Remembering and Forgetting: Creating a Soviet Lithuanian Capital. Vilnius 1944–1949

Ernest Renan remarked in his famous essay ‘What is a Nation?’ that while remembering was crucial in forming national identity and consciousness, no less important was forgetting. Indeed, the writing of history as a patriotic enterprise proves this statement time and again, with the patriot-historian emphasizing the glorious and admirable deeds of his (nearly always ‘his’) nation and passing less agreeable — or more complex — realities unmentioned.