Liucija Baškauskas Projektas Faktas (Project Fact) collection, approximately 1990-2021 (bulk 1991)

Liucija Baškauskas (or Baškauskaitė in Lithuanian) is a cultural anthropologist and professor emeritus at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She was born in 1942 in Marijampolė, Lithuania and fled with her family in 1944, surviving the bombardment of Dresden and becoming a Displaced Person during World War II and its aftermath in West European DP camps. Her family was admitted to the United States in 1949 and resided in Brockton, Mass. She earned a BA in History from Stonehill College in 1964 and a PhD in Anthropology from UCLA in 1971. As a faculty member at CSUN (1972-2000) she served as Department Chair, founded the Anthropology Museum and directed numerous innovative program grants and internships. For ten months in 1977-1978, Dr. Baškauskas resided in Vilnius, Lithuania with her family as participants in a faculty exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. sponsored by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). In 1988-89 she served as Resident Director of the CSU International Programs Study in Uppsala, Sweden. In the spring of 1989, she was invited to attend a conference in Kaunas, Lithuanian S.S.R., to reestablish the Vytautas Magnus University. She agreed to participate and engaged her colleagues at the Centre for Multiethnic Research, Uppsala University, where she was a guest-researcher, to plan a Baltic Family Conference in Kaunas. This planning expanded to include all the countries around the Baltic Sea during the summer and fall semesters of 1989 while Dr. Baškauskas was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University. Dr. Baskauskas accepted the appointment to serve as the first Prorector at the newly established Vytautas Magnus University.

Meanwhile, on March 11, 1990, the grassroots Lithuanian independence movement declared the nation's independence from the Soviet Union, which proceeded to enforce a total blockade of Lithuania from April to late June 1990. Dr. Baškauskas, her husband Stephen Anaya and their two elementary school children arrived in Kaunas immediately after the blockade was lifted in the summer of 1990. Dr. Baškauskas was the Vice-Chairman of The International Science Conference "The Baltic Family" which took place on October 16-20 1990. She was Acting Rector of the University when Soviet military forces were deployed in Vilnius and elsewhere around Lithuania to secure strategic communications and local government facilities and reassert Soviet central control. Dr. Baškauskas and her family traveled from Kaunas to Vilnius at the outset of the crisis and were eyewitnesses when, on January 11, 1991, Soviet military units, including tank assault units, surrounded and seized the Press House building in Vilnius. There were tanks in the streets and the situation was tense. It was a family decision to return to Kaunas where Dr. Baškauskas was responsible for the security of the University, the students and their records. The University was in the same building as the Kaunas studio of the Lithuanian Radio and Television network (LRT).

On the night of January 13, 1991 alarms sounded all throughout Kaunas. The TV tower was seized in Vilnius and LRT ceased broadcasting. All the borders where closed and all communication was stopped. Dr. Baškauskas offered to serve as a translator and a voice of free Lithuania in English language broadcasts that were patched to the outside world from the Kaunas studio via the Sitkunai network connection through Latvia and Estonia to Finland and the world. Soviet disinformation was overwhelming. In response, while on the air, she asked the witnesses and participants of the January events to document their experiences in Vilnius and throughout the country. She immediately developed a questionnaire which was distributed throughout Lithuania. More than 1,500 completed responses were collected from individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their families for the free word. Dr. Baškauskas dubbed the survey "Projektas Faktas" (Project Fact) for its goal of succinctly and accurately documenting eyewitness testimonies.

Source: Dr. Baškauskas