ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to uncovering the shifts in attitudes and perception taking place in Lithuania's Muslim community's different quarters regarding relations between Muslims and Christians and their respective statuses vis--vis the state and society as well as the perceived role of the Catholic Church in the socio-political development of the Lithuanian state and nation. The main methodological tools employed in the research for the chapter were a content analysis of the Lithuanian language monthly Lithuanian Tatars to date the sole periodical of the Lithuanian Tatar community. The incorporation of the eastern Baltic lands into the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century opened a new chapter in the evolution of Islam on the eastern Baltic shores as the Muslims of the defunct state found themselves in an overwhelmingly orthodox country with a significant Muslim minority to whose authority they were subjected.