home » europe » Lithuania » history

a short history of Lithuania

Brief History of Lithuania

Lithuania was first mentioned in a German Medieval manuscript from 1009. The lands in the Lithuanian territory were first united by the Mindaugas two centuries later, in 1236. In July of 1253, the King of Lithuania, Mindaugas, was coronated. In the early years from 1316 - 1430, Lithuania covered the current territories of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as parts of Poland and Russia. Actually, the Kingdom of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe when the 15th Century started. The people accepted Christianity in 1386, and it was the same year that the Grand Duke of Lithuania was crowned King of Poland. Several years after that, At the beginning of the following century, in 1401, the union was dissolved and Vytautas became the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Because of the good contacts between Lithuania and Poland, the armies of the two countries won a great victory over the Teutonic Knights, in the largest Medieval Battle of Grunwald in 1410. Vytautas was bestowed the royal crown by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in 1429, but the Polish magnates prevented the coronation when they seized the crown. A new crown was ordered, but a month later Vytautas died before being coronated.

The power of the Grand Principality of Moscow was growing seriously in 1569, and because of that Lithuania and Poland formally united into a new state called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This new state lasted until 1795, after which it was dissolved by the third Commonwealth Partition, which forfeited its lands to Austria, Prussia and Russia. It was then that more than 90% of Lithuania was given to the Russian Empire, and the rest of it to Prussia. After being occupied for a century, Lithuania got its independence in the beginning of 1918. The country had many disputes concerning territories with Germany and Poland. For its capital, the city of Vilnius was chosen. The capital was later relocated in 1920 to the city of Kaunas.

When the Second World War began, the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania and annexed it. A year later, the country came under German occupation, and when the German armed forces later retreated in 1944, Lithuania was occupied again by the Soviet Union. In the years of Soviet and Nazi occupation, Lithuania lost approximately 800,000 residents, one-fourth consisting of Jews. From 1944 until 1952, approximately 100,000 Lithuanians took part in partisan fights against the Red Army and the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation didn't end until forty-six years later, thanks to perestroika and glasnost events in the late 1980s.

Lithuania proclaimed its independence in March 1990, and was actually the first Soviet Republic to take this action, which resulted in the Red Army unsuccessfully attacking the Vilnius TV Tower. Red Army troops left the country in the summer of 1993. Lithuania entered the United Nations in 1991 and the World Trade Organization in 2001. In the beginning of 1994, Lithuania became the first Baltic country to apply for membership in NATO, which it received ten years later. The European Union recognized Lithuania as a member in May of 2004.