Lithuanian Nationalism and the Vilnius Question, 1883−1940 by Dangiras Mačiulis and Darius Staliūnas (review)

Few cities in Central and Eastern Europe had such a controversial and contested history as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania today and a place known under different names by various categories of its inhabitants in the past. It was Vilne – an "Eastern Jerusalem" – for Jews; Wilno for eastern Poles; Vil'nja – an ancient cultural center and historical capital – for Belarusians; Vilnius – the heart of the future Lithuanian national state – for Lithuanians; and Vilna – the center of Russian imperial administration for the Northwestern Provinces. Dangiras Mačiulis and Darius Staliūnas have written an exciting in-depth study elucidating the process of transforming that multifaceted city into the capital of the Lithuanian national state by 1939. The authors show how activists of the Lithuanian national revival, although innumerous and limited in their resources, successfully introduced and promoted the idea of Lithuania as an independent state and, consequently, Vilnius as its capital.

The study makes extensive use of Lithuanian periodicals of the time as its main historical source. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when national elites were emerging across Eastern and Central Europe, printed periodicals served as the main binding link between intellectuals and the masses. Lithuanian periodicals became the venue in which the idea of Vilnius as a Lithuanian capital was first formulated, and then the main vehicle of mobilization of wide circles of Lithuanian society around this idea.

The book is structured chronologically. The story begins in 1883, when Aušra (Dawn), the first periodical in the Lithuanian language appeared. It concludes in 1940, one year after Stalin's decision to hand Vilnius over to Lithuania, which fell under Soviet sway, having been lured by this promise. The book is organized in five chapters, and has a short introduction and conclusion. Each chapter is divided into several sections, which allows the authors' argument to be more neatly structured.

Chapter 1 shows how the idea of the centrality of Vilnius for Lithuanians was conceived by national activists in the late nineteenth century. Despite the obvious obstacles such as the paucity of the Lithuanian population in the city and its surroundings, the proximity of Kaunas, which was also competing for the role of capital, and the interests of other national groups, the idea won over the Lithuanian public. By the eve of World War I, it had become a key resource of national consolidation and mobilization of support for the Lithuanian national state within Lithuanian ethnographic borders. The project of the Lithuanian national state with its capital in Vilnius looked particularly unrealistic at that time, as the ethnically heterogeneous Vilnius region was situated outside the existing Lithuanian "ethnographic borders." The Lithuanian national movement did not find support for its aspirations, especially concerning the Vilnius region, from the Jewish, Polish, and Belarusian populations.

Chapter 2 covers the brief period of World War I and German occupation as a turning point in the fortunes of the region's national movements. The war raised the expectations of the Lithuanian intelligentsia regarding Vilnius, as the city became more Lithuanianized due to the influx of refugees from the Lithuanian western borderlands. United by the idea of national autonomy with the center in Vilnius, the Lithuanian national movement was by no means homogeneous. In search of potential allies, its members looked in different directions. The course of events eventually made Berlin the main ally of the Lithuanian national project. Under German occupation and with the support of the German administration, Lithuanian independence was declared in Vilnius on December 11, 1917 (and then repeated in the Act of Independence of February 16, 1918). The act mentioned Vilnius as the capital of Lithuania, which added legitimacy to Lithuanian claims to Vilnius, but the actual struggle for the city was still far from its conclusion.

The next short and no less intensive period between 1918 and 1923 ("the time of changes" as Mačiulis and...