Defendants included ex-Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, former commander of Soviet Alpha anti-terror group Mikhail Golovatov and Head of the Soviet Army's Vilnius garrison Vladimir Uskhopchik. [153], Immediately following the occupation, Soviet authorities began rapid Sovietization of Lithuania. [85], The Polish ruling establishment had been aiming at the incorporation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland since before the Union of Krewo. On 10 January Gorbachev addressed the Supreme Council, demanding a restoration of the constitution of the USSR in Lithuania and the revocation of all anti-constitutional laws. Amid ruthless warfare, the grand duchy was ravaged and threatened with collapse. Tsamblak led an Orthodox delegation to the Council of Constance in 1418. Had been deported to Siberia with his family in 1945. [67] In the Union of Vilnius, Jogaila granted Vytautas a lifetime rule over the grand duchy. Despite Lithuania's achievement of complete independence, sizable numbers of Russian forces remained in its territory. [6], Mindaugas was the principal founder of the Lithuanian state. [133] The Conference nonetheless elected a 20-member Council of Lithuania (Taryba) and empowered it to act as the executive authority of the Lithuanian people. The huge state was divided into a hierarchy of territorial units administered by designated officials who were also empowered in judicial and military matters. [144] In the event of Polish military action, Adolf Hitler ordered a German military takeover of southwest Lithuania up to the Dubysa River, and his armed forces were being fully mobilized until the news of the Lithuanian acceptance. The Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov recorded video footage commemorating Soviet spetsnaz who participated in the events and called it "Nashi". [27], On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The Russian Orthodox Church paid special attention to the Uniates (who had once been Orthodox), and tried to bring them back. Agriculture did not emerge until the 3rd millennium BC due to a harsh climate and terrain and a lack of suitable tools to cultivate the land. From the mid-12th century, it was the Lithuanians who were invading Ruthenian territories. The Seimas elected the president. The inflation rate reached 100% and continued to increase rapidly. [175] The initial cries for help were received by an American amateur radio operators with the call sign N9RD in Indiana and WB9Z in Illinois, USA. Under the leadership of intellectuals, the Reform Movement of Lithuania SąjÅ«dis was formed in mid-1988, and it declared a program of democratic and national rights, winning nationwide popularity. A further 11 counties (including Vilnius) were allocated for the territory occupied by Poland (see also Administrative divisions of Lithuania). [14] Furthermore, in 2018 Russia's law enforcement even raised a case to the Lithuanian prosecutors and judges who investigate the case.[15]. The Poles and Lithuanians revolted against Russian rule twice, in 1830-31 (the November Uprising) and 1863-64 (the January Uprising), but both attempts failed and resulted in increased repression by the Russian authorities. Following a brief occupation by Nazi Germany after the Nazis waged war on the Soviet Union, Lithuania was again absorbed into the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years. [140] He invaded Lithuania on October 8, 1920, captured Vilnius the following day, and established a short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania in eastern Lithuania on October 12, 1920. When Finland refused to sign its pact, the Winter War broke out. As a compromise, the Lithuanian general Povilas Plechavičius formed the short-lived Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF). Direct military confrontations with the Principality of Moscow under Ivan I occurred around 1335. [76][79] Later, different foreign policies were prosecuted by Lithuania and Poland, accompanied by conflicts over Podolia and Volhynia, the grand duchy's territories in the southeast. [29] Gediminas also fought the Teutonic Kights, and besides that made shrewd diplomatic moves by cooperating with the government of Riga in 1322–23 and taking advantage of the conflict between the Knights and Archbishop Friedrich von Pernstein of Riga. During an overnight session of the Supreme Council, Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis announced that he had tried to call Mikhail Gorbachev three times, but was unsuccessful. However, Catholics in the Grand Duchy itself were split. [103], b.