COLORFUL KIDS — High-school students in southern Lithuania don traditional dress for visiting University delegates. 12 This tragedy seemed merely to reinforce the Lithuanians’ resolve. Symbolic of their national unity, a million Lithuanians — a third of the total population — turned out in midwinter to mourn those killed in the invasion. To this day Parliament remains surrounded by a wall of concrete building materials plastered with anti-Soviet posters and children’s drawings. Thousands of disowned Russian military medals, draft orders, kopek coins, toy weapons, and pictures of Lenin and Stalin are on display, nailed to logs left over from bonfires that warmed the defenders through the harrowing January nights. The Vilnius TV tower has become a well-visited national shrine. Every day people heap fresh flowers around memorial crosses ringing the barbed wire, as they do at every statue and monument we saw throughout the country. A grove of 14 saplings stands near the tower to commemorate the dead. When we were there, the unmowed green grass, yellow dandelions, and red tulips covering the ground in every direction seemed to mirror the colors of the Lithuanian flag in constant mockery of the occupying troops. The people’s fortitude is likely related to a strong religious element in Lithuanian culture. Fascinating, ornate crosses dot the landscape everywhere, reflecting a blend of catholic and early pagan symbols. We heard of a return to Druid-like ties to the forests and land, and in Kaunas we visited the only functioning Catholic seminary, newly reopened since the declaration of independence. We saw other evidence to bolster Lithuanian optimism. In an art museum we discovered the remarkable paintings and music of M. K. Ciurlionis, revered in Lithuania but virtually unknown in America. Stores were not nearly so empty as news reports had suggested. In an ironic twist in the relationship with Russia, food, though scarce, is far more abundant in Lithuania than in Moscow’. To punish Lithuania after World War II, the Soviets left it a backward agrarian republic, placing industries preferentially in neighboring Estonia, Latvia and Poland. But now virtually every Lithuanian family has its farm plot in the countryside. Outside Vilnius, we saw an immense farmer’s market, and in the airport there were crowds of Mongolians, who had brought empty suitcases across five time zones to buy food. While touring a champagne factory, we were invited to participate in a modest act of anti-Soviet rebellion. Factory staff members asked us to suggest a new brand name to replace the obligatory “Russian Champagne” that now appears on all their labels. We responded naturally, giving an impromptu demonstration of American brainstorming and democratic decisionmaking. The winning entry was “Amber Wave,” which combined the factory’s existing logo (AW), the champagne’s color, and Lithuania’s chief natural product (amber) with American market appeal. On a deeper level, we were reminded, as we sat in a school auditorium the day after watching the January invasion tapes, of the Lithuanians’ determination to break free from Russia. Teachers, students, and parents talked openly about not putting up with Russian ideology and asked how to make their educational system work to produce free minds. There may well have been KGB agents in that crowd, but they no longer seem to inhibit Lithuanians. The lack of inhibition was most evident during one highlight of our visit — a dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies of the Lithuanian Olympics. Refusing to compete for the USSR, Lithuanians worldwide regularly hold their own Games in exile. This year they are bringing the competition home for the first time. The show was delightful: A torchbearer lit the flame, dancers in regional costume performed, choirs sang, juvenile gymnasts tumbled, bands played, old-timers danced, ancient stunt planes did loop-the-loops, and a native “original instruments” ensemble featured a powerful, haunting, recorderlike instrument that sounded something like a saxophone. At the climactic moment we stood with a stadium full of Lithuanians, who faced a Russian military base just out of sight beyond the intervening oak grove and sang their national anthem, a hymn restored to public use just this year, though technically still outlawed by the Soviets. Tears flowed freely. It is in this intricate context that Vytautus Magnus University is trying to educate the next generation of national leaders. Its mere existence embodies the vision of “national restoration,” a term we heard frequently during our visit.’ VMU reopened in September 1989 under the direction of a 96-member Restoration Senate, comprising equal numbers of domestic and foreign residents, all Lithuanian by ancestry.’ Seeking to break the pattern of Communist-dominated education, VMU initially refused state support. Until national independence was declared last year, it operated as the only private educational institution in the USSR, funded by industrial and individual donations. A crucial feature of the plan for VMU was to involve Americans of Lithuanian descent, dozens of whom hold academic positions in the United States. Thus, in 1990, two Lithuanian-Americans were selected as chief executive and academic officers. The rector (president), Dr. Algirdas Avizienis, a UCLA computer scientist, is using his broad connections to put VMU on a firm scholarly and financial basis. The vice president for academic affairs is Dr. Liucija Baskauskas, an anthropologist from California State-Northridge. They, along with the dean of students, Dr. Arvydas Zygas, a Chicago native, lend an exciting spirit and energy level. Baskauskas particularly has taken on the mission of changing the mentality of her native country and integrating Lithuania into the Baltic Rim family. She also has become a national hero since appearing on Kaunas television during the January conflict. With the main Vilnius transmitter out of action, this was Lithuania’s communication link to the outside world. For two days Baskauskas stayed on the air, sorting fact from rumor, reporting events as they occurred and keeping her fellow citizens’ spirits up and emotions calm throughout the criSis. Clearly, Weber State has some special resources to offer VMU and Lithuania. VMU’s North American-style curriculum and exclusive reliance on English in all upper division classes represent an educational model intrigingly new to the Baltic. Weber State excels at teaching English as a second language. VMU needs professors to teach in fields such as English, political science, and educational psychology, to collaborate on ecological studies of the Baltic and consult on environmental problems. Staff to train secretaries, office managers, and law enforcement officers would be equally welcome. But the most fundamental aid we can offer is within the abilities of a wide variety of people: to demonstrate the meaning of responsible freedom at a personal level, raising Lithuanian students’ sights to possibilities they now only dimly imagine. In the process we, too, will be changed. Robert Smith is the vice president of Academic Affairs. NOTES: 1. In the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the most powerful country in Eastern Europe. Its territory extended from the Baltic through Byelorussia and the Ukraine to the Black Sea. A long-running alliance with Poland was eventually halted by invading neighbors. By 1800 Lithuania had entered serfdom under Russian domination. Independent nationhood returned after the First World War, but for only two decades. During the Second World War, Lithuania was again batted between Germany and Russia, with the Russians ultimately regaining permanent control in 1944. 2. Cucumber, eggs, lunch meats, potato salad, jello, cabbage and onions were especially plentiful at any meal. All restaurant food was elegantly presented and garnished. Pepper, however, was nowhere to be found. Salty mineral water, champagne and a fascinating yogurt beverage were more common than milk, causing our students some consternation, as did a national delicacy called “zeppelin— heavy, meat-filled dumplings the size of a hot-dog bun. My personal favorites were blintzes and potato pancakes. 3. Lithuanians insisted they had neither wish nor need to “secede” from the USSR. Rather, they are a formerly independent nation illegally occupied by a foreign country. 4. Between 1922 and 1940 VMU was the national university of independent Lithuania, enrolling as many as 4,500 students, The name “Vytautus Magnus” was bestowed in 1930, honoring Vytautus the Great, who led the Lithuanians in their 1410 defeat of the Teutonic Knights. After 1944, the Soviets dismantled VMU, murdering professors in the process. The school was closed in 1950.