User:Artemis Andromeda/sandbox/Republic of Lithuania (1918–1940)

Republic of Lithuania Lietuvos Respublika
1918–1940
Flag Coat of arms (1920–1940)
Anthem: "Tautiška giesmė" (English: "The National Hymn")
Location of Lithuania within Europe between 1929 and 1938.
Capital	Vilnius (de facto: 1918–1919, 1920; de jure: 1918–1940) Kaunas (de facto: 1918–1920, 1920–1940)
Official languages	Lithuanian
Regional languages	German (Klaipėda Region)
Religion (c. 1935)	Catholic Church (80.5%) Evangelicalism (9.5%) Judaism (7.3%) Others (4.4%)
Demonym(s)	Lithuanian
Government	Parliamentary republic (1918–1926) One-party dictatorship (1926–1940)
President
• 1919–1920 (first)	Antanas Smetona
• 1926 (last recognised internationally)	Antanas Smetona
• 1940 (last unrecognised internationally)	Justas Paleckis
Legislature	Seimas
Establishment
Historical era	Interwar period, World War II
• Declaration of independence	16 February 1918
• Suspension of monarchy and formation of the republic	2 November 1918
• German surrender	9 November 1918
• Żeligowski's Mutiny	8 October 1920
• 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état	17 December 1926
• Soviet occupation	16 June 1940
• Establishment of the Lithuanian SSR	21 July 1940
Area
1921	52,822 km2 (20,395 sq mi)
1923	55,670 km2 (21,490 sq mi)
1939	59,702 km2 (23,051 sq mi)
Population
• 1923	2 028 960
• 1937	2 526 535
Currency	German ostmark (1918–1922) Lithuanian litas (1922–1940)
Preceded by Succeeded by Kingdom of Lithuania Klaipėda Region Lithuanian SSR Central Lithuania

Republic of Lithuania was a country in the Baltic region that existed during the interwar period, from 1918 to 1940. It was formed on 2 November 1918, following the reformation of the Kingdom of Lithuania into the republic at the end of the World War I. The country ceased to exist on 21 July 1940, when it was replaced by the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was then incorporated into the Soviet Union on 3 August 1940. Until 1926, it was a parliamentary republic. Following the coup d'état, that took place on 17 December 1926, the country became the one-party dictatorship, under the rule of the Lithuanian Nationalist Union, with Antanas Smetona as its leader. Officially, the city of Vilnius, was claimed to be the capital of the state, however, as, for the most of the country's existence, the city remained under control of other states, the actual provisional capital existed in Kaunas. Vilnius functioned as the proper capital of Lithuania only from 1918 to 1919 and in 1920.

History

Main articles: History of Lithuania, Lithuanian Wars of Independence, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–19), Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Diplomatic history of World War I § Three Baltic states

Declaration of independence

Presidium and secretariat of the Vilnius Conference

The German occupation government permitted a Vilnius Conference to convene between 18 September and 22 September 1917, with the demand that Lithuanians declare loyalty to Germany and agree to annexation. The intent of the conferees was to begin the process of establishing a Lithuanian state based on ethnic identity and language that would be independent of the Russian Empire, Poland, and the German Empire. The mechanism for this process was to be decided by a constituent assembly, but the German government would not permit elections. Furthermore, the publication of the conference's resolution calling for the creation of a Lithuanian state and elections for a constituent assembly was not allowed. The Conference nonetheless elected a 20-member Council of Lithuania (Taryba) and empowered it to act as the executive authority of the Lithuanian people. The Council, led by Jonas Basanavičius, declared Lithuanian independence as a German protectorate on 11 December 1917, and then adopted the outright Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918. It proclaimed Lithuania as an independent republic, organized according to democratic principles. The Germans, weakened by the losses on the Western Front, but still present in the country, did not support such a declaration and hindered attempts to establish actual independence. To prevent being incorporated into the German Empire, Lithuanians elected Monaco-born King Mindaugas II as the titular monarch of the Kingdom of Lithuania in July 1918. Mindaugas II never assumed the throne, however.

