Lithuania

In the early thirteenth century the Lithuanians, a Baltic people of the forests and rivers between the Baltic and the upper Dnieper, were among the last pagans of Europe and the targets of crusading orders, the Teutonic Knights to the west and the Livonian Knights to the north. Under the pressure of these holy wars the scattered tribes were welded together by Mindaugas, who asserted his authority over rival nobles and chieftains in the 1230s and 1240s and forged a single cohesive state. To ease the western pressure on his realm, Mindaugas accepted Christian baptism around 1251, and in 1253 he was crowned king of Lithuania by authority of Pope Innocent IV, the only Lithuanian ruler ever to bear a royal crown.

Mindaugas's conversion did not hold; most of his subjects remained pagan, and after his assassination in 1263 Lithuania reverted to its old faith and to the title of grand duke rather than king. Yet the state he had founded endured and grew. Under Gediminas, grand duke from about 1316 to 1341, the duchy was consolidated and turned outward. Gediminas is remembered as the founder of Vilnius, the city first named in his surviving letters of 1323, in which he invited merchants, craftsmen and clergy from across Europe to settle in his lands and promised them freedom to practise their trades and their faith.

Gediminas founded a dynasty, the Gediminids, that would rule Lithuania and eventually Poland, and laid the basis for an extraordinary eastward expansion. His sons Algirdas and Kestutis ruled jointly, Algirdas pushing the duchy's frontier far into the lands of the former Kievan Rus while Kestutis bore the brunt of the unending war with the Teutonic Order. By the later fourteenth century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was among the largest states in Europe, a pagan power governing vast Orthodox Slavic populations even as it remained at war for its very existence along its German frontier.

Turning points

1. 1253Formation

   Coronation of Mindaugas

   Having accepted baptism around 1251, Mindaugas was crowned King of Lithuania by authority of Pope Innocent IV, the only ruler ever crowned king of the country and the founder of the Lithuanian state.

   [1] [2]

2. 1263Politics & Power

   Assassination of Mindaugas and pagan reversion

   Mindaugas was murdered amid noble rivalry; Lithuania abandoned the royal title and Christianity, returning to paganism and to rule by grand dukes for more than a century.

   [1] [3]

3. c. 1316–1341Politics & Power

   Reign of Gediminas and the Gediminid dynasty

   Gediminas consolidated the grand duchy, founded the dynasty that bears his name and began the expansion that carried Lithuanian power deep into the lands of the former Kievan Rus.

   [4] [3]

4. 1323Formation

   Vilnius founded by Gediminas

   The capital Vilnius is first recorded in Grand Duke Gediminas's letters of 1323, in which he invited merchants, craftsmen and clergy from across Europe to settle freely in his expanding realm.

   [4] [5]

Figures of the era

The decisive turn in Lithuania's medieval history came through marriage and conversion. In 1385 the agreement at Krewo arranged the marriage of Jogaila, grand duke of Lithuania, to the young Polish monarch Jadwiga; Jogaila was baptised, took the name Wladyslaw II Jagiello, accepted the Polish crown and undertook to bring Christianity to his still-pagan realm. The official Christianization of Lithuania followed in 1387, when a bishopric was established at Vilnius and the country, the last major pagan state in Europe, entered Latin Christendom. The union founded the Jagiellonian dynasty and joined the kingdom of Poland to the vast Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The new partnership at once confronted the Teutonic Order, whose crusading raids had long ravaged Lithuania. On 15 July 1410 the combined Polish and Lithuanian armies, the latter commanded by Grand Duke Vytautas, destroyed the army of the Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Zalgiris), one of the largest battles of medieval Europe, breaking the Order's power in the Baltic for good. The victory secured the union's frontiers and confirmed Lithuania's place among the leading powers of the continent.

Vytautas the Great, grand duke from 1392 to 1430, raised the Grand Duchy to the summit of its power. He consolidated central authority, fostered a Lithuanian national consciousness and pushed the realm's borders southward and eastward until they reached the shores of the Black Sea, between the lower Dnieper and the Dniester. Under Vytautas the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, ruling Lithuanians, Ruthenians and others from the Baltic to the Black Sea, was one of the largest states in Europe, and Vilnius, its capital, became a flourishing centre that would shape the culture of much of eastern Europe.

Turning points

1. 1385Politics & Power

   Union of Krewo

   Grand Duke Jogaila agreed to marry Queen Jadwiga of Poland, convert to Christianity and unite the two realms; baptised as Wladyslaw II Jagiello, he founded the Jagiellonian dynasty.

   [3] [7]

2. 1387Religion

   Christianization of Lithuania

   A bishopric was founded at Vilnius and Lithuania, the last major pagan state in Europe, formally accepted Latin Christianity following the union with Poland.

   [3]

3. 1392–1430Politics & Power

   Reign of Vytautas the Great

   Vytautas consolidated the Grand Duchy and extended its borders to the Black Sea, making Lithuania one of the largest states in Europe at the height of its power.

   [6] [3]

4. 15 Jul 1410War & Rupture

   Battle of Grunwald (Zalgiris)

   Polish and Lithuanian forces under Wladyslaw II Jagiello and Grand Duke Vytautas annihilated the army of the Teutonic Knights, ending the Order's expansion in the Baltic.

   ↗See the data

   [8] [6]

Figures of the era

On 1 July 1569 the Union of Lublin transformed the dynastic link between Poland and Lithuania into a single federal state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, governed by a common elected monarch and a shared parliament, the Sejm. The Grand Duchy retained its own laws, army, treasury and administration within the union, and Vilnius remained a great city of learning, home from 1579 to one of the oldest universities in eastern Europe. Yet over the following two centuries the Commonwealth slid into decline, weakened by the paralysis of its institutions and the ambitions of its neighbours.

That decline ended in dismemberment. In three partitions, in 1772, 1793 and 1795, Russia, Prussia and Austria divided the Commonwealth among themselves; by the final partition of 1795 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was annexed almost entirely by the Russian Empire, and Lithuanian statehood was extinguished. Risings against Russian rule in 1831 and 1863 were crushed and followed by harsh repression and intensified Russification. After the 1863 uprising the tsarist authorities banned the printing and import of Lithuanian books in the Latin alphabet, seeking to force the language into the Cyrillic script and to sever Lithuanians from their western, Catholic identity.

The press ban, in force from 1864 to 1904, provoked the opposite of its intent. A clandestine network of knygnesiai, the 'book carriers', smuggled Lithuanian books printed in Latin script across the Prussian border and distributed them in defiance of the law, sustaining literacy and national feeling for forty years. Far from extinguishing Lithuanian identity, the ban helped to ignite a national revival, and the eventual lifting of the prohibition in 1904 was a milestone on the road that would lead, amid the collapse of the empires in the First World War, to the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state.

Turning points

1. 1 Jul 1569Politics & Power

   Union of Lublin

   Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania united into the federal Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by an elected monarch and a common Sejm, with Lithuania keeping its own laws and institutions.

   [7] [9]

2. 1795Politics & Power

   Final partition and annexation by Russia

   In the third partition of the Commonwealth, Russia, Prussia and Austria completed its dismemberment; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was annexed almost wholly by the Russian Empire, ending Lithuanian statehood.

   [10] [9]

3. 1864–1904Culture & Ideas

   The Lithuanian press ban

   After the 1863 uprising the tsarist regime banned Lithuanian books in the Latin alphabet; the ban lasted forty years before being lifted in 1904.

   [9]

4. c. 1864–1904Culture & Ideas

   The book smugglers (knygnesiai)

   Defying the press ban, a clandestine network of book carriers smuggled Latin-script Lithuanian books across the Prussian frontier, preserving the language and fuelling the national revival.

