The
history of Lithuania dates back to at least 1009, the first recorded written use of the term.
LithuaniansLithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, a branch of the
Baltic peoplesThe Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east...
, later conquered neighboring lands, establishing the
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
and in the 13th century the short-lived
Kingdom of LithuaniaThe Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian monarchy which existed from 1251 to roughly 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only crowned king of Lithuania. The status of a kingdom was lost after Mindaugas' assassination in 1263. Other monarchs of Lithuania are referred to as Grand Dukes, even...
. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. The Duchy remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. In the 15th century,
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
became the largest state in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
through the conquest of much of
East SlavThe East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
populated
RutheniaRuthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
. The Grand Duchy, a formidable power,
formed in 1385In a strict sense, the Union of Krewo or Act of Krėva was a set of prenuptial promises made in the Kreva Castle on 14 August 1385 by Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, in exchange for marriage to the underage reigning Queen Jadwiga of Poland...
a
dynastic unionThe Jagiellonian dynasty was a royal dynasty originating from the Lithuanian House of Gediminas dynasty that reigned in Central European countries between the 14th and 16th century...
with
PolandHistory of Poland during the Jagiellon dynasty is the period in the history of Poland that spans the late Middle Ages and early Modern Era. Beginning with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila , the Jagiellon dynasty formed the Polish–Lithuanian union...
and
became ChristianizedThe Christianization of Lithuania – Christianization of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that took place in 1387, initiated by the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas, that signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuanians, one of the last pagan...
,
merging intoThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...
the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. In 1795, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was erased from the political map with the
Partitions of the CommonwealthThe Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
. Afterwards the Lithuanians lived mostly under the rule of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
until the 20th century.
On February 16, 1918, Lithuania was reestablished as a democratic state. It remained independent until the outset of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when it was occupied by the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Following a brief occupation by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
when the Nazis declared war on the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Lithuania was again absorbed into the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years. In the early 1990s,
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
restored its sovereigntyThe Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of March 11 was an independence declaration by the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted on March 11, 1990...
and in the following years
became integratedThe 2004 enlargement of the European Union was the largest single expansion of the European Union , both in terms of territory, number of states and population, however not in terms of gross domestic product...
into the
European political structuresThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
Early settlement
The first people arrived on the territory of modern Lithuania in the 10th millennium BC after the glaciers had retreated and the last glacial period had ended. According to historian
Marija GimbutasMarija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
, the people came from two directions: from the
JutlandJutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
Peninsula and from present-day
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. They brought two different cultures as evidenced by the tools they used. They were traveling hunters and did not form more stable settlements. In the 8th millennium BC, the climate became much warmer and forests developed. The inhabitants traveled less and engaged in local hunting, gathering and fresh water fishing. During the 6th–5th millennium BC, various animals were domesticated, dwellings became more sophisticated and could shelter larger families. Agriculture did not arrive until the 3rd millennium BC, because of demanding climate and terrain and a lack of suitable tools to cultivate the land. Crafts and trade also started to form at this time.
Proto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
, from whom the
BaltsThe Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east...
later developedThe Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...
, came around 2500 BC.
Baltic tribes
The first Lithuanians were a branch of an ancient group known as the
BaltsThe Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east...
, whose tribes also included the original
PrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n and
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n people. The Baltic tribes were not directly influenced by the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, but they did maintain close trade contacts (see
Amber RoadThe Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber. As one of the waterways and ancient highways, for centuries the road led from Europe to Asia and back, and from northern Africa to the Baltic Sea....
).
Lithuanians have built a nation that has endured for most of the past ten centuries, while Latvians acquired statehood in the 20th century and Prussian tribes disappeared altogether. The first known reference to Lithuania as a nation ("Litua") comes from the
annalsThe Annals of Quedlinburg were written between 1008 and 1030 in the convent of Quedlinburg Abbey. In recent years a consensus has emerged that the annalist was a woman.The annals are mostly dedicated to the history of the Holy Roman Empire; they also contain the first written mention of the name...
of the
Monastery of QuedlinburgQuedlinburg Abbey was a house of secular canonesses in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 936 on the initiative of Saint Mathilda, the widow of Henry the Fowler, as his memorial...
and is dated March 9, 1009.
Today, the two remaining Baltic nationalities are Lithuanians and Latvians, but there were more Baltic nationalities or tribes in the past. Some of these have merged into the Lithuanians and Latvians (
SamogitiansSamogitians are a part of the Lithuanian ethnicity inhabiting the region of Samogitia in Lithuania. Many speak the Samogitian dialect of the Lithuanian language.-History:...
,
SeloniansSelonians were a tribe of Baltic peoples. The Selonians lived until the 15th century in Selonia, located in southeastern Latvia and northeastern Lithuania. They merged with neighbouring tribes, contributing to the ethnogenesis of Latvians and Lithuanians....
,
CuroniansThe Curonians or Kurs were a Baltic tribe living on the shores of the Baltic sea in what are now the western parts of Latvia and Lithuania from the 5th to the 16th centuries, when they merged with other Baltic tribes. They gave their name to the region of Courland , and they spoke the Old...
,
SemigalliansSemigallians were the Baltic tribe that lived in the southcentral part of contemporary Latvia and northern Lithuania...
), while others no longer exist (
PrussiansThe Old Prussians or Baltic Prussians were an ethnic group, autochthonous Baltic tribes that inhabited Prussia, the lands of the southeastern Baltic Sea in the area around the Vistula and Curonian Lagoons...
,
SambiansThe Sambians were one of the Prussian tribes. They inhabited the peninsula of Sambia, north of the city of Königsberg . Sambians were located in a coastal territory rich in amber and engaged in trade early on . Therefore, they established contacts with foreign nations before any other Prussians...
,
SkalviansThe Scalovians , also known as the Skalvians, Schalwen and Schalmen, were a Baltic tribe related to the Prussians. According to the Chronicon terrae Prussiae of Peter of Dusburg, the now extinct Scalovians inhabited the land of Scalovia south of the Curonians and Samogitians, by the lower Neman...
, Galindians).
Formation of Lithuanian state
During the 11th century, Lithuanian territories were included in the list of lands paying tribute to
Kievan Rus'Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
, but by the 12th century, the Lithuanians were invading neighboring territories themselves. The military and plundering activities of the Lithuanians triggered a struggle for power in Lithuania, which initiated the formation of early statehood, from which the
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
developed.
Pagan Lithuania
In the early 13th century two
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
religious orderA religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...
s, the
Teutonic KnightsThe Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
and the
Livonian Brothers of the SwordThe Livonian Brothers of the Sword were a military order founded by Bishop Albert of Riga in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised German "warrior monks"...
, conquered much of the area that is now
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
and
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, in addition to parts of Lithuania. In response, a number of small Baltic tribal groups united under the rule of
MindaugasMindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power; he is mentioned in a 1219 treaty as an elder duke, and in 1236 as the leader of all the Lithuanians...
and soundly defeated the
LivoniansThe Livonian Brothers of the Sword were a military order founded by Bishop Albert of Riga in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised German "warrior monks"...
at
ŠiauliaiŠiauliai , is the fourth largest city in Lithuania, with a population of 133,900. It is the capital of Šiauliai County. Unofficially, the city is the capital of Northern Lithuania.-Names:...
in the Battle of Saule in 1236. In 1250 Mindaugas signed an agreement with the Teutonic Order and in 1251 was baptized in their presence by the bishop of Chełmno (in Chełmno Land). On 6 July 1253, Mindaugas was crowned as King of Lithuania and the
Kingdom of LithuaniaThe Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian monarchy which existed from 1251 to roughly 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only crowned king of Lithuania. The status of a kingdom was lost after Mindaugas' assassination in 1263. Other monarchs of Lithuania are referred to as Grand Dukes, even...
was proclaimed. Mindaugas was murdered in 1263 by his nephew
TreniotaTreniota was the Grand Duke of Lithuania .Treniota was the nephew of Mindaugas, the first and only king of Lithuania. While Mindaugas had converted to Christianity in order to discourage Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights attacks on Lithuania, becoming king in the process, Treniota remained a...
, which resulted in great unrest and a return to
paganismPaganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
.
Pagan LithuaniaLithuanian mythology is an example of Baltic mythology, developed by Lithuanians throughout the centuries.-History of scholarship:Surviving information about Baltic paganism in general is very sketchy and incomplete. As with most ancient Indo-European cultures Lithuanian mythology is an example of...
was a target of
Christian crusadesThe Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were crusades undertaken by the Christian kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of Northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea...
of the Teutonic Knights and the
Livonian OrderThe Livonian Order was an autonomous Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order and a member of the Livonian Confederation from 1435–1561. After being defeated by Samogitians in the 1236 Battle of Schaulen , the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights...
. In 1241, 1259 and 1275 the country was ravaged by raids from the
Golden HordeThe Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...
.
In 1316, Grand Duke Gediminas, the first of the leaders responsible for Lithuania's great expansion that was to follow, with the aid of colonists from Germany, began restoration of the land. The brothers
VytenisVytenis was the Grand Duke of Lithuania from c. 1295 to c. 1316. He became the first of the Gediminid dynasty to rule for a considerable amount of time. In the early 14th century his reputation outshone that of Gediminas, who is regarded by modern historians as one of the greatest Lithuanian rulers...
and Gediminas united various groups into one Lithuania.
Gediminas extended the
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
to the east by challenging the
MongolsMongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
who, at that time, controlled large areas of Rus'. Through alliances and conquest, in competition with the
Grand Duchy of MoscowThe Grand Duchy of Moscow or Grand Principality of Moscow, also known in English simply as Muscovy , was a late medieval Rus' principality centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia....
, the Lithuanians eventually gained control of significant parts (western and southern portions) of the formerly
Kievan Rus'Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
territory. This area included most of modern
BelarusBelarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(the
Dnieper RiverThe Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
basin) and created a massive Lithuanian state that in the 15th century stretched from the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
to the
Black SeaThe Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
.
