SASS AABS Joint Conference - Seattle - April 22 through 24, 2010

Rivers of Enemy Blood!

Violent Song Texts in the nonviolent Baltic Independence Movement

Guntis Smidchens — University of Washington

Lithuanians remember that chills ran down their spines in 1989 when they sang a line of the popular song, “Oh, don’t cry, dear mother”: “There will never be as much water in the Nemunas River as the blood of enemies that flowed there!” What happened? Why didn’t Lithuanians take bloody revenge on the Soviets? Perhaps the importance of songs in the “Singing Revolution” is overrated? This paper will explain everything.

Keywords: lithuania, ussr, history

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Panel: Ethnic Mobilization, Song and Hydroelectric Power in the Soviet Baltic in the 1980s — 10:30am Saturday