Visegrad Lecture Series

Environmental Protection and the Pursuit of Transparency: A History of Lithuanian Ecologism During Perestroika

by Dr. Nicola Belli, University of Eastern Piedmont

The research project is aimed at studying the environmental activism in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania during the perestroika. In Lithuania, the second half of the 1980s saw the emergence of a new attitude towards the Soviet Union and its colonial matrix of power, which had been mainly fostered by two crucial historical turning points. On the one hand, the campaign for glasnost provided members of local intelligentsia the opportunity to express discontent about the status quo and ask for transparency. On the other hand, the disaster of Chernobyl raised ecological concerns and questions about the potential consequences of Soviet industrialization in the Baltic region.

Within this framework, the protests against the development of industrial plants and resources’ exploitation projects became the first systematic and successful form of opposition to Soviet policies in the republic, and played a central role in the development of Lithuanian civil society. On the basis of the research conducted so far in Vilnius and at the Blinken OSA Archivum, the presentation is committed to identify the most relevant actors of Lithuanian ecologism, the main foci of its attention, and the ways environmental activists mobilized themselves and the society. Furthermore, the presentation will attempt to explain how the ecological mobilization was perceived by local authorities and to what extent environmentalism and Lithuanian nationalism interacted.