Gediminas was slain and his son
AlgirdasAlgirdas was a monarch of medieval Lithuania. Algirdas ruled the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1345 to 1377, which chiefly meant monarch of Lithuanians and Ruthenians...
suppressed the monasteries. Algirdas took
KievKiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
in 1362 after defeating the Mongols at the
Battle of Blue WatersThe Battle of Blue Waters was a medieval battle fought at some time between 24 September and 25 December 1362 near the Syni Vody of the Southern Bug between the armies of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Golden Horde....
. Algirdas' son,
JogailaJogaila, later 'He is known under a number of names: ; ; . See also: Jogaila : names and titles. was Grand Duke of Lithuania , king consort of Kingdom of Poland , and sole King of Poland . He ruled in Lithuania from 1377, at first with his uncle Kęstutis...
, again made overtures to the Teutonic Order and concluded a secret treaty with them. His uncle
KęstutisKęstutis was monarch of medieval Lithuania. He was the Duke of Trakai and governed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1342–82, together with his brother Algirdas , and with his nephew Jogaila...
took him prisoner and a
civil warThe Lithuanian Civil War of 1381–1384 was the first struggle for power between the cousins Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania and later King of Poland, and Vytautas the Great. It began after Jogaila signed the Treaty of Dovydiškės with the Teutonic Knights which was aimed against his uncle Kęstutis,...
(1381–1384) ensued. Kęstutis was eventually captured, imprisoned and put to death, but Kęstutis's son
VytautasVytautas ; styled "the Great" from the 15th century onwards; c. 1350 October 27, 1430) was one of the most famous rulers of medieval Lithuania. Vytautas was the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which chiefly encompassed the Lithuanians and Ruthenians...
, the future Grand Duke, escaped.
Nowadays
Lithuanian paganismLithuanian mythology is an example of Baltic mythology, developed by Lithuanians throughout the centuries.-History of scholarship:Surviving information about Baltic paganism in general is very sketchy and incomplete. As with most ancient Indo-European cultures Lithuanian mythology is an example of...
is enjoying some revival and is practiced by Ancient Baltic faith community Romuva.
Christian Lithuania, dynastic union with Poland
As the power of Lithuanian warlord dukes expanded to the south and east, the cultivated
East SlavicThe East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
RutheniaRuthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
ns moved in the opposite direction within their new statehood and exerted influence on the Lithuanian ruling class. They brought with them the
Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
liturgyA liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....
of the
Eastern OrthodoxThe Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Christian religion, written Slavic language that was to serve the Lithuanian court's document-producing needs for a few centuries, and developed laws, turning
VilniusVilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
into a major center of
their civilizationKievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
. By the time of Jogaila's acceptance of Catholicism at the
Union of KrewoIn a strict sense, the Union of Krewo or Act of Krėva was a set of prenuptial promises made in the Kreva Castle on 14 August 1385 by Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, in exchange for marriage to the underage reigning Queen Jadwiga of Poland...
in 1385, the establishment of his realm and members of his family had been to a large extent
assimilated into the Orthodox ChristianityThe Christianization of Lithuania – Christianization of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that took place in 1387, initiated by the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas, that signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuanians, one of the last pagan...
.
JogailaJogaila, later 'He is known under a number of names: ; ; . See also: Jogaila : names and titles. was Grand Duke of Lithuania , king consort of Kingdom of Poland , and sole King of Poland . He ruled in Lithuania from 1377, at first with his uncle Kęstutis...
, a Grand Duke since 1377, was himself still a pagan. He agreed to become a Catholic when offered the Polish crown and the child queen
JadwigaJadwiga was monarch of Poland from 1384 to her death. Her official title was 'king' rather than 'queen', reflecting that she was a sovereign in her own right and not merely a royal consort. She was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, the daughter of King Louis I of Hungary and Elizabeth of...
by leading Polish nobles, who were eager to take advantage of Lithuania's expansion. Lithuania's close
association with PolandThe History of Poland is rooted in the arrival of the Slavs, who gave rise to permanent settlement and historic development on Polish lands. During the Piast dynasty Christianity was adopted in 966 and medieval monarchy established...
had thus begun, and lasted, in one form or another, for nearly five centuries. For the near future Poland gave Lithuanians a valuable ally against increasing threats from the
Teutonic KnightsThe Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
and
MuscovyThe Grand Duchy of Moscow or Grand Principality of Moscow, also known in English simply as Muscovy , was a late medieval Rus' principality centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia....
.
Jogaila's baptism and the crowning as the
King of Poland in 1386 were followed by the final and official
Christianization of LithuaniaThe Christianization of Lithuania – Christianization of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that took place in 1387, initiated by the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas, that signified the official adoption of Christianity by Lithuanians, one of the last pagan...
. After two
civil warsThe Lithuanian Civil War of 1389–1392 was the second civil conflict between Jogaila, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his cousin Vytautas the Great. At issue was control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then the largest state in Europe. Jogaila had been crowned King of Poland in...
Vytautas the GreatVytautas ; styled "the Great" from the 15th century onwards; c. 1350 October 27, 1430) was one of the most famous rulers of medieval Lithuania. Vytautas was the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which chiefly encompassed the Lithuanians and Ruthenians...
became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign Lithuania reached the peak of its territorial expansion, centralization of the state had begun, and the Lithuanian nobility became increasingly prominent in state politics. The Lithuanian-Polish alliance was able to defeat the mighty Teutonic Knights at the
Battle of GrunwaldThe Battle of Grunwald or 1st Battle of Tannenberg was fought on 15 July 1410, during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respectively by King Jogaila and Grand Duke Vytautas , decisively defeated the Teutonic Knights, led...
in 1410. The
Jagiellon dynastyThe Jagiellonian dynasty was a royal dynasty originating from the Lithuanian House of Gediminas dynasty that reigned in Central European countries between the 14th and 16th century...
, founded by Jogaila, ruled Poland and Lithuania continuously until 1572.
The
dynastic linkA personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...
to Poland resulted in religious, political and cultural ties and increase of
Western influenceWestern culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
among the native Lithuanian nobility, and to a lesser extent among the
RuthenianThe name Ruthenian |Rus']]) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially, it was the ethnonym used for the East Slavic peoples who lived in Rus'. Later it was used predominantly for Ukrainians...
boyarA boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
s from
the EastThe culture of ancient Rus can be divided into different historical periods of the Middle Ages. During the Kievan period , the principalities of Kievan Rus’ came under the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire, one of the most advanced cultures of the time, and adopted Christianity...
, Lithuanian subjects. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was preserved as a separate state with separate institutions. Many cities were granted the German system of laws (
Magdeburg rightsMagdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...
), with the largest of these being Vilnius, since 1322 the capital of the Grand Duchy.
After the deaths of Jogaila and Vytautas, the Lithuanian nobility at times attempted to break the union between Poland and Lithuania, independently selecting Grand Dukes from the Jagiellon dynasty. Lithuania however needed a close alliance with Poland when, at the end of the 15th century, the growing power of the
Grand Duchy of MoscowThe Grand Duchy of Moscow or Grand Principality of Moscow, also known in English simply as Muscovy , was a late medieval Rus' principality centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia....
threatened some of Lithuania's Rus' principalities and sparked the
Muscovite–Lithuanian WarsThe Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars The conflicts are referred to as 'Muscovite wars' in Polish historiography and as 'Lithuanian wars' in Russian one; English historiography uses both, ex...
and later the
Livonian WarThe Livonian War was fought for control of Old Livonia in the territory of present-day Estonia and Latvia when the Tsardom of Russia faced a varying coalition of Denmark–Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland.During the period 1558–1578,...
.
Lithuanian Renaissance
From the 16th to the mid-17th century culture, arts, and education flourished, fueled by the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and the
Protestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
.
Francysk Skaryna, who wrote and published in his
native RuthenianBelarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
(
Old BelarusianOld Belarusian was a historic East Slavic language, written and spoken at least in the 14th–17th century, and reported spoken as late as the very beginning of the 19th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, probably...
) language, was typical in this respect of the earlier phase of the Renaissance in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which lasted until the middle of the 16th century, when
PolishPolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
predominated. Many educated Lithuanians came back from studies abroad and the Grand Duchy was boiling with active cultural life, sometimes referred to as Lithuanian Renaissance (not to be confused with
Lithuanian National RevivalLithuanian National Revival, alternatively Lithuanian National Awakening , was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire...
in the 19th century).
At the time Italian architecture was introduced in Lithuanian cities, and
Lithuanian literatureLithuanian literature concerns the art of written works compiled by Lithuanians throughout their history.-Latin language:A wealth of Lithuanian literature was written in Latin, the main scholarly language in the Middle Ages.-Lithuanian language:...
written in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
flourished. Also at that time the first handwritten and printed texts in the
Lithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
emerged, and the formation of written Lithuanian language began. The process was led by Lithuanian scholars
Abraomas KulvietisAbraomas Kulvietis was a jurist and a professor at Königsberg Albertina University, as well as a reformer of the church....
,
Stanislovas RapalionisStanislovas Rapalionis was a founder of the first Lithuanian language school in Vilnius, a professor of theology in Königsberg Albertina University, and the first translator of the Bible into Lithuanian, although this translation has not survived....
,
Martynas MažvydasMartynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas (1510 near Žemaičių Naumiestis (now in Šilutė district municipality) - May 21, 1563 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) was the author and the editor of the first printed book in the Lithuanian language....
and
Mikalojus DaukšaMikalojus Daukša was a Lithuanian and Latin religious writer, translator and a Catholic church official...
.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)
With the
Union of LublinThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...
of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state: the Republic of Both Nations (commonly known as Poland-Lithuania or the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; Polish:
Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, Lithuanian:
Abiejų Tautų Respublika). The Commonwealth was ruled by Polish and Lithuanian nobility, together with kings, who were elected by the nobles.
