Lietuvių Diena 1964

This program booklet is a primary document of Lithuanian-American diaspora cultural life at a pivotal Cold War moment. Published for Lithuania Day at the 1964 New York World's Fair — one of the most globally visible public events of the era — it records how the Lithuanian exile community used an international platform to assert national identity and protest Soviet occupation. The event brought together over 35 named choral ensembles and more than 20 folk dance groups drawn from Lithuanian communities across the eastern United States and Canada, representing the extraordinary organizational reach and cultural cohesion of the postwar Lithuanian diaspora.

The booklet also documents the lituanistinė mokykla network in action: Saturday schools in Newark, New Britain, and elsewhere appear alongside major urban choral societies, showing how heritage education and performance culture were intertwined institutions of community survival. Marija Baronaitė-Greblionienė's essay on Lithuanian folk dance provides a contemporaneous theoretical and historical framing of tautiniai šokiai as an expression of national character — a text produced by a practitioner at the height of the diaspora folk revival. The presence of Lithuanian exile diplomatic figures alongside community leaders underscores the political dimension of cultural performance in this period.

Public cultural performance and advocacy: Lithuanian-American community mobilized dozens of choirs and folk dance groups from across North America for a highly visible event at the 1964 New York World's Fair, explicitly framing song, dance, and collective presence as acts of resistance to Soviet occupation and as assertions of Lithuanian national survival and claim to independence.