Ethnic minorities in the Lithuanian historical narrative at school education (1918-2018)

Comparative analysis of educational system in interwar, Soviet and post-1990 Lithuanian is important in order to assess the impact of the history of ethnic minorities in Lithuania on the general Lithuanian historical narrative at schools. This is especially relevant to the post-Soviet countries, where new ethnic and national identities are forming. This study analyzing the content of Lithuanian history, geography and literature textbooks identifies the main problems of the presentation of history of Lithuanian ethnic minorities in different periods of Lithuanian statehood: interwar (1918-1940), Soviet Lithuania (1945-1989) and re-independent Lithuania (1990-2018). While comparing the presentation of information on ethnic minorities in interwar and contemporary textbooks, it has been observed that despite the proximity of ethnic minorities in the interwar Lithuania or today's increasing number of studies about ethnic minorities, the textbooks of both periods have factual errors about the local history of ethnic minorities. In the interwar textbooks ethnic minorities are referred to as still existing and functioning groups, and in today's textbooks ethnic minorities are represented only as a relic of the past. It is expected that the results of this research work could contribute to the formation of education policy on presentation of history of ethnic minorities in Lithuania