6—
Exposing the Secret

In the aftermath of Iakovlev's visit, Lithuanians focused their attention on the upcoming anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and the question of the "secret protocols" by which the Germans and the Soviets in 1939 had divided East Central Europe between themselves. In the first agreement of August 23, Lithuania had been consigned to Germany, but in the second agreement of September 28, 1939, the Germans had traded most of Lithuania to the Soviet Union. After the incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR in 1940, a third agreement, dated January 10, 1941, had assigned one last portion of Lithuania to the Soviet Union.

The Western powers had introduced the documents at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial after World War II but, following their publication in the United States, Soviet historians had denounced them as forgeries. "Falsifiers of history," they called historians who accepted the documents as genuine.^[1] In 1987, working up

to the observance of the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Radio Free Europe's Lithuanian service had broadcast a number of items pertaining to the protocols but, since the Soviets jammed this frequency, few in Lithuania seemed to have heard the programs.

Among Lithuanian writers and historians, discussion of the protocols had begun even before the 1987 anniversary. Eidintas had written about them in Literatura ir menas, and most intellectuals seemed to have some idea of their existence, but many apparently had no idea of what the protocols might actually say. Soviet historians in Moscow insisted that they could not find the protocols in Soviet archives and that they therefore must not exist. Accordingly, Moscow declared, they should not be discussed. The press in Lithuania dutifully remained silent.

The Estonians finally broke the silence and published the texts in the summer of 1988. Sajudzio zinios soon followed suit, using a samizdat translation of the original American publication, Nazi-Soviet Relations. Bronius Kuzmickas, a philosopher, put his name to the publication of the protocols and several key telegrams between Molotov and Ribbentrop. "Absolute openness about these agreements is essential," wrote Kuzmickas: silence served only to weaken popular belief in glasnost and democracy in the Soviet Union.^[2]

Reacting to Sajudzio zinios 's publishing the protocols, Robertas Ziugzda, writing in Sovetskaia Litva of August 18, expressed regret that many Soviet documents of that period had not seen the light of day, and he accepted the view that Stalinist foreign policy had suffered "deformation" because of the leader's "cult of personality." Although he called the Soviet Union wise to have accepted Hitler's offer of a Non-Aggression Pact in 1939, he ad-

mitted that the division of East Central Europe constituted "a clear deviation from generally accepted norms of international law, from Leninist principles of foreign policy." In form the Soviet move into Eastern Poland on September 17 might be considered "an occupation," but "in the perspective of securing the national self-dependence and statehood" of the peoples concerned, "these steps, under the conditions of the time, were inevitable."

Despite tactical errors, Ziugzda continued, the Soviet Union had protected Lithuania from Nazi attack. "Reactionary circles of the Lithuanian bourgeoisie" nevertheless began "to sabotage this agreement." Stalin, to be sure, had exceeded the "normal relations between states" by couching his demands of Lithuania in the form of an ultimatum, but Stalinist repressions should not eclipse the fact that the orderly establishment of Soviet rule in Lithuania and the land's incorporation into the Soviet Union "marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of the country."

Ziugzda's tortured explanation satisfied few, and there could be no doubt that something would happen in Vilnius on August 23, 1988; the question was "What?" On July 27 the Freedom League announced its plans for holding a meeting. The Initiative Group had spent considerable time debating what it should do to observe the anniversary: Would a meeting be permitted? Perhaps there should just be some articles in the press; people could wear black ribbons that day. Were the people tired of having meetings and rallies?

The Initiative Group finally decided in favor of a demonstration. A letter to the Party Central Committee, signed by twenty-three members of the group, declared

that the Soviet government should publish the 1939 treaty with all its attachments and take a clear position on it based on "today's juridical, political, and ideological evaluation." Sajudis, it assured the party, viewed "Lithuania's place in the USSR as a historical reality," but it wanted to improve that place by establishing a state governed by laws and by amending the constitution. Another letter, this one to Vileikis, dated August 12 and signed by Gintaras Songaila, Alvydas Medalinskas, and Arvydas Juozaitis, requested permission to meet in Gediminas Square, declaring, "We expect up to 20,000 participants."^[3]

Over the next week considerable confusion reigned as to where the gathering might take place. The Freedom League had chosen Gediminas Square as the site for its rally. When Sajudis announced its plans to hold a meeting, the Freedom League declared that it would go where Sajudis did: "We must remain united," Terleckas told the Lithuanian Information Center in Brooklyn. "Our goals are the same — an independent Lithuania."^[4] Some emigre publications, obviously relying on sources in the league, predicted that the authorities would prevent any public meeting on August 23.

