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For a long time, both Lithuanians and Poles used every opportunity to reiterate that the relations between their states were the best ever „in the history of relations“. Now, for a few years they have been saying that relations were bad. So what has happened?

In Lithuania all non-Lithuanian names must be written in accordance with the rules of the Lithuanian language, e.g., the family name of President Bush must be spelled in Lithuanian as “Bušas”, and Kowalski as “Kovalskis”.

According to the rules of the Lithuanian language (and the laws of the Republic of Lithuania), each family name has three forms: male form e.g., Kovalskis and two female forms, one for married women e.g., Kovalskienė and another for unmarried women e.g., Kovalskaitė. For example, President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė is not married. Her father’s surname was Grybauskas and mother was called Grybauskienė.

Under the Treaty of 1994, Poland and Lithuania undertook to ensure that national minorities would have the right “to write names and surnames the way they sound phonetically in the minority language” (Article 14 of the Treaty); thereby establishing that “specified rules for the spelling of names and surnames shall be set out in a special agreement.”

Thus, after the ratification of the Treaty, a citizen of Lithuania Kovalskis has a right to spell out his family name as “Kovalski”, but the original “w” in his surname has to be swapped for a “v”, because there is no “w” in the Lithuanian alphabet. Similarly, the family name Okinczyc may be spelled out as “Okinčyc”, only the original letters “cz” must be written as “č”. Analogically a Lithuanian who is a citizen of Poland and whose family name previously had to be spelled out as “Makowski”, now has a right to spell it just as it sounds in his native language, i.e., “Makauskas”. However, Lithuania and Poland have not yet signed the special agreement governing the spelling of names and surnames that was mentioned in the Treaty 17 years ago. Nobody speaks about it (the need to sign this special agreement) in Poland, but they expect Lithuanians to regulate the spelling of Polish surnames unilaterally. In fact, Lithuanian authorities (under pressure from Poland) have drafted a Bill, but the Seimas (Parliament) failed to pass it, so we take offence at ... the Government of Lithuania.

Why since 1998, when both countries presented incompatible drafts, we have not tried to negotiate the above mentioned special agreement? It seems that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs assumes that only the Lithuanian side has problems. Allegedly, in Poland, Lithuanians can write their surnames the way they are written in the Lithuanian language. However, in Poland, even though the country’s citizens Lithuanians can actually spell out their names and surnames the way they sound and are written in the minority language, they can do so only in the masculine form that must be applied to everyone, i.e., to men, married and unmarried women. A Polish national Mr Makauskas’s wife must be called “Makauskas” as her husband, and not “Makauskienė”, which would be correct according to the rules of the Lithuanian language and Lithuanian traditions. Their daughter acannot be “Makauskaitė”, because her surname must be also “Makauskas”. Try to imagine that a Polish man has to be called “Nowakówna” (the form of a name for an unmarried woman – translator’s remark), instead of “Nowak”.

The Polish Foreign Minister writes rather wittily that: “if a citizen of Poland of the Lithuanian background would submit a Lithuanian certificate of civil status, where the family name would be indicated in one of the three different forms (for men, married or unmarried women), then exactly this form shall be also in the Polish civil status certificate. There is only one problem about which the Minister does not say a word, and that is namely where from would a Polish citizen born in Punsk or in Sejny get the Lithuanian certificate of civil status before obtaining the Polish one? And also where from an unmarried female representative of the Lithuanian minority, standing in front of the priest or a worker of the Civil Registry Division to get married, can have the Lithuanian civil status certificate with a surname in the Lithuanian form for a married woman? The Minister does not explain this.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not even know how many Lithuania’s Poles are interested to change the spelling of their family names. According to the Union of Poles in Lithuania, 20 per cent of local Poles may be interested in such a change of spelling. Even if we would hold it credible, it is still clear that the problem of spelling of family names is not an essential problem for the majority of Poles in Lithuania.

