From History to Hatred: Disinformation Rhetoric of the Director of the Belarusian National Library about Lithuania

On April 4, 2025, a video was posted on the SBTV YouTube channel (Belarus Today) in which Vadim Gigin, Director General of the National Library of Belarus, member of the House of Representatives and head of the “Knowledge” society, made the following statement:

“Lithuanians organized the massacre of Jews in ’41. Lithuanian Nazis organized the massacre. Valdas Adamkus, a man who was a sycophant, cleaned boots for the Minsk executioner, swore allegiance to Hitler, was twice president of Lithuania. Lithuanian politicians are hardened Nazis with Nazi thinking. They name streets, schools after Hitler’s executioners, and organize events. The Lithuanian state is a neo-fascist misunderstanding. The Lithuanian Seimas is a gathering of rabid Hitler’s heirs, even if they don’t have Hitler’s portrait hanging there. Nothing good awaits the Lithuanian state. Our neighbor, unfortunately, is a state infected with the bacillus of Nazism.”

Our verdict based on the conducted analyses:

Verdict: Incorrect

Reasons:

• The thesis or statement is completely false: information from several sources or opinions of several experts in a specific field contradict it.
• The cause-and-effect relationships and connections clearly do not exist as claimed.
• When quoting, substantial parts are omitted, rearranged, changed, or incorrectly translated from a foreign language, resulting in a fundamental change in the meaning of what was said.
• The event occurred in substantially different aspects than claimed.

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Full video:

This case is a vivid example of toxic propaganda rhetoric containing signs of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). It uses extremely aggressive formulations aimed at demonizing Lithuania, rewriting history, and inciting hatred.
FIMI analysis: signs of disinformation and information interference
General characteristics:

Main FIMI techniques and disinformation tactics

Historical manipulation: collective guilt

“Lithuanians organized the massacre of Jews in 1941”,
“The Lithuanian state is a Nazi misunderstanding”

• Manipulation: substitution of historical responsibility — isolated crimes of individual collaborators are equated with the position of the entire nation and the current state.

• FIMI technique: Historical distortion, Collective blaming, Moral inversion

• 📌 Fact-checking:

  • In Lithuania, there were indeed cases of individual participation in the Holocaust (e.g., the “Jurbarkas Massacre”), but:

    • not the entire population,

    • the modern state of Lithuania acknowledges the Holocaust tragedy,

    • there is a memory preservation program, cooperation with Yad Vashem.

Discrediting Lithuanian politicians

“Adamkus swore allegiance to Hitler”,
“Cleaned boots for the Minsk executioner”

• Manipulation: unproven, distorted accusations.

• Fact-checking:

  • Valdas Adamkus did not swear allegiance to Hitler. He emigrated from Lithuania as a teenager and was a volunteer in the US Army.

  • Accusations of Nazi connections were the subject of propaganda in Soviet and post-Soviet disinformation, not supported by facts.

Depersonalization through labels

“Nazis with thinking”,
“Gathering of Hitler’s heirs”,
“Bacillus of Nazism”

• FIMI technique: Demonisation, Dehumanisation, Enemy image framing

• Goal: to form in the audience an image of Lithuania as an enemy-plague with which dialogue is impossible.

Inciting hatred through hate speech

“Nothing good awaits Lithuania”,
“Misunderstanding”,
“Executioners”

• FIMI technique: Hostile attribution, Escalation language

• Especially dangerous: such phrases can be perceived as a direct threat to the statehood of a neighboring country, which brings the rhetoric closer to incitement to hostility.

Context and institutional weight of the statement

Vadim Gigin:

• member of parliament,

• head of the National Library,

• head of the republican society “Knowledge” (educational structure).

That is, this is not a private opinion, but part of state communication, forming a hostile foreign policy narrative. It is broadcast through:

• television,

• public lectures,

• YouTube channels of state media.

Signs of FIMI operation

Now let’s perform an analysis of disinformation narratives and semantic analysis: