Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00and perhaps a new book about that should be written, but tell our
00:00:04viewers, I can, I can briefly
00:00:07reveal the very idea. In
00:00:10reality, probably two things worked, one thing is that
00:00:13there was a lot of
00:00:17m secret dissatisfaction in society,
00:00:20but it was not publicized
00:00:22and people themselves
00:00:26did not know that there were so many other people around them who also disliked that system.
00:00:30because publicly you wouldn't talk about such things, so
00:00:33you could only talk to very close friends or very close
00:00:37like-minded people, family members, but for example, with
00:00:40colleagues or something you wouldn't talk about such topics, because
00:00:43well, everyone knew that there was definitely
00:00:47a KGB agent or something, right, in every organization or
00:00:50institution, and you would be reported
00:00:53quickly, but on the other hand, there were
00:00:57people who participated in such
00:01:00semi-secret, semi- open
00:01:03networks, I'm not talking about social
00:01:07networks now, but in various
00:01:10gatherings, there were many such gatherings at that time,
00:01:14some were quite open, like for example, the philosophers' club, right,
00:01:18and already from 87
00:01:20there was such a bubbling, especially
00:01:24in Vilnius, but also in Kaunas and other
00:01:26places, people say that something
00:01:30was brewing. In what sense was it brewing? Because there were many
00:01:33kinds of discussions,
00:01:37various clubs were established, and they were established from
00:01:40below, not from above, because of course there were many
00:01:44organizations from above, right, and and and the Komsomol, and the party, and
00:01:48trade unions, and all sorts of amateur groups, but there were
00:01:51also those that somehow from below or
00:01:55by using some legal organization, later
00:01:58when the Cultural Fund was established thanks to Česlovas Kudaba,
00:02:02it was possible to register
00:02:05some gatherings through that Cultural Fund, because normally you
00:02:08wouldn't register, you wouldn't say that I want to establish organizations here,
00:02:11so it would be through the Komsomol, sometimes also
00:02:15various festivals, and rock marches were already taking place at that time,
00:02:18all sorts of things
00:02:21were happening, and what we
00:02:24understood while writing this book,
00:02:27is that network of all sorts of
00:02:31gatherings, it was already quite large
00:02:33and in those gatherings, people
00:02:37already really talked much more openly and
00:02:40they clearly already felt who was not sympathetic to that
00:02:43system, so this was the first
00:02:47spark, because the question always is who should be the first one
00:02:50to dare to do something, because later, when
00:02:54let's say a kind of, as they say,
00:02:57snowball effect begins, which we also saw, the Sąjūdis was founded
00:03:01and then that idea started to develop very quickly
00:03:04and it infected people, because people started to see
00:03:08that, oh, it turns out there are many like me
00:03:12who don't really like that system, but
00:03:15who were supposed to be the very first pioneers, so this is what we analyzed, that
00:03:19the pioneers were usually precisely those who were in those, as
00:03:23we called them, spontaneous civil networks, which means
00:03:26spontaneous civil society, that is, those created from above. but
00:03:30born from below, and they already spoke much more freely and they
00:03:34already understood that there were many like-minded people who disliked that system,
00:03:37so look, you
00:03:40also emphasized that, can we then say that it was
00:03:44a dormant civil society, because today, isn't it? the
00:03:47organizations formed
00:03:50from below, networks,
00:03:54undoubtedly any sociologist would call them manifestations
00:03:57of civil society, and in
00:04:00the Soviet era, it was a dormant civil
00:04:02society, we actually even thought of calling these
00:04:06gatherings a civil society, but it sounds very
00:04:09strange, but it would sound very strange that in totalitarian regimes
00:04:13there is a civil society, although if we look at, for example,
00:04:17Poles, Polish theorists and philosophers
00:04:21of the Solidarity movement called similar things, they
00:04:24specifically used the term civil society, and that's why that idea
00:04:27was quite appealing to us, but "here we can
00:04:31apply modern authors, like Robert Putnam, for example, who talks
00:04:35about, say, completely different things, about democratic countries'
00:04:38societies and says that, for example, something like even a
00:04:42choir or, as he says, a bird- watching club, which is not
00:04:46a political thing, it can become political, because it creates
00:04:49social capital, trust between those people,
00:04:52trust, and strong trust strengthens civil society
00:04:56and well, that's what happened during the Soviet era, right, there was that trust."
