The New culture wars in Lithuania : trouble with Soviet heritage

http://www.cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/home/How much Soviet heritage do we need? With opinions ranging from ‘Let’s ban everything produced during the Soviet period’ to ‘Let’s bring Lenin’s statues back into the towns,’ Lithuania has in recent years witnessed heated debates and an extreme polarization of opinions regarding its Soviet heritage. At the epicentre of the debate are four group statues representing major social groups of the Soviet period – industrial workers, peasants, students and soldiers – which were erected on the Green Bridge in Vilnius in 1952. The statues are neither explicitly political nor ideologically neutral, so they survived the fall of the Soviet regime and existed in relative peace until 2010. By then, the material condition of the statues had deteriorated to such a degree that society faced a challenge – to remove or renovate? With the physical collapse of the statues imminent and under pressure to make a quick decision, the case has sparked a culture war in Lithuania, i.e. a radical realignment of opinions into two definable entities, a conflict that has lasted for the past five years without reconciliationVytauto Didžiojo universiteta