Abstracts for Kulturos barai, 10/2004

ANDRIUS MARTINKUS
National culture and Christianity as allies? An essay about the relationship between Christianity and the national idea in the context of the advent of EU.
The author claims that these relations have been multifarious and sometimes controversial. The paradigm of national state – at least in political thinking – overcame the religious paradigm in Western history. In Central and Eastern Europe Christian religion performed the role of a mediator between the sum of meanings expressed by the notion “Europe” and the respective sum of meaning expressed by the concept of the “national state”. Will the European Union become more Christian after its expansion still remains an open question, concludes their author

ALVYDAS NIKZENTAITIS
Eastern Lithuania in Lithuanian Culture of memory and Politics: the Problem of relations between historian and creator of Memory.
Cultural memory differs from history because it is selective, it envelops the present and focuses on what society wants or has to remember. When discussing the relation between cultural memory and historical research, it turns out that many aspects of Lithuanian-Polish history have lost their previous relevance, while others – especially related to the experiences of the XXth century – persist, claims the historian.

VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS
Russia’s politics ­ Lithuanian experience. Notes on the culture of politics.
Vytautas Landsbergis, the first head of the re-established Lithuanian state (1990­1992), politician and musician, member of EU parliament presents his authentic experience from the most recent history of Russian­Lithuanian relations. In the space of former (Russian Soviet) empire states, autonomies, and democracy were or are being formed, while Russia, does its best to centralize itself. Neighboring states are afraid that the tentacles of “reintegration” will attempt to grab them. But aren’t there some forces in the West regretting that this “union” vanished and thus sticking to the old vocabulary?