00:05:00And then I would ask you, the role
00:05:03of the church
00:05:05during the Soviet era
00:05:08ah, and I mean specifically those believers, that was also a certain
00:05:11community. "Those who came to mass
00:05:14on Sunday, they knew each other, because they simply saw
00:05:17each other, right, in that atmosphere that was atheistic and that was hostile,
00:05:21that was also, well, a certain,
00:05:25let's say, courage, in short,
00:05:29not succumbing to that social pressure, let's say,
00:05:32yes, for attending church, in the early Soviet era, no one was
00:05:36deported for it, but still, in school they would explain that there is no God, that one shouldn't
00:05:40go, and so on and so forth, and..." those believers were also a certain
00:05:44community, a certain network
00:05:47and when Sąjūdis started,
00:05:50they immediately joined, didn't they?
00:05:54Ah, this is both yes and no,
00:05:57I would see a slightly more complex picture here,
00:06:00because the church and
00:06:03believers and the church itself, it was a bit like
00:06:07having a double bottom, on the one hand, there was what
00:06:11was allowed... "as you say, for example, to go to church,
00:06:15for people who were, well, not party members or
00:06:17Komsomol members, well, it was not forbidden, only
00:06:21children's catechism and similar things were forbidden, and of course there
00:06:24was also, as you know, collaboration of priests themselves with
00:06:28the KGB, inevitably, so there was the legal
00:06:32church and there was the underground church, and the underground
00:06:35networks of the underground were very important
00:06:38and for example, later, as we studied." there,
00:06:42let's say, even the chronicle of the Catholic church, right,
00:06:46it seems that this is just a publication that a few people published, but
00:06:50in reality, no, in reality, it was a huge network of people who
00:06:54collected information, who distributed it, and all the rest, and under that
00:06:57network there were also other gatherings,
00:07:01such as the Friends of the Eucharist, a very
00:07:03interesting organization, and
00:07:07those underground, let's say, priests, who, for example,
00:07:10finished their underground priestly training and so on, yes,
00:07:14they actually had
00:07:17a network of people they could
00:07:20trust, and not all priests were part of this,
00:07:24of course, of course, and for example, underground monasteries, some monasteries
00:07:27were more politically passive,
00:07:31while others were politically active, for example, contributing
00:07:35to the chronicle of the Catholic church, so in short, that distinction was
00:07:38also felt, so
00:07:41on the one hand, in our networks that we reconstructed
00:07:45before Sąjūdis, that Catholic underground was
00:07:48a very important component, especially for the Sąjūdis in Kaunas, the Sąjūdis in Kaunas
00:07:52had a really big influence, for the Sąjūdis in Vilnius, it was less visible, the Sąjūdis in Vilnius was more
00:07:56nomenklatura-like, well, a bit so, let's say, at least from
00:08:00the surface it certainly seems so, yes, so
00:08:04one thing is that the m underground
00:08:07church and all those
00:08:10networks contributed, but the other thing is that... "the church still had broad
00:08:14authority, even at that time, despite all that atheization,
00:08:18still many people, who even
00:08:22belonged to the Communist Party, for example, baptized their children
00:08:25and tried to, let's say,
00:08:29or a marriage or something somewhere secretly, in another parish,
00:08:33yes, at the other end, yes, yes, so
00:08:36in short, for example, that very strong support of the
00:08:39church for Sąjūdis, it really had." also a very
00:08:43big effect, we remember the return of the cathedral and all
00:08:46that, so in fact, it was such
00:08:49an, I would say, even a legitimation
00:08:53of Sąjūdis, the fact that the church had authority in all
00:08:56strata, despite all this atheization, because it
00:09:00was not really effective, as strange as it may seem,
00:09:03well, again, of course, what you consider effectiveness, some might
00:09:06probably object here, because it very
00:09:09impoverished, it impoverished that, let's say,
00:09:13church life, and later we, for example, now
00:09:17see that decline in religiosity,
00:09:20it can be linked to that impoverished
00:09:24tradition of the church, so this would be a separate
00:09:27discussion, so I don't want to get into that, well, but let's go back to Sąjūdis,
00:09:31and here
00:09:33m when we talk about Sąjūdis
00:09:37today, isn't it, from today's perspective,
00:09:40we always say, oh, they were united. the whole
00:09:43nation united, but was that really the case, was the whole
00:09:46nation so together with Sąjūdis,
00:09:50or perhaps simply those who liked
00:09:53a that Soviet way of life,
00:09:57who were more pro-Soviet, they simply
00:10:00became quieter and we simply didn't see them.
