RESPONSE TO REPRESSIONS: LITHUANIAN CLERGY IN DRAMATIC POST-WAR TURMOIL

For a long time after the war, Lithuanians were convinced that the United States of America and England would demand that Stalin withdraw his troops from the occupied European countries. Predictions of imminent political change, based on all sorts of reasoning rather than evidence, continued to circulate among the people. The hopes of liberation were directly linked with the phenomenon of hiding, a self-defense against assumed or imminent Stalinist repression. The aim of this article is to highlight the causes and prevalence of the phenomenon of hiding in Lithuania in the face of Soviet repressions, and the role of the clergy in the related events of 1944-1956. The research covers the documents of the Ministry/Committee for State Security (MGB/KGB) in the Lithuanian Special Archives, as well as biographies and diaries describing the circumstances of the people who chose to go into hiding.