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 2 - Small-Scale Farmers at the Geopolitical Return to Europe, 1990–2004
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
My friend once received visitors from Germany. He showed them around in his village, he also showed [them] the ruins of the collective farm. They thought it was from the war, they thought […] that the enemy had torn the buildings apart (laughing). My friend told them no, Lithuanians robbed the buildings and tore them apart. The Germans did not understand this. They said: “How can you tear apart what you yourself have built? How can you?” But Lithuanians could. You see the ruins of the collective farms everywhere [in the countryside].
—Farmer from Straigiai, July, 2004If you can imagine, all this [land] used to be cultivated, we had big fields everywhere. Now, nobody uses it, nobody cultivates it, it does not pay off. You should have seen this place 25 years ago, you would not recognize it. The entire landscape has changed.
—Farmer from Bilvytis, April, 2007Driving through Lithuania at the beginning of the new century, one could get a good sense of the reforms and events in the countryside since the declared independence; the landscape is characterized by many small land plots of uneven size, much land lays fallow and outside every bigger village there are ruins of a collective farm, robbed of building materials and everything else of value. Economic shock therapy and rapid privatization became the new agenda, driven by the political climate at the time, which advocated a rapid de-Sovietization.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Lithuania in Old HandsEffects and Outcomes of EUropeanization in Rural Lithuania, pp. 33 - 62Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012