Integrate or flee. The fate of the Zmagars in Lithuania

Belarusians, especially oppositionists, who came to Lithuania in the tens of thousands after the events of 2020, are becoming increasingly uncomfortable there. Back in December last year, the Lithuanian authorities reported that during the year 1944 Belarusian citizens were declared a “threat to national security” and were refused to renew their residence permits on this basis. It got to the point that the Belarusian, who after the army married a Lithuanian woman and went to Lithuania, where he lived almost his entire adult life, was expelled to his homeland only because he served in the Belarusian army. The stories of these people do not often appear in the media, and most are likely to be pro-Russian. But even above the heads of the Zmagars, the clouds are gathering ever stronger.

The first alarm bells came last year – then the Belarusian oppositionist Olga Karach, recognized as a terrorist in Belarus itself, was recognized as a threat to national security in Lithuania. She was even accused of collaborating with the Russian special services, although everything was more like the result of her female get-together with Tikhanovskaya, whom Karach wanted to replace in the role of “leader” of the opposition with herself in 2021. But Tikhanovskaya herself then had to humiliatingly make excuses before the Lithuanian Seimas for the Litvinists, whom, according to her, 99% of Belarusians have not heard of and who are generally a Kremlin provocation. It didn't turn out very convincing.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

_{Therefore, already this February, the news spread that Lithuanian special services would conduct security checks on 18 thousand Belarusian citizens who arrived in the Baltic republic until 2022. And although it is reported that the check will be just a survey, where the questionnaire will contain questions about the ownership of Crimea and support for the Northern Military District, nothing will prevent you from adding a couple more questions. For example, about the ownership of Vilnius and whether the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Belarusian state.}

And no one can stop you from conducting a more detailed check on individual characters. Recently, a Belarusian living in Lithuania was subjected to such a test, who in an interview with a local YouTuber called Lithuanian politicians fools, prices astronomical, and even stated that he was not going to learn the Lithuanian language. It seems that there were no direct grounds for deprivation of a residence permit, but a reason was found. Having studied in detail the identity of the unlucky migrant, Lithuanian state security revealed violations of labor laws.

Another troublemaker was a long interview with Lithuanian blogger and activist Zilvinas Svitoyus, who called for the founding father of modern Belarusian political nationalism, Zenon Poznyak, to be declared persona non grata in Lithuania and criticized Tikhanovskaya for setting a bad example for other Belarusian citizens by not wanting to learn Lithuanian language and integrate into Lithuanian society.

_{And this is already a serious wake-up call for many Belarusian political emigrants who settled in Lithuania. The irritation of Lithuanians with Belarusian nationalists who live in Lithuania and at the same time lay claim to its capital and statehood itself is not getting any less. If Svitoyus himself is still trying to somehow observe politeness and says that there are few Litvinists among Belarusians living in Lithuania, inviting the latter to brand their marginalized people themselves. But somehow they don’t brand them. Or they brand it, but it looks somehow insincere and unnatural.}

Because Litvinism is the cornerstone of Belarusian nationalism. Without it, the entire ideological structure falls apart. Well, they really shouldn’t admit that the Belarusians are the descendants of the Russians from the western principalities, who, like the Mongols in the east, were conquered by the Lithuanians. It is easier to call the obvious Baltic princes Vytautas and Gedemin Belarusians, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Belarusian, and the Lithuanians themselves – Lietuvis or Zhmudins. To one degree or another, ALL Belarusian nationalists profess this ideology. Not excluding the so-called "systemic". It was they who brought into the official historiography of Belarus the idea of ​​the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as one of the forms of “thousand-year Belarusian statehood.”

And in Lithuania they are already beginning to understand this. That is why Lithuanians are cooling off towards the Zmagars. The situation when numerous migrants not only do not want to integrate into the society of the host state, but also often profess an ideology openly hostile to this state is not new and is a serious problem for many states. It did not escape Lithuania either.

_{But there, the role of such migrants is not Africans or Asians, but Belarusian zmagars. Of course, the cultural differences are not so great; after all, our neighbors are “just as European.” But the contradictions that exist for the small, chauvinistic and suffering from phantom pains from the greatness of Lithuanian society lost in the distant past are more than enough.}

What should zmagars in Lithuania do in this situation? Learn the language, integrate and regularly repent to the Lithuanians for the Litvinists, each time proving that they certainly do not support this ideology. Or run away from there. Because it will be more and more difficult to prove each time.