Mayor Vileikis suggested to Sajudis that it should meet in Vingis Park. A member of the mayor's staff assured me that Vileikis had calculated that Gediminas Square might be too small for the crowd that would come; an emigre publication argued that Vileikis had diverted the demonstration out to Vingis Park in order to disrupt the Freedom League's plans.^[5] A member of the Initiative Group later suggested to me that once the Voice of America (VOA) had announced the Freedom League's plans for Gediminas Square, the authorities

decided to offer Vingis Park as a means of proving VOA wrong. When plans had been set, however, VOA matter-of-factly announced the change.

Whatever the considerations, the decision hung in the air; the "grapevine," obviously growing out of Sajudis, reported that if the meeting was to be held in Vingis Park, there would be an announcement on television; if there was no announcement, the meeting would be held in Gediminas Square. Finally on Saturday evening, August 20, Vytautas Landsbergis appeared on Lithuanian television to announce that a calm, hour-long memorial service would be held in Vingis Park on the twenty-third to commemorate the anniversary of the pact. Those who could not attend the meeting should take a moment for contemplation on their own.^[6]

In the evening of August 17 a new element entered the scene when two hunger strikers, Petras Cidzikas and Algimantas Andreika, set up camp in Gediminas Square, at the corner of the cathedral/art museum outside the chapel of St. Casimir, the patron saint of Lithuania. The action had nothing to do with Sajudis. On the sixteenth Cidzikas had informed the Initiative Group of his intentions, and the group had decided to take no stand on his action — many indeed thought that the strikers would be quickly arrested. The strikers demanded that the government review the cases of eight men imprisoned or exiled on the charge of "anti-Soviet agitation" under Article 68 of the Penal Code.

The strikers quickly drew popular support, and other groups came to add their own causes to that of the original strikers. On Sunday the twenty-first, a group of six Armenians sat for a few hours under a banner declaring, "Armenia Is with You"; when they departed, they left their sign behind. Women set up candles and created a

shrine of sorts in the wall of the cathedral by the place where the strikers sat. Besides expressing sympathy for the strikers, they advocated the return of the cathedral to the church.

Statements from people stopping to view the strikers both approved and condemned. "They don't know what they want themselves," declared one scornful passerby. "You can't talk about what you can't talk about," warned a cautious observer. "It will end soon, they will be taken away," predicted another. "The Russians liberated you," declared a Russian, while a Lithuanian snapped back, "But they forgot to leave!" On Sunday afternoon a priest came to say mass in the open air; in the evenings large groups gathered under specially installed floodlights to sing hymns and folk songs.

The official press took note of the strike on Friday, August 19, when Komjaunimo tiesa carried a report, based on information from the "organs of public order," that one of the demonstrators was under psychiatric observation. The report also recounted the charges against the prisoners on whose behalf the demonstration was taking place, speaking of one as a murderer, another as a draft dodger, a third as a homosexual. Algimantas Cekuolis, the newspaper recounted, had declared that "the Movement for Perestroika in Lithuania did not organize this action and does not support it."

Members of Sajudis's Initiative Group who sympathized especially with Cidzikas — "Starving is an extreme form of protest, a conscious sacrifice," wrote Sajudzio zinios^[7] — criticized Cekuolis for having taken it upon himself to speak in the name of the group. In the meantime, the demonstrators posted a sign reading, "Thank you, Komjaunimo tiesa, for the attention." The area around the strikers now became the site of

intense political debates on topics ranging from such recently tabu subjects as political and religious persecution to the secret protocols and the incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR.

Conservatives still denied the protocols' existence, and they received support from Moscow. Appearing on Moscow television on August 16 Sarmaitis insisted that Lithuania had experienced a real but peaceful "social revolution" in 1940.^[8] On August 22 Pravda devoted a page to "letters from the republics of the Soviet Baltic"; Navickas and Domas Sniukas, Pravda's correspondent in Vilnius, spoke on behalf of the Lithuanians in this forum, denouncing the Smetona regime that had ruled Lithuania until the establishment of Soviet rule in 1940.

