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Book Review - The Soviet-Afghan War (1)

Anna Reich, I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan. Lithuanian Veterans of the Soviet War

DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2024. Introduction by Paul Robinson. Afterword by Adrian Bonenberger, 132 pages
Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski
Bibliographical reference

Anna Reich, I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan. Lithuanian Veterans of the Soviet War. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2024. Introduction by Paul Robinson. Afterword by Adrian Bonenberger, 132 pages

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1Anna Reich’s book presents the portraits of twenty-two Afghanistan veterans from Lithuania in the form of testimonies drawn from long interviews, illustrated by photographs of these men in Afghanistan and in today's Lithuania - a format not often seen in the field of studies on veterans of Soviet and post-Soviet conflicts, and that is a good thing.

2For those of us who have had undertaken oral history of Soviet wars in the Baltic States, they are familiar faces.

3We should be pleased that this work gives veterans of the Soviet-Afghanistan greater visibility at a time when they are progressively erased from the public sphere of the former Soviet Union, particularly in the Baltic states.

4Approximately 5,000 Lithuanians took part in the war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. A small republic with a population of 3.3 million at the time of the war, 91 Lithuanians died there and 98 returned disabled.

5An introduction by Paul Robinson recalls the systemic issues that impacted military service in the Soviet Union. A contingent of recruits was drawn primarily from the countryside and small towns while children of the nomenklatura obtained exemptions from military service. Robinson describes the a brutal hazing of conscripts (dedovshchina), as well as the difficult living conditions conscripts faced both in the field and upon their return. The brutality of war gave way to dependence on drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. Paul Robinson highlights that too often, scholarship has focused on Russian veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War and overlooked those from other republics. This is a fair criticism. It is necessary to take a broader view, and the war in Ukraine has at last forced a reevaluation of these issues.

6Soon after their return from Afghanistan, the veterans of Lithuania witnessed the disappearance of the state for which they fought, followed by a growing rejection from society and the state in an independent Lithuania. This was reflected in the phrase that many of those who served in Afghanistan faced upon trying to obtain the recognition and assistance that they felt they were entitled to: “We did not send you there” (My vas tuda ne posylali).

7The Russian veterans who remained in Lithuania sometimes managed to obtain limited and sporadic aid from the Russian Embassy, Russian-associated networks (“Internationalists”), and occasionally from Lithuanian municipalities. But this aid quickly dried up for Russian and Lithuanian veterans alike. “We are in need of basic necessities” said Chairman of the Vilnius Union of Afghanistan War Veterans, Vytas Lukšys, in 2017.

8The Lithuanian veterans sought official recognition for their service to the Motherland. Instead, in 2004 they were designated victims of the Soviet regime. That same year, they were included in legislation on state retirement and social security.

9However, maintaining links with the organizations of Afghanistan veterans based in Russia was perceived by the authorities as treason, and made the veterans appear as a potential fifth column. Some were put under surveillance. When they tried to organize commemorations of the war in Afghanistan by inviting representatives from Russian and Belarussian associations, the authorities banned them from entering Lithuania.

10The so-called “de-Sovietization” law, ratified on June 17, 2008, marginalized the veterans even further: the public display of Soviet symbols such as flags and uniforms was banned, and demonstrations were sanctioned.

11Afghanistan veterans in Latvia are in no better a position. In 2017, a member of the board of directors of a local veterans' association was accused of spying for Russia. In Estonia, sending children to Russian “military camps” has led to a smear campaign in the press. And unlike Lithuanian veterans of the Afghan war, those in Latvia and Estonia have not been granted any special status.

12Today in Lithuania, we see an ongoing decline in the websites of Afghan war veterans' associations based on their “forgetting” to renew ownership of their domain names. This suggests an underlying need for the veterans to keep a low profile. Some of the remaining websites have amended their statutes to emphasize the importance of learning the Lithuanian language, in compliance with public authorities’ demands.

13Nonetheless, it has become increasingly difficult to conduct interviews in the Baltic countries. In Estonia, preliminary agreements for interviews with veterans’ associations consistently fail to materialize. The same is true of Latvia, where an exhibit dedicated to the war in Afghanistan at the Latvian War Museum has been dismantled for several years.

14This situation is tragic, as interviews with veterans are an essential primary source for establishing a history of the war “from below” and understanding the nuanced textures and realities of combat experience and veterans’ return.

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Electronic reference

Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski, “Anna Reich, I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan. Lithuanian Veterans of the Soviet WarThe Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies [Online], Issue 24 | 2025, Online since 17 April 2025, connection on 20 April 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/pipss/6631; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/1421z

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Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski

CERCEC / EHESS

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