00:10:04This is an interesting, good question, but I will just
00:10:07continue the thought I started at the beginning about how Sąjūdis became
00:10:11so powerful so quickly,
00:10:14so in reality, at the beginning, if
00:10:18we take the initial situation, then there weren't many
00:10:22pioneers of Sąjūdis and... later even our subsequent
00:10:26studies showed that even in rallies, for example,
00:10:29well, which were very massive and large, still only about a
00:10:33third of society participated, so you could say that well, it's still not the whole
00:10:36society, but what we see further is that
00:10:39in reality, such an interesting effect worked,
00:10:42when those, here using scientific
00:10:45terms, a
00:10:48private attitudes that were not very
00:10:52good towards the regime, when they became public
00:10:55attitudes and a lot of criticism appeared, both, let's say, ecological
00:10:59movements criticized the regime, and
00:11:03people learned things
00:11:06that were secret, like, say, about the Ribbentrop-Molotov
00:11:10Pact, or about deportations, for example, deportations were still
00:11:14a taboo, people did not talk about it despite the fact that there were
00:11:17many deported people around, but it was still a silent topic and
00:11:21many people, especially younger ones, did not know, and when
00:11:25those things started to come to the surface, that
00:11:29disapproval of the regime or approval
00:11:32of Sąjūdis, it grew very strongly, and if
00:11:35we remember the Baltic Way, some say that about a million people
00:11:39participated, well, maybe a million, let's say, is a slightly exaggerated number, but still,
00:11:43we are talking about very large numbers, and if we
00:11:47remember, for example, the plebiscite on independence
00:11:50held in 1991, then 90-something percent
00:11:53voted for independence, so what does that mean, it means that in
00:11:57reality that idea
00:12:01still united all people in the end
00:12:04and when we even do, well, all, not 100%
00:12:08of course, but a very large part, and when we do, for example, current
00:12:11studies, what we see is that Sąjūdis
00:12:14and, for example, January 13th are what
00:12:17unites everyone, it is such a collective
00:12:21memory that unites everyone, not divides,
00:12:24today, isn't it? between various political spectra, right, from
00:12:28left to right, from extreme left to
00:12:31extreme right, Sąjūdis and January 13th are
00:12:35for everyone a sacred memory,
00:12:38yes, yes, yes, and we can, and of course, but I
00:12:41see certain problems when that memory is used, but we can
00:12:45remember, for example, such a thing, that when there was, for example,
00:12:49the family march in Vingis Park, they
00:12:52also walked with, let's say, with
00:12:55tricolor flags, right, and said, we felt like in Sąjūdis, they came here
00:12:59now to protest, let's say, for LRT or those cultural
00:13:03protests, they also went with the name of Sąjūdis, with the flag
00:13:06of Sąjūdis, so on the one hand, it's a bit funny when opposing
00:13:10sides ostensibly go with the same flag and the same tradition, but on the other hand,
00:13:14it's also beautiful, because it means everyone considers Sąjūdis
00:13:17their own, feels it as a very important element of their
00:13:20identity, so I think that this is our great
00:13:24strength. e, that we can rely on this
00:13:27collective memory, which is still very, very
00:13:31close and familiar to everyone. So,
00:13:34ah, when Sąjūdis is remembered, that spirit of unity, it
00:13:38is talked about, and probably
00:13:42it's no secret to you that it's said from time to time
00:13:45that current Lithuania needs Sąjūdis,
00:13:48a new Sąjūdis, is it possible
00:13:51ah,
00:13:54I first ask the question, is it needed?
