HISTORY
The earliest evidence of inhabitants
in present-day Lithuania dates back 12,000 years. About 5,000
years ago, a culture known to archaeologists as "the cord-ware
culture" spread over a vast region of Eastern Europe, between
the Baltic Sea and the Vistula River in the west and the Moscow-
Kursk line in the east. Merging with the indigenous population,
they gave rise to the Balts, a distinct Indo-European ethnic group
whose descendants are the present-day Lithuanian and Latvian nations
and the now-extinct Prussians. The first written mention of Lithuania
occurs in A.D. 1009, although many centuries earlier the Roman
historian Tacitus referred to the Lithuanians as excellent farmers.
Spurred by the expansion into the Baltic lands of the Germanic
monastic military orders (the Order of the Knights of the Sword
and the Teutonic Order), Duke Mindaugas united the lands inhabited
by the Lithuanians, Samogitians, Yotvingians, and Couranians into
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) in the mid-13th century. In
1251, Mindaugas adopted Catholicism and was crowned King of Lithuania
on July 6, 1253; a decade later, civil war erupted upon his assassination
until a ruler named Vitenis defeated the Teutonic Knights and
restored order.
During 1316-41, Vitenis' brother
and successor, Grand Duke Gediminas, expanded the empire as far
as Kiev against the Tartars and Russians. He twice attempted to
adopt Christianity in order to end the GDL's political and cultural
isolation from Western Europe. To that purpose, he invited knights,
merchants, and artisans to settle in Lithuania and wrote letters
to Pope John XXII and European cities maintaining that the Teutonic
Order's purpose was to conquer lands rather than spread Christianity.
Gediminas' dynasty ruled the GDL until 1572. From the 1300s through
the early 1400s, the Lithuanian state expanded eastward. During
the rule of Grand Duke Algirdas (1345-77), Lithuania almost doubled
in size and achieved major victories over the Teutonic and Livonian
Orders. However, backed by the Pope and the Catholic West European
countries, the Orders intensified their aggression.
During this period, Kestutis (Grand
Duke in 1381-82) distinguished himself as the leader of the struggle
against the Teutonic Order. The ongoing struggle precipitated
the 1385 Kreva Union signed by Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania
(ruled in 1377-81 and 1382-92) and Jadwyga, Queen of Poland. Upon
their marriage, he became King of Poland. A condition of the union
was Lithuania's conversion to Christianity (in 1387). This intensified
Lithuania's economic and cultural development and oriented it
toward the West. The conversion invalidated claims by the Teutonic
Order and temporarily halted its wars against Lithuania.
Lithuania's independence under the
union with Poland was restored by Grand Duke Vytautas. During
his rule (1392-1430) the GDL turned into one of the largest states
in Europe, encompassing present-day Belarus, most of Ukraine,
and the Smolensk region of western Russia. Led by Jogaila and
Vytautas, the united Polish-Lithuanian army defeated the Teutonic
Order in the Battle of Tannenberg (Gruenwald or Zalgiras) in 1410,
terminating the medieval Germanic drive eastward.
The 16th century witnessed a number
of wars against the growing Russian state over the Slavic lands
ruled by the GDL. Coupled with the need for an ally in those wars,
the wish of the middle and petty gentry to obtain more rights
already granted to the Polish feudal lords drew Lithuania closer
to Poland. The Union of Lublin in 1569 united Poland and Lithuania
into a commonwealth in which the highest power belonged to the
Sejm of the nobility and its elected King, who was also the Grand
Duke of Lithuania. Mid-16th-century land reform strengthened serfdom
and promoted the development of agriculture, owing to the introduction
of a regular three- field rotation system.
The 16th century saw a rapid development
of agriculture, growth of towns, spread of ideas of humanism and
the Reformation, book printing, the emergence of Vilnius University
in 1579, and the Lithuanian Codes of Law (the Statutes of Lithuania),
which stimulated the development of culture both in Lithuania
and in neighboring countries.
In the 16th-18th century, wars against
Russia and Sweden weakened the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. The
end of the 18th century saw three divisions of the commonwealth
by Russia, Prussia, and Austria; in 1795 most of Lithuania became
part of the Russian empire. Attempts to restore independence in
the uprisings of 1794, 1830-31, and 1863 were suppressed and followed
by a tightened police regime, increasing Russification, the closure
of Vilnius University in 1832, and the 1864 ban on the printing
of Lithuanian books in traditional Latin characters.