The Lithuanian press discussed the issue of the protocols more critically, but still cautiously. Kestutis Zaleckas, head of the city's party organization, warned that the lack of documents only served to help "demagogic" and "nationalist" interests.^[9] In Tiesa of August 20, Regina Zepkaite argued that even without the original text in hand historians had to recognize that evidence pointed to their existence and concluded that Germany gained more from the pact than did the Soviets. Although it did not satisfy those who wanted a blanket condemnation of Stalin and the Soviet government,^[10] Zepkaite's article could not have been published three months earlier.

TASS, the official Soviet news agency, contributed to the discussion with an anonymous article, written in the offices of TASS-ELTA in Vilnius and published in Literatura ir menas on August 20. After reviewing the history of 1938 and 1939 and insisting that the Soviet Union took territory only to defend itself, the TASS dispatch printed the text of the protocol of August 23 as it

had been introduced in the Nuremburg trial. The text, it suggested, seemed to have been carelessly written, a sign that it had not been prepared in advance.

On the morning of the twenty-third, Henrikas Sadzius, head of the section on the History of Socialism in the academy's Institute of History, criticized Stalin's theory of the "unavoidable sharpening of class conflict in constructing socialism" — the argument that Iakovlev had echoed — but saw the Soviet Union as having been threatened with a two-front war in 1939 and therefore forced to accept peace with Germany. Although generations of Soviet historians had insisted that the protocols did not exist, Sadzius concluded by publishing the text as printed in the West, simply warning his readers that they must read it critically."^[11]

That evening the public that gathered in Vingis Park entertained no doubts about the authenticity of the protocols as published. They came in carrying tricolor flags of all sizes, most with black ribbons attached. No one could be sure how many people were there. Moscow radio spoke of 100,000, Sajudis claimed "at least 150,000," and Voice of America reported 200,000. Months later, people tended to say 150,000 to 200,000. Formally they came "to commemorate" the pact and its consequences; in fact they were there to condemn the pact.

After the meeting had opened with Juzeliunas's conducting the assemblage in singing Maironis's Lithuania Beloved, Vytautas Landsbergis offered his own portrait of August 23, 1939: "That day two men signed one document. Their names were Ribbentrop and Molotov. But behind them, who were evil-enough criminals, stood two others, Hitler and Stalin, whom mankind has not yet found words to describe." He pictured Stalin as hav-

ing enslaved his own country first and then having carried his system to other lands: "The earlier assertions of some historians that this murderer of his own family went into the street as the caring protector of the weak cannot even convince the paper on which they were written." Historians now have "more nerve, more freedom. We will hear their word." He declared that "Soviet Lithuania, as we know it today, is the result of many circumstances and actions" and that the population of the Soviet Union still suffered from "the virus of Stalinism . . . the AIDS of Stalinism. We have to get well or else we will die."

The next speaker was Justinas Marcinkevicius, a poet well known for his interest in Lithuanian history. The Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, he argued, "untied Hitler's hands" and facilitated his victories in Western Europe. However "politicians, historians, and ideologists" might explain the pact, it stands as "a heinous document of international banditry," especially in the light of its secret protocols. As for the inability of Moscow's historians to find the text of the protocols, he scornfully commented, "There is nothing funnier. It is absolutely clear that Moscow will not find what it does not want to find, what should not be found. One can search, but one should not find." Perhaps, he added, a few Baltic historians should enter the search as an example of "altruistic, fraternal, international help for the benefit of historical truth."

Insisting that a people must know its own history, Marcinkevicius offered five demands as a resolution of the gathering: (1) to publish the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with its protocols, (2) to establish a time-limit after which archival documents must be made public, (3) to open all archives to historians and journalists, (4) to publish a special volume of documents on recent

Lithuanian history, and (5) to prepare as quickly as possible a new program and new textbooks for the teaching of Lithuanian history in secondary schools. Marcinkevicius's proposals were out of order since the gathering was a memorial, and not a rally, but his words found their audience. In conclusion, he declared, "Long live a people freely associating with its history!"

Antanas Buracas, a member of the Academy of Sciences, also proposed a series of actions, including the possibility of joining "with our Latvian brothers" to blockade Ignalina in protest against construction of the third unit of the huge structure. He called for a special session of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet to consider constitutional reform, for guarantees of Lithuanian cultural and economic sovereignty, for restitution of rights and property to deportees, for better relations with emigres, and for the reconsideration of the cases against people charged with anti-Soviet activity.

