Artist Migration and Cultural Transfer in Opposing Political Systems: The Impact of the Lithuanian Diaspora in the West on Lithuanian Culture

Cultural communication channels were open between Lithuanian diaspora communities in the Western world, particularly the United States of America (USA), and Soviet Lithuania during the Cold War. Cultural transfers took place from the West to the East. This is an intriguing yet understudied area of art history concerning Lithuanian migration and diaspora. The aim of this article is therefore to discuss the peculiarities of the transatlantic migration of Lithuanian diaspora artists and to investigate the processes of cultural transfer and their influence on Lithuanian art between 1960 and 2000. Based on Lithuanian archival sources and press reports, the research aims to discuss the peculiarities of the transatlantic migration of Lithuanian diaspora artists, and to investigate the processes of cultural transfer and their influence on Lithuanian art during this period. The study focuses on cultural relationships developed through the private initiatives of Lithuanian emigrants, which were controlled by heads of state museums at an institutional level. This meant that cultural transfers during the soviet period were controlled from the centre of the Soviet empire, and had a strong political element. This article is based on the concepts of cultural anthropology and intercultural communication. Cultural transfer is viewed as a method of mediation between different cultures, providing an opportunity for communication between artists in free and totalitarian regions. Cultural objects (works of art) and information were transferred to the target audience, i.e. cultural users in Soviet Lithuania, in the second half of the 20th century. Although it was a one-way process initially (with exchanges, visits and exhibitions beginning later), a real transfer of artwork in the form of exhibits, deposits and donations took place between 1960 and 1990. When communicating with Lithuanian artists in occupied Lithuania, US Lithuanians transferred a worldview and information about modernist art that influenced soviet ideology. In this way, the Lithuanian diaspora in the USA made a significant contribution to the dismantling of the socialist system from within. This study uses unpublished original archival material: correspondence between Lithuanian art institutions and Lithuanian diaspora communities in the USA.