Because of his proclamation of liberation
and self-rule, many Lithuanians gratefully volunteered for the
French army when Napoleon occupied Kaunas in 1812 during his catastrophic
invasion of Russia. After the war, Russia imposed extra taxes
on Catholic landowners and enserfed an increasing number of peasants.
A market economy slowly developed
with the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Lithuanian farmers grew
stronger, contributing to an increase in the number of intellectuals
of peasant origin, which, in turn, led to the growth of a Lithuanian
national movement. In German-ruled Lithuania Minor (Konigsberg
or Kalinin-grad), Lithuanian publications were printed in large
numbers and then smuggled into Russian-ruled Lithuania. The most
outstanding leaders of the national liberation movement were J.
Basanavicius and V. Kudirka. The ban on the Lithuanian press finally
was lifted in 1904.
During World War I, the German army
occupied Lithuania in 1915, and the occupation administration
allowed a Lithuanian Conference to convene in Vilnius in September
1917. The conference adopted a resolution demanding the restoration
of an independent Lithuanian state and elected the Lithuanian
Council, a standing body chaired by Antanas Smetona
In 1919 and 1920, Lithuania fought
what is known as its war for independence against three
factions: the Red Army, which in 1919 controlled territory
ruled by a Bolshevist government headed by V. Kapsukas; the Polish
army; and the Bermondt army, composed of Russian and German troops
under the command of the Germans. Lithuania failed to regain the
Polish-occupied Vilnius region.
In the Moscow Treaty of July 12,
1920, Russia recognized Lithuanian independence and renounced
all previous claims to it. The Seimas (parliament) of Lithuania
adopted a constitution on August 1, 1922, declaring Lithuania
a parliamentary republic, and in 1923 Lithuania annexed the Klaipeda
region, the northern part of Lithuania Minor.
By then, most countries had recognized
Lithuanian independence. After a military coup on December 17,
1926, Nationalist Party leader Antanas Smetona became President
and gradually introduced an authoritarian regime.
Lithuania's borders posed its major
foreign policy problem. Poland's occupation (1920) and annexation
(1922) of the Vilnius region strained bilateral relations, and
in March 1939 Germany forced Lithuania to surrender the Klaipeda
region (after World War II, the Nuremberg trials declared the
treaty null and void). Radical land reform in 1922 considerably
reduced the number of estates, promoted the growth of small and
middle farms and boosted agricultural production and exports,
especially of livestock. In particular, light industry and agriculture
successfully adjusted to the new market situation and developed
new structures.
The interwar period gave birth to
a comprehensive system of education, with Lithuanian as the language
of instruction and the development of the press, literature, music,
arts, and theater. On August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop
pact pulled Lithuania under German domination until the Soviet-German
agreement of September 28, 1939, brought Lithuania under Soviet
domination. Soviet pressure and a complicated international situation
forced Lithuania to sign an agreement with the U.S.S.R. on October
10, 1939, by which Lithuania was given back the city of Vilnius
and the part of Vilnius region seized by the Red Army during the
Soviet- Polish war; in return, some 20,000 Soviet soldiers were
deployed in Lithuania.
On June 14, 1940, the Soviet Government
issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, demanding the formation of a
new Lithuanian Government and permission to station additional
Red Army troops. Lithuania succumbed to the Soviet demand, and
100,000 Soviet troops moved into the Lithuania the next day.
Arriving in Kaunas, the Soviet Government's
special envoy began implementing the plan for Lithuania's incorporation
into the U.S.S.R. On June 17, the alleged People's Government,
headed by J. Paleckis, was formed; one month later, parliamentary
elections were held, whereupon Lithuania was proclaimed a Soviet
Socialist Republic on August 3.
Totalitarian rule was established,
Sovietization of the economy and culture began, and Lithuanian
state employees and public figures were arrested and exiled to
Russia. During the mass deportation campaign of June 14-18, 1941,
about 7,400 families (12,600 people) were deported to Siberia
without investigation or trial; 3,600 people were imprisoned;
and over 1,000 were massacred.
