Lithuania Exhumes Soviet Soldiers’ Remains Under Desovietisation Law

Stalin monument successful Grutas park, Grutas village, Lithuania. Credit: wikimedia commons / Wojsyl CC BY 3.0

Lithuania has exhumed the remains of astatine slightest 48 Soviet soldiers from a burial site beside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul successful Šiauliai, acting nether a nationalist instrumentality that requires the removal of nationalist symbols tied to totalitarian regimes.

The determination follows a 2024 ruling by Lithuania’s Desovietisation Commission, which recovered that the centrally located burial tract violated the country’s prohibition connected promoting totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies.

The committee besides determined that the tract contributed to the dispersed of the Soviet-era Great Patriotic War communicative and noted that the remains had been moved determination from different locations.

Lithuania enacted the desovietisation instrumentality successful May 2023, requiring specified symbols to beryllium cleared from nationalist spaces.

Commission ruling and the instrumentality that ordered the exhumation

Archaeologist Rokas Kraniauskas, who heads the steadfast Arksaika and led the excavation, said the squad believes it recovered each the remains contiguous astatine the site. He identified 48 individuals but said the fig could scope 49 if burned remains successful 1 sedate are recovered to beryllium to 2 antithetic people. Anthropological investigation volition find the last count.

At slightest 48 Soviet soldiers' remains were recovered successful Lithuania pursuing a committee ruling that the Šiauliai burial tract violated a prohibition connected totalitarian symbols. pic.twitter.com/UTPQeEtr7W

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) April 16, 2026

The excavation wrapped up connected Tuesday, though the squad plans further checks for immoderate missed graves. Kraniauskas said 4 burial pits contained nary remains, astir apt due to the fact that Soviet-era records were inaccurate.

Earlier sources had estimated that betwixt 52 and 53 Red Army soldiers killed successful World War II were buried astatine the site.

Artifacts recovered alongside Soviet soldiers’ remains successful Lithuania

The recovered worldly included fragments of subject uniforms, among them enarthrosis boards, buttons, belts and footwear, on with coins. One sedate held a cloth container containing severely degraded ammunition for a Mosin-Nagant carbine.

Metal detector scans revealed 18th-century coins of Prussian, Swedish, and Lithuanian origin, suggesting the country had seen earlier settlements. Researchers besides noted signs of trauma connected the remains, including bony fractures and grounds of amputations.

The recovered remains are present stored astatine premises arranged by the Šiauliai municipality. Anthropologists volition survey the sex, approximate age, and imaginable injuries of each person.

Work astatine the cathedral tract is ongoing. Archaeologists person besides uncovered the foundations and basement of an unidentified structure, thought to person been demolished oregon buried sometime astir the wartime period.

The remains volition beryllium reburied astatine a designated World War II tract adjacent Ginkūnai cemetery.