The original twenty members of the Council of Lithuania

In the meantime, an attempt to revive the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a socialist multi-national federal republic was also taking place under the German occupation. In March 1918, Anton Lutskevich and his Belarusian National Council proclaimed a Belarusian People's Republic that was to stretch from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and include Vilnius. Lutskevich and the Council fled the Red Army approaching from Russia and left Minsk before it was taken over by the Bolsheviks in December 1918. Upon their arrival in Vilnius, they proposed a Belarusian-Lithuanian federation, which however generated no interest on the part of the Lithuanian leaders, who were in advanced stages of promoting national plans of their own. The Lithuanians were interested only in a state "within ethnographic frontiers," as they perceived it.

In spite of its success in knocking Russia out of World War I by the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk early in 1918, Germany lost the war and signed the Armistice of Compiègne on 11 November 1918. Lithuanians quickly formed their first government, adopted a provisional constitution, and started organizing basic administrative structures. The prime minister of the new government was Augustinas Voldemaras. As the German army was withdrawing from the Eastern Front of World War I, it was followed by Soviet forces whose intention was to spread the global proletarian revolution. They created a number of puppet states, including the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic on 16 December 1918. By the end of December, the Red Army reached Lithuanian borders and started the Lithuanian–Soviet War.

Augustinas Voldemaras, Lithuania's first prime minister

On 1 January 1919, the German occupying army withdrew from Vilnius and turned the city over to local Polish self-defense forces. The Lithuanian government evacuated Vilnius and moved west to Kaunas, which became the temporary capital of Lithuania. Vilnius was captured by the Soviet Red Army on 5 January 1919. As the Lithuanian army was in its infant stages, the Soviet forces moved largely unopposed and by mid-January 1919 controlled about ⅔ of the Lithuanian territory. Vilnius was now the capital of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic, and soon of the combined Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

From April 1919, the Lithuanian–Soviet War dragged on parallel with the Polish–Soviet War. Polish troops captured Vilnius from the Soviets on 21 April 1919. Poland had territorial claims over Lithuania, especially the Vilnius Region, and these tensions spilled over into the Polish–Lithuanian War. Józef Piłsudski of Poland,^[b] seeking a Polish-Lithuanian federation, but unable to find common ground with Lithuanian politicians, in August 1919 made an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Lithuanian government in Kaunas.

In mid-May 1919, the Lithuanian army commanded by General Silvestras Žukauskas began an offensive against the Soviets in northeastern Lithuania. By the end of August 1919, the Soviets were pushed out of Lithuanian territory. The Lithuanian army was then deployed against the paramilitary West Russian Volunteer Army, who invaded northern Lithuania. They were armed by Germany and supported German and Russian soldiers who sought to retain German control over the former Ober Ost. West Russian Volunteers were defeated and pushed out by the end of 1919. Thus the first phase of the Lithuanian Wars of Independence was over and Lithuanians could direct attention to internal affairs.

Democratic period

Demarcation lines between Poland and Lithuania 1919–1939

The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania was elected in April 1920 and first met the following May. In June it adopted the third provisional constitution and on 12 July 1920, signed the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty. In the treaty the Soviet Union recognized fully independent Lithuania and its claims to the disputed Vilnius Region; Lithuania secretly allowed the Soviet forces passage through its territory as they moved against Poland. On 14 July 1920, the advancing Soviet army captured Vilnius for a second time from Polish forces. The city was handed back to Lithuanians on 26 August 1920, following the defeat of the Soviet offensive. The victorious Polish army returned and the Soviet–Lithuanian Treaty increased hostilities between Poland and Lithuania. To prevent further fighting, the Suwałki Agreement was signed with Poland on 7 October 1920; it left Vilnius on the Lithuanian side of the armistice line. It never went into effect, however, because Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski, acting on Józef Piłsudski's orders, staged the Żeligowski's Mutiny, a military action presented as a mutiny. He invaded Lithuania on 8 October 1920, captured Vilnius the following day, and established a short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania in eastern Lithuania on 12 October 1920. The "Republic" was a part of Piłsudski's federalist scheme, which never materialized due to opposition from both Polish and Lithuanian nationalists.

