|
Soviet Union [USSR] Lithuanians
The ancestors of modern Lithuanians first settled in the
present-day Belorussian Republic around 2000 B.C. Beginning in the
fourth century A.D., Lithuanian tribes were steadily pushed
northwest by Slavic tribes until they occupied the territory of the
present-day Lithuanian Republic. United into a loose monarchy by
King Mindaugas at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
Lithuanians began to expand south and east. By the mid-fourteenth
century, Lithuania had become one of the largest kingdoms in
medieval Europe. With Vilnius as its capital, Lithuania encompassed
much of what had been Kievan Rus', including the present-day
Belorussian and Ukrainian republics.
The marriage of the Lithuanian king to the Polish queen in 1385
began a period of dynastic union that culminated in the creation of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. The union with Poland
had a profound influence on Lithuanians. For example, Polonized
Western culture was superimposed on native Lithuanian culture,
Catholicism was established as the national religion, and
Lithuanian nobility was almost completely Polonized.
By the end of the eighteenth century, most of Lithuania, along
with parts of Poland, was incorporated into the Russian Empire. The
remaining part of Lithuania, known as Lithuania Minor, became part
of Prussia. After the Lithuanian national revival of the nineteenth
century emerged in Lithuania Minor, it spread to the rest of
Lithuania. When the Poles rose in an anti-tsarist, anti-Russian
revolt in 1830, Lithuanians joined them. They did so again in 1863.
And during the Revolution of 1905 in Russia, the Assembly of
Vilnius raised the question of Lithuanian autonomy. By the time of
the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War that followed,
Lithuanians strove for nothing less than national independence. To
reach that goal, they had to fight not only the Red Army but also
the Germans and the Poles.
The independent Lithuanian state that emerged after the
struggle was a democratic republic. It lasted until 1926, when it
was toppled by rightist forces, which then established a form of
benevolent dictatorship. That government lasted until 1940, when
Lithuania was absorbed by the Soviet Union following the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939. Thousands of Lithuanians were
deported eastward by the Soviet government, the country's economy
was nationalized, the peasantry was collectivized, and Catholic
believers and Lithuanian intellectuals were persecuted. Not
surprisingly, Lithuanians, like other nationalities in the western
regions of the Soviet Union, greeted the attacking German army in
1941 as liberators. When the Germans refused to recognize their
independence, however, Lithuanian nationalists engaged in
underground resistance and partisan activity against them. After
the Red Army's recapture of Lithuania in 1944, nationalists turned
against the Russians. Guerrilla warfare against Soviet occupation
did not end until the late 1940s.
In 1989 an overwhelming majority of the approximately 3 million
Lithuanians resided in the Lithuanian Republic, the largest of the
three Baltic republics. Small communities of Lithuanians were also
in other republics. Although Lithuanians have resisted emigration,
they have not been able to prevent immigration of Russians and
other nationalities into the Lithuanian Republic. Lithuanians
constituted about 80 percent of the residents of the republic in
1989, while Russians and Poles made up most of the remainder.
Lithuanians speak an Indo-European language that is distinct
from both the Germanic and the Slavic languages. In 1989 the vast
majority of Lithuanians considered Lithuanian their first language.
In 1987 about half of all Lithuanians were urban residents. But
because a large number of Russians in the Lithuanian Republic lived
in the cities, about 67 percent of the population of the republic
was urban. The largest city in Lithuania was Vilnius, the capital
of the republic, with a population of about 582,000 in 1989. Four
other cities had populations of over 100,000. Relative to their
share of the Soviet population, Lithuanians ranked high in terms of
education and technological advancement. Although Lithuanians were
the twelfth most populous nationality in the Soviet Union, they
ranked seventh in the 1970s in both the number of students in
higher education institutions and the number of scientific workers.
Lithuanian membership in the CPSU was not in equal ratio to
Lithuanians' share of the population. Also, Lithuanian
representation on the CPSU Central Committee has been less than
their share of the population. Native Lithuanians, however, have in
the past held the most important positions in the party in the
Lithuanian Republic.
Data as of May 1989
|