Following the union,
Polonization Polonization was the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular, Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland...
increasingly affected all aspects of Lithuanian public life; it took well over a century for the process to be completed. From about 1700
PolishPolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
was used in official documents; the
Ruthenian languageRuthenian, or Old Ruthenian , is a term used for the varieties of Eastern Slavonic spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth....
and
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
had been utilized in the Grand Duchy's written transactions prior to that time. Lithuania's ruling families and nobility had become linguistically and culturally Polonized, while retaining a sense of Lithuanian nationality. The
Lithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
fell into disuse in the circles of the grand dukes' courts in the second half of the 15th century. A century later Polish was commonly used by ordinary Lithuanian nobility. The Lithuanian language however survived, despite the encroachments of the Ruthenian, Polish,
RussianRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
,
BelarusianThe Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
and
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
languages, as a peasant vernacular and
from 1547Martynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas (1510 near Žemaičių Naumiestis (now in Šilutė district municipality) - May 21, 1563 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) was the author and the editor of the first printed book in the Lithuanian language....
in written religious use.
The predominantly
East SlavicThe East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
population of the territorially expanded Grand Duchy was by and large
Eastern OrthodoxThe Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
, and so was the Lithuanian nobility. Unlike the common people of the Lithuanian realm, at about the time of the
union with PolandThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...
large portion of the Lithuanian state's nobility converted to
Western ChristianityWestern Christianity is a term used to include the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church and groups historically derivative thereof, including the churches of the Anglican and Protestant traditions, which share common attributes that can be traced back to their medieval heritage...
. Following the
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
movement many noble families converted to
CalvinismCalvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
in the 1550s and 1560s, and typically a generation later, conforming to the
Counter-ReformationThe Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
trends in the Commonwealth, to Roman Catholicism. In the early Commonwealth
religious tolerationToleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
was the norm and was officially enacted by the
Confederation of WarsawThe Warsaw Confederation , an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania that extended religious tolerance to nobility and free persons within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. , is considered the formal beginning of religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and...
in 1573.
The Union of Lublin and the integration of the two countries notwithstanding, for over two centuries Lithuania continued to exist as the
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, retaining separate laws as well as an army and a treasury. At the time of
the UnionThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...
King
Sigismund II AugustusSigismund II Augustus I was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the only son of Sigismund I the Old, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548...
removed the
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
territories from Lithuania and incorporated them into the Polish Crown. The Grand Duchy was left with today's
BelarusBelarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and parts of western
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, in addition to its Lithuanian ethnic lands. From 1573, the kings of Poland and the grand dukes of Lithuania were always the same person, and were elected by the nobility, who were granted ever increasing
liberties and privilegesGolden Liberty , sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth refers to a unique aristocratic political system in the Kingdom of Poland and later, after the Union of Lublin , in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
. These liberties, especially the
liberum vetoThe liberum veto was a parliamentary device in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It allowed any member of the Sejm to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify any legislation that had already been passed at the session by shouting Nie pozwalam! .From the mid-16th to the late 18th...
, led to political anarchy and the eventual dissolution of the state.
The Commonwealth was greatly weakened by a series of wars, beginning in 1648 with
KhmelnytskyBohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...
's
Cossack uprisingThe Khmelnytsky Uprising, was a Cossack rebellion in the Ukraine between the years 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland...
. During the
Northern WarsThe Second Northern War was fought between Sweden and its adversaries the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Russia , Brandenburg-Prussia , the Habsburg Monarchy and Denmark–Norway...
(1655–1661), the Lithuanian territory and economy were devastated by the Swedish army. Before it could fully recover, Lithuania was again ravaged during the
Great Northern WarThe Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...
(1700–1721). The war, plague, and famine resulted in the loss of approximately 40% of the country's inhabitants. Foreign powers, especially Russia, became dominant players in the domestic politics of the Commonwealth. Numerous factions among the nobility used their "
Golden LibertyGolden Liberty , sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth refers to a unique aristocratic political system in the Kingdom of Poland and later, after the Union of Lublin , in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
" to prevent any reforms.
The
ConstitutionThe Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" on that date by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution...
of May 3, 1791, a culmination of the belated reform process of the Commonwealth, was passed by the
SejmThe general sejm was the parliament of Poland for four centuries from the late 15th until the late 18th century.-Genesis:The power of early sejms grew during the period of Poland's fragmentation , when the power of individual rulers waned and that of various councils and wiece grew...
(central legislature). It attempted to integrate Lithuania and Poland more closely, although the separation was kept by the added Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations.
Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian CommonwealthThe Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
in 1772, 1793 and 1795 terminated the existence of the Commonwealth and saw Lithuania divided between Russia and Prussia. Lithuania ceased to exist as a distinct entity for more than a century.
Post-Commonwealth Lithuania 1795–1864; foundations of Lithuanian nationalism
Following the
partitions of the Polish Lithuanian CommonwealthThe Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
, the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
controlled the majority of Lithuania, including
VilniusVilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, which was a part of the
Vilna GovernorateThe Vilna Governorate or Government of Vilna was a governorate of the Russian Empire created after the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795...
. In 1803 Emperor
Alexander IAlexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
revived and upgraded the old
JesuitThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
academy as the imperial
Vilnius UniversityVilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....
, the largest in the Russian Empire. The university and the regional educational system was directed on behalf of
the TsarAlexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
by Prince
Adam CzartoryskiPrince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was a Polish-Lithuanian noble, statesman and author. He was the son of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and Izabela Fleming....
. In the early years of the 19th century, there were signs that Lithuania might be allowed some separate recognition by the Empire, however this had never happened.
These hopes were soon to be dashed, particularly subsequent to 1812, when Lithuanians eagerly welcomed
Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's French army as liberators, with many joining his
offensive against RussiaThe French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. It reduced the French and allied invasion forces to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe...
. After the French army's defeat and withdrawal, Tsar Alexander I decided to keep the University of Vilnius open and the poet
Adam MickiewiczAdam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
was able to receive his education there. The south-western part of Lithuania included in Prussia in 1795 and in the short-lived
Duchy of WarsawThe Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
in 1807 became a part of the Russian-controlled
Kingdom of PolandThe Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
in 1815, while the rest of Lithuania continued to be administered as a Russian province.
Lithuanians and Poles revolted twice,
in 1831The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
and
1863The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
, but both attempts had failed and resulted in increased repression by the Russian authorities. After the
November UprisingThe November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
, Tsar
Nicholas INicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
began an intensive program of
RussificationRussification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
and the University of Vilnius was closed.
The poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, emotionally attached to the Lithuanian setting and exploring Lithuania's medieval themes, influenced ideological foundations of the emerging Lithuanian national movement.
Simonas DaukantasSimonas Daukantas or Szymon Dowkont was a Lithuanian writer, ethnographer and historian. One of the pioneers of the Lithuanian national revival, he is credited as an author of the first book on the history of Lithuania written in the Lithuanian language...
, who studied with Mickiewicz at
VilniusVilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....
, promoted a return to Lithuania's pre-Commonwealth traditions and a renewal of the local culture, based on the
Lithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
. With those ideas in mind he wrote already in 1822 (at that time not published) a history of Lithuania in Lithuanian.
Teodor NarbuttTeodor Narbutt was a Polish–Lithuanian writer, Romantic historian and military engineer...
wrote in Polish a voluminous
Ancient History of the Lithuanian Nation (1835–1841), where he likewise expounded and expanded further the concept of historic Lithuania, whose days of glory had ended with the
union with PolandThe Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...
(1569). Narbutt, invoking the German scholarship, pointed out the relationship between the Lithuanian and
SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
languages. It indicated the closeness of Lithuanian (preserved in considerable isolation from historic era foreign influences) to its old
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
roots and would later provide the "antiquity" argument for the
national revivalLithuanian National Revival, alternatively Lithuanian National Awakening , was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire...
activists. By the middle of the 19th century the basic ideology of the future
nationalistNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
movement had thus been defined; it required, in order to establish a modern Lithuanian identity, a break with the Polish (early modern) tradition and cultural-linguistic dependence.
Around the time of the
January UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
, there was a generation of Lithuanian leaders of the transitional period, between the Grand Duchy-oriented, bound with Poland, and the modern nationalist Lithuanian language-based movement. Jakób Gieysztor,
Konstanty KalinowskiWincenty Konstanty Kalinowski , also known under his Polish and Lithuanian names of Konstanty Kalinowski or and Kostas Kalinauskas; 1838 – March 24, 1864) was a writer, journalist, lawyer and revolutionary...
and
Antanas MackevičiusAntanas Mackevičius – was a Lithuanian priest and one of the initiators and leaders of the 1863 January Uprising in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, on the lands of the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.- Biography :Antanas Mackevičius was born into a family of minor...
wanted to form alliances with the local (Lithuanian and Belarusian speaking) peasants, who, empowered and given land, would presumably help defeat the Russian Empire, acting in their own self-interest. This created new dilemmas that had to do with languages used for such inter-class communication, and later led to the concept of a nation as the "sum of speakers of a vernacular tongue".
Formation of modern national identity and push for self-rule 1864–1918
The 1864 failure of the January Uprising made on the one hand the Polish connection seem of no further practical use to Lithuanians, while on the other led to the creation of a class of emancipated and even prosperous Lithuanian peasants, custodians of the Lithuanian language. Educational opportunities, now more widely available also to young people of such common origins, were one of the crucial factors responsible for the
Lithuanian revivalLithuanian National Revival, alternatively Lithuanian National Awakening , was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire...
. As schools were being de-Polonized and Lithuanian university students sent to
St. PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
or
MoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
rather than
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, a cultural void resulted and it was not being successfully filled by the attempted
RussificationRussification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
policies. In the following decades, a national movement emerged. It was composed of activists of different social backgrounds and persuasions, often primarily Polish speaking, but united by their willingness and zeal to promote the Lithuanian culture and language as a strategy for building a modern nation.
In 1864 the Lithuanian language and the Latin alphabet were banned in junior schools. Lithuanians resisted the Russification by arranging printing abroad and smuggling the books in by
knygnešiaiBook smugglers were people who transported Lithuanian language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuanian-speaking areas of the Russian Empire, defying a ban on such materials in force from 1866 to 1904...
