Lithuania

• 1. Introduction

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  Lithuania once stretched across more land than any other country in Europe. In the first half of the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania reached roughly 650,000 square kilometres, swallowing the territories of East Slavs from Minsk to Kyiv. Today the Republic of Lithuania covers just 65,300 square kilometres and holds 2.9 million people on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Its capital is Vilnius. Its name first surfaces in a record from 1009, in a story about Saint Bruno preserved in the Annals of Quedlinburg, where it appears in the Latinized form Litua. Scholars still argue about what the word means. Some trace it to Lietava, a very small stream near Kernavė. How does a tiny stream lend its name to a nation that grew so vast, then nearly vanished from the map, then clawed its way back to be the first Soviet republic to break away? And how did a remote land of pagan hillforts and cremation rites become a country known for lasers, gene-editing science, and one of the highest fiber-optic penetration rates in Europe? The answers run through warrior castes, partitioned empires, a 74-day blockade, and a femtosecond beam of light.

• 2. The Largest Country In Europe

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  Mindaugas united a large part of the Baltic tribes in the middle of the 13th century, and in 1253 he was crowned the Catholic King of Lithuania. The kingdom was built on Lithuania proper, where the Lithuanian tribe lived and spoke the Lithuanian language. Exploiting the weakened lands of the former Kievan Rus after the Mongol invasion, Mindaugas absorbed Black Ruthenia. After his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania again became a target for the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order. Traidenis reigned from 1269 to 1282 and reunified the Lithuanian lands, winning military successes against the crusaders from his main residence at Kernavė. From the late 13th century the Gediminids dynasty took the throne. Grand Duke Gediminas built a hereditary monarchy and named Vilnius as the capital in his letters. The duchy was Christianized and pulled in East Slavic territories, including the principalities of Polotsk, Vitebsk, and Smolensk, swelling to about 650,000 square kilometres. By the 15th century, patrilineal members of the Gediminids ruled not only Lithuania and Poland but Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, and Moldavia.

• 3. Union, Polonization, And Deluge

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  In 1385, the Union of Krewo bound Lithuania to Poland in a dynastic union. Under pressure from Sigismund II Augustus, a supporter of close ties, the Lithuanian nobility agreed to the Union of Lublin in 1569, creating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a joint monarch while Lithuania remained a separate state. The real union sharply intensified the Polonization of Lithuania and its nobility. In 1588, Sigismund III Vasa personally confirmed the Third Statute of Lithuania, which declared that Lithuania and Poland held equal rights within the Commonwealth and ensured the separation of powers. The mid-17th century brought disaster. During the Deluge, most of Lithuania's territory was annexed by the Tsardom of Russia, and Vilnius was captured and ravaged by a foreign army for the first time. In 1655, Lithuania unilaterally seceded from Poland and declared the Swedish King Charles X Gustav its Grand Duke, falling under the protection of the Swedish Empire. By 1657, after a Lithuanian revolt against the Swedes, it was again part of the Commonwealth. Vilnius was recaptured from the Russians in 1661. The Commonwealth itself was partitioned three times in the second half of the 18th century, vanishing entirely from the political map in 1795 after the failed Kościuszko Uprising. Most of Lithuania's territory was annexed by the Russian Empire, an arrangement that would shape the next century of resistance.

• 4. The Press Ban And The Book Smugglers

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  Russification followed the annexation, and Lithuania was folded into a new administrative region, the Northwestern Krai. In 1812, during the French invasion of Russia, Napoleon set up the puppet Lithuanian Provisional Governing Commission, but Russian rule returned after his defeat. The November Uprising of 1830 to 1831 ended in Russian victory and stricter measures. The Russian language entered all government institutions, Vilnius University was closed in 1832, and authorities pushed the theory that Lithuania had always been a Western Russian state. The January Uprising of 1863 to 1864 brought the harshest response of all: the Lithuanian press ban, pressure on the Catholic Church, and the repressions of Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky. Lithuanians answered with an extensive network of book smugglers, secret publishing, and homeschooling. The Lithuanian National Revival, drawing on history, language, and culture, laid the groundwork for an independent state. In 1905, the Great Seimas of Vilnius gathered and adopted resolutions demanding wide autonomy, a demand that would grow louder as the next world war approached.

