Lithuanian Independence Day

Lithuanian Independence Day

On February 16, 1918, the Lithuanian National Council, composed of 20 prominent leaders of varying political views, proclaimed the restoration of the Independent Democratic Republic of Lithuania.

The concept of independence was hardly new, for Lithuania had been an independent state for more than five centuries (1251–1795). Lithuania is a small country on the Baltic Sea, with a population today of some 4 million. Its capital is Vilnius. In the 14th through 16th centuries, Lithuanian nobles intermarried with Polish nobles to create a combined Lithuanian-Polish empire that reached through modern-day Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. However, the rise of Prussia and the expansion of the Russian and Austrian empires in the 16th and 17th centuries pushed Lithuania into decline. The problem was accentuated by the resistance of Lithuanian and Polish nobles to any kind of effective central authority. Prussia, Austria, and Russia ate away at Poland-Lithuania throughout the 18th century, until by 1795 modern Lithuania had been totally absorbed into Russia.

Formal recognition was extended to the Republic of Lithuania by the major western powers between 1918 and 1922. The Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Lithuania was elected in April 1920 and the constitution of the new republic was promulgated on August 1, 1922. Lithuanian independence was short-lived, however, as the new nation was caught between two territorially ambitious and much larger neighbors: Germany to the west and the Soviet Union to the east. On June 15, 1940, shortly after the onset of World War II, the Soviets occupied Lithuania, and on August 3, 1940, the Independent Democratic Republic of Lithuania was formally incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Except for a period of occupation (1941–44) by Nazi Germany during World War II, Lithuania stayed under Soviet control until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. It officially gained independence from the Soviet Union on September 6, 1991, and its new consitution was approved in October 1992.