| these relations create general mental categories and continuous social structure in a society (or community). Should property be treated as socio-cultural phenomenon, the formation of which requires a long period of time, the unity of “New Europe” (as well as Eastern and Central Europe) evokes a lot of problematic aspects, namely:
1. Do all the societies, which today belong to “New Europe”, had formed within the same tradition of private (individual) business?
2. Are there any links between the market economy, the principles of planed economy and priorities given to collective property, which were being implemented during sovietism? If yes, what are they?
3. Can a forced transition from individual understanding of business to collectivism change the prevailing traditional private property conception in the society?
4. Did all “ex-soviet bloc” countries experience the same degree of collectivisation and planed economy?
This article reflects some of the attention points that are based on the fieldwork information, which was accumulated for the analysis of dynamics in property conception in Lithuanian society, in the years 2002–200312. These attention points can be divided into two main blocks: specifically Lithuania oriented and more generally – “New Europe” – oriented.
Definitions of the conceptions
The property relations and Soviet, post-Soviet epoch related definitions are rather complex and contradictory, therefore they should be discussed separately.
The article covers the conceptions of sovietism, postsovietism and transformation periods. As the theorists are still in disputes concerning the appropriate definitions of period of existence of the Soviet Union and periods after its collapse; and aiming to avoid the speculations, which might be related to ideological way of describing the periods (e. g. communist/postcommunist, social/postsocial), the article deals with chronological definition of the sovietism, which includes the annexation of Lithuania to the Soviet Union in the years 1940–1941 and 1944–1990.
Postsovietism is Lithuanian state epoch, which started with the recovery of the state independence in 1990. The misapprehensions eo ipso rise while defining the period of so called transition, transformation, etc. of the restored state reforms. The main discussions brake concerning the problematic identification of the “end point”. Defining the aforementioned period, the aspect of “newly” created/emerged is raised. In this instance, the transformation period is understood as an epoch, when conflict between two concepts of time (past and future) is sharply affecting the understanding of the social reality in a society13.
The concept of property in the article is based on the one formulated in the works of
K. A. Wittfogel, because it was de facto adopted by subsequent property related theorists. Property, according him, is the accepted right of the individual to possess a particular object. This embodies not only the relation between the object and individual, but also the relation between the owner of the object and other individuals, who accept the rights of the owner towards that object14. Property is treated not only as legal and
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12 The field research was made in 2004, in a Lithuanian village, namely Stungiai.
13 Matonytė I. Posovietinio elito labirintai. Vilnius, 2001, p. 23.
14 Wittfogell K. Die orientalische Despotie: Eine vergleichende Untersuchung totaler Macht. Köln, 1962, p. 292. | 
dizainas ir programavimas giriaus