. The tsarist authorities implemented a number of Russification policies, including a
ban on Lithuanian pressThe Lithuanian press ban was a ban on all Lithuanian language publications printed in the Latin alphabet within the Russian Empire, which controlled Lithuania at the time. Lithuanian-language publications that used the Cyrillic alphabet were allowed and even encouraged...
and the closing of cultural and educational institutions, and Lithuania became part of a new administrative region called
Northwestern KraiNorthwestern Krai was a subdivision of Imperial Russia in the territories of the present day Belarus and Lithuania. Together with the Southwestern Krai it formed the Western Krai...
.
Because many Lithuanian nobles were Polonized and only the poor and middle classes used Lithuanian (some of the latter also preferred to use Polish), Lithuanian was not considered a prestigious language. There were even expectations that the language would become extinct, as more and more territories in the east were Slavicized, and more people used Polish or Russian in daily life. The only place where Lithuanian was considered more prestigious and worthy of books and studying was German-controlled
Lithuania MinorLithuania Minor or Prussian Lithuania is a historical ethnographic region of Prussia, later East Prussia in Germany, where Prussian Lithuanians or Lietuvininkai lived. Lithuania Minor enclosed the northern part of this province and got its name due to the territory's substantial...
. Even there,
an influx of German immigrantsGermanisation is both the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, and the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
threatened the native language and culture.
The language was already present among poor people and the language revival spread into more affluent strata, beginning with the release of Lithuanian newspapers,
AušraAušra or Auszra was the first national Lithuanian newspaper. The first issue was published in 1883, in Ragnit, East Prussia, Germany East Prussia's ethnolinguistic part - Lithuania Minor. Later it was published monthly in Tilsit...
and
VarpasVarpas was a monthly Lithuanian-language newspaper published during the Lithuanian press ban from January 1889 to December 1905...
, then with the writing of poems and books in Lithuanian. These writings glorified the
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
, depicting the historic nation of great power and with many heroes.
The two most prominent figures in the revival movement,
Jonas BasanavičiusJonas Basanavičius was an activist and proponent of Lithuania's National Revival and founder of the first Lithuanian language newspaper Aušra. He was one of the initiators and the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 1905 Congress of Lithuanians, the Great Seimas of Vilnius...
and
Vincas KudirkaVincas Kudirka was a Lithuanian poet and physician, and the author of both the music and lyrics of the Lithuanian National Anthem, Tautiška giesmė. He is regarded in Lithuania as a National Hero. Kudirka used pen names - V...
, both originated from affluent Lithuanian peasantry and both attended the
MarijampolėMarijampolė is an industrial city and the capital of the Marijampolė County in the south of Lithuania, bordering Poland and Russian Kaliningrad oblast, and Lake Vištytis. The population of Marijampolė is 48,700...
(Mariampol) secondary school in the Suvalkai region, where
serfdomSerfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
had been eliminated in 1807, the time of Napoleon's takeover. The school was a Polish educational center, Russified after the
UprisingThe January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
, with the Lithuanian language classes introduced at that time.
Basanavičius studied medicine at
MoscowLomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
, where he developed international connections, published in Polish on Lithuanian history and graduated in 1879. From there he went to
BulgariaThe Bulgarian National Revival , sometimes called the Bulgarian Renaissance, was a period of socio-economic development and national integration among Bulgarian people under Ottoman rule...
, and in 1882 moved to
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. In Prague he met and became influenced by the Czech
national movementCzech National Revival was a cultural movement, which took part in the Czech lands during the 18th and 19th century. The purpose of this movement was to revive Czech language, culture and national identity...
activists. In 1883 Basanavičius began working on a Lithuanian language review, which assumed the form of a newspaper named
Aušra (The Dawn). Published abroad,
Aušra was written in the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
script, banned under the Russian rule where
CyrillicThe Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
characters were required for printing in Lithuanian, and was smuggled to Lithuania. The review (forty issues in total), building on the work of the earlier writers, sought to establish continuities with the
medievalThe Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
Grand Duchy of Lithuania and exalted the Lithuanian common people in their role as the conduit of that (essential for the national revival) continuity.
Russian restrictions at Marijampolė secondary school were eased in 1872 and Kudirka, enrolled at that time, learned Polish there. He went on to study at the
Warsaw imperial universityThe University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
, where he was influenced by Polish
socialistsSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. In 1889 Kudirka returned to Lithuania and worked on incorporating Lithuanian peasantry into mainstream politics, as the main building block of a modern nation. In 1898 he wrote a poem inspired by the opening strophe of Mickiewicz's masterpiece
Pan TadeuszPan Tadeusz, the full title in English: Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman's Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz...
, using the poet's famous invocation in a different language and for a differently understood, but resonating with the patriotism of the original, national purpose. The poem became the
national anthemA national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
of Lithuania (
Tautiška Giesmė).
The revival spearheaded the independence movement, with various organizations opposing Russian influence. Russian policy became harsher in response. Attacks took place against Catholic churches while a ban forbidding Lithuanian press continued.
The period from 1890 to 1904 saw the publication of about 2,500 book titles in the Lithuanian Latin alphabet. The majority of these were published in Tilsit, a city in
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, although some publications reached Lithuania from the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. A largely standardized written version of the language was achieved by the turn of the twentieth century, based on historical and
AukštaitijaAukštaitija is the name of one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. The name comes from the relatively high elevation of the region, particularly the eastern parts.-Geography:...
n (highland) usages. The letters -č-, -š- and -v- were taken from the modern (redesigned)
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
orthography, to avoid the Polish usage for corresponding sounds. The widely-accepted
Lithuanian Grammar, by
Jonas JablonskisJonas Jablonskis was a distinguished Lithuanian linguist and one of the founders of the standard Lithuanian language...
, appeared in 1901.
In 1879 Emperor
Alexander II of RussiaAlexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
approved a proposal from the Russian military leadership to build the largest defensive structure in the entire Russian state – the 65 square kilometre
Kaunas FortressKaunas Fortress is the remains of a fortress complex in Kaunas, Lithuania. It was constructed and renovated between 1882 and 1915 to protect the Russian Empire's western borders, and was designated a "first-class" fortress in 1887...
. Large numbers of Lithuanians went to the United States in 1867–1868 after a
famineA famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
in Lithuania. Between 1868 and 1914, approximately 635,000 people, almost 20% of the population, left Lithuania. Nevertheless, a
Lithuanian National RevivalLithuanian National Revival, alternatively Lithuanian National Awakening , was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire...
laid the foundations of the modern Lithuanian nation and independent Lithuania.
Lithuania's
nationalistNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
movement continued to grow. During the Russia-wide revolutionary uprising of 1905, a congress of Lithuanian representatives in Vilnius known as the
Great Seimas of VilniusThe Great Seimas of Vilnius , was a major assembly held on December 4 and 5, 1905 in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, largely inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1905. It was the first modern national congress in Lithuania and dealt primarily not with the social issues that...
demanded provincial autonomy on 5 December of that year. The tsarist regime made a number of concessions as the result of the 1905 uprising. The
Baltic statesThe term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
could once again use their native languages in schooling and public discourse. The Latin script replaced the Cyrillic script which had been forced upon Lithuanians for four decades. However, not even Russian liberals were prepared to concede autonomy similar to that that had already existed in Estonia and Latvia, albeit under
Baltic GermanThe Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...
hegemony.
Under
Otto von BismarckOtto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, the German policy had corresponded to that of tsarist Russia, along the lines of Prussian alliances extending back to the Napoleonic era (both powers acting together against Poland). While many Baltic Germans looked toward aligning the Baltics (Lithuania and
CourlandCourland is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...
in particular) with Germany, they had taken no overt action. However, after the outbreak of hostilities in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Germany occupied Lithuania and Courland in 1915. An alliance with Germany in opposition to both tsarist Russia and Lithuanian nationalism became for the Baltic Germans a real possibility.
Declaration of independence
During
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Lithuania was incorporated into
Ober OstOber Ost is short for Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten, which is a German term meaning "Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East" during World War I. In practice it refers not only to said commander, but also to his governing military staff and the district...
, occupational German government. As the war progressed, it became evident that Germany would not reach an effective victory and would have to compromise with the Russian Empire. As open annexation could result in a public relations backlash, the Germans planned to form a network of formally independent states that would in fact be completely dependent on Germany, the so-called
MitteleuropaMitteleuropa is the German term equal to Central Europe. The word has political, geographic and cultural meaning. While it describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a German-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during...
. The Germans allowed the
Vilnius ConferenceThe Vilnius Conference or Vilnius National Conference met between September 18, 1917 and September 22, 1917, and began the process of establishing a Lithuanian state based on ethnic identity and language that would be independent of the Russian Empire, Poland, and the German Empire...
(September 18–22, 1917) to convene, demanding that Lithuanians declare loyalty to Germany and agree to an annexation. The Conference elected a 20-member
Council of LithuaniaThe Council of Lithuania , after July 11, 1918 The State Council of Lithuania , was convened at the Vilnius Conference that took place between September 18 and 23, 1917. The council was granted the executive authority of the Lithuanian people and was entrusted to establish an independent...
and empowered it to act as the executive authority of the Lithuanian people. The Council adopted the
Act of Independence of LithuaniaThe Act of Independence of Lithuania or Act of February 16 was signed by the Council of Lithuania on February 16, 1918, proclaiming the restoration of an independent State of Lithuania, governed by democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital. The Act was signed by all twenty...
on February 16, 1918. It declared Lithuania as an independent republic, organized according to democratic principles. The Germans, still present in the country, did not support such a declaration and hindered any attempts to establish the proclaimed independence. To prevent being incorporated into the
German EmpireThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, Lithuanians elected
MonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
-born King
Mindaugas IIPrince Wilhelm of Urach, Count of Württemberg, 2nd Duke of Urach was a German prince who was elected King of Lithuania with the regnal name Mindaugas II on 11 July 1918...
as the titular monarch of the
Kingdom of LithuaniaThe Kingdom of Lithuania was a short-lived constitutional monarchy created towards the end of World War I when Lithuania was under occupation by the German Empire. The Council of Lithuania declared Lithuania's independence on February 16, 1918, but the Council was unable to form a government,...
in July 1918. Mindaugas II never assumed the throne.
