ovwb – The Unknown War: Routledge publishes its first book on Lithuanian partisans

Routledge has published its first English-language book on Lithuania’s post-war partisans who maintained an armed resistance movement against the Soviets until 1953.

“Finally we have a solid academic book on the anti-Soviet armed resistance in Lithuania and its memory,” Arūnas Streikus, the editor of The Unknown War, said on Facebook.

The research team from VIlnius University included Kęstutis Girnius, Dainius Noreika, Enrika Kripienė, Mingaile Jurkute, Aistė Petrauskienė, and Gintautas Vėlius.

The book “is based on the newest research in the field and for the first time published by the leading international press”, according to Streikus.

Available online at Routledge, it profiles Lithuania’s armed anti-Soviet resistance, which arose in the second half of 1944. According to the introduction, the movement “has yet to become established in the common narrative of contemporary European history”.

The controversy surrounding the resistance movement is “one of the core elements in the contemporary information warfare waged by Russia against its neighbouring countries”, the book’s description reads.

“The origins of various distortions surrounding the story of the partisan war in the western borderlands of the Soviet Union can even be traced to the final stages of that war when Soviet propaganda sought to discredit the campaign as a battle waged by criminal elements.”

Source: LRT.lt