Antanas Sniečkus was the first secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party from 1936 till his death in 1974. The collection holds many documents, including correspondence with Lithuanian writers, and transcripts of meetings with the intelligentsia (in 1957) which reflect the aspirations and ambitions of the country’s cultural elite to preserve and develop the cultural heritage of the Lithuanian nation. The most interesting documents for the project cover the period of de-Stalinisation in Soviet Lithuania.
Location
01103 Vilnius Gedimino prospektas 12 , Lietuva
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The first secretary of LCP Antanas Sniečkus collection
Provenance and cultural activities
The collection is held in the documents archive of the Lithuanian Communist Party. The Institute of Party History started to collect Sniečkus’ papers from 1965. After his death in 1974, the Central Committee of the LCP passed a resolution to form a personal A. Sniečkus collection at the Institute of Party History. All the documents from Sniečkus’ office were then passed to the Party Institute. The collection covers the period from 1921 till 1974. From 1991, the Institute of Party History was reorganised as the Lithuania's Society Organizations Archive, and the Sniečkus collection (no. 10895) was opened to the public and researchers. From 2001, the Lithuania's Society Organizations Archive was reformed again, and became a branch of the Lithuanian Special Archive.
The collection gives us an understanding not only of Sniečkus’ personality and different aspects of Party cultural policy, but also of various manifestations of cultural opposition, especially during the period of de-Stalinisation. Documents in the collection represent the expectations of the Lithuanian intelligentsia who were loyal to the regime, but whose main aim was to preserve the Lithuanian national heritage.
Description of content
The collection consists of various documents: personal documents, notes made by Sniečkus, travel notes, manuscripts of reports and speeches, correspondence with writers and artists, various documents covering the history of the Lithuanian Communist Party, drafts of resolutions, and compliments written by various people to Sniečkus. The most valuable documents in the collection are letters from Lithuanian writers (A. Venclova, J. Šimkus, J. Baltušis, A. Guzevičius, etc) to Sniečkus, and two transcripts of Sniečkus’ meetings with a group of Lithuanian writers at the very beginning of 1957, after the mass protests by youths, including students, in Vilnius and Kaunas in 1956.
Tininis, Vytautas. Sovietinė Lietuva ir jos veikėjai [Soviet Lithuania and Its Agents], in Lithuanian, Vilnius: Enciklopedija, 1994. Book
Tininis, Vytautas. Sniečkus. 33 metai valdžioje. Antano Sniečkaus biografinė apybraiža [Sniečkus. 33 Years in Power. The Political Biography of Antanas Sniečkus], in Lithuanian, Vilnius, 2000. Book
Maslauskienė, Nijolė , interview by Ivanauskas, Vilius, Sirutavičius, Vladas , Grybkauskas, Saulius, September 26, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection
