As Russia threatens “non-diplomatic” response against Lithuania unless it restores full transit rights to Kaliningrad, the demonisation of Lithuania and Lithuanians on Western European media has already begun, argue Fabio Belafatti and Andrea Griffante.
The Italian channel La7, which has attracted criticism since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine because of what many see as a clear pro-Russian bias, hosted a “debate” among several high-profile pundits. We are using the term “debate” in quotation marks, because what went down on La7 is better described as an unhinged contest of ignorance and prejudice among the speakers. La7 is not a marginal media at all – it is one of the larger commercial channels in Italy and has seen an increase in popularity since the invasion. Its programmes are currently watched by 1 out of 20 Italians.
The speakers were just as prominent. They included a high-ranking Italian diplomat, former High Civilian Commissioner for NATO in Afghanistan Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo, General Maurizio Fioravanti of the Italian Army, who served in Lithuania in 2013, as well as the political scientist Professor Marco Revelli, and the popular journalist, TV presenter, and pundit Luca Telese.
Telese produced some of the more outrageous pieces of nonsense about Lithuania that evening.
“Just think about it: Lithuania only became independent in 1990. I remember I took a trip there a few months later. There was nothing,” he said. “Today’s beautiful city centre [of Vilnius] wasn’t there, there wasn’t even asphalt, and yet in the city centre they had already opened the museum of the horrors of Communism and the USSR: The very first thing to open in that country!”
It is difficult to imagine how one of the more famous Italian pundits could state something so absurd. The Italian audience should be able to understand that there was, indeed, asphalt – and, of course, a city centre – in Vilnius in 1990. And, no, the museum of the horrors of Communism was not the first thing to open in Lithuania (in fact, it would not open until late 1992).
But this does not matter. The audience will hear these statements, and accept them, because they resonate with the collective feeling that Eastern Europeans are so obsessed with the past that they would rather shoot themselves in their own feet out of resentment, tending to museums before the essentials.
Then, another statement, this one from General Fioravanti – a general of a NATO country’s army, let us remind you.
“Let us begin by pointing out that Lithuania is a tiny country of 2.8 million people, 80 percent of which are Lithuanians, 8 percent are Poles or Belarusians, and then there’s a Russia minority,” he claimed. Per Fioravanti’s calculations, this would amount to 12 percent of the population, more than double the actual percentage.
“But [Lithuania] is the Baltic state where the anti-Russian sentiment is the strongest. I was deployed there at the border […] in Pabradė in 2013, 12 kilometres from the Belarusian border, with the Italian Special Forces command as part of a large NATO exercise […] But what struck me the most, and I’ve said that in previous broadcasts, is this very strong, almost fanatical, anti-Russian feeling,” said Fioravanti.
“I’ve been to several elementary and secondary schools […] and what really shocked me – I’ve said this is in the past – is that in each school there are statues and paintings of Lithuanian heroes from 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 years ago who died fighting the Russian invaders. So you see, this feeling is very strong and yesterday’s initiative [to limit transit to Kaliningrad] is not random,” he added.
What to reply to such nonsense? We could of course start by asking why a nation-wide TV channel with a wide following would decide to pick someone who gets the history of the country he is talking about wrong by several millennia. Who thought this person is qualified to speak at all?
What is shocking is not what the general recollects to have seen in his – evidently very hazy – memories of his visits to Lithuania. What is shocking is just how rooted the discourse about Eastern Europeans being fanatically stuck in a past of resentment and hatred, needing to be “civilised” by the “mature” West, really is. Lithuanians as feral creatures, full of hatred and irrational resentment.
The possibility that Russia might be seen negatively for perfectly valid reasons does not even cross the general’s mind.
Coming from the mouth of a soldier who is supposed to be the one helping in case of an attack on NATO makes this all the more depressing.
Ambassador Pontecorvo added to the idea of Lithuanian madness and irrationality: “Vilnius’ move is madness, politically speaking. We need to ask ourselves, what’s behind it? […] You really think Lithuania does something like that alone? Taking responsibility to do something like that – sticking a finger, or rather, a fist into Russia’s eye, without asking anything to anyone else?”
In the ambassador’s view, Lithuanian actions are by definition irrational. We do not want to comment on whether the government’s decision was justified, here, but it is worth noting that the ambassador made these statements after Josep Borrell already confirmed that the Lithuanian decision was not taken in complete isolation, and after the Lithuanian government already clarified that, in their view, they are simply implementing EU decisions.
