SUMMARY:

In the early 1990s, many people in Lithuania supported independence from the Soviet Union. However, in 2003–4 during the author’s ethnographic research in several village and urban communities, villagers and urban residents questioned liberation and debated ideals of nation and freedom. This article discusses people’s memories of liberation and their perspectives on freedom and nationhood. It illustrates how the Soviet and post-Soviet alterity regimes have shaped citizenship enacted in discussions of liberation. It argues that the questioning of liberation is not a rejection of liberation and its ideals of freedom and the nation-state. Rather, it is a negotiation about social and political transformations, national solidarity, and inclusive citizenship.