00:13:57Everyone wants unity, everyone wants
00:14:00unity, everyone wants to experience what Sąjūdis experienced, youth
00:14:04doesn't know what we experienced in Sąjūdis, so they
00:14:06would know, well, yes, and that's visible, for example,
00:14:10in these LRT protests, or for example, when there was
00:14:13that action
00:14:16to support Belarusian protests, right,
00:14:19such a connection to the Baltic Way, well, everyone wants
00:14:23to feel that again. Or those who haven't felt it, they want to feel it,
00:14:27who weren't alive at that time, weren't born yet, they want to feel that
00:14:30thing, I understand this, but on the other hand, you
00:14:34can't turn back history, this is simply a futile
00:14:37desire, frankly speaking, I look a little with caution
00:14:41and skepticism at any attempts to create a new Sąjūdis,
00:14:45because the historical circumstances are completely different,
00:14:48then we had a very clear common goal
00:14:51and a clear common enemy, now if an attempt is made to create a Sąjūdis,
00:14:55then they start looking for enemies inside,
00:14:57well, because why, against whom are you gathering, right, and if you
00:15:01start looking for enemies inside, then very bad things happen, so
00:15:05I would think that when there is a democratic
00:15:08system, there should be other forms of activity, it can
00:15:12be, for example, just organizations that pursue certain goals, well,
00:15:16let's say, ecological ones, or I don't know, trade unions, or something, everyone
00:15:20there has their own ideas and goals, that's great, that's civil
00:15:23society, or if you want to come to power, there are
00:15:27parties, well, the main mechanism
00:15:30is parties, when you try to create some kind of Sąjūdis, which is supposedly
00:15:33a party, but not a party, then in reality, you are just hiding
00:15:37behind that emotion, that we will roughly create such a Sąjūdis as it was
00:15:40in '88, but the principle is completely different, essentially
00:15:44you just want to take power and push someone else out of that power,
00:15:48so well, I think
00:15:51this is a misinterpretation, such a not entirely correct misinterpretation
00:15:55of things and an attempt to use those symbols in the wrong
00:15:58situation for strengthening one's political
00:16:02power. I have another
00:16:05question, what if "40 years ago
00:16:09social
00:16:11networks had already existed and Sąjūdis
00:16:15had been born in the era of social networks, would it have been
00:16:18able to emerge, perhaps
00:16:21it would have been even stronger, or perhaps not, on the contrary, what
00:16:24do you think? This is a complex
00:16:28question, because at first glance, it would seem
00:16:31that social networks greatly
00:16:34help mobilization, and we know of
00:16:37such cases now, and finally, even those same Belarusian protests, if
00:16:41we take them, there the Telegram channel was very
00:16:44important and others,
00:16:46so indeed, e, what we write
00:16:50about networking here, it would seem
00:16:54that it would be much easier to do that networking if there were
00:16:58social networks as a tool, because for example, how could people
00:17:01find out things back then, for example, such simply amazing things,
00:17:04like a week before a... I mean
00:17:07the founding of Sąjūdis, when a representative from the Estonian
00:17:11Popular Front had arrived and a meeting with him had to be organized
00:17:15in one day, it seems, how can you
00:17:18organize a large meeting in one day when there are no
00:17:22social networks and not everyone even has phones,
00:17:25there were landline phones, either they find you or they don't,
00:17:28exactly, but somehow people knew
00:17:32how to organize themselves and knew where to find each
00:17:36other, in short, there were
