On January 31st, a seminar titled “Eco-Social Perspective on Eastern European Landscapes” took place at Vilnius University and was attended by Master’s students from the University of Amsterdam’s Eastern European Studies program and Vilnius University’s Faculty of History.
During the seminar organized by the (Post)Authoritarian Landscapes Research Centre and colleagues from Amsterdam, who have been visiting the faculty for the third consecutive year, discussions focused on the issues of postcolonial approaches that play an important role in regional studies. The seminar also featured presentations about the latest research by PAScapes historians –Rugilė Rožėnė highlighted the ongoing studies of the Nemunas River landscape and newly initiated research on post-Holocaust society.
One of the research subjects of the aforementioned PAScapes “Nemunas World” study is the 1959 Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant construction project, which dammed Lithuania’s “father of rivers,” the Nemunas, creating an unprecedented body of water in the heart of the country. Faculty historians Dr. Antanas Terleckas and Marius Ėmužis have undertaken the study of this major Soviet Lithuanian energy project of the post-war period. Based on this ongoing research, Marius Ėmužis presented a paper at the seminar titled “Gently the Nemunas flows…”: Construction of the Kaunas Dam and the Transformation of the Nemunas Valley Landscape.
According to M. Ėmužis, the construction of the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant and the creation of the dam can be considered the most significant landscape transformation in Lithuania, revealing itself in multiple aspects. First and foremost, a section of the river was turned into a 63.5 km² reservoir – Kaunas Lagoon – effectively “silencing” the Nemunas. The absence of a navigation lock and fish passages meant that the river was essentially split in two, losing its natural function. Moreover, this process directly impacted the residents of 758 homesteads in the flooded areas, whose relocation was neither smooth nor met with enthusiasm. Ultimately, instead of a river valley, the so-called “Kaunas Sea” emerged – a visually striking body of water but difficult for locals to access due to its steep, wave-eroded shores. According to the historian, this “Kaunas Sea” held significant propaganda value during the Soviet era, yet the logic behind building a low-capacity hydroelectric power plant remained questionable.
“With my colleagues, we see this as a kind of irony because the construction of the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant and the flooding of the Nemunas Valley were not necessary. Why? Because even while this hydroelectric plant was being built, preparations were already underway for another one, either in Smalininkai or Sovetsk. <…> It is also symbolic that on the very first day the hydroelectric plant started operating, a decision was made to build a thermal power plant. My question is – why build a hydroelectric plant when you could have just built a thermal power plant from the start, which would have met all the energy needs?” M. Ėmužis speculated that the answer might lie precisely in propaganda, as the ambition to build a hydroelectric plant had already emerged during the interwar period, and the Soviet government, by realizing it, presented it as proof of their superiority.
Agnė Kereišiūtė discussed a different perspective on the relationship with the environment in her seminar presentation, “And Potatoes Will Bloom Again”: The Battle Against the Colorado Potato Beetle in Soviet Lithuania. According to her, the fight against the Colorado potato beetle – an insect that at the time carried a symbolic propagandistic association with Americans – was not only inherently comical and intriguing but also illustrative of broader Soviet agricultural policies.
Much like in the case of the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant, irony plays a significant role here. Although the first Colorado potato beetle was discovered in Lithuania only in 1956, three separate structures dedicated to combating it – with their functions overlapping – had already been established a decade earlier. The preemptively declared victory, framed as achievable “only in socialist countries“, was far removed from reality.
Following Moscow’s 1950 directives, the battle against the beetle relied on two key practices: schoolchildren-led searches and manual collection, as well as widespread chemical treatments. However, by 1965–1966, the beetle had spread across all Lithuanian regions, ultimately prevailing.
Kereišiūtė pointed out that assessing the consequences of this campaign is challenging – a major question remains of whether the potential damage caused by the beetle was truly greater than the harm inflicted by the excessive use of chemical treatments, particularly DDT and hexachlorane. Chemical pest control, along with the use of aviation for DDT application – even though most potatoes were grown not in vast collective farm fields but in small household plots – was presented as proof of modernization and progress, outweighing rational considerations and awareness of potential consequences.
However, with the decline of the DDT era, which coincided with the influence of American biologist Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, the glory years of the Colorado potato beetle also seemingly came to an end. While the pest itself never disappeared, the attention it received diminished significantly.
The discussions following the presentations focused both on the specific thematic aspects that piqued the interest of the colleagues from Amsterdam and on broader, contentious issues that spark debates among academics, such as the specifics of the region’s modernization under undemocratic conditions, imposed by Moscow, its (mis)understanding, and the place of such research in the international academic field. Speaking of the latter, the seminar highlighted new opportunities for the dissemination and further development of research. For example, when commenting on the presentation about the Colorado beetles, the guests shared their experience that environmental, pesticide, and especially DDT-related research is quite popular in the West, where international forums and discussions on the topic are held, and where there is a dedicated Rachel Carson Research Center in Munich, thus opening pathways for collaboration.
Review by Agnė Kereišiūtė
