Exploration of the relationship between the KGB and Catholic Church in Lithuania after 1940.
creator
Weitekamp, Sarah
Title
Lithuanian Catholicism and the KGB
advisor
Cohn, Edward
Index Date
2015
Date Created
2015-05-04
Publisher
Grinnell College
Type of Resource
text
Genre
research paper
Digital Origin
reformated digital
Digital Extent
44 pages
Media Type
application/pdf
description
After being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, Lithuania was the only Soviet republic with a majority Roman Catholic population. Unlike its Lutheran-majority Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Latvia, religion remained a visible part of Lithuania’s national rhetoric, with the Catholic church eventually helping to spawn an active dissident movement and later assisting with Lithuania’s movement for independence. This project seeks to understand the shifting relationship between the KGB and the Church throughout the Soviet period, using Russian-language KGB archive documents and English translations of the Lithuanian Catholic Church's illegal dissident publication to understand how these two opposing groups coexisted and communicated with one another. I argue that while the KGB succeeding in controlling the official institutional apparatus of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, its failure to prevent non-official manifestations of Catholic belief paved the way for the eventual formation of a nationalist Catholic dissident movement in Lithuania
Language
English
Topic
History
Topic
Catholic Church
Topic
Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti
Geographic
Lithuania
Geographic
Soviet Union
Temporal
20th century
Related Item
Student Scholarship
Related Item
Mentored Advanced Project
Identifier (local)
grinnell:11385
Access Condition
Copyright to this work is held by the author(s), in accordance with United States copyright law (USC 17). Readers of this work have certain rights as defined by the law, including but not limited to fair use (17 USC 107 et seq.).
