Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The article aims to explains why, among all the non-dominant ethnic groups, the imperial authorities in the so-called Western region allowed the existence of only the Lithuanian educational society ‘Saulė’ [The Sun]. The argument is made that this was due to the recognition of Kaunas governorate as a Lithuanian ‘national territory’ on the Russian mental map, the lack of assimilation potential (from the point of view of the officials), the admission that the Lithuanians were ethnically-culturally detached from the ethnic Russians, as well as the efforts of the governor of Kaunas, Piotr Verevkin, to prevent the closure of this society. Part of the article is devoted to a discussion of Verevkin’s motives.