Lithuanian revolt against the U.S.S.R.
soon followed the outbreak of the war against Germany in 1941.
Via Radio Kaunas on June 23, the rebels declared the restoration
of Lithuania's independence and actively operated a provisional
government, without German recognition, from June 24 to August
5. Lithuania became part of the German occupational administrative
unit of Ostland. People were repressed and taken to forced labor
camps in Germany. The Nazis and local collaborators deprived all
Lithuanian Jews of their civil rights and massacred about 200,000
of them. Together with Soviet partisans, supporters of independence
put up a resistance movement to deflect Nazi recruitment of Lithuanians
to the German army.
Forcing the Germans out of Lithuania
by 1944, the Red Army re-established control, and Sovietization
continued with the arrival of communist party leaders to create
a local party administration. The mass deportation campaigns of
1941-52 exiled 30,000 families to Siberia and other remote parts
of the Soviet Union. Official statistics state that over 120,000
people were deported from Lithuania during this period, while
Lithuanian sources estimate the number of political prisoners
and deportees at 300,000.
In response to these events, thousands
of resistance fighters participated in unsuccessful guerilla warfare
against the Soviet regime from 1944 to 1953.
In attempted integration and industrial
development, Soviet authorities encouraged immigration of other
Soviet workers, especially Russians.
Until mid-1988, all political, economical
and cultural life was controlled by the Lithuanian Communist Party
(LCP). First Secretary Antanas Snieckus ruled the LCP during 1940-74.
The LCP, in turn, was responsible to the Communist Party of the
U.S.S.R.
Lithuanians comprised only 18% of
total party membership in 1947 and continued to represent a minority
until 1958; by 1986, they made up 70% of the party's 197,000-strong
body. During the Khrushchev thaw in the 1950s, the leadership
of the LCP acquired limited independence in decision- making.
The political and economic crisis
that began in the U.S.S.R. in the mid- 1980s also affected Lithuania,
and Lithuanians as well as other Balts offered active support
to Gorbachev's program of social and political reforms.
Under the leadership of intellectuals,
the Lithuanian reform movement Sajudis was formed in mid-1988
and declared a program of democratic and national rights, winning
nationwide popularity. On Sajudis' demand, 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 U.S.S.R., legalized a multi-party system,
and adopted a number of other important decisions.
A large number of LCP members also
supported the ideas of Sajudis, and with Sajudis support, Algirdas
Brazauskas was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee
of the LCP in 1988. In December 1989, the Brazauskas-led LCP split
from the Soviet Union's Communist Party and became an independent
party, renaming itself the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party in
1990.
In 1990, Sajudis-backed candidates
won the elections to the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet. On March 11,
1990, its chairman, Vytautas Landsbergis, proclaimed the restoration
of Lithuanian independence, formed a new cabinet of ministers
headed by Kazimiera Prunskiene, and adopted the Provisional Fundamental
Law of the state and a number of bylaws.
The U.S.S.R. demanded revocation
of the act and began employing political and economic sanctions
against Lithuania as well as demonstrating military force. On
January 10, 1991, Soviet authorities seized the central publishing
house and other premises in Vilnius and unsuccessfully attempted
to overthrow the elected government by sponsoring a local "National
Salvation Committee." Three days later the Soviets forcibly took
over the TV tower, killing 14 civilians and injuring 700.
During the national plebiscite on
February 9, over 90% of those who took part in the voting (76%
of all eligible voters) voted in favor of an independent, democratic
Lithuania. Led by the tenacious Landsbergis, Lithuania's leaders
continued to seek Western diplomatic recognition of its independence.
Soviet military-security forces continued forced conscription,
seized buildings, attacked customs posts, and sometimes killed
customs and police officials.
During the August 19 coup against
Gorbachev, 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.
Despite Lithuania's achievement
of complete independence, sizeable numbers of Russian forces remained
on its territory. Withdrawal of those forces was one of Lithuania's
top foreign policy priorities. Lithuania and Russia signed an
agreement on September 8, 1992, calling for Russian troop withdrawals
by August 31, 1993. These have been completed in full, despite
unresolved issues such as the question of Russian military transit
to and from the Kaliningrad enclave.
