Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Lithuania: An Overview
- List of Tables and Figures
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Small-Scale Farmers at the Geopolitical Return to Europe, 1990–2004
- Chapter 3 Paradoxes of Aging: On Aging Farmers and Aging Politicians
- Chapter 4 Effects of and Responses to the EU Programs in the Countryside
- Chapter 5 The Insiders and the Outsiders: EUropeanization of Products and People in the Marketplace
- Chapter 6 “If you wish your son bad luck, give him your land”: EUropeanization, Demographic Change and Social Security
- Chapter 7 “They told us we would be getting up on the high mountain”: Concluding Remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Lithuania: An Overview
- List of Tables and Figures
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Small-Scale Farmers at the Geopolitical Return to Europe, 1990–2004
- Chapter 3 Paradoxes of Aging: On Aging Farmers and Aging Politicians
- Chapter 4 Effects of and Responses to the EU Programs in the Countryside
- Chapter 5 The Insiders and the Outsiders: EUropeanization of Products and People in the Marketplace
- Chapter 6 “If you wish your son bad luck, give him your land”: EUropeanization, Demographic Change and Social Security
- Chapter 7 “They told us we would be getting up on the high mountain”: Concluding Remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
After every liberation there seems to be a backlash. So we believe, oh yes, we do believe there is change all around us. But we do not believe in change, for we cannot trust it.
—Mary Catherine BatesonAs Lithuania entered the EU on 1 May 2004, large-scale celebrations were held in the capital, Vilnius, with concerts, speeches and fireworks. Banners hung in the city center with slogans such as Būkime Europieĉiais! (Let's be Europeans!) and Mes Europoje! (We are in Europe!). Seven other formerly socialist countries joined the EU on the very same day together with Malta and Cyprus, and historical change was vibrating in the Vilnius festivities. Or so I was told, at least. I myself was not in Vilnius that day, but was residing in a village in southwest Lithuania. Looking out from my window in the evening, I saw nothing but empty streets. It was dark outside and except for a few barking dogs, it was quiet.
The silence hardly surprised me. From conversations about experiences and perceptions of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I knew that the rural denizens had a rather practical take on “great events.” They had referred to the regained Lithuanian independence with such statements as “What changed for us? We still had to work,” “We thought there would be fewer alcoholics – but we only got more of them” or the metaphorical reflection “Before 1990, we had a piece of shit in one hand, now we have it in the other.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Lithuania in Old HandsEffects and Outcomes of EUropeanization in Rural Lithuania, pp. 1 - 32Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012