Buracas's call for better relations with the emigration spoke to a general effort being made in 1988 to close the gap between the homeland and the émigrés, to unite the divided islands of Lithuanian culture around the world. When I first arrived in Vilnius, I was immediately struck by a poster advertising a show of art by emigre Lithuanian artists; the art on the poster was the work of Vytautas Ignas, who lives in Connecticut. A number of émigré artists, moreover, were visiting Vilnius in connection with the show. "One nation, one culture," was a common theme in the press.

Marcinkevicius and Buracas had whipped up such enthusiasm in the crowd that Landsbergis had to remind the spectators that this was a memorial service. People carrying flags "should not wave them as if they were in a stadium; this is a different sort of gathering." The

tone of the meeting then temporarily changed: Lionginas Sepetys insisted that "the present government of the land of Soviets" would never act as Stalin had in 1939, and a Catholic priest, Edmundas Atkociunas, called on the people to join him in decrying the sins of the modern world. The juxtaposition in a public meeting of the ideological chief of the party with a Catholic priest was unprecedented, but the priest's message missed its target in this audience. Landsbergis intervened to say, "We are against any sort of spiritual dictate; we are for freedom of spirit and mind in all respects."

History returned to the microphone with the appearance of Gediminas Rudis, who recounted how "Soviet propaganda called France and England `imperialists'" in their war with Hitler's Germany. The events of 1940 in Lithuania, the "revolutionary situation," could not be understood without reference to the context of Nazi-Soviet relations: "Enough of acting as if [the protocols] did not exist!. . . The traditional conception of socialist revolution in Lithuania in 1940 does not satisfy the public." There had certainly been a crisis in the Lithuanian government in 1940, but "the crisis at the top was organized from the Kremlin, and not very cleanly at that."

Turning to the contention that Soviet intervention in Lithuania had saved the land from a plot to turn it over to the Germans, Rudis declared that this idea was based on the testimony of one man who had given the information under questioning by the security police. "We now know well what the methods of interrogation were at that time. If the interrogating officers had wanted, he would also have confessed that he was digging a tunnel from Kaunas to Vilnius." Historical study, he con-

cluded, should not be produced "in congresses and party committees."

Arvydas Juozaitis took the microphone to give the briefest but at the same time most impassioned statement of the evening: "Today is the day of our great rebirth and cleansing. Therefore I wish that from today we would not see such slander about our people's history as Robertas Ziugzda and his flunkies spread in our periodical and academic press."

Juozaitis's sharp words startled many: "Undiplomatic," I heard some later say of them, "he should not have spoken so." Juozaitis himself later explained to me that he was not on the original roster of speakers. "They were talking about how Lithuania had been occupied, but this was not enough." Before the meeting, in discussing the program with other members of the Initia tive Group, he had declared that this meeting should contribute to the "rehabilitation of historical science. The meeting, however, went a different direction. Juozaitis felt that the "Stalinist historians were just laughing," that something had to be done to pillory at least the man he considered the leader of that camp, Ziugzda. Therefore he sidled up to Landsbergis and announced his intention to address the crowd, assuring him, "`I will now say three sentences.' Landsbergis asked `Just three?" Just three.' And I said just two."

Liudas Truska then undertook to rehabilitiate history and challenged historians' traditional interpretations of the pact of 1939, arguing that signing the pact was in fact not in the best interests even of the Soviet Union. The three Baltic republics, moreover, were the only states to disappear from the map of Europe as a result of World War II, and it was ridiculous to say that any

people would willingly give up their independence. It was now time for historians to tell the truth about the costs that Lithuania had had to pay for that pact: "As a historian, I am ashamed that for so long we did not tell the public the entire truth, at times less than half, and that is the biggest lie."

The crowd so enthusiastically received Truska's confession that Landsbergis again had to call on it to keep order. The spectators responded by giving the next speaker, Vladislovas Mikuciauskas, the foreign minister of Soviet Lithuania, so much mock applause that he had to end his speech prematurely.

Sigitas Geda then delivered a history lesson, reading the definition of annexation written into the Soviet government's decree on peace in November 1917: "the incorporation of any small or weak nationality by a large and strong state" without the indisputable consent of the small nationality. Conjuring up a biblical parable, he spoke of two strong neighbors' visiting a weak but free man and saying to him: "We will take your roof from above your head, we will take your land, and your woman, your children. . . . We will share your property, everything that here belonged to your ancestors, but you will be happy for it." Lithuania, he concluded, can still recover: "Not to believe today in Lithuania means not to believe in sense, conscience, freedom, and honor."