Lithuanian–Polish territorial disputes in the early 1920s: the "Republic of Middle Lithuania" (green)

For 19 years, Kaunas was the temporary capital of Lithuania while the Vilnius region remained under Polish administration. The League of Nations attempted to mediate the dispute, and Paul Hymans proposed plans for a Polish–Lithuanian union, but negotiations broke down as neither side could agree to a compromise. Central Lithuania held a general election in 1922 that was boycotted by the Jews, Lithuanians and Belarusians, then was annexed into Poland on 24 March 1922. The Conference of Ambassadors awarded Vilnius to Poland in March 1923. Lithuania did not accept this decision and broke all relations with Poland. The two countries were officially at war over Vilnius, the historical capital of Lithuania, inhabited at that time largely by Polish-speaking and Jewish populations between 1920 and 1938. The dispute continued to dominate Lithuanian domestic politics and foreign policy and doomed the relations with Poland for the entire interwar period.

Counties of Lithuania 1920–1939

For administrative purposes, the de facto territory of the country was divided into 23 counties (lt:apskritis). A further 11 counties (including Vilnius) were allocated for the territory occupied by Poland (see also Administrative divisions of Lithuania).

Lithuanian rebels during the Klaipėda Revolt

The Constituent Assembly, which adjourned in October 1920 due to threats from Poland, gathered again and initiated many reforms needed in the new state. Lithuania obtained international recognition and membership in the League of Nations,^[f] passed a law for land reform, introduced a national currency (the litas), and adopted a final constitution in August 1922. Lithuania became a democratic state, with Seimas (parliament) elected by men and women for a three-year term. The Seimas elected the president. The First Seimas of Lithuania was elected in October 1922, but could not form a government as the votes split equally 38–38, and it was forced to dissolve. Its only lasting achievement was the Klaipėda Revolt from 10 January to 15 January 1923. The revolt involved Lithuania Minor, a region traditionally sought by Lithuanian nationalists that remained under German rule after World War I, except for the Klaipėda Region with its large Lithuanian minority. (Various sources give the region's interwar ethnic composition as 41.9 percent German, 27.1 percent Memelländisch, and 26.6 percent Lithuanian.)

Lithuania took advantage of the Ruhr Crisis in western Europe and captured the Klaipėda Region, a territory detached from East Prussia by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and placed under a French administration sponsored by the League of Nations. The region was incorporated as an autonomous district of Lithuania in May 1924. For Lithuania, it provided the country's only access to the Baltic Sea, and it was an important industrial center, but the region's numerous German inhabitants resisted Lithuanian rule during the 1930s. The Klaipėda Revolt was the last armed conflict in Lithuania before World War II.

The Second Seimas of Lithuania, elected in May 1923, was the only Seimas in independent Lithuania that served its full term. The Seimas continued the land reform, introduced social support systems, and started repaying foreign debt. The first Lithuanian national census took place in 1923.

Authoritarian period

Antanas Smetona, the first and last president of independent Lithuania during the interbellum years. The 1918–1939 period is often known as "Smetona's time".

The Third Seimas of Lithuania was elected in May 1926. For the first time, the bloc led by the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party lost their majority and went into opposition. It was sharply criticized for signing the Soviet–Lithuanian Non-Aggression Pact (even though it affirmed Soviet recognition of Lithuanian claims to Poland-held Vilnius) and was accused of "Bolshevizing" Lithuania. As a result of growing tensions, the government was deposed during the 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état in December. The coup, organized by the military, was supported by the Lithuanian Nationalists Union (tautininkai) and Lithuanian Christian Democrats. They installed Antanas Smetona as the president and Augustinas Voldemaras as the prime minister. Smetona suppressed the opposition and remained as an authoritarian leader until June 1940.

The Seimas thought that the coup was just a temporary measure and that new elections would be called to return Lithuania to democracy. Instead, the legislative body was dissolved in May 1927. Later that year members of the Social Democrats and other leftist parties tried to organize an uprising against Smetona, but were quickly subdued. Voldemaras grew increasingly independent of Smetona and was forced to resign in 1929. Three times in 1930 and once in 1934, he unsuccessfully attempted to return to power. In May 1928, Smetona announced the fifth provisional constitution without consulting the Seimas. The constitution continued to claim that Lithuania was a democratic state while the powers of the president were vastly increased. Smetona's party, the Lithuanian Nationalist Union, steadily grew in size and importance. He adopted the title "tautos vadas" (leader of the nation) and slowly started building a cult of personality. Many prominent political figures married into Smetona's family (for example, Juozas Tūbelis and Stasys Raštikis).

