Lithuania: Stepping Westward(Postcommunist States and Nations)

Lithuania restored her independence, after half a century of Soviet occupation, in the immediate aftermath of the failed Moscow coup in August 1991. As the multi-national Soviet state disintegrated, Lithuania evolved, without war or violence, from a communist state and a command economy to a liberal democracy, a free market, and a society guaranteeing human and minority rights. Lithuania therefore offers a notable example of peaceful transition, all the more impressive in the light of the bloody conflict elsewhere in the former Soviet Union of Yugoslavia, where the aspirations to independence of the constituent republics were either violently resisted or dissolved into inter-ethnic violence. Equally remarkable has been Lithuania's determination to 'return to Europe' after half a century of separation, even at the price of submerging its recently restored sovereign rights in the supranational European Union. The cost of membership in western economic and security organizations are judged to be worth paying to prevent Lithuania's being drawn once again into a putative Russian sphere of influence. On the threshold of a new millennium therefore, Lithuania has made a pragmatic accommodation to the demands of becoming a modern European state, whilst vigorously resisting the dilution of her rich cultural and historical traditions. These twin themes of accommodation and resistance are Lithuania's historical legacy to the current generations of Lithuanians as they integrate into European institutions and continue the modernization process.

Table of Contents:
Part I - Revival and Repression 1914-1985 1. Independent Lithuania between Wars 2. Sovietization 1940-1985 Part II - Independence and the Politics of Transition 1985 - 1999 3. The Achievement of Independence 1985-1991 4. Government and Politics in Independent Lithuania 5. The Lithuanian Economy after Independence 6. Lithuania's Foreign and National Security Policy

About the Author :
Thomas Lane, Department of European Studies, University of Bradford.

Review :
"In "Lithuania: Stepping Westward, Lane, an historian, has put together a sound and informative survey of not only the Lithuanian role in the stunning events of 1988-1992 but of the Lithuanian experience as a whole, ranging from the Middle Ages through to the developments, political, economic and strategic, of the last decade, as Lithuania has adopted democratic conventions and a free market, and sought simultaneously to join both NATO and the European Union.." -Canadian Journal of History