Vita Raskeviciute

Wolf Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellow

20222023 Forum on Heritage

Vita Raskeviciute

International Relations; Russian and Eastern European Studies

CAS, 2023

Vita Raskeviciute is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences pursuing International Relations and Russian and Eastern European Studies. As she was born and raised in Lithuania, Vita is interested in the geopolitics and post-Communist transition in Eastern Europe. Vita has been working as a research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania researching the effectiveness of International Organizations and the construction of nationalism in Eastern Europe.  

On the Brink of Independence: Public Opinion about What it Means to Be Lithuanian

After Lithuania regained its independence in 1991, the country found itself at a crossroads in rethinking its national narratives. As the state inherited a plethora of accounts suitable for the construction of nationalism, post-Communist Lithuania had to decide which narratives of the past are the most pertinent and effective in community-building. The overarching objective of my project is to examine the country’s mythical and historical narratives of the glorious past and suffering to discern which of them have become the cornerstones of nationalism and what has motivated their preference. My working hypothesis is that, similarly to some other post Communist states, such as Poland, the present-day Lithuanian society identifies more with the framework of national suffering than with national glory.