Imigrantų kartų kaitos procesas Kanados lietuvių laikraščio Nepriklausoma Lietuva pirmuoju leidimo laikotarpiu (1940-1951) : istorinis ir ideologinis kontekstas

Abstract

The Lithuanian-Canadian newspaper Nepriklausoma Lietuva (Independent Lithuania) was established in 1940 in Toronto by Lithuanians who opposed the pro-Communist propaganda being spread by the Lithuanian Communist newspaper „Liaudies Balsas“ (The People’s Voice) – namely, that the Soviet occupation of the homeland was legal and welcomed by the majority of Lithuanians. However, within a year the newspaper was moved to the Montreal Lithuanian community, as Toronto Lithuanians were ideologically split. In its first years the newspaper was not run very professionally and suffered from the lack of any direct information from Lithuania, though it did appear weekly and had a degree of popularity among the Lithuanians of Canada, then about 8,000 in number. However, with the arrival of a new wave of Lithuanian immigrants, the so-called Displaced Persons (DPs), political refugees who refused to return to a Lithuania under Soviet rule, from l947 onwards the newspaper was staffed mostly by DPs and reflected their highly patriotic outlook. The transfer went very smoothly, as the DP arrivals were younger and often had experience in journalism. Nevertheless, as more DPs came to Canada, eventually growing in numbers to near 30,000, political divisions appeared among them and a struggle over who would control Nepriklausoma Lietuva developed. With Jonas Kardelis, an experienced journalist and long-time leader in a Lithuanian leftist party, as editor of the newspaper, its quality improved, but its political stance became more rigid. Eventually, after over a hundred meetings among the quarreling sides in Montreal, the right-wing group among the DPs, who were more favourable to clerical involvement in the running of the community, formed another Lithuanian newspaper in Toronto, Tėviškės žiburiai. The entire process provides an interesting example of the way that power could move very peacefully from two different generations an