As darkness settled on the park, the spectators lit candles: according to the printed account of the meeting they represented "the eternal light remembering the senseless victims of Stalinism and Hitlerism."^[12] Juzeliunas suggested that the independence the Lithuanians had enjoyed until 1940 had protected their culture from the ravages of Stalinist political and cultural persecution in the 1930s; Kazys Saja, a writer, gave an im-

passioned defense of the hunger strikers in Gediminas Square and called for "freedom to prisoners of conscience!" After several more speakers, Virgilius Cepaitis, a translator, returned to the theme of history, asserting, "We must know our history. And not just know it, but also remember that each of us is there and participating." The meeting ended with Juzeliunas's conducting the singing of the National Hymn.

On television the previous Saturday Landsbergis had spoken of the meeting lasting an hour. In fact it continued for almost three. As rain started to fall, the spectators left in groups as they had come, discussing the speeches, evaluating who had made good points, who had failed. The speakers had raised many issues that in the past people would have feared to mention in public; no one could now dare to suggest that the protocols had not existed.

The speakers had aroused different memories for each listener, recalling personal experiences, family, or friends. Buracas had called for the posthumous restitution of membership in the Academy of Sciences of two emigres who had taught at the University of Lithuania before World War II, Vincas Kreve-Mickevicius and Mykolas Birziska. Algimantas Liekis of the Institute of History had first voiced this demand in Komjaunimo tiesa of August 13. Hearing their names aroused my own private memories.

Vincas Kreve, who had been my Russian professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was a noted writer who had served as dean of the Humanities Faculty of the University of Lithuania. In 1940, when Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union, he had been the country's foreign minister. After the war, he had entered the United States and, as an émigré, had become an

"un-person" in Lithuania. When he died in Philadelphia in 1954 a speaker at his funeral declared that when Lithuania was free again the people would take Kreve back there. On October 10 the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences recommended that the Council of Ministers rescind its decision of January 18, 1946, depriving both Kreve and Birziska of their status as members of the academy. When, on October 17, ELTA announced that the Lithuanian government had approved restoring both men to the status of Academician, I thought to myself that at least Kreve's spirit had returned.

Birziska had been active in Lithuanian socialism before World War I and had written extensively on Lithuanian culture and folklore. His name was closely associated with Lithuanian efforts to establish their presence in Vilnius under Polish rule in the early 1920s. Like Kreve, he had emigrated after World War II, and he had settled in Los Angeles. In 1956 I interviewed him for the beginning work on my doctoral dissertation; like Kreve he would not have emigrated from Lithuania of his own free will. That evening in August I left Vingis Park with the feeling that the Lithuanian national consciousness had established an important benchmark in its new spurt of growth.

While most of the people went directly home, many made their way to Gediminas Square, some to commune with the hunger strikers, others just to see what might be happening. They found the square closed off by a line of uniformed militia. In the distance, in the middle of the otherwise deserted square, the demonstrators still held their place, although Cidzikas was missing because he had gone to the meeting in Vingis Park and now could not pass through the militia line to rejoin his comrades.

Militia and security officials subsequently gave varying explanations for their action. A week later the head of the security forces, Eduardas Eismuntas, told Sajudis leaders that the militia had moved to block a demonstration in the square by the Freedom League; a more disingenuous explanation spoke of Sajudis leaders' having requested that the militia protect the hunger strikers from "hooligans." At any rate, the militia's actions excited some young demonstrators to the point that they marched in protest up to the nearby headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Stasys Lisauskas, minister of internal affairs, came out of the building to demand that they disperse.

The authorities also appealed to Sajudis for help with the situation. They telephoned Landsbergis and Petkevicius, and the two men hastened to the square to help calm the crowd. Although the authorities subsequently insisted that the demonstration had broken up before Landsbergis and Petkevicius arrived, the two men in fact circulated for some time among the youths, urging them to disperse. Sajudis in turn resented the Ministry of Internal Affairs' tactic of first requesting help and then denying that it had been necessary.^[13]

Once order had been restored, Lisauskas told the press that one person had been sent to a drying-out station for drunks and sentenced to two months' corrective labor. The militia, he assured Tiesa 's correspondent, had employed no force, and it was certainly not true that they had pushed anyone under the wheels of a passing car. The militia had acted wisely but firmly: "Democracy," Lisauskas warned, "is not anarchy. I assure you that in the future too we will vigorously maintain the public order on the basis of Soviet laws."^[14]

By the morning of the twenty-fourth, downtown Vil-

nius was again quiet, the hunger strikers were back in place with a new poster showing a smiling Stalin watching the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and the public now had to consider just what had been accomplished in the hectic events of the last several days. People who had been at both meetings in Vingis Park, on July 9 and on August 23, differed as to which they considered the more impressive. The meeting of July 9 had been more emotional, more spontaneous, and it therefore seemed to have appealed more to the basic national consciousness of Lithuanians. The meeting of August 23, more structured and organized, appealed more to the intellectuals. For many the discussions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were indeed something new, and several intellectuals indicated to me that the talks by Rudis and Truska had had an especially great impact on them.

