Lithuanian historian calls ‘Lithuania for Lithuanians’ a discriminatory slogan used as provocation

The slogan “Lietuva – lietuviams” (“Lithuania for Lithuanians”) is a discriminatory phrase now used as a deliberate provocation, historian Zigmas Vitkus told LRT Television’s Savaitė program.

Vitkus, a historian at Klaipėda University and recipient of the Sugihara Diplomats for Life Foundation’s Tolerance Award, traced the slogan’s origins to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Lithuanians sought statehood and cultural recognition. Initially, he said, it reflected three key demands: the right to speak Lithuanian, the equal value of Lithuanian culture, and the pursuit of sovereignty.

However, its meaning shifted over time. During the interwar period, the phrase appeared in debates over economic competition with Jewish communities and territorial disputes with Germans in the Klaipėda region. Under Soviet rule, it became a symbol of resistance to Russification.

Today, Vitkus argued, the slogan has taken on a radical, exclusionary tone, often appearing in far-right contexts—both in Lithuania and abroad—where it signals ethnic nationalism and xenophobia. He compared it to similar chants in Germany (“Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus”) and noted its use in Lithuanian “patriotic” marches alongside anti-Semitic rhetoric.

While the idea of a dominant national group was once a societal norm, Vitkus said the Holocaust and other atrocities of World War II exposed the dangers of such thinking. The slogan’s association with genocide and crimes against humanity permanently altered its connotation, turning it into a symbol of intolerance.

The debate resurfaced after a Vilnius University lecturer recently removed a “Lietuva – lietuviams” banner from a city viaduct, calling it radical and inflammatory.