^ Piłsudski's family roots in the Polonized gentry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the resulting point of view (seeing himself and people like him as legitimate Lithuanians) put him in conflict with the modern Lithuanian nationalists (who in Piłsudski's lifetime redefined the scope of the "Lithuanian" connotation), by extension with other nationalists, and also with the Polish modern nationalist movement. Despite columns of military trucks, BMPs and tanks moving into the vicinity of the Supreme Council, Soviet military forces retreated instead of attacking. Inspired by SąjÅ«dis, the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR passed constitutional amendments on the supremacy of Lithuanian laws over Soviet legislation, annulled the 1940 decisions on proclaiming Lithuania a part of the Soviet Union, legalized a multi-party system, and adopted a number of other important decisions, including the return of the national state symbols — the flag of Lithuania and the national anthem. Instead, these units were employed by the Germans as auxiliaries in perpetrating the Holocaust. Secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, adjusted by the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty, divided Eastern Europe into Soviet and Nazi spheres of influence. [167][e] During the years following the German surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, between 40 and 60 thousand civilians and combatants perished in the context of the anti-Soviet insurgency. It retained separate laws as well as an army and a treasury. The Livonian Order completed its conquest of Semigalia, the last Baltic ally of Lithuania, in 1291. [148] Smetona suppressed the opposition and remained as an authoritarian leader until June 1940. The linguistic argument has been the most "archaic" status of the Lithuanian language among the existing Indo-European languages of Europe. On August 23, 1989, 50 years after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands in a human chain that stretched 600 kilometres from Tallinn to Vilnius in order to draw the world's attention to the fate of the Baltic nations. The country had to go through a difficult transition from planned to free market economy in order to satisfy the requirements for European Union (EU) membership. A large number of CPL members also supported the ideas of SąjÅ«dis, and with SąjÅ«dis support, Algirdas Brazauskas was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPL in 1988. Backus III, Oswald P. "The Problem of Feudalism in Lithuania, 1506-1548,". In 1368, 1370 and 1372, Algirdas invaded the Grand Duchy of Moscow and each time approached Moscow itself. The Teutonic Knights then proceeded to conquer other Baltic tribes: the Nadruvians and Skalvians in 1274–1277 and the Yotvingians in 1283. 47 top Lithuanian clans were colligated with 47 Polish noble families to initiate a future brotherhood and facilitate the expected full unity. [27] Lithuanian society remained heavily agricultural with only 20% of the people living in cities. 1966) – locksmith. He established for a while a Christian kingdom under the pope rather than the Holy Roman Empire, at a time when the remaining pagan peoples of Europe were no longer being converted peacefully, but conquered. [107] At the time of Union of Lublin, King Sigismund II Augustus removed Ukraine and other territories from Lithuania and incorporated them directly into the Polish Crown. The Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum to avoid an armed intervention. [66] A lasting connection between the two states was beneficial to Poles, Lithuanians, and Ruthenians, Catholic and Orthodox, as well as the Jagiellonian rulers themselves, whose hereditary succession rights in Lithuania practically guaranteed their election as kings in accordance with the customs surrounding the royal elections in Poland. The paper (forty issues in total), building on the work of the earlier writers, sought to demonstrate continuities with the medieval Grand Duchy and lionize the Lithuanian people. To prevent being incorporated into the German Empire, Lithuanians elected Monaco-born King Mindaugas II as the titular monarch of the Kingdom of Lithuania in July 1918. They were traveling hunters and did not form stable settlements. [164] In 1943, the ghettos were either liquidated or turned into concentration camps. Marian Zgórniak, Józef Łaptos, Jacek Solarz, –, Alfred Erich Senn, "Perestroika in Lithuanian Historiography: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,", Virgil Krapauskas' Book Reviews in Fall 2010, Congressional Research Service: "The National Guard State Partnership". Jogaila's refusal to submit to the demands of his cousin and the Knights resulted in their joint invasion of Lithuania in 1383. At first the advantage went to the advancing Roman Catholic Church pushing back a retreating Orthodox Church. Lithuania joined the NATO alliance in 2004 and the European Union as part of its enlargement in 2004. Vilnius was captured by the Soviet Red Army on January 5, 1919. At this time, Italian architecture was introduced in Lithuanian cities, and Lithuanian literature written in Latin flourished. The network of primary and secondary schools was expanded and institutions of higher learning were established in Kaunas. He then proceeded to fly to Russia. Vilnius merchants enjoyed privileges that allowed them to trade over most of the territories of the Lithuanian state. Nationalization of banks, larger enterprises, and real estate resulted in disruptions in production that caused massive