From authoritarian to democratic cultural policy: making sense of de-sovietisation in Lithuania after 1990

The article deals with discourses on governance in cultural policy in a context of radical political change. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of qualitative interviews, it explores how the meaning of "Soviet" cultural policy was retrospectively constructed by Lithuanian cultural operators as they talked about the post-ippo democratisation. The informants mobilised a complex discursive strategy of alienation and defamiliarisation which made sense of Soviet culturalpolicy and reconciled change with preservation of its elements. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the informants perceived the changes in the distribution of power in which was associated with decentralisation reforms. The findings suggest that the distinction between authoritarian and democratic cultural policy models to a large extent came to be constructed in rather utilitarian terms andwas strongly dependent on the contemporary practical issues. The conclusion therefore suggests we avoid essentialising the categories "authoritarian" and "democratic" in the theoretical construction of state cultural policy models. Instead, it points out that it is vital to examine the components of these categories as a subject of historically situated discursive negotiations