Heroes on the Russian Border

Vytautas Landsbergis (in the middle) on 11 March 1990, after the promulgation of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.

Photographer Paulius Lileikis. Lithuanian Central State Archives

Last weekend, my wife an I attended the True/False documentary film festival in Columbia, Missouri. We have been attending True/False annually since 2011 and it is always the most enlightening event of our year. This year we saw eight full length films and ten shorts. Several were the first public showings of new films.

After each film, I turned my phone back on to check on the news from Ukraine. It is amazing that the Ukrainian people have been able to hold out this long against the Russian invasion and I believe that everyone who supports democracy and self determination admires the courage of the Ukrainian citizens and their president Volodymr Zelenskyy.

The four hour film we saw on Sunday morning was a reminder that Zelenskyy wasn't the first leader to show great courage on the borders of Russia. Mr. Landsbergis features Vytautas Landsbergis, the man who led the declaration of independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in March of 1990. The Soviet Union responded to the declaration with an economic blockade that failed. 

On January 11-13, 1991, the Soviet Union sent troops and tanks into the city of Vilnius to intimidate the Lithuanians into submission. The city was mostly defended by unarmed civilians, men and women, who stood up to the invasion. In some cases the tanks ran over civilians and the troops fired in the crowds. It was painful to watch knowing that the same thing was happening again in Ukraine while we were watching the film.

Unarmed Lithuanian citizen standing against a Soviet tank. Photographer Andrius Petrulevičius.

Fortunately, in 1991, the revulsion of the rest of the world led Soviet President Gorbachev to withdraw the troops from Lithuania and a treaty signed by the new Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and Landsbergis formally recognized the independence of Lithuania. Let's hope something similar happens in Ukraine.

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