shortages of goods. Military confrontations with Lithuanians followed at that time and at the turn of the century, but for the time being the Lithuanians had the upper hand. Interwar paramilitary organisations such as the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union, Young Riflemen, and the Lithuanian Scouts were re-established. True Lithuania www.truelithuania.com, accessed June 14, 2012, Richard Butterwick, "How Catholic Was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Later Eighteenth Century?,". [55][56], Jogaila's baptism and crowning were followed by the final and official Christianization of Lithuania. In 1492, Jogaila's grandson John Albert became the king of Poland, whereas his grandson Alexander became the grand duke of Lithuania. Moscow failed to act further to crush the Lithuanian independence movement, and the Lithuanian government continued to function. Many of Lithuania's cities were dominated by non-Lithuanian-speaking Jews and Poles. Lithuania, in which Ruthenians outnumbered ethnic Lithuanians by several times, could ally with either the Grand Duchy of Moscow or Poland. [183], h. ^ The preservation of the rural Polish-speaking minority in the Vilnius Region (the intelligentsia element was mostly expelled after the war) turned out to be a source of lasting friction. [5], The first Lithuanian people were a branch of an ancient group known as the Balts. [165] More survived by withdrawing into the interior of Russia before the war broke out or by escaping the ghettos and joining the Jewish partisans. The others (mostly non-noble Ruthenians) followed the Eastern rite. This is partially due to dissolution of the USSR or dependent states that became sovereign nations by gaining independence from other nations. With the Union of Lublin of 1569, Poland and Lithuania formed a new state referred to as the Republic of Both Nations, but commonly known as Poland-Lithuania or the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Northeastern East Prussia, sometimes referred to as Lithuania Minor, was populated mainly by Lithuanians[100] and predominantly Lutheran. During the January Events in Lithuania, the Soviet authorities attempted to overthrow the elected government by sponsoring the so-called National Salvation Committee. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. [149], Lithuania offered diplomatic support to Germany and the Soviet Union in opposition to powers such as France and Estonia that backed Poland in the conflict over Vilnius, but both Germany and the Soviet Union saw fit to encroach on Lithuania's territory and independence anyway. Soviet Union - First Steps Taken to Dissolve USSR . For Lithuania, it provided the country's only access to the Baltic Sea, and it was an important industrial center, but the region's numerous German inhabitants resisted Lithuanian rule during the 1930s. Lithuanian boyars who accepted baptism were rewarded with a more limited privilege improving their legal rights. In spring 1940, once the Winter War in Finland was over, the Soviets heightened their diplomatic pressure on Lithuania and issued the 1940 Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania on June 14. [3] Economic and energy shortages undermined public faith in the newly restored state. The January Events (Lithuanian: Sausio įvykiai) took place in Lithuania between 11 and 13 January 1991 in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. The Klaipėda Region was directly incorporated into the East Prussian province of the German Reich. As schools were being de-Polonized and Lithuanian university students sent to Saint Petersburg or Moscow rather than Warsaw, a cultural void resulted, and it was not being successfully filled by the attempted Russification policies. The land belonged now to the ruler and the nobility. Patterns imported primarily from Ruthenia were used for the organization of the state and its structure of power. All victims, except the soldier, were awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis (the Knight) on January 15, 1991. Viktor Viktorovich Shatskikh (b. According to Wacław Urban, Calvinism and Eastern Orthodoxy predominated, and were followed by Catholicism and the Polish Brethren, with Lutheranism being numerically the least significant of the Christian denominations in Lithuania. Algirdas fought the Golden Horde Tatars and the Principality of Moscow; Kęstutis took upon himself the demanding struggle with the Teutonic Order. [140], For 19 years, Kaunas was the temporary capital of Lithuania while the Vilnius region remained under Polish administration. [54] For the near future, Poland gave Lithuania a valuable ally against increasing threats from the Teutonic Knights and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Agriculture remained collectivized, property nationalized, and criticism of the Soviet system was severely punished. [152] The most notable resistance organization, the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, was formed in 1943. Subsequently, most Poles were resettled from Vilnius (but only a minority from