Germany lost the war and signed the
Armistice of CompiègneThe armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
on November 11, 1918. Lithuanians quickly formed their first government, led by
Augustinas VoldemarasAugustinas Voldemaras was a Lithuanian nationalist political figure. He served as the country's first Prime Minister in 1918, and again from 1926 to 1929.- Biography :...
, adopted a provisional constitution, and started organizing basic administrative structures. As the defeated German army was withdrawing from the
Eastern FrontThe Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
, it was followed by the
Soviet forcesThe Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, whose intention was to spread the global
proletarian revolutionA proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, communists, and most anarchists....
. They created a number of
puppet stateA puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
s, including the
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist RepublicThe Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was an early short-lived Soviet republic declared on December 16, 1918 by the provisional revolutionary government, led by Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas...
. By the end of December the
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
reached Lithuanian borders, starting the
Lithuanian–Soviet WarThe Lithuanian–Soviet War or Lithuanian–Bolshevik War was fought between newly independent Lithuania and the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in the aftermath of World War I. It was part of the larger Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919...
. The Lithuanian government evacuated from Vilnius to
KaunasKaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
, the
temporary capital of LithuaniaThe temporary capital of Lithuania was the official designation of the city of Kaunas in Lithuania during the interwar period. It was in contrast to the declared capital in Vilnius , which was under Polish control from 1920 until 1939...
. Vilnius was captured on January 5, 1919. As the Lithuanian army was in its infant stages, the Soviet forces moved largely unopposed and by mid-January 1919 controlled about ⅔ of the Lithuanian territory. From April 1919 the Lithuanian war went parallel with the Polish–Soviet War. Poland had territorial claims over Lithuania, especially the
Vilnius RegionVilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...
, and these tensions spilled over into the
Polish–Lithuanian WarThe Polish–Lithuanian War was an armed conflict between newly independent Lithuania and Poland in the aftermath of World War I. The conflict primarily concerned territorial control of the Vilnius Region, including Vilnius , and the Suwałki Region, including the towns of Suwałki, Augustów, and Sejny...
. In mid-May the Lithuanian army, commanded by General
Silvestras ŽukauskasSilvestras Žukauskas , was a general in the Russian army, and later in his native Lithuania, after it regained its independence in 1918.- Biography :After graduating from the secondary school in Marijampolė, Žukauskas studied at the military academy...
, began an offensive against the Soviets in northeastern Lithuania. By the end of August 1919, the Soviets were pushed out of the Lithuanian territory. When the Soviets were defeated, Lithuanian army was deployed against the paramilitary
West Russian Volunteer ArmyThe West Russian Volunteer Army or Bermontians was an army in the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920....
, who invaded northern Lithuania. They were rouse German and Russian soldiers who sought to retain German control over the former Ober Ost. West Russian Volunteers were defeated and pushed out by the end of 1919. Thus the first phase of the Lithuanian Wars of Independence was over and Lithuanians could direct attention to internal affairs.
Democratic Lithuania
The
Constituent Assembly of LithuaniaThe Constituent Assembly of Lithuania was democratically elected in 1920 to draft and adopt the 1922 constitution of Lithuania.- Historical background :...
was elected in April and first met in May 1920. In June it adopted the third provisional constitution and in July signed the
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace TreatyThe Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also known as the Moscow Peace Treaty, was signed between Lithuania and Soviet Russia on July 12, 1920. In exchange for Lithuania's neutrality and permission to freely move its troops in the recognized territory during its war against Poland, Soviet Russia...
. In the treaty the Soviet Union recognized fully independent Lithuania and its claims to the disputed
Vilnius RegionVilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...
. The treaty increased
hostilities between Poland and LithuaniaThe Polish–Lithuanian War was an armed conflict between newly independent Lithuania and Poland in the aftermath of World War I. The conflict primarily concerned territorial control of the Vilnius Region, including Vilnius , and the Suwałki Region, including the towns of Suwałki, Augustów, and Sejny...
. To prevent further fighting, the Suwałki Agreement was signed in October. But before it went into effect, Polish General
Lucjan ŻeligowskiLucjan Żeligowski , was a Polish general, and veteran of World War I, the Polish-Soviet War and World War II. He is mostly remembered for his role in Żeligowski's Mutiny and as head of a short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania.-Biography:...
staged a military action presented as a mutinyŻeligowski's Mutiny was a sham mutiny led by Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski in October 1920, which resulted in the creation of the short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania. Polish Chief of State Józef Piłsudski had surreptitiously ordered Żeligowski to carry out the operation, and revealed the...
, invaded Lithuania, captured Vilnius, and established a short-lived
Republic of Central LithuaniaThe Republic of Central Lithuania or Middle Lithuania , or simply Central Lithuania , was a short-lived political entity, which did not gain international recognition...
. For 19 years
KaunasKaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
became the
temporary capital of LithuaniaThe temporary capital of Lithuania was the official designation of the city of Kaunas in Lithuania during the interwar period. It was in contrast to the declared capital in Vilnius , which was under Polish control from 1920 until 1939...
. The
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
attempted to mediate the dispute and
Paul HymansPaul Louis Adrien Henri Hymans , was a Belgian politician associated with the Liberal Party. He was the first President of the League of Nations, and served again as its president in 1932-33....
proposed plans of a Polish–Lithuanian union. However, the negotiations broke down as neither side agreed to the compromise. The Central Lithuania held
a plebisciteThe general election in the Republic of Central Lithuania was an election to the Vilnius Sejm of the Polish-dominated Republic of Central Lithuania on January 8, 1922. The new parliament was intended to formally legalize incorporation of Central Lithuania into Poland. Such measure was fiercely...
and was incorporated into Poland in March 1922. The
Vilnius RegionVilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...
dispute was not resolved. Lithuania broke all relations with Poland refusing to recognize, even
de facto, its control over Vilnius, the historical capital of Lithuania with at that time largely Polish-speaking population. The dispute continued to dominate Lithuanian foreign policy and doomed the relations with Poland for the entire interwar period.
The Constituent Assembly, which adjourned in October 1920 due to threats from Poland, gathered again and initiated many reforms needed in the new state: obtained international recognition and membership in the League of Nations, passed the law of land reform, introduced national currency
litasThe Lithuanian litas is the currency of Lithuania. It is divided into 100 centų...
, and adopted the final constitution in August 1922. Lithuania became a democratic state, with
SeimasThe Seimas is the unicameral Lithuanian parliament. It has 141 members that are elected for a four-year term. About half of the members of this legislative body are elected in individual constituencies , and the other half are elected by nationwide vote according to proportional representation...
(parliament) elected by men and women for a three-year term. The Seimas elected the president. The
First SeimasFirst Seimas of Lithuania was the first parliament democratically elected in Lithuania after it declared independence on February 16, 1918. The elections took place on October 10–11, 1922 to replace the Constituent Assembly, which adopted the final constitution on August 1, 1922...
was elected in October 1922, but could not form a government as the votes split equally 38–38 and was forced to resign. Its only lasting achievement was the
Klaipėda RevoltThe Klaipėda Revolt took place in January 1923 in the Klaipėda Region . The region, located north of the Neman River, was detached from the East Prussia of the German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles and became a mandate of the League of Nations. It was placed under provisional French...
in January 1923. Lithuania took advantage of the
Ruhr CrisisThe Occupation of the Ruhr between 1923 and 1925, by troops from France and Belgium, was a response to the failure of the German Weimar Republic under Chancellor Cuno to pay reparations in the aftermath of World War I.-Background:...
and captured the
Klaipėda RegionThe Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors...
, a territory detached from
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
according to the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, and placed under French administration. The region was incorporated as an autonomous district of Lithuania in May 1924. For Lithuania it was the only access to the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and an important industrial center. The Revolt was the last armed conflict in Lithuania before World War II. The
Second SeimasThe Second Seimas of Lithuania was the second parliament democratically elected in Lithuania after it declared independence on February 16, 1918. It was the only regular interwar Seimas which completed its full three-year term from May 1923 to March 1926. The First Seimas, elected in fall 1922,...
, elected in May 1923, was the only Seimas in independent Lithuania that served the full term. The Seimas continued the land reform, introduced social support systems, started repaying foreign debt. Strides were made in education: the network of primary and secondary schools was expanded and first universities were established in Kaunas. A
national censusThe Lithuanian census of 1923 was performed between September 17 and September 23, several years after Lithuania re-established its independence in 1918. It was mandated by the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania in 1922. The census counted the total population of 2,028,971...
took place in 1923.
Authoritarian Lithuania
The
Third SeimasThe Third Seimas of Lithuania was the third parliament democratically elected in Lithuania after it declared independence on February 16, 1918. The elections took place on May 8-10, 1926. For the first time Lithuanian Christian Democrats were forced to remain in opposition. The coalition...
was elected in May 1926. For the first time
Lithuanian Christian DemocratsThe Lithuanian Christian Democrats or LKD was a Christian-democratic political party in Lithuania. Originally established in 1905, it was closely associated with the Roman Catholic Church...
(
krikdemai) lost their majority and became an opposition. It was sharply criticized for signing the
Soviet–Lithuanian Non-Aggression PactSoviet–Lithuanian Non-Aggression Pact was a non-aggression pact, signed between the Soviet Union and Lithuania on September 28, 1926. The pact confirmed all basic provisions of the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty of 1920...
and accused of "Bolshevization" of Lithuania. As a result of growing tensions, the government was deposed during the
1926 Lithuanian coup d'étatThe 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état was a military coup d'etat in Lithuania that resulted in the replacement of the democratically elected government with a conservative authoritarian government led by Antanas Smetona. The coup took place on December 17, 1926 and was largely organized by the military;...
in December. The coup, organized by the military, was supported by the
Lithuanian Nationalists UnionThe Lithuanian Nationalist Union , also known as the Nationalists , was a nationalist, right-wing political party in Lithuania, founded in 1924 when the Party of National Progress merged with the Lithuanian Farmers' Association. It was the ruling party of Lithuania from the 1926 Lithuanian coup...
