| Abstract [eng] |
Summary Collision of Science and Politics: A Discourse Analysis on the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (GRRC) Crisis of 2020-2021 This master thesis examines a conflict that broke out in Lithuania in 2020 regarding the newly appointed Head of the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (GRRC). Jakubauskas, the new Head of the leading institution on historical research in Lithuania and his newly assembled team of experts became a matter of public debate after some 17 historians expressed their concerns about the politicization of historical research in GRRC. This seemingly organisational issue within an academic institution, however, unearthed a deep-rooted discursive conflict in the society regarding the relation of two fields: the scientific and the political. Building on the theoretical concept of the field put forth by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and combining it with the conceptual tools proposed by Michel Foucault, a discourse analysis is carried out to answer the main research question: what is the relation between the historical and political fields and how is it constructed in the public discourse? To this end, discursive practices of scholars in the field of historical science, politicians, journalists, and various other professionals involved in the conflict are analysed. The analysis proposes that two conflicting discourses emerged in the conflict. The first, dubbed the patriotic-idealistic discourse, claimed that history is instrumental in narrating the national historical myth and defending the collective memory from external and internal threats. According to this view, historians must work in a manner that helps create a narrative which meets the public expectations; historians are not so much scientists as they are public servants. By the same token, the political field is closely linked to the historical field for the proponents of this discourse. Participants of the patriotic discourse mainly were right-leaning politicians and public figures, freedom fighters, dissidents, signatories of the Lithuanian Independence Act and their relatives as well as the newly appointed directory of GRRC. Almost no scholars sided with this view. Prominent historians, journalists and left-leaning politicians produced the opposing liberal discourse which claimed that historians should not be told what and how to research and history must not be manipulated to glorify the past. The only principle that should lead the research is the historical truth, they claimed. Both colliding discourses, however, used similar rhetoric: historical parallels with the XX c. and blaming the representatives of conflicting discourse for “erasing history”, “censoring”, “using totalitarian-like techniques” and so forth. Activating the past trauma form the soviet times was used by both discourses to mobilise the public support. The discursive conflict ended with the dismissal of Jakubauskas and appointment of his replacement, a proponent of the liberal discourse and GRRC scholar, Bubnys. The study of the conflict helped get a grasp of the deep cleavage regarding the purpose of history in the Lithuanian society which must still come to terms with the past traumas. |