the countryside and other parts of the Lithuanian SSR)[h] by the implementation of Soviet and Lithuanian communist policies that mandated their partial replacement by Russian immigrants. Poland demanded the re-establishment of the normal diplomatic relations that were broken after the Å»eligowski Mutiny in 1920 and threatened military actions in case of refusal. [6] The Ruthenian territories acquired were vastly larger, more densely populated and more highly developed in terms of church organization and literacy than the territories of core Lithuania. By the middle of the 19th century, the basic ideology of the future Lithuanian nationalist movement was defined with linguistic identity in mind; in order to establish a modern Lithuanian identity, it required a break with the traditional dependence on Polish culture and language. According to one major point of view, the Baltic peoples descend directly from the original Indo-European arrivals, who might have settled this part of Europe possibly as far back as about 3000 BC as the archeological Corded Ware culture. [13], To this day, the Russian Federation, being one of several countries to forbid extradition of its own citizens, refuses to extradite criminals against humanity that are responsible for the January Events. [65], In 1395, Vytautas conquered Smolensk, and in 1397, he conducted a victorious expedition against a branch of the Golden Horde. Vytautas, however, having failed to gain the entire duchy, established contacts with the grand duke. [8] The Western Balts differentiated and became known to outside chroniclers first. During a visit by the official delegation of Iceland to Lithuania on January 20, Foreign Minister Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson said: "My government is seriously considering the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with the Republic of Lithuania." Provisional fundamental laws of the state were passed.[27]. [58] The establishment of a bishopric in Vilnius in 1387 was accompanied by Jogaila's extraordinarily generous endowment of land and peasants to the Church and exemption from state obligations and control. Three times in 1930 and once in 1934, he unsuccessfully attempted to return to power. [99], Western Lithuania had an important role in the preservation of the Lithuanian language and its culture. Vilnius was now the capital of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic, and soon of the combined Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. [27] Especially since Lithuania's admission into the European Union, large numbers of Lithuanians (up to 20% of the population) have moved abroad in search of better economic opportunities to create a significant demographic problem for the small country. Protesters tried to storm the parliament building but were driven away by unarmed security forces using water cannons. This problem only grew more acute during the reign of Sigismund II Augustus, the last Jagiellonian king and grand duke of Lithuania, who had no heir who would inherit and continue the personal union between Poland and Lithuania. [15], In the 12th century and afterwards, mutual raids involving Lithuanian and Polish forces took place sporadically, but the two countries were separated by the lands of the Yotvingians. Nevertheless, the unprecedented total battlefield victory against the Knights permanently removed the threat that they had posed to Lithuania's existence for centuries. Vilnius was captured on June 24, 1941,[157] and Germany controlled all of Lithuania within a week. It demanded the immediate cession of the Klaipėda Region to Germany. Lithuanians as well as people in the other two Baltic republics distrusted the Soviet regime even more than people in other regions of the Soviet state, and they gave their own specific and active support to Mikhail Gorbachev's program of social and political reforms known as perestroika and glasnost. Their rivalry weakened the country in the face of the Teutonic expansion and the newly assertive Grand Duchy of Moscow, buoyed by the 1380 victory over the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo and intent on the unification of all Rus' lands under its rule. Thus 42 of the 49 members of the Fourth Seimas of Lithuania were from the National Union. West Russian Volunteers were defeated and pushed out by the end of 1919. [6], The warfare with the Teutonic Order continued from 1345, and in 1348, the Knights defeated the Lithuanians at the Battle of Strėva. But the tribal peculiarities were disappearing and the increasing use of the name Lietuva was a testimony to the developing Lithuanian sense of separate identity. The combined polity would be ruled by a common Sejm, but the separate hierarchies of major state offices were to be retained. After the middle of the 16th century, Polish predominated in literary productions. The events of 13 January are sometimes referred to as Bloody Sunday. [51] They brought with them the Church Slavonic liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Christian religion, a written language (Chancery