ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Marija Gimbutas’ life from her birth in 1921 until her emigration to the U.S. in 1949. It explains the social context of the Lithuanian ethnic minority in interwar Vilnius, where Gimbutas was born, and describes her family. The chapter pays attention to her education, her coming of age, and her political views in the context of the Second World War, and the Soviet and German occupations of Lithuania. It follows Gimbutas with her family as they flee first to Austria and then to Germany trying to escape the second Soviet occupation of Lithuania and Eastern Europe. The chapter provides an overview of her early texts about the origins of the Balts and Lithuanian paganism, giving a glimpse of her early ideological views.
