Drawing on extensive archival sources, ego documents, interviews and Soviet publications, this article explores the peculiarities of adoption practices in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania (LSSR) after the 1944 reoccupation. By analysing the social and cultural context of the LSSR, public discourse dictated by the political aims of the occupation regime towards children left in state care, and the problems associated with children left without parental care, it reveals how and why the distinctive social practices of giving up and adopting children were developed and embedded. The article argues that alongside the Soviet legal system, which was intended to regulate the possibilities and conditions for adoption but failed to meet the needs of different social actors, a form of social self-organisation emerged and evolved in Soviet Lithuanian society. The illegitimacy of some of these practices was not politicised and even partially maintained in a systematic manner.