00:18:46for example, in Germany a,
00:18:50in the GDR, that Sąjūdis-like movement we had, they didn't have
00:18:53such a Sąjūdis, everything happened much later for them, but then
00:18:57much faster, it happened more suddenly, and
00:19:00the initial impulse was
00:19:03that people met, meaning
00:19:07for a rally. They decided
00:19:10where and when to hold a rally
00:19:14unorganized, because everyone understood that there is a city
00:19:17square, which is logically the only place where everyone could
00:19:21meet, and masses were held there,
00:19:24meaning, and people intuitively felt that after those
00:19:27masses in that place, in the
00:19:30square, they would be able to find like-minded people, and there
00:19:34were so many people who thought that a massive
00:19:37rally took place, which then made a breakthrough, so imagine, I mean, how people
00:19:40could intuitively organize themselves without social
00:19:44networks, so that's it, but social networks, on the one
00:19:47hand, would have helped somewhat, but on the other hand,
00:19:50again, for example, then it's also convenient for the regime, because you can
00:19:54observe, you can control more, incite,
00:19:57incite, mhm, the very beginning, isn't it,
00:20:01of Sąjūdis, the initiative group
00:20:04was formed, through social networks you can say that...
00:20:07"that some rejects, some degenerates,
00:20:11some in short, from
00:20:13from intellectuals detached from
00:20:16the world, the first rallies, the first rallies in June were
00:20:20small, there were perhaps 100 or a couple of 100
00:20:23people, you call them boors,
00:20:26and I wonder if at the beginning
00:20:30of July, there would have been 1000, and
00:20:33in August, there would have
00:20:36been 100,000 people at the party, for you
00:20:39to insult them in all sorts of ways,
00:20:43some of that was still done, because let's remember, for example, in 1987,
00:20:47when that rally took place near Mickiewicz's monument. It was
00:20:50attempted, it was attempted through the official media
00:20:54to call them, I don't remember now, but
00:20:56western
00:20:58yes, yes, yes, yes, but that thing, first of all,
00:21:02didn't really work, because people were smart, as they say,
00:21:05they understood where propaganda was and didn't take it too
00:21:09seriously, on the one hand, on the other hand, the organizers of Sąjūdis
00:21:12were also very smart, they had
00:21:16a good intuition about what to do and what not to do, and
00:21:19for example. the initiative group, for example, invited people
00:21:23like Justinas Marcinkevičius, and he eventually agreed,
00:21:25so you couldn't declare Justinas
00:21:29Marcinkevičius a degenerate, well, they were simply looking for people
00:21:33who were legitimate at that time, but these days
00:21:37all sorts of opinions about Marcinkevičius can be
00:21:40said, so perhaps even then, during the era of social
00:21:43networks, it would have been possible to
00:21:47denounce Marcinkevičius and Petkevičius and Vytautas
00:21:50Bergis, the famous musicologist,
00:21:53with all sorts of words.
00:21:57Well, probably that could be a separate research topic,
00:22:01and is it easier to incite people
00:22:04with social networks, I guess that
00:22:07hypothesis could be confirmed, but now,
00:22:11of course, we can't turn back history and
00:22:13check it, yes, yes,
00:28:56sleep, joints, mood or body cleansing. Food supplements
00:29:00promising well-being. Tens of thousands
00:29:03in Lithuania, studies show that they are consumed by the absolute majority
00:29:07of the population, although doctors are categorical, for those living
00:29:10healthily, they are not needed at all, about this a discussion in the show
00:29:14"Not so simple". This Wednesday
00:29:16at 7:30 PM on