Lithuanian Political Elite’s Attitudes Towards the Soviet Past in Electoral Campaigns of 2008 and 2012

Along the innovative lines of the theoretical notion and empirical explorations of the post-transitional justice (Elster 2004, Raimundo 2013) in this paper we present and analyze insights from the Lithuanian case. Our empirical material is drawn from the Lithuanian website www.manobalsas.lt which makes the online questionnaires available to anyone who wants to check the proximity of their views to their intended party representative. The findings, relative to diverging and politicized interpretation of the Soviet  past, obtained from the  www.manobalsas.lt parliamentary candidate surveys in 2008 and 2012 are compared and analyzed (total N of respondents is 600). Diachronically, we test if (and yes, then how) the left-right positions of the political spectrum divisions are expressed through the views of candidates coming from competing political clubs (social-democrats, liberals, conservatives, populists and ethnic (Polish) representatives).  We also analyze if any shifts in political party positions towards the Soviet past occurred since 2008 (i.e. during the period when Lithuania is acknowledged as fully consolidated democracy in practically all international rankings and evaluations). Eventually, we attempt to interpret re-polarization of the collective memory by factors of specific Lithuanian political conjectures.