   [9]

Figures of the era

As the Russian and German empires collapsed at the end of the First World War, the Council of Lithuania in Vilnius signed the Act of Independence on 16 February 1918, proclaiming the restoration of an independent State of Lithuania on democratic foundations, with Vilnius as its capital and all former ties to other states dissolved. The young republic had to fight for survival against Soviet, German and Polish forces, and it emerged from these wars territorially mutilated and locked in two bitter disputes that would define the interwar years.

The first was the dispute with Poland over Vilnius. In October 1920, in a manoeuvre staged on the orders of the Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski, General Lucjan Zeligowski feigned a mutiny and seized the city and the surrounding Vilnius region; a puppet 'Republic of Central Lithuania' was created and, in 1922, formally incorporated into Poland. Lithuania refused to recognise the loss, kept Vilnius as its de jure capital while governing from Kaunas as a temporary capital, and broke off diplomatic relations with Poland, which were restored only under a Polish ultimatum in 1938 and without Lithuania conceding Vilnius. The second dispute concerned the Klaipeda (Memel) Territory, a German-speaking Baltic port detached from Germany after the war and placed under Allied administration. In January 1923 Lithuania engineered the Klaipeda Revolt, whose forces seized the city, and the powers acquiesced, recognising Lithuanian sovereignty over the territory.

Both disputes were overturned by the rising power of Nazi Germany. On 20 March 1939 the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop delivered an oral ultimatum demanding that Lithuania surrender the Klaipeda region, threatening invasion and the bombing of Kaunas. Lacking allies and facing overwhelming force, Lithuania yielded, and German troops occupied Klaipeda on 23 March 1939, depriving the republic of its only major port on the eve of the Second World War.

Turning points

1. 16 Feb 1918Independence

   Act of Independence

   The Council of Lithuania in Vilnius proclaimed the restoration of an independent State of Lithuania on democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital, severing all former ties to other states.

   ↗See the data

   [13] [9]

2. Oct 1920War & Rupture

   Zeligowski's Mutiny and the seizure of Vilnius

   Polish forces under General Zeligowski, secretly directed by Pilsudski, seized Vilnius and its region; a 'Republic of Central Lithuania' was created and annexed by Poland in 1922.

   ↗See the data

   [11]

3. Jan 1923War & Rupture

   The Klaipeda Revolt

   Lithuania staged a revolt that seized the Allied-administered Klaipeda (Memel) Territory; the powers accepted the outcome and recognised Lithuanian sovereignty over the port and its region.

   ↗See the data

   [12]

4. 23 Mar 1939War & Rupture

   German ultimatum and loss of Klaipeda

   Nazi Germany demanded the Klaipeda region by ultimatum on 20 March 1939, threatening invasion; Lithuania capitulated and German troops occupied the territory on 23 March.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [9]

Figures of the era

Lithuania's fate in the Second World War was sealed by the German-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 and its secret protocol, which divided eastern Europe into spheres of influence. After an adjustment in September 1939 Lithuania was assigned, with the other Baltic states, to the Soviet sphere. In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, and in August 1940 it was annexed as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, an incorporation that the United States and most Western states never recognised as lawful. Nazi Germany overran the country in 1941, when the Holocaust destroyed most of Lithuania's large Jewish community, before the Red Army returned in 1944 and restored Soviet rule.

Soviet rule was enforced through terror. Between 1941 and the early 1950s the regime carried out mass deportations of Lithuanians to labour camps and forced settlements in Siberia and the Soviet far north; tens of thousands were removed in the first wave of June 1941, and the largest operations of 1948 and 1949 deported some seventy thousand farmers and their families, the deportations deliberately aimed at breaking the rural support base of the resistance and at forcing collectivisation. In all, well over one hundred thousand people were deported, the majority of them women and children.

Against this, an armed resistance fought on for years. As the Germans retreated, thousands of Lithuanians took to the forests as partisans, the 'Forest Brothers', waging a guerrilla war against the reimposition of Soviet power. At its height the movement numbered in the tens of thousands and controlled much of the countryside, but, isolated and ground down by deportations and infiltration, organised partisan warfare was effectively crushed by the early 1950s. The memory of the deportations and of the partisan war, documented today by Lithuania's Genocide and Resistance Research Centre, became central to the national identity that would resurface in the 1980s.