The thought that many Lithuanian intellectuals had only recently learned of the existence and the substance of the secret protocols surprised me. When I spoke with Justinas Marcinkevicius about his speech in Vingis Park, he explained that once he had become acquainted with the protocols he had felt the need to speak out. Only later did it occur to me to ask him just when he had first read the protocols, and when I had the opportunity to do so — on October 22 as Marcinkevicius headed toward the stage of the Sports Hall to chair the opening session of Sajudis's convention — he told me "the beginning of July." The command structure in history could claim many successes in controlling the national consciousness of the Lithuanians, but in the summer of 1988 it disintegrated.

On the morning after the meeting the public's interest naturally focused on how the media would treat the

event. Since Soviet newspapers normally do not observe any particular obeisance to late-breaking news, the reports in the Vilnius morning papers were understandably short, describing it simply as a commemoration for the victims of Hitlerism and Stalinism and promised an extensive report the next day.

In the afternoon long lines greeted the arrival of Vakarines naujienos in the kiosks. "A Day of Searching for Historical Truth," the newspaper labeled its report, which began by referring to Zepkaite's article and to TASS's piece in Literatura ir menas, which, it noted, "unfortunately" had been anonymous. The meeting in Vingis Park constituted "the logical continuation of ongoing discussions." Iakovlev, the newspaper reminded its readers, had declared that "open and conscientious historical research is our gain, because it shows society's spiritual strength and maturity."

That evening, as promised, Lithuanian television played a tape of the meeting, but in a considerably abridged version. The tape omitted a number of "sharp moments" in the speeches: most notably, Marcinkevicius's criticism of Moscow's dubious search in its archives for the Nazi-Soviet protocols, Buracas's criticism of the Ignalina power plant, Sepetys's promise to publish the speeches, the foreign minister's problems in communicating with his audience, Saja's angry defense of the "hungerers," and Rudis's ironic comments on the historical image of the events of 1939 and 1940.

Sajudis supporters reacted strongly to the television cuts. The members of the Kapsukas Drama Theater in Kaunas announced that they would no longer cooperate with Lithuanian television.^[15] The Sajudis support group in the television station censured the editor of the tape, Juozas Mazeikis, the deputy director of Lithuanian

Television and Radio, and subsequently published their declaration in the media weekly, Kalba Vilnius.^[16] The complete tape was finally shown on late-night television in the middle of October.

On Thursday morning, August 25, the newspapers carried extensive reports on the meeting. Writing in Tiesa, Algimantas Budrys provided the most complete account of the speeches, filling about 15 percent of the newspaper's four large pages. Under the simple title "Three Hours in Vingis Park," he accurately summarized the speeches. Those who still did not want to believe in the protocols, he concluded, might object to the tone of some speakers; those who believed, "left with glistening eyes." For newcomers, the words uttered in Vingis Park may have sounded daring; for veterans of the meetings with the delegates to the Nineteenth Party Conference, the speeches probably seemed repetitious. Nevertheless, "those three hours of recollection, of spiritual repentance and cleansing, constitute a step forward."

Sovetskaia Litva's report, entitled "For the Honest and Frank Study of History" and written by Sergei Lopukhin, followed the pattern set by Vakarines, quoting Landsbergis, Marcinkevicius, and Sepetys at length. In Czerwony sztandar, Krystyna Marczyk and Jan Sienkiewicz, under the title "Free Association with Their Own History," summarized the comments of a number of speakers and paid special tribute to Sajudis's organizational competence in structuring and controlling the meeting. Significantly, the two Polish writers did not discuss any possible significance that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact might have had for Poland.

The meeting in Vingis Park marked the end of the period of grand meetings of the people. Sajudis had

made the public aware of its existence; the mythology of Stalinist historiography had crumbled. The meetings had served the purpose of bringing the people together to share long-suppressed thoughts and feelings; they had brought the national symbols out into public view; and they had set public life in Lithuania onto a new course.