History of Lithuania (2024)

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major treatment
- In Lithuania: History of Lithuania
  Lithuanians are an Indo-European people belonging to the Baltic group. They are the only branch within the group that managed to create a state entity in premodern times. The Prussians, overrun by the Teutonic Order in the 13th century, became…
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Baltic entente
- In Baltic Entente
  …Entente, mutual-defense pact signed by Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia on Sept. 12, 1934, that laid the basis for close cooperation among those states, particularly in foreign affairs. Shortly after World War I, efforts were made to conclude a Baltic defense alliance among Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, all of…
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Baltic War of Liberation
- In Baltic War of Liberation
  in which Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania fended off attacks from both Soviet Russia and Germany. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been part of the Russian Empire since the end of the 18th century, but after the Russian Revolution of 1917 they became independent states. After World War I ended, however,…
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Commonwealth of Independent States
- In Commonwealth of Independent States
  (The remaining former Soviet republics—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—declined to join the new organization.) The CIS formally came into being on December 21, 1991, and began operations the following month, with the city of Minsk in Belarus designated as its administrative centre.
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early modern Europe
- In history of Europe: Turkey and eastern Europe
  Poland, Lithuania, Bohemia, and Hungary were all loosely associated at the close of the 15th century under rulers of the Jagiellon dynasty. In 1569, three years before the death of the last Jagiellon king of Lithuania-Poland, these two countries merged their separate institutions by the Union…
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Eastern Orthodoxy
- See Also
  Italy U.S. Relations With Lithuania - United States Department of State Greece (12/08)Sweden (03/09)
  In Eastern Orthodoxy: Attempts at ecclesiastical union and theological renaissance
  …grand princes of Moscow and Lithuania, who both aspired to become leaders of a Russian state liberated from the Mongol yoke. The “metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia” was by now residing in Moscow and, as in the case of the metropolitan St. Alexis (1354–78), often played a directing role…
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- In Eastern Orthodoxy: Relations with the Western church
  …to Roman Catholic Poland and Lithuania. Also, an important political party in Byzantium itself favoured union with the West in the hope that a new Western Crusade might be made against the menacing Turks. The problem of ecclesiastical union was in fact the most burning issue during the entire Palaeologan…
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Kaunas
- In Kaunas
  …a high proportion of ethnic Lithuanians in its population (more than 80 percent in the late 20th century, compared with about 40 percent in Vilnius and 60 percent in Klaipėda) and remained a center of Lithuanian national sentiment. In 1972 it was the scene of nationalist riots following the funeral…
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Memel dispute
- In Memel dispute
  …city of Memel, however, was Lithuanian; and after the war the newly formed state of Lithuania requested that the Allied Powers at the Paris Peace Conference grant it possession of the Memel territory (March 24, 1919). The Allied Powers did detach Memelland from Germany (Versailles Treaty; Article 99); but rather…
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North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- In North Atlantic Treaty Organization
  Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017);
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Poland
- In Poland: The January 1863 uprising and its aftermath
  In Lithuania the brutal governor Mikhail Muravyov was nicknamed “the hangman.” The post-1863 period marked the beginning of a final parting of the ways between the Poles and the Lithuanians and Ukrainians (the latter also were undergoing a national revival), but in the long run Russian…
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Vilnius dispute
- In Vilnius dispute
  between Poland and Lithuania over possession of the city of Vilnius (Wilno) and its surrounding region.
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World War I
- In World War I: The Russian revolutions and the Eastern Front, March 1917–March 1918
  Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles were, by the end of 1917, all in various stages of the dissidence from which the independent states of the postwar period were to emerge; and, at the same time, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis were no less active in their own…
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U.S.S.R.

In 20th-century international relations: Liberalization and struggle in Communist countries
had annexed Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. On the 50th anniversary of the pact, August 23, an estimated 1,000,000 Balts formed a human chain linking their capitals to denounce the annexation as illegal and to demand self-determination. In September the Hungarian government suspended its effort to stave off the…
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In 20th-century international relations: Aftermath of the breakup
to demand self-determination were the Lithuanians, whose Communist Party Congress voted by a huge majority to declare its independence from the party’s leadership in Moscow and to move toward an independent, democratic state. Gorbachev denounced the move at once and warned of bloodshed if the Lithuanians persisted. In January 1990…
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independence
- In 20th-century international relations: The collapse of the Soviet Union
  and Latvia joined Lithuania by declaring independence, and this time the United States immediately extended recognition. On August 24 Ukraine declared independence, Belorussia (Belarus) the next day, and Moldavia (Moldova) on the 27th. The Russian parliament
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World War II

In World War II: The campaign in Poland, 1939
…the arrangements of August: all Lithuania was to be a Soviet sphere of influence, not a German one; but the dividing line in Poland was changed in Germany’s favour, being moved eastward to the Bug River.
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German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
- In German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
  The Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were annexed by the Soviet Union and were organized as Soviet republics in August 1940. The Nonaggression Pact became a dead letter on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany, after having invaded much of western and central Europe, attacked the Soviet Union…
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Soviet occupation
- In 20th-century international relations: Poland and the northern war
  …for a free hand in Lithuania. Only after this second German-Soviet pact did Communist parties in the West fully embrace their new Nazi ally and oppose Western military resistance to Hitler. Henceforth, Stalin was a fearful and solicitous neighbour of the Nazi empire, and he moved quickly to absorb the…
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Stalin’s annexations
- In 20th-century international relations: The Eastern front
  …Estonia, Latvia (July 12), and Lithuania (August 3) to the U.S.S.R. Hungary and Bulgaria now demanded Romanian territories for themselves, but Hitler intervened to prevent hostilities, lest Stalin see the chance to occupy the Romanian oil fields around Ploieşti. The Treaty of Craiova (August 21) awarded the Southern Dobruja to…
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- In 20th-century international relations: Soviet advances in the east
  Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, however, were reannexed.
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