Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially known as the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika), is a Northern European country to the east of the Baltic Sea. It is the southernmost of the three "Baltic States", which comprises itself, Estonia, and Latvia.
Lithuanians, much like the Latvians, are descended from the Balts, an incredibly ancient group of tribes who gave their name to the Baltic Sea. Lithuanians as a people first emerged from the fog of history in the early 1000s, in the records of German abbeys. Shortly after, crusaders started to attack the pagan Lithuanians, conquering related Baltic peoples like the Latvians and the Prussians (how this word went from meaning "Baltic tribe" to "For hyu, Tommy, ze var is ofer!" is a story too complex to recount here.If you're interested)
In 1253, the Lithuanians beat off the crusaders morally (by becoming Christian, although, the overall Christianization of Lithuanians happened only in the late 14th century) and physically (with swords). In the 14th century, it was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the largest country in Europe at that time. It stretched deep into the lands of the Slavic Ruthenians, today's Belarus, and was Catholic, where they were Orthodox (fun fact: before the Russians absorbed their lands, the Belarusians were known as "Litvin", meaning "Lithuanian" in the Ruthenian language). This caused what might charitably be called a spot of bother with Orthodox Muscovy (now Russia). Much bloodshed ensued, until a Lithuanian guy found himself King of Poland. Eventually, the two nations would unite in a vast Commonwealth.
This mixed up the idea of nationality to no end, causing many problems in the future. "Poland" became a grand idea of liberty that you could be part of whether you were Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Latvian, or German... but not if you were a serf. Anybody who was anybody in Belarus converted to Catholicism and assimilated into Polish culture and language. It was entirely normal for a Belarusian from Lithuania to call themselves Polish (such a man, Tadeusz Kościuszko, was only able to resolve this confusion by leaving all three of his native countries to become an American hero instead, though he later returned to defend all three countries from Russian aggression).
Lithuania fell victim to the same plague as its partner, Poland: every noble wanted to run the country, which caused quite enough trouble until some of the nobles were bought and became convinced that Germans, Russians, and Swedes should run the country (mainly to keep the monarchy weak; it backfired badly). In 1795, the Polish-Lithuanian state was dissolved. All of Lithuania as it was then (the vast majority of it as it is now, the Klaipėda/Memelgebiet still being part of Germany at the time) went to Russia. This wasn't so fun, especially for the Jews.
The end of World War I saw Lithuania become independent, first as a German puppet-kingdom (which was better than nothing), then as a republic, but there were problems. One was that Lithuania's only seaport was a largely German-speaking city (Memel/Klaipėda) that had been part of Imperial Germany until Lithuania basically invaded it. The Germans, though then powerless, were not pleased. The bigger one was that Vilnius was the ancient capital of Lithuania, and had always been. It was Lithuania's greatest city and always would be. Any Lithuanian could tell you these facts, and the fact that everybody in the city who wasn't Polish was Jewish deterred them not in the slightest. The Polish army, however, did, and took it over after a False Flag Operation. Henceforth, the Lithuanian capital city for most of the interwar period was in Kaunas. And finally, Lithuania was taken over by a nasty dictator named Antanas Smetona, who ruled with an iron fist between 1926 and 1940.
In 1939, the Nazis and the Communists were looking down their shopping lists to see if there was anything they had missed above the big underlined "Poland". There was: for Germany, Memel, for the USSR, the rest of Lithuania. Germany used military force to force a handover of the port. Shortly afterwards, World War II began and the Lithuanians decided that it was time to join the jump on Poland and steal their land reclaim their ancient territory bandwagon.
And a fat lot of good that did. Days later, the Soviet Union invaded in accordance with the pact they'd made with the Nazis, then the Nazis invaded in 1941, having broken said pact. Some Lithuanians joined the SS - it has to be remembered that ethnic Lithuanian are Balts, not Slavs. Even the Slavs initially thought that the Slavic Untermensch had just been a rabble-rousing thing and that the Nazis were the Lesser of Two Evils. But most of the population struggled against both invaders with vigour. Fifteen percent of Lithuanians were killed by the war, including ninety-one percent of the pre-war Jewish population. Lithuania has the sixth highest number of Righteous Among Nations (gentiles who helped Jews survive during The Holocaust).
The Soviets returned in 1944, forcibly annexing the country all over again. Eight years of rebellion against Communist tyranny followed, earning many a one way trip to The Gulag in Siberia. The Soviets did give Vilnius to the Lithuanians as part of the westward shift of Poland. It was only a small relief, since Lithuania itself was now firmly locked within the Soviet Union.
