Moteris Lietuvos partizaniniame kare: nuo formalaus reglamentavimo iki praktinio veikimo | Women in the Lithuanian Partisan War: Between Formal Regulation and Practice

Abstract

In 1944, as the Eastern Front was approaching Lithuania, which was then still occupied by Nazi Germany, and the Red Army retook the country, a substantial number of civilians and former members of paramilitary organisations joined the armed resistance to sovietisation. For a long time, the history of the anti-Soviet armed resistance, or guerrilla war, in Lithuania has been told as a story of men, dominated by descriptions of their combat action and stories of the dead. The memories of women, mainly helpers and messengers, have been treated as a supplement to this image, but not as a formative factor. Insufficient attention has also been paid to the role of women who fought with weapons in their hands, and the narratives of those who acted simulta-neously as partisans and wives and mothers. The aim of this article is to take a multifaceted look at the experiences of women who contributed to the armed anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania. It aims to discuss the changing attitudes of the partisan leadership towards women’s participa-tion in action, to show the diversity of female activity in the partisan war, and to reveal how their involvement in the war contributed to changes in their family roles.