Lithuania, along with the other two Baltic States, has so far emerged from the aftermath of the 1990s triumphant and less corrupt than any other Former Soviet Union states. With the construction of a national identity, the Lithuanian independence movement was able to unite and mobilise the populace, eventually securing succession from the Soviet Union. Lithuanian politics, however, inherits far more from this construction of the myth of the nation than independence.

One significant aspect of the Lithuanian national myth is the rural homeland, where people live out their lives according to traditions, undisturbed by Soviet industrialisation and modernisation. To what extent does this notion create resistance towards urbanisation and Western liberalism? How does the way in which national identity is constructed and appropriated affect the trajectory of the political culture? Is it comparable at all to Scottish nationalism and the independence movement?