Andrea Griffante (Lithuanian Institute of History)
During the First World War, the Northwestern territories of the Tsarist Empire occupied by the German Army (Germ. Ober Ost) became the place of continuous massive requisitions. One of the most important centers in the region, Vilnius, was subjected to harsh German requisitions and colonial regime, with the refugees’ relief committees acting as the main actors that helped the German authorities to cope with the fast-worsening social situation. In the meantime, the committees took advantage of their position to continue the nation building process that began prior to the war. Delivery of food provisions and food aid became some of the basic tools of the committees to bolster it. The years that followed the German occupation did not improve the situation significantly. However, the period had witnessed the change of the actors involved in relief and food aid. Between 1919 and 1920, when the Polish occupation of Vilnius and eastern Lithuania began, the new authority established a number of institutions—in part depending directly on the state, in part related to the new organs of local administration—that became increasingly involved in distribution of food aid and, more generally, in the management of food supplies. Food provisions and food aid was further widely employed as a tool to stimulate the political and national loyalty of relieved people in Vilnius: the distribution was accompanied by widespread propagandistic campaigns illustrating “the kind heart of the Motherland.” In turn, food became an instrument used with an increasing frequency to consolidate the loyalty of the city’s bureaucracy to Warsaw.