Instead of resenting, looking askew at Lithuanians, trying to make them unilaterally solve this issue and, on the same occasion, misleading the Polish society, we have to prepare a new draft of that special agreement and re-open negotiations.

This problem can only be solved through a bilateral agreement, especially after recently the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg considered the case of a Lithuanian citizen of the Polish background and of her husband who was born in Poland, and ruled that the existing rules in Lithuania for the Lithuanian transcription of family names did not violate the EU principles.

Recently, the Lithuanian educational reform has caused outrage and protests in Poland. Party of the Law and Justice members even drafted a special resolution on this issue. They say that this reform aims to eliminate training in the Polish language in Lithuania. Even the article “It will be mandatory to speak Lithuanian at Polish schools”  that was published in the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza complained that “yesterday the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania adopted amendments to the Law on Education, in compliance with which several tens of Polish schools may be shut down in Lithuania”.

Before starting to speak about how much the Polish schools are oppressed in Lithuania, we have to remember that Lithuania is the only country in the world (except for Poland), where training in the Polish language is available at all stages of education, also at institutions of higher education. There are more than 120 schools with the Polish language as the language of instruction in Lithuania.

What is the essence of this reform that “poses a threat to the Polish minority education in Lithuania”? So “the school network has to be optimized” - and the Poles in Lithuania are afraid of this most of all. For the purpose of such optimization, small schools in remote localities that lack pupils have to be shut down. There is a risk that the smallest Polish schools that simply lack pupils might be closed.  Lithuanian Ambassador to Poland Loreta Zakarevičienė assures that it will affect only those schools that have had more teachers than students for a long time. It is worthwhile adding that schools are funded by municipalities, and in the areas where the Polish schools are located, municipalities are also headed by the Poles. It should also be noted that even though Poland (unlike Lithuania) overcame the global financial crisis relatively unharmed, nevertheless, the smallest schools are shut down in this country to spare money as well.

The educational reform foresees that several subjects – history of Lithuania, geography of Lithuania and the Lithuanian language - shall be taught in Lithuanian at schools where the Lithuanian language is not the language of instruction. Some Polish politicians and publicists think that the reform attempts to Lithuanianize Polish schools, which should be resisted.

What is better for graduates of Polish schools in Lithuania who link their future with Lithuania, to have fluent or poor Lithuanian language skills?

In Poland, national minorities can send their children to schools where they learn their mother tongue, but all the other school subjects are taught in Polish, or to schools where the minority language is essentially the only language of instruction.  In order to form a class that would be taught their mother tongue or a class with the minority language as the language of instruction there have to be at least seven pupils at the comprehensive school or at least 14 pupils at the high school. At schools with the minority language as the language of instruction, subjects are taught in the minority language, with the following exceptions: primary pupils at the comprehensive school (I stage of education) are taught the Polish language in Polish as the language of instruction; while at the II stage of education such subjects as the history of Poland, geography of Poland and the Polish language are taught in Polish as the language of instruction. In other schools (post-secondary education institutions) the history of Poland, geography of Poland and the Polish language are taught in Polish as the language of instruction.

After the implementation of the Lithuanian reform, the number of subjects taught in the official language at minority schools was equal to the number of subjects taught at minority schools in Poland.

During all the twenty years of the Lithuanian - Polish relations, Lithuanians have consistently defended themselves against bilingual signs with names of streets and places. At first, Poland did not emphasize this issue, because the country itself did not want to put up such bilingual signs in Upper Silesia (Górny Śląsk) and in the city of Opole. Now we can put up such bilingual signs after the adoption of our law on national minorities. It is only required that the minority should constitute 20 per cent of the population in an area and the council of the administrative district (gmina) should take an appropriate decision. The German community in Silesia and Lithuanians in Puńsk have used this possibility. After a loud noise was made, the authorities of the administrative district (gmina) convened a referendum (although the law does not require this), and now Bielanka, the only place in the region of Lemkivshchyna (Łemkowszczyna), has a bilingual sign with the name of the place in Ukrainian “Bilanka”. After the experience with Bielanka, other villages of the local Lemkos (or Rusyns, who live in the Carpathian Mountains – translator’s remark) refused to attempt putting up such bilingual signs.