(
tautininkai) and Lithuanian Christian Democrats. They installed
Antanas SmetonaAntanas Smetona was one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II. He served as the first President of Lithuania from April 4, 1919 to June 19, 1920. He again served as the last President of the country from December 19, 1926 to June 15, 1940, before...
as the President and
Augustinas VoldemarasAugustinas Voldemaras was a Lithuanian nationalist political figure. He served as the country's first Prime Minister in 1918, and again from 1926 to 1929.- Biography :...
as the Prime Minister. Smetona suppressed the opposition and remained as an authoritarian leader until June 1940.
The Seimas thought that the coup was just a temporary measure and new elections should be called to return Lithuania to democracy. The legislative body was dissolved in May 1927. Later that year members of the Social Democrats and other leftist parties, named
plečkaitininkai after their leader, tried to organize an uprising against Smetona but were quickly subdued. Voldemaras grew increasingly independent of Smetona and was forced to resign in 1929. Three times in 1930 and once in 1934 he unsuccessfully attempted to return to power. In May 1928 Smetona, without the Seimas, announced the fifth provisional constitution. It continued to claim that Lithuania is a democratic state and vastly increased powers of the President. His party, the Lithuanian National Union, steadily grew in size and importance. Smetona adopted the title of "tautos vadas" (leader of the nation) and slowly started building personality cult. Many of the prominent political figures married into Smetona's family (
Juozas TūbelisJuozas Tūbelis was a Lithuanian politician, Prime Minister and member and chairman of the Lithuanian Nationalists Union....
,
Stasys RaštikisStasys Raštikis was a Lithuanian military officer, ultimately obtaining the rank of General of the Lithuanian Army, as well as the Minister of Defense in the Provisional Government established before the German takeover of Lithuania in 1941.-Biography:Born in Kuršėnai, Raštikis attended school in...
).
When the Nazi Party came into power in the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, Germany–Lithuania relations worsened considerably as
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
did not accept the loss of the
Klaipėda RegionThe Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors...
. The Nazis sponsored anti-Lithuanian organizations in the region. In 1934, Lithuania put the activists on trial and sentenced about 100 people, including their leaders Ernst Neumann and Theodor von Sass. That prompted Germany, one of the main trade partners of Lithuania, to declare
embargoAn embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
of Lithuanian products. In response Lithuania shifted its exports to Great Britain. But that was not enough and peasants in
SuvalkijaSuvalkija or Sudovia is the smallest of the five cultural regions of Lithuania. Its unofficial capital is Marijampolė. People from Suvalkija are called suvalkiečiai or suvalkietis . It is located south of the Neman River, in the former territory of Vilkaviškis bishopric...
organized strikes, which were violently suppressed. Smetona's prestige was damaged and in September 1936 he agreed to call the first elections to Seimas since the coup of 1926. Before the elections all political parties, except the National Union, were eliminated. Thus of the 49 members of the
Fourth SeimasThe Fourth Seimas of Lithuania was the fourth parliament elected in Lithuania after it declared independence on February 16, 1918. The elections took place on June 9 and June 10, 1936, a bit less than ten years after the Third Seimas was dissolved by President Antanas Smetona. The Seimas commenced...
, 42 were from the National Union. It functioned as an advisory board to the President and in February 1938 adopted a new constitution, which granted the President even greater powers.
As tensions were rising in Europe following the
annexation of AustriaThe Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
by Nazi Germany,
Poland presented an ultimatum to LithuaniaThe 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania was an ultimatum delivered to Lithuania by Poland on March 17, 1938. The Lithuanian government had steadfastly refused to have any diplomatic relations with Poland after 1920, protesting the annexation by Poland of the Vilnius Region. As pre-World War II...
in March 1938. Poland demanded the re-establishment of normal diplomatic relations, which were broken after the
Żeligowski's MutinyŻeligowski's Mutiny was a sham mutiny led by Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski in October 1920, which resulted in the creation of the short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania. Polish Chief of State Józef Piłsudski had surreptitiously ordered Żeligowski to carry out the operation, and revealed the...
in 1920, and threatened military actions in case of refusal. Lithuania, having a weaker military and unable to enlist international support for its cause, accepted the ultimatum. Lithuania–Poland relations somewhat normalized and the parties concluded treaties regarding railway transport, postal exchange, and other means of communication. Just a year after the Polish ultimatum and five days after the
German occupation of CzechoslovakiaGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
, Lithuania
received as oral ultimatum1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania was an oral ultimatum presented to Juozas Urbšys, Foreign Minister of Lithuania, by Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany, on March 20, 1939...
from
Joachim von RibbentropUlrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
demanding to cede the Klaipėda Region to Germany. Again, Lithuania was forced to accept. This triggered a political crisis in Lithuania and forced Smetona to form a new government which for the first time since 1926 included members of the opposition. The loss of Klaipėda was a major blow to Lithuanian economy and the country shifted to the sphere of German influence. When Germany and the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 and divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, Lithuania was, at first, assigned to Germany.
First Soviet occupation
In August 1939,
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with secret clauses assigning spheres of influence in the area of the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. Lithuania, initially assigned to the German sphere of influence, was transferred to the Soviets in secret additional protocols of the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of September 28, 1939. The city of Vilnius, regarded by Lithuanians as their capital, but under Polish control
before the warInterwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, was occupied by the Red Army during the invasion of Poland. Soviet-proposed Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Pact transferred one fifth of the
Vilnius RegionVilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...
(including Vilnius) to Lithuanian control in exchange for the stationing of 20,000 Soviet troops within Lithuania.
Once the
Winter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
in Finland was over and Germany was making rapid advances
against Denmark and NorwayOperation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...
and
against France and the Low CountriesIn the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
, the Soviets heightened their diplomatic pressure on Lithuania, culminating in the
Soviet ultimatum to LithuaniaThe Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania before midnight of June 14, 1940. The Soviets, using a formal pretext, demanded to allow an unspecified number of Soviet soldiers to enter the Lithuanian territory and to form a new pro-Soviet government...
of June 1940. The ultimatum demanded the formation a new pro-Soviet government and admission of an unspecified number of Russian troops. Lithuania accepted the ultimatum as effective military resistance was impossible with Soviet troops already within the country according to the Mutual Assistance Pact. President
Antanas SmetonaAntanas Smetona was one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II. He served as the first President of Lithuania from April 4, 1919 to June 19, 1920. He again served as the last President of the country from December 19, 1926 to June 15, 1940, before...
left Lithuania as the Soviet military forces (15 divisions with 150,000 soldiers) crossed the Lithuanian border on June 15, 1940. As the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Lithuania in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Lithuania lost its independence.
Soviet representative
Vladimir DekanozovVladimir Georgievich Dekanozov ) was a Soviet senior state security operative and diplomat.-Before Second World War:...
formed the new pro-Soviet puppet government, known as the People's Government.
Justas PaleckisJustas Paleckis was a Lithuanian journalist and politician. He was acting president of Lithuania after the Soviet invasion while Lithuania was still ostensibly independent, in office from June 17 – August 3, 1940....
replaced Smetona as the acting President of Lithuania. The new government was a rubber stamp institution, carrying out orders from Moscow. The Fourth Seimas was disbanded and new
show electionA show election, also known as a sham election or rubber stamp election, is an election that is held purely for show, that is, without any significant political purpose...
s to the so-called People's Seimas were organized on July 14–15, 1940. With only Communist-approved candidates running, official results showed over 90% of
voter turnoutVoter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
and support for the Communists. During its first session on July 21 the People's Seimas unanimously decided to convert Lithuania into the
Lithuanian SSRThe Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Lithuanian SSR, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union...
and petition to join the Soviet Union. The petition was approved by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on August 3, which completed the formalization of the occupation.
Immediately following the occupation, Soviet authorities began rapid
Sovietization of LithuaniaThe Sovietization of the Baltic states refers to the sovietization of all spheres of life in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania when they were under control of the Soviet Union.-Immediate post occupation:...
. All land was nationalized. To gain support for the new regime among the poorer peasants, large farms were distributed to small landowners. However, in preparation for eventual collectivization, agricultural taxes were dramatically increased in an attempt to bankrupt all farmers. Nationalization of banks, larger enterprises, and real estate resulted in disruptions in production causing massive shortages of goods. The
Lithuanian litasThe Lithuanian litas is the currency of Lithuania. It is divided into 100 centų...
was artificially undervalued and withdrawn by spring 1941. The standard of living plummeted. All religious, cultural, and political organizations were banned leaving only the
Communist Party of LithuaniaThe Communist Party of Lithuania was a communist party in Lithuania, established in early October 1918. The party was banned in December 1926.-History:...
and its youth branch. Estimated 12,000 "
enemies of the peopleThe term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. The term implies that the "enemies" in question are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as ,...
" were arrested. During the
June deportationJune deportation was the first in the series of mass Soviet deportations of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941 that followed the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet...
some 17,000 people (mostly former military officers, policemen, political figures, intelligentsia and their families) were deported to Gulags in Siberia, where many perished due to inhumane conditions.
Collaboration and resistance
On 22 June 1941,
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
invaded the Soviet UnionOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. The German forces moved rapidly, encountering only sporadic Soviet resistance, Vilnius was captured on 24 June 1941, and within a week Germany controlled all Lithuania. The retreating Soviet forces massacred Lithuanian political prisoners (see
Rainiai massacreThe Rainiai massacre was the mass murder of between 70 and 80 Lithuanian political prisoners by the NKVD, with help from the Red Army, in a forest near Telšiai, Lithuania, during the night of June 24–25, 1941. It was one of many similar massacres carried out by Soviet forces in Lithuania, and...
). The Lithuanians generally greeted the Germans as liberators from the oppressive Soviet regime and hoped that Germany would restore some autonomy to Lithuania. The
Lithuanian Activist FrontLithuanian Activist Front or LAF was a short-lived resistance organization established in 1940 after Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union. The goal of the organization was to liberate Lithuania and re-establish its independence...
organized anti-Soviet June Uprising, declared independence, and formed the
Provisional Government of LithuaniaThe Provisional Government of Lithuania was a temporary government aiming for independent Lithuania during the last days of the Soviet occupation and the first weeks of German Nazi occupation in 1941. It was secretly formed on 22 April, 1941, announced on 23 June, 1941, and dissolved on 5 August,...
with
Juozas AmbrazevičiusJuozas Ambrazevičius or Juozas Brazaitis was a Lithuanian literary historian, better known for his political career and nationalistic views...
as Prime Minister. The Provisional Government was not forcibly dissolved, but stripped of any actual power it resigned on August 7, 1941. The Germans established the civil administration, known as the
Reichskommissariat OstlandReichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...