But for the audience’s convenience, it is more convenient to claim that a single, “fanatical”, “irrational” tiny country has done something crazy. Which is also, paradoxically, agency-less, little more than a puppet of someone else.
It fell on Professor Revelli to connect all of these absurdities to the old trope of the “Eastern European Fascist” – a trope that, as one of the authors of this piece already argued in the past, strongly influences the sympathies and views of Lithuania’s allies:
“I also don’t believe they [the Lithuanians] did it alone, although the Balts are known for taking dangerous roles in international crises. They’ve always done it, you know. Let’s not forget that the Baltic in 1918 saw the prosecution of the terrible conflict known as the First World War, even after it ended. The Far-Right proto-Nazi militias, the Freikorps […], fought there. They kept fighting until 1921. Between 1940 and 1944-1945, the Balts were allies or at least fought side by side with the Nazis.”
Here again we see how Lithuanians are simultaneously insane and reckless, and yet also agency-less puppets. Revelli then continues with statements beyond outrageous, and bordering on rambling:
“Then [After 1945], for a sort of divine justice, they ended under the yoke of the hated Russians, and they [the Balts] let their hatred grow, that hatred that now constitutes, without doubt – and in a world where hatred is spreading, that’s a mortal danger – you see, they contribute to fuelling that hatred!”
So we have reached the point that the Balts are to blame for proto-Nazism, apparently. Not only that, but their invincible hatred fuels the hatred of the world, no less. We have left the realm of prejudice and entered that of outright racism, by now.
The scale of despise for Eastern Europeans in some Western European countries is not new. It has always been repeated – the fascist Lithuanians, the irrational Balts, the Russophobic Poles, those backward barbarians that need to be educated. All these tropes may be in full display here, conveniently condensed for us to observe and despair, but they are neither new, nor marginal in the public discourse.
Even more so in Italy, the Western European country with the strongest pro-Russian attitudes about the invasion. A small fraction of the public opinion dead-set against support for Ukraine is enough to cause any government headaches when the time comes to reconfirm that commitment. Especially in a democracy with coalition governments where the defection of one party is enough to bring down a government, as is the case in Italy. And in Italy, the “small fraction” of the public opinion that would rather blame Ukraine or Lithuania is 35 percent.
We do not want to discuss whether the Lithuanian government did the right thing, juridically speaking. We want instead to point to the power of dehumanising and demonising discourses against Lithuanians.
The questions of “why Lithuania did what it did” with regards to Kaliningrad, or “whether this was decided with the EU” will not matter.
Nor will it matter that even if Lithuania had violated EU rules, Russia would still not be legally justified to launch military action just because it is forced to supply products to Kaliningrad in a slightly less convenient manner. Kaliningrad is an exclave, but it is not an enclave: nobody is blockading it, starving it, or leaving Russia without options other than war.
Nor will it matter that, morally speaking, it may even be necessary to cause Russia a minuscule fraction of the same pain that it is inflicting onto Ukraine and the Global South with its blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, seeing how nobody in Western Europe seems to be even half as concerned as us here in the Baltics.
In the end, it will not be judicial matters that decide whether someone comes to our rescue in case of war: it will be the sympathies, or lack thereof, for Lithuania, for Ukraine, and for Eastern Europe(ans) in general.
Here is where statements like the ones above come to play a crucial role. The point of this demonisation is to ensure that someone can have their backs covered, physically, and for their own inner moral peace, in case the time comes to abandon an ally.
Fabio Belafatti is a PhD student at the University of Groningen, where his research focuses on the impact of Orientalist pro-Russian narratives in Western Europe, the mechanisms through which they help enable Russian neo-imperialism, and how this damages the interest of Central and Eastern European states. He is also teaching assistant at Vilnius University’s Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies. He has been living in Lithuania since 2011 and following Holocaust-related debates since 2009.
Andrea Griffante is a Senior Research Fellow at the Lithuanian Institute of History in Vilnius. He received his MA at the University of Trieste and his PhD in History at Klaipėda University in 2011. His research fields include nation-building and the social and cultural history of the Baltic region. He is the author of Baltijos rytai. Italų žvilgsniai į Lietuvą, Latviją ir Estiją 1918–2018 (VDU: Kaunas, 2019). He is also the author of Orienti d’Europa, a series of Italian-language podcasts devoted to the culture and history of East Central Europe.
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