Modernization of domestic life in Lithuania in the 20th century

Straipsnyje, analizuojant XX a. buities modernizavimo procesus, išskiriamos dvi ryškiausios kasdieninės erdvės modernizacijos kampanijos, vykdytos praeito amžiaus 3-iajame ir 6-7-ajame dešimtmečiuose. Lyginama, kaip iš pirmo žvilgsnio panašus tikslas - modernizuoti visuomenę pasitelkus gyvenamąją erdvę - gali turėti absoliučiai priešingus socialinius, idėjinius ar net politinius prioritetus. Straipsnyje pateikiami ryškiausi abiejų periodų buities modernizacijos instrumentai ir konkrečios socialinės inžinerijos formos.This paper discusses the processes of domestic life modernization in Lithuania in the 20th centuty. Two main campaigns of everyday life modernization are specified - one took place in the interwar period (in the late 1920s and in the 1930s), and the second, much more intensive, took place after forty years, in the middle of the 1950s and in the 1960s. The research reveals domestic life as an important and powerful social engineering instrument, which was used quite intensively in the pre-war period and extremely intensively after the war. Despite the fact that both campaigns of modernization had an intention to create a new society and a new man, they had completely different ideological and political backgrounds. The campaign of modernization which took place in interwar times was not centralized or organized from the above. It was more like an initiative of a group of individuals to modernize the way of living and make Lithuania look more like Western countries. The second, post-war, modernization campaign was properly centralized and determined by the highest political decisions. Domestic life was officially declared as an object of intctest for policy, ideology and propaganda. The main objective of this campaign was not only to modernize society via domestic life, but also to create a new man, an individual absolutely loyal to the regime