These events were remembered this week on their 30th anniversary, with exhibitions, a rock concert and meetings of historians and those involved. A week earlier, the Lithuanian Parliament made May 14, the date in 1972 of Kalanta's fatal act, a commemorative day, which means that it will be a state holiday, though not a day off.
A monument named Field of Sacrifice, which took sculptors Robertas Antinis and Saulius Juskys over 10 years to create, was unveiled at the place where Kalanta set himself on fire.
A series of cast iron sheets symbolize the fire-damaged pages of history. Nineteen stones symbolize Kalanta's age at the moment of his death.
President Valdas Adamkus took part in the event. The music of The Beatles, Kalanta's favorite band, played throughout.
"This monument is a kind of moral satisfaction," said Antinis, who was himself arrested by the Soviet militia in the riots sparked by the tragedy.
"Kalanta's behavior was inspired by Jan Palach, a 20-year-old student who set himself on fire in 1969 in protest of Soviet occupation of Czekoslovakia," said Diana Kuodyte, head of Lithuania's Center for Genocide and Repression.
"Several more young Lithuanian men later set themselves on fire in 1972 in protest against the Soviet occupation. But the KGB managed to keep these events secret. The anti-Soviet rebellion that exploded in Kaunas was unique for the Soviet empire. It was a signal to the world that Lithuania wanted to be an independent country."
Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania until 1939, when Lithuania won Vilnius back from Poland, was a special city, according to historian Antanas Kulakauskas.
"This spirit of a temporary capital was still alive in Kaunas in the 1970s. The percentage of Kaunas people with relatives in the United States was very high. Young people were getting jeans and music records by post," Kulakauskas said.
Kaunas in 1972 was the easternmost fortress of Western hippie culture, despite the iron curtain.
Young people with long hair and torn jeans used to gather near the fountain by the Music Theater in the center of the city. They listened to music from Radio Luxembourg on small portable radios, and hung out on Laisves Aleja, the central street, visiting one cafï after another.
Sometimes Kalanta, a sensitive student at an evening school for young workers, joined in.
"That was a time of revolution for hippie students throughout the world. You have to see the Kaunas events in this cultural context," said Vytenis Andriukaitis, one of the leaders of the Social Democrat Party, who was living in Kalanta's neighborhood at the time.
Andriukaitis took part in the anti-Soviet demonstrations that followed and was beaten by the militia.
From time to time, the Soviet militia beat them, took them away and cut off their hair. The communist authorities considered long hair as a sign of the dangerous influence of capitalism.
On May 14, 1972, the hippies of Kaunas were planning to show the well-known musical "Hair," without permission from the authorities. But at 12:30 p.m., Kalanta poured petrol over himself from a three-liter glass jar and set himself on fire near the fountain. Nearby, he had dropped his notebook, in which he'd written, "Only the political system is guilty of my death."
It was a signal for an uprising. The Soviets lost control over Kaunas on May 18-19. Thousands of young people demonstrated in the central streets chanting, "Freedom for Lithuania! Russians go home!"
The authorities announced Kaunas a closed city. Entrance to the city was forbidden.
As the first units of Soviet militia and the army appeared on Laisves Aleja, young people started erecting barricades from the benches and reinforced concrete.
"It was a real revolution," said Viktoras Majauskas, a participant in the events, now the director of a company making furniture. "The army and the militia beat us, so the demonstrators beat back."
He was arrested and taken to Kaunas' KGB headquarters. However, Majauskas gave the KGB a false name and address. He was released because he was not considered to be among the leaders of the uprising.
Hundreds of young men and women were interred in the KGB headquarters. But only six were ever sent to court.
Those released, however, lost their jobs or were kicked out of school. They could no longer dream about a career, since the KGB followed their every step. Some disappeared in psychiatric hospitals across the Soviet Union.
The events of 1972 had a huge influence on the Lithuanian mentality. That spring was the best vaccine the nation could have against totalitarian ideology.
"Those 'bananas' (the name for the rubber sticks of the Soviet militia) gave us a strong philosophical base, which hasn't changed since then," said composer Vidmantas Bartulis, another rebel in the 1972 demonstrations.
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