Bilingual signs in border areas are absolutely a European standard now. Let us remember that some dozen years ago it was not easy also for us to allow putting up such bilingual signs and try to persuade Lithuanians, instead of shouting at them.

Thousands of young Lithuanians who travel to Western Europe to work or for a vacation, find out themselves that bilingual and in some cases even trilingual signs with names of places and streets are normal in Europe. Thy can see such signs on the German-French, Austrian-Italian and even Romanian-Ukrainian borders. Why would Lithuania be different in this respect from other European countries?

Everything indicates that the Polish company PKN Orlen invested badly when it bought Mazeikiu Nafta oil refinery plant. In this case, they had political ambitions rather than economic incentives. Instead of becoming a big economic and political success, it is a permanent source of worry and frustration. First of all, oil has to be bought in Russia and only then shipped to the refinery plant. We expected Lithuanians to reduce oil transportation prices for us, but they are not even thinking about that, because, you see, they expect to do business and make profit (and who hoped it to be different?).

And why we did not negotiate lower oil transportation prices when we were acquiring the oil refinery plant?

So why did we buy this plant at all? Could not we foresee all our current concerns?

Unfriendly statements about Poland and the Poles by marginal Lithuanian politicians holding extreme views that are made public and commented upon also add to these problems. Recently, our Minister of Foreign Affairs called the Lithuanian Ambassador on the mat to explain the stupid comment by a former principal (now retired) of a school in Eišiškės. He has said at some meeting that the Poles in Lithuania were a fifth column, and compared the pupils of the Polish schools with Hitler Youth. By the way, a representative of the Government of Lithuania has apologized for these words.

I do not think that anyone from the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., has ever bothered to `call` the Polish Ambassador on the mat to explain the reaction of a member of the Polish Sejm (Parliament), who predicted the end of a white man’s era after Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. An exaggerated reaction to some idiocy only further blows up such idiocy.

Relations between Lithuania and Poland have never been simple or easy. Lithuanians and Poles remember their common history differently. We think that Jogaila was a great king, but Lithuanians `call` him a traitor. For us the Union of Lublin marks the beginning of the great state with Jogaila as its king, but to them it just reminds of the dominance of Poland and the Polish culture. Poland marks its annual celebration of Constitution Day on 3 May, which is a public holiday, while Lithuanians simply re`call` their lost statehood. 

In the 19th century, the Lithuanian national awareness was rediscovered with the negation of Polishness. In order to be a Lithuanian one had to say “I am not Polish” at first.

Many leaders of the Lithuanian national revival spoke Polish as their first or second language just as well as the Lithuanian language. After the First World War, Lithuanians did not want any union with Poland and got their own nation-state. The dispute over Vilnius began and lasted through the entire interwar period. Lithuanians believed that Vilnius belonged to them historically as the capital of the Grand Duchy, while the Poles were convinced that if the majority of the population of Vilnius was Polish (in fact, the population was around 2 per cent Lithuanian), then the city should belong to Poland, based on people’s choice and freedom to self-determination. Lithuanians did not agree with that and until now they think that the Poles had occupied Vilnius during the interwar period. Some more recent war experiences and the dispute regarding the Armia Krajowa in Vilnius region, which we tend to idealize, only contributed to that. Lithuanians, on the contrary, regard the AK similarly as we the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

During the last decade of the 20th century, after Lithuania regained its independence and Poland became a fully sovereign state, there was a chance for the two countries to start creating their mutual relations afresh. However, the stereotypes of the countries’ positions proved to be very vital and strong. It became even worse when some leaders of the Polish community took sides with Russia during the conflict between Lithuania and Moscow. Some Polish delegates at the Supreme Council abstained and did not support the Independence of Lithuania when the Act of Independence of Lithuania was brought for a vote. During Yanayev’s coup some Polish leaders supported the coup and attempted to establish autonomy. This kind of experience at the dawn of Independence is reflected in the current position of Lithuanian politicians.

