An Authoritarian Landscape: Transformation of the Soviet Lithuanian Countryside Through the Life and Art of Lida Meškaitytė

The article explores the concept of the Authoritarian Landscape, defined as a physical and perceptual environment shaped by authoritarian regimes. In such contexts, cultural landscapes are restructured to serve ideological and political agendas, simultaneously influencing environmental experiences in ways that often lead to the erosion of local identities and agency. To get to the bottom of this, the case study of Smalininkai—a former German river harbor and border city, transformed into a new agricultural center during the second Soviet occupation of Lithuania—is analyzed. The miniature paintings and ego documents of a self-taught artist Lida Meškaitytė provide a unique account of this transformation. While her life story and naïve paintings are co-opted by ideological narratives, contributing to the creation of a new local identity, her artistic practices also stand for subjectivity, resistance, and eco-consciousness under an oppressive regime.