God made me a Lithuanian
Nationalist Ideology and the Constructions of a North American Diaspora
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3891985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marian J Rubchak (Valparaiso University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 117-129 |
| Publication date | 1992-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1044-2057 • E-ISSN: 1911-1568 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/dsp.1992.0007 |
| OpenAlex | W4236191496, W2083394136 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 1 |
The above epigram insists on the existence of two halves of a single identity—a timeless, unalterable Lithuanian self and its complementary American half; it appeared in an editorial written in 1951 by a Lithuanian born in America. When a reader criticized this self-definition as “un-American,” the author of the editorial replied: “You found it difficult to understand how I, who was born and raised in this glorious land of ours, can call myself a Lithuanian. There are many reasons.... First and foremost is the simple reason that God made me a Lithuanian.” Almost 40 years later, Antanas J. Van Reenan refers to Lithuanian “universal first principles,” the concept according to which Lithuania, like every other nation, is culturally distinctive and in harmony with the proposition that “God created nations as part of his divine plan” (12). This idea, inspired by German national ideologists like Herder, is the essence of an ideology of Lithuanianness that was fully consolidated in Lithuania during the first decade of the twentieth century and provided the conceptual underpinnings for what was to become by the middle of the century—as Van Reenan puts it—a Lithuanian “diaspora mentality” (xv). The term refers to the mind-frame of a people with a powerful sense of the Lithuanianness of their own and future generations, who set out to resist assimilation into mainstream America
Art · Diaspora · Harmony (color · Ideology · Linguistics · Lithuanian · Mainstream · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anarchism and Radical Politics · Gender Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Leadership, Human Resources, Global Affairs · Philosophy · Religious studies
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1999 - 2017 (19) |
| Highly cited | No |