Turning points

1. 23 Aug 1939Politics & Power

   Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

   The German-Soviet non-aggression pact and its secret protocol divided eastern Europe into spheres of influence; an adjustment that autumn assigned Lithuania, with the other Baltic states, to the Soviet sphere.

   [14] [9]

2. 1940War & Rupture

   Soviet occupation and annexation

   The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940 and annexed it in August as the Lithuanian SSR, an incorporation never recognised as lawful by the United States and most Western states.

   ↗See the data

   [14] [9]

3. 1941–1952Catastrophe

   Mass deportations to Siberia

   The Soviet regime deported well over one hundred thousand Lithuanians to camps and forced settlements, with the largest operations in 1948 and 1949, to crush resistance and impose collectivisation.

   ↗See the data

   [15] [9]

4. 1944–c. 1953War & Rupture

   The Forest Brothers' partisan war

   Thousands of Lithuanians fought a guerrilla war against the returning Soviet forces; the partisan movement controlled much of the countryside before being crushed by the early 1950s.

   ↗See the data

   [15] [9]

Figures of the era

The loosening of Soviet control under Mikhail Gorbachev opened the way for Lithuania's return to independence. In 1988 the reform movement Sajudis emerged, channelling a surge of national feeling, and in democratic elections in February 1990 its supporters won a decisive majority in the republic's parliament. On 11 March 1990 the Supreme Council, having renamed itself to reject Soviet nomenclature and elected Vytautas Landsbergis as its chairman, adopted the Act on the Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania, invoking the legal continuity of the 1918 republic. Lithuania thus became the first Soviet republic to declare the restoration of its independence.

Moscow answered with economic blockade and then with force. In January 1991 Soviet troops and KGB units moved against key institutions in Vilnius; on the night of 13 January they stormed the television tower and the broadcasting centre, which were surrounded by unarmed crowds who had answered Landsbergis's call to defend them. Fourteen civilians were killed and hundreds injured, but the defenders held the parliament behind its barricades, and the brutality of the crackdown turned international opinion decisively against Moscow. Lithuania's independence won wide recognition after the failed Soviet coup of August 1991, and the last Russian troops withdrew in 1993.

Free Lithuania set out to rejoin the West. Having rebuilt a democratic republic and a market economy, it achieved its central foreign-policy goals in 2004, becoming a member of NATO on 29 March and joining the European Union on 1 May. The country adopted the euro in 2015, completing its integration into the core of European institutions. From the medieval kingdom of Mindaugas to a small Baltic democracy anchored in the European Union and the Atlantic alliance, Lithuania had restored and secured the independence its people had declared in 1918 and reclaimed in 1990.

Turning points

1. 1988Politics & Power

   The rise of Sajudis

   The reform movement Sajudis emerged as Soviet controls loosened, mobilising mass support for Lithuanian sovereignty and winning a majority in the 1990 elections to the republic's parliament.

   [16] [9]

2. 11 Mar 1990Independence

   Restoration of independence

   The Supreme Council adopted the Act on the Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania, making Lithuania the first Soviet republic to declare the restoration of its independence.

   ↗See the data

   [16] [9]

3. 13 Jan 1991War & Rupture

   The January events in Vilnius

   Soviet forces stormed the Vilnius television tower and broadcasting centre, killing fourteen unarmed civilians; the defenders held parliament and the crackdown discredited Moscow.

   ↗See the data

   [17] [16]

4. 29 Mar 2004Politics & Power

   Accession to NATO

   Lithuania formally joined NATO on 29 March 2004, anchoring its security in the Atlantic alliance a little over a decade after the withdrawal of Soviet forces.

   [18]

5. 1 May 2004Politics & Power

   Accession to the European Union

   Lithuania joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 and adopted the euro in 2015, completing its return to the institutions of the West.

   [19]

Figures of the era