Vilnius University is ending its employment relationship with Andrey Desnitsky, a researcher and lecturer who had worked at the institution since last autumn. The reason was his publications, written while still in Moscow, in which he denied the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The Dean's Position
“I want to announce that the employment contract with Andrey Desnitsky will be terminated in August,” said Professor Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, dean of the Faculty of Philology at Vilnius University, in an interview with LRT RADIO.
According to the dean, Desnitsky was hired for a research position because he met all the university's requirements.
Content of the Publications
In his texts, Desnitsky wrote that Stalin merely insisted on the three countries joining the USSR rather than occupying them. He also claimed that there was no resistance to Soviet troops, and added that “formally, under the Russian army there was more freedom” than in interwar independent Lithuania, which he called a dictatorship.
Funding and Context
Desnitsky's work was funded by an international foundation whose name the university's chancellor, Raimundas Balčiūnaitis, declined to disclose. “The work of this professor is funded by a philanthropic family foundation that cooperates with the world's best universities and operates in a democratic country. Professor Desnitsky received support, but under the terms of the contract we cannot make the foundation's name public,” the chancellor said in a written statement.
Solvita Ramanauskienė, a representative of the Lithuanian Research Council, noted on LRT RADIO that after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Lithuanian universities severed all ties with “unfriendly countries and their educational institutions.”
Andrey Desnitsky himself declined to comment to LRT.
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