Spatial Concepts of Lithuania in the Long Nineteenth Century

This book deals with the spatial concepts of Lithuania and other geo-images that either “competed” in the nineteenth century with the term Lithuania or were of a different taxonomic level (Samogitia, Prussia’s Lithuania, Lithuania Minor, Poland, the Western Region, the Northwest Region, Lita/Lite, Belarus, East Prussia etc.). The Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian, Jewish, and German geo-images of this territory are analyzed in separate chapters of this volume. The spatial and topographical turns, especially the innovative perspective suggested by French Marxist Henri Lefebvre to look at the (social) space as a product of social creativity, research on so-called mental maps, postcolonial studies, and nationalism studies provided some theoretical background as well as analytical approaches for the studies published in this volume.

Darius Staliūnas is the author of Making Russians. Meaning and Practice of Russification in Lithuania and Belarus after 1863 (Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2007); Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars (Budapest/New York: CEU Press, 2015); and Lithuanian Nationalism and the Vilnius Question, 1883-1940 (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2015; co-author – Dangiras Mačiulis). Since 2000 Staliūnas has been a deputy director at Lithuanian Institute of History. He teaches at Vilnius and Klaipėda universities. His research interests include issues of Russian nationality policy in the so-called Northwestern Region (Lithuania and Belorussia), ethnic conflicts, as well as problems of historiography and places of memory in Lithuania.