The Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the Kražiai Massacre in Lithuania and Poland

Abstract

The Imperial Russian authorities closed the Benedictine convent church in Kražiai in 1893 and put down the Catholic community’s opposition with such brutality that the event came to be known as the Kražiai massacre. Soon after the events in Kražiai, a conflict broke out between Lithuanians and Poles over the division of the symbolic capital associated with the Kražiai massacre, as both sides argued over their respective merits in defending the church. On the eve of the First World War, the Kražiai massacre had become a place of memory for Lithuanians and Poles alike. This article presents an analysis of how the 40th anniversary of the Kražiai massacre was commemorated in Lithuania and in Poland in 1933. I try to answer the following questions: what prompted the need to commemorate the anniversary of this event, what meanings accompanied the commemoration of the event in Lithuania and Poland, and did the political elites of these countries try to exploit the Kražiai massacre’s anniversary to reduce political tensions between Lithuania and Poland due to the absence of diplomatic relations between these countries at the time.