. The Germans did not have enough manpower to staff local administration; therefore, most local offices were headed by the Lithuanians. Policy decisions would be made by high-ranking Germans and actually implemented by low-ranking Lithuanians. Overall, local self-government was quite developed in Lithuania and helped to sabotage or hinder several German initiatives, including raising a
Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
unit or providing men for
forced labor in GermanyThe use of forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in German-occupied...
.
There was substantial cooperation and collaboration between the German forces and some Lithuanians. The
Lithuanian Activist FrontLithuanian Activist Front or LAF was a short-lived resistance organization established in 1940 after Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union. The goal of the organization was to liberate Lithuania and re-establish its independence...
volunteered a police force, known as
Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos BatalionasTautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas was organized by the Provisional Government of Lithuania in 1941 as basis for future independent Lithuanian Army, but Nazi authorities soon reorganized the battalion into auxiliary police...
(TDA), hoping that it would be later transformed into regular army of independent Lithuania. Instead these units were employed by the Germans as auxiliary in massacres of the Jews during
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Another infamous unit was the
Lithuanian Security PoliceThe Lithuanian Security Police, also referred to as Saugumas , was a Lithuanian Nazi collaborationist police force that operated from 1941 to 1944. It had a staff of approximately 400 people, 250 of them in Kaunas and around another 130 in Vilnius....
(Saugumo policija) operating in Vilnius. A number of other police battalions were formed; the auxiliary forces were sometimes employed outside of Lithuania and charged with securing communications, guarding prisoners, delivering supplies, etc. Harsh German policies of settling ethnic Germans in Lithuania, collecting large war provisions, gathering people for forced labor, conscripting men into the German army etc. soon produced a resistance movement. The most notable resistance organization, the
Supreme Committee for the Liberation of LithuaniaThe Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania or VLIK was an organization seeking independence of Lithuania. It was established on October 25, 1943 during the Nazi occupation. After World War II it moved abroad and continued its operations in Germany and the United States...
, was formed in 1943. Despite German pressure a
Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
division was not established in Lithuania. Eventually, the Lithuanian general
Povilas PlechavičiusPovilas Plechavičius was an Imperial Russian and then Lithuanian military officer and statesman. In the service of Lithuania he rose to the rank of General of the army in the interwar period...
agreed to form the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF), which was to operate solely in the Lithuanian territory and be commanded by Lithuanian officers. When Germans did not honor the agreement and attempted to subordinate LTDF to the German army, Plechavičius disbanded it in May 1944.
Lithuanians also organized armed resistance, which was conducted by pro-
Soviet partisansThe Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
, operated in eastern Lithuania, and mainly consisted of minority Russians, Belarusians and Jews. This group fought for the re-incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union. Soviet partisans committed a number of atrocities (for example, the
Koniuchy massacreThe Koniuchy massacre was a massacre of civilians carried out by a Soviet partisan unit along with a contingent of Jewish partisans under their command during the Second World War in the Polish village of Koniuchy on January 29, 1944.-Massacre:A small local self defence unit was created to defend...
) and sacked towns and villages. The villagers were forced to
organize local self-defenseLocal Self-Defence in Lithuania during the Nazi occupation consisted of voluntary units formed from the local population to protect villagers from the raids of the armed Soviet underground...
. The Polish
Armia KrajowaThe Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
(AK) also operated in eastern Lithuania, expecting post-war Poland to resume control of the
Vilnius RegionVilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...
. AK was fighting not only against the Nazis, but also against the pro-Nazi Lithuanian police, Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, and the Soviet partisans. Relationships between different guerrilla detachments were never cordial and
worsened as the war went onThe issue of Polish and Lithuanian relations during the World War II is a controversial one, and some modern Lithuanian and Polish historians still differ in their interpretations of the related events, many of which are related to the Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany and the operations...
.
The Holocaust
Before
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, Lithuania was home to about 210,000 or 250,000 Jews. According to one estimate, the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered around 190,000
Lithuanian JewsLithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...
(91% of the pre-war Jewish community) during the Holocaust. The Holocaust in Lithuania can be divided into three stages: mass executions (June–December 1941), ghetto period (1942 – March 1943), and final liquidation (April 1943 – July 1944). Unlike in other Nazi-occupied countries where the Holocaust was introduced gradually,
Einsatzgruppe ADuring World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
started executions in Lithuania on the first days of war. The executions were carried out by three main groups: in Kaunas (
Ninth FortThe Ninth Fort is a stronghold in the northern part of Šilainiai elderate, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is a part of the Kaunas Fortress, which was constructed in the late 19th century. During the occupation of Kaunas and the rest of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, the fort was used as a prison and...
), in Vilnius (
Ponary massacreThe Ponary massacre was the mass-murder of 100,000 people, mostly Polish Jews, by German SD and SS and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators Sonderkommando collaborators...
), and in the countryside (
Rollkommando HamannRollkommando Hamann was a small mobile unit that committed mass murders of Lithuanian Jews in the countryside in July–October 1941. The unit was also responsible for a large number of murders in Latvia from July through August, 1941...
). Estimated 80% of Lithuanian Jews were killed before 1942. The surviving 43,000 Jews were concentrated in the
VilniusThe Vilna Ghetto or Vilnius Ghetto was a Jewish ghetto established by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the occupied Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , during the Holocaust in World War II...
,
KaunasThe Kovno ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 40,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort...
, Šiauliai, and
ŠvenčionysŠvenčionys is a city located north of Vilnius in Lithuania. It is the capital of the Švenčionys district municipality. As of 2005, it had population of 5,658 of which about one-third is part of the Polish minority in Lithuania.- Name :...
ghettos and
forced to workThe use of forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in German-occupied...
for the benefit of German military industry. On June 21, 1943,
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
issued order to liquidate all ghettos and transfer remaining Jews to concentration camps. Vilnius Ghetto was liquidated, while Kaunas and Šiauliai were turned into concentration camps and existed until July 1944. Remaining Jews were sent to camps in
StutthofStutthof was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of 1937 German borders.Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo . The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of...
,
Dachau and
AuschwitzConcentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. Only about 2,000–3,000 Lithuanian Jews were liberated from these camps. More survived by withdrawing into the interior of Russia before the war broke out or by escaping the ghettos and joining the
Jewish partisansJewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II....
. The genocide rate of Jews in Lithuania, up to 95–97%, was one of the highest in Europe. This was primarily due, with few notable exceptions, to widespread Lithuanian cooperation with the German authorities. Jews were widely considered to be responsible for the previous Soviet regime (see
Jewish BolshevismJewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
) and were resented for welcoming Soviet troops. There was also resistance to the German occupation, and some Lithuanians risked their own lives to save Jews; 723 Lithuanians are recognized as
Righteous among the NationsRighteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
for their efforts.
Return of Soviet authority
In the summer of 1944, the Red Army reached eastern Lithuania. On 14 July 1944
Vilnius was captured by the Polish Resistance fighters of
Armia KrajowaThe Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
during the ill-fated Operation Ostra Brama, but on the following day the Soviet Red Amy took control of the city. The USSR re-occupied Lithuania and the Soviets re-established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944, with the passive agreement of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(see
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
and
Potsdam AgreementThe Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
). By January 1945, the Soviets captured
KlaipėdaKlaipėda is a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Nemunas River where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County....
, on the Baltic coast. It is estimated that Lithuania lost 780,000 people during World War II.
Stalinism and Soviet rule (1944–1988)
The
mass deportationPopulation transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
campaigns of 1941–1952, the
June deportationJune deportation was the first in the series of mass Soviet deportations of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941 that followed the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet...
according to Serov Instructions and the March deportation known as Operation "Priboi", exiled tens of thousands of families to forced settlements in
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and other remote parts of the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Official statistics state that more than 120,000 people were deported from Lithuania during this period, while researchers estimate the number of political prisoners and deportees at 300,000. In response to these events, approximately 100,000 of
local organized resistance fightersThe Lithuanian partisans can refer to various irregular military units in different historical periods active in Lithuania against foreign invaders and occupiers:...
participated in unsuccessful partisan warfare against the Soviet regime from 1944 to 1952. An estimated 30,000 partisans and their supporters were killed and many more were arrested and deported to
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n
gulagThe Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s. The last partisan was killed in combat in 1965. Soviet authorities encouraged immigration of non-Lithuanian workers, especially Russians, as a way of integrating Lithuania into the Soviet Union and to encourage industrial development. This period is memorialized in
Grūtas ParkGrūtas Park is a sculpture garden of Soviet-era statues and an exposition of other Soviet ideological relics from the times of the Lithuanian SSR...
.
Rebirth (1988–1990)
Until mid-1988, all political, economic, and cultural life was controlled by the
Lithuanian Communist PartyThe Communist Party of Lithuania was a communist party in Lithuania, established in early October 1918. The party was banned in December 1926.-History:...
(LCP). Lithuanians as well as people in two other
Baltic republicsThe term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
distrusted the Soviet regime even more than people in other regions of the Soviet state, and gave their own specific and active support to
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's program of social and political reforms known as
perestroikaPerestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and
glasnostGlasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
. Under the leadership of intellectuals, the Lithuanian reform movement "
Lietuvos persitvarkymo sąjūdisSąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...
" (the Reform Movement of Lithuania) was formed in mid-1988 and declared a program of democratic and national rights, winning nationwide popularity. Inspired by Sąjūdis, the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet passed constitutional amendments on the supremacy of Lithuanian laws over Soviet legislation, annulled the 1940 decisions on proclaiming Lithuania a part of the USSR, legalized a multi-party system, and adopted a number of other important decisions, including the return of the national state symbols — the
flagThe flag of Lithuania consists of a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green and red. It was adopted on March 20, 1989, almost two years before the reestablishment of Lithuania's independence following the end of the Soviet Union. Before its readoption, the flag had been used from 1918 until 1940 when...
and the
anthemTautiška giesmė is the national anthem of Lithuania, also known by its opening words "Lietuva, Tėvyne mūsų" and as "Lietuvos himnas"...