Slavonic) that was developed to serve the Lithuanian court's document-producing needs for a few centuries, and a system of laws. These calamities resulted in the loss of approximately 40% of the country's inhabitants. Vytenis (r. 1295–1315) and Gediminas (r. 1315–1341), after whom the Gediminid dynasty is named, had to deal with constant raids and incursions from the Teutonic orders that were costly to repulse. By January 1945, the Soviet forces captured Klaipėda on the Baltic coast. They were the so-called Uniates, whose church was established at the Union of Brest in 1596, and they acknowledged only nominal obedience to Rome. [57] In the fall of 1386, the king returned to Lithuania and the next spring and summer participated in mass conversion and baptism ceremonies for the general population. When the Nazi Party came into power in Germany, German–Lithuanian relations worsened considerably as the Nazis did not want to accept the loss of the Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland). The Lithuanians were interested only in a state "within ethnographic frontiers," as they perceived it.[135]. [142] Lithuania did not accept this decision and broke all relations with Poland. [35] In 1325, Casimir, the son of the Polish king Władysław I, married Gediminas' daughter Aldona, who became queen of Poland when Casimir ascended the Polish throne in 1333. [22], In 1250, Mindaugas entered into an agreement with the Teutonic Order; he consented to receive baptism (the act took place in 1251) and relinquish his claim over some lands in western Lithuania, for which he was to receive a royal crown in return. The Lithuanian government banned the Communist Party and ordered confiscation of its property. It indicated the closeness of Lithuanian to its ancient Indo-European roots and would later provide the "antiquity" argument for activists associated with the Lithuanian National Revival. The region was incorporated as an autonomous district of Lithuania in May 1924. As we have already seized the TV tower and went outside, we came under fire from the windows of the neighbouring houses, and leaving from there we had to hide behind the armoured vehicles."[9]. In 1384, the two Lithuanian dukes, acting together, waged a successful expedition against the lands ruled by the Order. Separate Polish and Lithuanian armies were retained, but parallel ministerial and central offices were established according to a practice developed by the Crown. The competing idea takes into account the many words common to both the Baltic and Slavic languages and postulates a shared, more recent Balto-Slavic ancestry. [180], d.^ About 90% of Vilnius Jews had been exterminated by the Nazis in 1941-1944 and about 80% of Vilnius Poles were deported under the Soviet rule in 1944–1946, which left the city open to settlement by Lithuanians, or possibly Russians. The retreating Soviet forces murdered between 1,000 and 1,500 people, mostly ethnic Lithuanians[152] (see Rainiai massacre). [11] Traditional Lithuanian pagan customs and mythology, with many archaic elements, were long preserved. Since 1992, representatives of the Prosecutor General Office of Lithuania requested Belarus to extradite Vladimir Uskhopchik, a former general who was in command of the Vilnius garrison in January 1991 and the editor of the newspaper "Soviet Lithuania" Stanislava Juonene. Belarusian prosecutors: Uskhopchik can’t be extradited, he defended the Soviet Union, Lithuania recalls ambassador from Austria amid legal dispute, "Ex-USSR president Gorbachev may be questioned over 1991 crimes in Lithuania - report", "Lithuanian Court To Summon Gorbachev To Trial Over 1991 Soviet Crackdown", "Russia's taking revenge on Lithuania with its Jan 13 judge probe, formin says", "Rusijos tyrimų komitetas iškėlė baudžiamąją bylą Lietuvos prokurorams ir teisėjams", Russia refused to question the former president of Soviet Union, Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies, Predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria, Sovereignty Declaration of the Estonian SSR, On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, Dissident Irish Republican Campaign (1998–present), Insurgency in the Preševo Valley (1999–2001), Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia (2001), Insurgency in the North Caucasus (2009–2017), Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–91), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=January_Events_(Lithuania)&oldid=1007833874, Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Vytis, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking in-text citations from January 2012, Articles containing Lithuanian-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2013, Articles needing more detailed references, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2019, Articles with Lithuanian-language sources (lt), Articles with Ukrainian-language sources (uk), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Soviet forces withdrew from Lithuanian cities, Virginijus Druskis (b.
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