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Lithuania: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
[[File:lithuania-map_9028.gif|frame]]
''Lietuvos Respublika'', the Republic of Lithuania, is a country to the east of the Baltic Sea. It is the southernmost of the three "Baltic Republics": itself, closely related Latvia, and Estonia.
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In 1253, the Lithuanians beat off the crusaders morally (by becoming Christian, although, overall Christianization of Lithuanians happened only in 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 (but please don't tell the Belarusians, who insist the Grand Duchy was the precursor to their country, not Lithuania). It stretched deep into the lands of the Rus Slavs, and was Catholic, where they were Orthodox. 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 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 went Polish. 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).
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 and Russians should run the country. 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 Klaipeida/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 One]] 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 German-speaking city (Memel/Klaipeida) that had been part of the German Empire 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 the biggest of all was that the country was taken over by a nasty fascist dictator named Smetona.
In 1939, the Nazis and the Commies were looking down their shopping list 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 2 began and the Lithuanians decided that it was time to join the jump on Poland and <s>steal their land</s> reclaim our ancient territory bandwagon.
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'''Lithuania in fiction'''
The most famous fictional Lithuanian likes [[A Glass of Chianti]]. Yep, Hannibal Lecter is half-Lithuanian. The early part of ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'' is set in Lithuania.
Captain Marko Ramius in ''Hunt for the Red October'' is part Lithuanian, and this fact is cited by Jack Ryan as one piece of evidence that he plans to defect.
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[[Category:Useful Notes/Europe]]
[[Category:Lithuania]]
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