. A large number of LCP members also supported the ideas of Sąjūdis, and with Sąjūdis support,
Algirdas BrazauskasAlgirdas Mykolas Brazauskas was the first President of a newly independent post-Soviet Union Lithuania from 1993 to 1998 and Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006....
was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the LCP in 1988. On 23 August 1989, 50 years after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in order to draw the world's attention to the fate of the Baltic nations, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands in a human chain that stretched 600 kilometres from
TallinnTallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
, to
RigaRiga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, to Vilnius. The human chain was called the
Baltic WayThe Baltic Way or Baltic Chain was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on August 23, 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning over across the three Baltic states – Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR, republics of the Soviet...
. In December 1989, the Brazauskas-led LCP declared its independence from the
Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
and became a separate party, renaming itself in 1990 the
Democratic Labour Party of LithuaniaDemocratic Labour Party of Lithuania was a social democratic political party in Lithuania, that emerged out of the Lithuanian section of the CPSU in December 1989 LDDP was led by Algirdas Brazauskas, the first president of independent Lithuania. Because Brazauskas was elected as the first...
.
Struggle for independence (1990–1991)
In early 1990, Sąjūdis-backed candidates won the
elections to the Lithuanian Supreme SovietThe Lithuanian legislative elections for 141 seats in the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR were held in the Lithuanian SSR on 24 February with run-off elections on 4, 7, 8 and 10 March 1990. In six constituencies voter turnout was below required minimum, therefore a third round was held on...
. On March 11, 1990, the
Supreme SovietThe Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR was the supreme soviet of the Lithuanian SSR, one of the republics comprising the Soviet Union. The Supreme Soviet was established in August 1940 when the People's Seimas declared itself the provisional Supreme Soviet...
proclaimed the
re-establishment of Lithuanian independenceThe Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of March 11 was an independence declaration by the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted on March 11, 1990...
. The Baltic republics were in the forefront of the struggle for independence and Lithuania was the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence.
Vytautas LandsbergisProfessor Vytautas Landsbergis is a Lithuanian conservative politician and Member of the European Parliament. He was the first head of state of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union, and served as the Head of the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas...
became the head of the state and
Kazimira PrunskienėKazimira Danutė Prunskienė was the first Prime Minister of Lithuania after the declaration of independence of March 11, 1990 and Minister of Agriculture in the government of Gediminas Kirkilas....
led the Cabinet of Ministers. On March 15, the Soviet Union demanded revocation of the independence and began employing political and economic sanctions against Lithuania. Soviet military was used to seize a few public buildings, but violence was largely contained until January 1991. During the
January EventsThe January Events took place in Lithuania between January 11 and 13, 1991 in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. As a result of Soviet military actions, 14 civilians were killed and more than 1000 injured...
, the Soviet authorities attempted to overthrow the elected government by sponsoring the so-called National Salvation Committee. The Soviets forcibly took over the
Vilnius TV TowerThe Vilnius TV Tower is a tower in the Karoliniškės microdistrict of Vilnius, Lithuania. It is the tallest structure in Lithuania, and is occupied by the SC Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre ....
, killing 14 unarmed civilians and injuring 700. Moscow failed to act further to crush the Lithuanian independence movement and the Lithuanian government continued to work.
During the national referendum on February 9, 1991, more than 90% of those who took part in the voting (76% of all eligible voters) voted in favor of an independent, democratic Lithuania. During the August Coup in Moscow, Soviet military troops took over several communications and other government facilities in Vilnius and other cities, but returned to their barracks when the coup failed. The Lithuanian government banned the Communist Party and ordered confiscation of its property. Following the failed coup, Lithuania received widespread international recognition and was admitted to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
.
Contemporary Republic of Lithuania (1991–present)
As in many other formerly Soviet countries, popularity of the independence movement (
SąjūdisSąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...
in the case of Lithuania) was diminishing due to worsening economic situation (rising unemployment, inflation, etc.). The
Lithuanian Communist PartyThe Communist Party of Lithuania was a communist party in Lithuania, established in early October 1918. The party was banned in December 1926.-History:...
renamed itself
Democratic Labour Party of LithuaniaDemocratic Labour Party of Lithuania was a social democratic political party in Lithuania, that emerged out of the Lithuanian section of the CPSU in December 1989 LDDP was led by Algirdas Brazauskas, the first president of independent Lithuania. Because Brazauskas was elected as the first...
(LDDP) and ran against Sąjūdis in the
1992 parliamentary electionsA parliamentary election was held in Lithuania in two stages on 25 October and 15 November 1992. This first round of this parliamentary election was held simultaneously with a referendum on the adoption of the 1992 Constitution of Lithuania. The members of the new Seimas would replace the Supreme...
, gaining a majority of the seats. LDDP continued building the independent democratic state and transitioning from a
centrally plannedA planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
to a free market economy. In the
1996 parliamentary electionsA parliamentary election was held in Lithuania in two stages on 20 October and 10 November 1996. The first round of this parliamentary election was held concurrently with a referendum to amend Articles 55, 57 and 131 of the constitution, and a referendum on the use of proceeds from privatization...
, the voters swinged back to the rightist Homeland Union, led by the former Sąjūdis leader
Vytautas LandsbergisProfessor Vytautas Landsbergis is a Lithuanian conservative politician and Member of the European Parliament. He was the first head of state of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union, and served as the Head of the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas...
.
As part of the transition to a free market economy, Lithuania organized a
privatizationPrivatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
campaign to sell government-owned residential real estate and commercial enterprises. The government issued investment vouchers to be used in privatization instead of actual currency. People cooperated in groups to collect larger amounts of vouchers for the public auctions and the privatization campaign. Lithuania, unlike Russia, did not create a small group of very wealthy and powerful people. The privatization started with small organizations, and large enterprises (such as telecoms or airlines) were sold several years later for hard currency in a bid to attract foreign investors. Lithuania's monetary system was to be based on
litasThe Lithuanian litas is the currency of Lithuania. It is divided into 100 centų...
, the currency used during the interwar period. Due to high inflation and other delays a temporary currency,
talonasThe talonas was a temporary currency issued in Lithuania between 1991 and 1993. It replaced the Soviet ruble at par and was replaced by the litas at a rate of 100 talonas = 1 litas...
, was introduced (commonly called
Vagnorkė or
Vagnorėlis after Prime Minister
Gediminas VagnoriusGediminas Vagnorius is a Lithuanian politician and signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. He served as the Prime Minister of Lithuania between 1991 and 1992, and again from 1996 until 1999....
). Eventually litas was issued in June 1993 and it was decided to
pegA fixed exchange rate, sometimes called a pegged exchange rate, is a type of exchange rate regime wherein a currency's value is matched to the value of another single currency or to a basket of other currencies, or to another measure of value, such as gold.A fixed exchange rate is usually used to...
it to the
United States dollarThe United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
in 1994 and to the
EuroThe euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
in 2002.
Despite Lithuania's achievement of complete independence, sizable numbers of Russian forces remained in its territory. Withdrawal of those forces was one of Lithuania's top foreign policy priorities. Russian troop withdrawal was completed by August 31, 1993. The first military of the reborn country were the
Volunteer Forces, who first took an oath at the Supreme Council of Lithuania soon after the independence declaration. The Lithuanian military built itself to the common standard with an
air force,
navyThe Lithuanian Navy is the naval arm of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. Though formally established on 1 August 1935 its roots stretch back as far as naval engagements on the Baltic Sea in the Medieval period...
and land army. Interwar paramilitary organisations such as
Lithuanian Riflemen's Union,
Young RiflemenYoung Riflemen is a patriotic youth paramilitary organization in Lithuania. There are various local units of this organization throughout the country. It accepts people from 12 to 18 years of age and is a subordinate to Lithuanian Riflemen Union with "Young Riflemen" making about 61% of the whole...
, and
Lithuanian ScoutsLietuvos Skautija, the primary national Scouting organization of Lithuania, became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1997. The coeducational Lietuvos Skautija has 2,311 members as of 2011.-History of Lithuanian Scouting:...
were reestablished. Seeking closer ties with the West, Lithuania applied for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO) membership in 1994. The country had to go through a difficult transition from a planned economy to a free market one, satisfying the requirements for the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(EU) membership.
In October 2002, Lithuania was invited to join the European Union and one month later to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; it became a member of both in 2004.
See also
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
- History of Belarus
This article describes the history of Belarus. The Belarusian ethnos is traced at least as far in time as other East Slavs.After an initial period of independent feudal consolidation, Belarusian lands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later in the...
- History of Estonia
Estonia was settled near the end of the last glacial era, beginning from around 8500 BC. Before the German invasions in the 13th century proto-Estonians of the Ancient Estonia worshipped the spirits of nature...
- History of Europe
History of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first populated in prehistoric times to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.-Overview:...
- History of European Union
- History of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
- History of Latvia
The History of Latvia began when the area which is today Latvia was settled following the end of the last glacial period, around 9000 BC. Ancient Baltic peoples appeared during the second millennium BC and four distinct tribal realms in Latvia's territories were identifiable towards the end of the...
- History of Russia
The history of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The state of Garðaríki , which was centered in Novgorod and included the entire areas inhabited by Ilmen Slavs, Veps and Votes, was established by the Varangian chieftain Rurik in 862...
- History of Poland
The History of Poland is rooted in the arrival of the Slavs, who gave rise to permanent settlement and historic development on Polish lands. During the Piast dynasty Christianity was adopted in 966 and medieval monarchy established...
- List of Presidents of Lithuania
- Prime Minister of Lithuania
The Prime Minister of Lithuania is the head of the executive arm of Lithuania's government, and is chosen by the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas. The modern office of Prime Minister was established in 1990, although the official title was "Chairperson of the Council of Ministers" until 25...
- Politics of Lithuania
Politics of Lithuania takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Lithuania is the head of government, and of a multi-party system....
External links