Throughout its history, Lithuania was three times on the verge of losing its language and culture, so now Lithuanians continually get allergic reactions to things that they think may weaken the Lithuanian national identity. Namely this is the source of all the incomprehensible and funny administrative constraints relating to activities of the Language Inspection of the State Lithuanian Language Commission (fines for the language pollution with foreign words). Lithuanians even officially approved Lithuanian words for meals in MacDonald’s restaurants.

On the other hand, Lithuanians make up almost 60 percent of the total population in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (Poles make up about 20 percent, Russians 14 percent), and in the southern and eastern precincts Poles make up from 60 to 80 percent of the population. Lithuania has a little bit more than 3 230 000 inhabitants, same as in Lesser Poland Voivodeship (Małopolska Province).

Silesian Voivodeship and Opole Voivodeship together have almost twice as many inhabitants as Lithuania, but the 120000-strong ethnic German minority can still cause the leader of Poland’s largest opposition party to suffer from anxiety. So why are we surprised that Lithuanian politicians are chronically worried about the Poles who live there?

Over the past twenty years, Lithuanian and Polish historians have established closer relationship and started to really cooperate. They managed to separate history from today’s politics. Joint scientific research projects, conferences and translation of historical monographs have become a norm. If politicians on both sides will not re-engage in “historical policy”, it is likely that historians will be able to handle the situation themselves, and, once and for all, history will not cast a shadow over politics anymore. It seems that a major obstacle to mutual relations has disappeared forever.

What we are left with is today’s politics. Both countries’ membership in NATO and the EU should help implementing such policy. Besides, joint actions of Lithuania and Poland can effectively influence policy of the entire EU, especially its eastern dimension. In this regard, Lithuania and Poland need each other.

The issue of the Polish minority in Lithuania that has recently deteriorated mutual relations must be solved step by step. However, Poland also has to clearly say that it would not support the claims of the Polish minority leaders that are in breach of European standards. This is necessary so that the leaders of minorities would have a sense of proportion, and willing to provide Lithuania with guarantees that we would never support any action that even in a long-term perspective could pose a threat to Lithuania’s territorial integrity and unitary state.

We need to talk to Lithuania, persuade them rather than demanding something from them. Meanwhile Lithuania’s former Ambassador to Poland (now Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs) Egidijus Meilūnas, who worked hard to bring Lithuanian and Polish intellectuals together, could not reach the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs for many months. Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and not the Minister received him as an outgoing Ambassador to bid farewell. The Minister dropped in for a few minutes only to tell him that life will not be easy for his successor here. And so it is not easy. The Ambassador waited for a few months to be able to present her credentials, and this is not only a humiliation to an ambassador, but also hinders official activities.

I do not know to what extent the policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with regard to Lithuania aims to get square with this country. Or maybe they really aim to take the chance to show that fourteen visits of President Kaczyński to Vilnius did not solve anything, and on the contrary, Lithuanians became even more impudent after that?

How much does our arrogance affect our belief that we can demand everything from Lithuania that we expect? I think that we can demand really a lot. But I disapprove of it. As a result Lithuanians will pay us back in their own coin, and the two nations will eventually be more likely to disfavour each other (not only politicians, but also societies) and treat each other in a hostile manner. Lithuanian phobias intensify in response to our arrogance. I am speaking not just about politicians, but also about our societies. This is not a good basis for the development of relations with neighbours. It is a road that leads to nowhere.

By Jan Widacki

Jan Widacki is Professor of Law, born in 1948, Deputy State Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs from 1990 to 1991, Polish Ambassador to Lithuania from 1992 to 1996, now member of the Democratic faction in the Polish Parliament.

Unofficial translation