Lithuania unwillingly became the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Rebellions lasted until after Josef Stalin kicked the bucket, quelled for a little bit before The '80s came around and they interpreted glasnost as a good excuse to pick up the cause against the Russians along with the other Baltic countries. In 1990, Lithuania declared independence, one of the earliest territories of the Soviet Union to do so (but not the first; that would to go to Nakhchivan). Moscow attempted to put this down with troops, resulting in the deaths of 13 people in January 1991, called the January Events. It only accelerated the end of the USSR.
Lithuania is now a member of NATO and The European Union, having become a prosperous democracy religiously themed oligarchy under democracy's name and put all the horrors and enmities of the past behind. Well, except the one with Russia, but it is moderate compared to the quarrels between Russia and the other Baltic countries, Latvia and Estonia. Lithuania recently came to the European Union's attention again with its laws banning information about sex and sexual minorities.
Lithuanian (and Latvian, to a lesser extent) is often claimed to be the most conservative language among the Indo-European family. It preserves many features of Proto-Indo-European that have been lost in other languages, and Lithuanian texts give off strong vibes of Sanskrit and Latin, some of the oldest Indo-European languages. Which is rather funny, since Lithuanian is attested very late historically. The first Lithuanian texts were dated to no earlier than the 16th century, before which "Lithuanian" texts are always either in Latin or Polish. According to French linguist Antoine Meillet, the best way to know how the Proto-Indo-Europeans spoke is to sit down with a Lithuanian peasant and simply hear them talk. This was an exaggeration of course, as no single language can survive the passage of evolution, but it still speaks to the extent of how the language retained its conservacy.
Despite its small size, Lithuania is regarded as one of the strongest basketball powers, to the point it's described as the country's second religion. While a part of the Soviet Union, the 1988 Olympic Games gold came from four Lithuanian players - all but one returned four years later to win a bronze for independent Lithuania (adequately, against the Unified Team, which comprised ex-members of the Soviet Union that decided to compete together), and two, Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis, won another bronze in '96, played in the NBA, and are now in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Even after their retirement, Lithuania won a third bronze in 2000, the 2003 Eurobasket, and a bronze in the 2010 world championship.
See here for a page on Lithuanian Media.
For further information, here's the country's web site
and the page on That Other Wiki.
Lithuania in fiction
- Chernobyl was filmed at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, the architecture and RBMK reactor of which being similar to those of Chernobyl. Many of the Lithuanian crewmembers were old enough to remember life in the Soviet era and helped make sure that they got the little details right.
- The most famous fictional Lithuanian likes A Glass of Chianti. Yep, Hannibal Lecter is half-Lithuanian. The early part of Hannibal Rising as well as parts of the third season of Hannibal tv series are set in his native country.
- Captain Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October is part Lithuanian, and this fact is cited by Jack Ryan as one piece of evidence that he plans to defect to the West.
- Lithuania himself from Hetalia: Axis Powers. Was a heterosexual life partner with Poland.
- Jason Bourne commits an assassination at Vilnius University in the 2008 video game The Bourne Conspiracy.
- In the storyline of the 2001 video game Ghost Recon, Russia is taken over by belligerent ultra-nationalists hell-bent on recreating the Soviet Union. It then invades Lithuania (along with Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan). You play as the U.S. Army Special Forces and fight against the Russian invaders, with several missions taking place in Lithuania, specifically in Venta and the capital of Vilnius. The locations are rendered accurately, with real life buildings such as the Lithuanian Presidential Palace being rendered in faithful detail. The developers even added little touches, such as the flagpoles in Lithuania having been replaced with the Lithuanian SSR flags by the invading Russians, the Lithuanian flag crumpled up on the ground nearby.
- Former WWE Diva Aksana is legitimately Lithuanian.
- Former Soviet soldier and infamous firearms instructor Saulius "Sonny" Puzikas, best known in pop culture from his guest appearance on Deadliest Warrior, is Lithuanian. The number of times he has mistakenly been called "Russian" is hilarious.
The Lithuanian flag
The Lithuanian national anthem
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Government
- Unitary semi-presidential republic
- President: Gitanas Nausėda
- Prime Minister: Ingrida Šimonytė
- Seimas Speaker: Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen
Miscellaneous
- Capital and largest city: Vilnius
- Population: 2,793,694
- Area: 65,300 km
- Currency: Euro (€) (EUR)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: LT
- Country calling code: 370
- Highest point: Aukštojas Hill (294 m/964 ft) (187th)
- Lowest point: Nemunas Delta (−5 m/−16 ft) (28th)
