Challenges to Lithuanian ethnology during the Soviet period: the discipline, ideology and patriotism

The aim of the article is to examine resistant vs. conformist ideologies in the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities during the Soviet period. The discipline of Ethnology is used as the case in point. It is an attempt not only to draw a line between these two ideologies but also to exemplify how they influenced Ethnology, converting it into an applied research field governed by Soviet and nationalist ideologies. This was particularly visible in the field and research methods used in Lithuanian Ethnology of the period. The Soviet regime tackled Lithuanian Ethnology first of all by renaming the discipline. In order to fit it into Soviet system, where Ethnology was proclaimed as bourgeois discipline since 1932, the term of Ethnography was introduced. From the very beginning of the Soviet occupation the discipline of Soviet Ethnography was accommodated in the field of history. “In order to gain broader and thorough understanding of the historical process of the Soviet Lithuanian people” Ethnography was called upon to do research on labor masses by exploring their culture and everyday life.[...]Vytauto Didžiojo universiteta