HINSEY: Let's now address some questions about the emergence of the Lithuanian and Russian dissident movements. To take a few steps back, you have written that, after the war, due to deportations, imprisonment, and emigration, civil society in Lithuania was particularly broken—

VENCLOVA: Even before the Soviet occupation, Lithuania had neither the time nor the opportunity to develop a mature civil society. There had been the autocratic tsarist rule, which had lasted more than a century, from 1795 to 1915. Independent public opinion and Western-style political life started to appear only at the end of that period, mainly in the final decade, but remained very rudimentary. (Poland was in somewhat better shape because part of it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire where the political environment was incomparably more liberal than in tsarist Russia. Finland and, to a lesser extent, Latvia and Estonia, while occupied by Russia, still possessed a degree of autonomy that was denied Lithuania as a result of its antitsarist uprisings). After World War I, Lithuania's independence was established, but the country enjoyed democracy for only eight years, from 1918 to 1926. Antanas Smetona was the first president, but his party was not in power, and in 1926, the left won a parliamentary majority. Following this, his supporters (who were influential in the army), staged a coup d’état and dissolved Parliament. We have already spoken about this period of authoritarian rule, which lasted until 1940; Smetona took over the presidency and the Tautininkai (Nationalists) became the sole legal party. Smetona was not a Fascist, nor were the Nationalists Nazis; indeed, there was intense conflict with Hitler over Klaipėda. Hitler's racial policies were generally condemned. Yet, there was clear sympathy for Mussolini, whose style was considered more or less suitable for Lithuania. Later, certain young rightists looked to Franco, and especially to Salazar, the Portuguese Catholic dictator (just as some young leftists were fascinated by Lenin and Stalin). Arbitrary arrests and censorship became the norm, and a heavy-handed cult developed around the “nation's leader” (who was disliked even by many in his own party).