Ką SĖJA pasėjo? Valstiečių liaudininkų idėjinė sklaida „Sėjoje” 1953 – 1963 m

Abstract

The Sėja journal, published from 1953 to 1977, was at the center of the organizational and ideological life of the Lithuanian Peasant Populist Union (LPPU) in exile. Is founder and long-time editor was Grožvydas Juozas Lazauskas; he was assisted by Liudas Šmulkštys, E. Boreiša, and Antanas Rūkas; prominent contributors included Juozas Audėnas, Mečys Mackevičius, and others. The journal was national and democratic in orientation; it published many texts on, and reminiscences of, events in Lithuanian and LPPU history; and it reflected the development of Peasant Populist ideas. Sėja’s main purpose, following in the footsteps of the varpininkai movement, was to foster and keep alive the national spirit and the quest for independence through publishing and community activities. But the second objective – to bring together the entire exile community, regardless of its political bent, for the common purpose of liberating Lithuania – was more difficult to achieve because of the LPPU leaders‘ political partisanship; their exaggerated distrust of anyone who for one or another reason could be closer to the nationalist (tautininkai) movement; and their wish to monopolize the ideological center of diaspora political life. These attitudes hindered Sėja in accomplishing another objective – to lead young people and educate them in the spirit of Lithuanian ideals. The gap between the publishers and main contributors of Sėja, on the one hand, and young, especially academically oriented people, on the other, widened constantly. The organizational and ideological core of the LPPU in exile was formed by people who had been very active in modernizing Peasant Populist ideology in the 1920s, including L. Šmulkštys, M. Mackevičius, J. Makauskas, and A. Valuckas.[...]