• 5. Independence, Occupation, And The Partisans

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  On the 16th of February 1918, the Council of Lithuania adopted the Act of Independence of Lithuania, restoring the country as a democratic republic with its capital in Vilnius and no political ties to other nations. The new state then had to defend itself in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence from 1918 to 1920 against Bolsheviks, Bermontians, and Poles. During Żeligowski's Mutiny in 1920, Polish forces seized the Vilnius Region and set up the puppet Republic of Central Lithuania, incorporated into Poland in 1922. Kaunas became the temporary capital, holding the country's institutions until 1940. The Klaipėda Revolt of 1923 united the Klaipėda Region with Lithuania. The 1926 coup replaced the elected government with an authoritarian regime led by Antanas Smetona. War shattered everything. The 1939 Soviet-Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty placed Soviet troops in the country, and in 1940 acceptance of a Soviet ultimatum brought occupation and transformation into the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. The June Uprising of 1941 briefly expelled the Red Army before Nazi Germany occupied the land within days. The Soviets returned in 1944, and Lithuanian partisans fought on until their resistance was suppressed in 1953. Jonas Žemaitis, chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters, was captured and executed in 1954. His successor, Adolfas Ramanauskas, was tortured and executed in 1957.

• 6. The First To Break Away

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  On the 11th of March 1990, the Supreme Council announced the restoration of Lithuania's independence, making it the first Soviet-occupied state to do so. Moscow answered on the 20th of April 1990 with an economic blockade, cutting off raw materials. Industry and people felt the loss of fuel, essential goods, and even hot water. The blockade lasted 74 days, and Lithuania did not renounce its declaration. Tensions peaked again in January 1991. An attempted coup using the Soviet Armed Forces, the Internal Army, and the KGB met crowds who flocked to Vilnius to defend the Supreme Council. The Soviet Army killed 14 people and injured hundreds during the January Events. On the 31st of July 1991, Soviet paramilitaries killed 7 Lithuanian border guards in the Medininkai Massacre. Recognition and rebuilding came quickly. Lithuania was admitted to the United Nations on the 17th of September 1991, and the last units of the Russian Army left on the 31st of August 1993. The country joined NATO in March 2004, the European Union on the 1st of May 2004, the Schengen Agreement in December 2007, and the eurozone on the 1st of January 2015. The Baltic Way, held in 1989, had foreshadowed this break, and the path forward would lead to a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2013.

• 7. Land Of Three Thousand Lakes

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  Aukštojas Hill rises to 294 metres in the eastern part of the country, the highest point in a landscape smoothed by the glaciers of the last ice age. Lithuania sits at the edge of the North European Plain, a mix of moderate lowlands and highlands. Mixed forest covers more than 33 percent of the territory. The land holds more than 3,000 lakes, mostly in the northeast, with Drūkšiai the largest, Tauragnas the deepest, and Asveja the longest. There are 29,000 rivers running a total of 64,000 kilometres, and the basin of the Nemunas, the longest river, occupies 74 percent of the country. Wildlife has rebounded as hunting grew restricted and forests tripled from their lows. Lithuania holds roughly 250,000 larger wild animals, about 5 per square kilometre. The roe deer leads at 120,000, followed by 55,000 boars and around 7,000 moose. Foxes are the most common predator at about 27,000, while wolves, far more prominent in mythology, number just 800, and lynxes only about 200. In 1989, the scientist Jean-George Affholder of the French National Geographic Institute calculated the centre of gravity of Europe's geometrical figure and placed the geographic centre of the continent 26 kilometres north of Vilnius.

• 8. Lasers, Gene Editing, And Light

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  Šviesos konversija, or Light Conversion, built a femtosecond laser system that holds an 80 percent market share worldwide, with uses in DNA research, ophthalmological surgery, and nanotechnology. The Vilnius University Laser Research Center developed one of the most powerful femtosecond lasers in the world, aimed primarily at oncological disease. In 1963, Vytautas Straižys and his colleagues created the Vilnius photometric system used in astronomy. Kęstutis Pyragas advanced chaos theory with his method of delayed feedback control, the Pyragas method. Kavli Prize laureate Virginijus Šikšnys is known for his discoveries in CRISPR, specifically CRISPR-Cas9. Lithuania has launched three satellites: LitSat-1, Lituanica SAT-1, and LituanicaSAT-2. In 2018 it became an Associated Member State of CERN, with incubators planned in Vilnius and Kaunas. The high-tech edge extends to money and connectivity. In 2017-35 financial technology companies came to Lithuania after the government and the Bank of Lithuania simplified procedures, and Google set up a payment company there in 2018. Europe's first international blockchain centre launched in Vilnius that same year. The country also holds the highest fiber-to-the-home penetration rate in Europe, recorded at 36.8 percent in September 2016, a sign of how far the land of hillforts and pagan altars has traveled.