Lietuvių ir latvių tautinės tapatybės išsaugojimo siekiai DP stovyklose Vokietijoje

Abstract

This article reviews the efforts of two neighborly nations sharing a common destiny to preserve their national identity in the DP camps in which more than 60,000 Lithuanians and about 95,000 Latvians ended up after World War II. As they awaited a resolution of their further fate, the refugees of these nations began to organize their own schools, arts groups, and a national community life patterned after precedents established in the prewar Lithuanian and Latvian states. Many of these refugees had a clearly formed conception of national identity according to which nationality was held to be a fundamental element of national independence and welfare and its safeguard for the future. The article looks at the preservation of national identity mainly through the prism of memoirs supplemented by statistical data and the results of historical research. It emphasizes the change of the old, and the emergence of new, forms of maintaining national identity, forms arising under extraordinary circumstances, especially in the second half of the DP camp period, when it became clear that a quick return to the homeland is not in the offing. Thus the necessity of preparing for the preservation of one’s identity in a longlasting diaspora framework within a multicultural world became evident.