Legislating identity: Language, citizenship, and education in Lithuania.

Abstract

The reality of multilingual, multinational, and multireligious populations poses significant challenges to state building in the Soviet successor states. The Lithuanian government, in attempting to build a state, adopted laws on citizenship, language, and education which the Polish minority perceived as a threat to their national identity. They responded by mobilizing around issues of access to Polish-language education and regional autonomy within Lithuania. Theories of linguistic mobilization posit that language choices are mainly a function of socioeconomic reasoning: if the avenue to social mobility lies in the command of a particular language, then it should become the language of use over time. This dissertation demonstrates that these theories do not adequately explain the retention of non-Russian languages in the former Soviet Union because they assume states pursue policies of linguistic assimilation. The failure of Soviet language policy to encourage a shift away from national languages in favor of Russian was largely due to the fierce loyalty of non-Russian nationalities to their native languages. This dissertation found the lack of linguistic assimilation to be crucial to an understanding of the Lithuanian movement for independence and the Polish movement for regional autonomy. Relying on my analysis of aggregate data collected from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and Education and surveys conducted in Lithuania, along with interview data, newspaper articles, and government reports, this dissertation provides a study of both Lithuanian and Polish national consciousness in the periods leading up to and following independence. One of the key findings of this dissertation is the critical role played by minority populations in linguistic mobilization. Critical to the mobilization of Poles in Lithuania was the preservation of Polish national consciousness. The Lithuanian Polish minority, in comparison with the Polish minority in Ukraine and Belarus, was able to preserve national consciousness by retaining their native language. This was accomplished largely by the availability of Polish-language schooling. This study of Lithuanian state building contributes to our understanding of language and politics and the role of language in the formation and preservation of national identity.