsbergis and Lithuania fought not just the aggression of the Soviet Union, but also the whole Communistic system. The events of January 1991 in Vilnius were a prequel and a rehearsal of the Moscow Putsch of August 1992. Putsch didn’t succeed and the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky at Lubianka square in Moscow fell on August 22, 1991. Echoing this fall, a monument to Lenin fell the next day in Vilnius. To the world, these ruins of the monuments meant the collapse of communism.