When the Nazi Party came into power in Germany, German–Lithuanian relations worsened considerably as the Nazis did not want to accept the loss of the Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland). The Nazis sponsored anti-Lithuanian organizations in the region. In 1934, Lithuania put the activists on trial and sentenced about 100 people, including their leaders Ernst Neumann and Theodor von Sass, to prison terms. That prompted Germany, one of the main trade partners of Lithuania, to declare an embargo of Lithuanian products. In response, Lithuania shifted its exports to Great Britain. That measure did not go far enough to satisfy many groups, and peasants in Suvalkija organized strikes, which were violently suppressed. Smetona's prestige was damaged, and in September 1936, he agreed to call the first elections for the Seimas since the coup of 1926. Before the elections, all political parties were eliminated except for the National Union. Thus 42 of the 49 members of the Fourth Seimas of Lithuania were from the National Union. This assembly functioned as an advisory board to the president, and in February 1938, it adopted a new constitution that granted the president even greater powers.

Lithuanian territorial issues 1939–1940

As tensions were rising in Europe following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany (the Anschluss), Poland presented the 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania in March of that year. Poland demanded the re-establishment of the normal diplomatic relations that were broken after the Żeligowski Mutiny in 1920 and threatened military actions in case of refusal. Lithuania, having a weaker military and unable to enlist international support for its cause, accepted the ultimatum. In the event of Polish military action, Adolf Hitler ordered a German military takeover of southwest Lithuania up to the Dubysa River, and his armed forces were being fully mobilized until the news of the Lithuanian acceptance. Relations between Poland and Lithuania became somewhat normalized after the acceptance of the ultimatum, and the parties concluded treaties regarding railway transport, postal exchange, and other means of communication.

Parade of the Lithuanian Army in Vilnius (1939)

Lithuania offered diplomatic support to Germany and the Soviet Union in opposition to powers such as France and Estonia that backed Poland in the conflict over Vilnius, but both Germany and the Soviet Union saw fit to encroach on Lithuania's territory and independence anyway. Following the Nazi electoral success in Klaipėda in December 1938, Germany decided to take action to secure control of the entire region. On 20 March 1939, just a few days after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia of March 15, Lithuania received the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania from foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. It demanded the immediate cession of the Klaipėda Region to Germany. The Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum to avoid an armed intervention. The Klaipėda Region was directly incorporated into the East Prussian province of the German Reich. This triggered a political crisis in Lithuania and forced Smetona to form a new government that included members of the opposition for the first time since 1926. The loss of Klaipėda was a major blow to the Lithuanian economy and the country shifted into the sphere of German influence. When Germany and the Soviet Union concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 and divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, Lithuania was assigned to Germany at first, but that changed after Smetona's refusal to participate in the German invasion of Poland.

The interwar period of independence gave birth to the development of Lithuanian press, literature, music, arts, and theater as well as a comprehensive system of education with Lithuanian as the language of instruction. The network of primary and secondary schools was expanded and institutions of higher learning were established in Kaunas. Lithuanian society remained heavily agricultural with only 20% of the people living in cities. The influence of the Catholic Church was strong and birth rates high: the population increased by 22% to over three million during 1923–1939, despite emigration to South America and elsewhere. In almost all cities and towns, traditionally dominated by Jews, Poles, Russians and Germans, ethnic Lithuanians became the majority. Lithuanians, for example, constituted 59% of the residents of Kaunas in 1923, as opposed to 7% in 1897. The right-wing dictatorship of 1926–1940 had strangely stabilizing social effects, as it prevented the worst of antisemitic excesses as well as the rise of leftist and rightist political extremism.

Demography

Population

Population of the Republic of Lithuania

Date	Total population	Male population	Female populatnio	Notes
17 September 1923	2 028 960	970 000	1 058 000	Excluding the Klaipėda Region
1 January 1928	2 286 368	1 090 000	1 196 368	Including the area of former Klaipėda Region
1 January 1932	2 393 983	1 147 742	1 246 241
1 January 1934	2 452 000	1 178 000	1 274 000
1 January 1937	2 526 535	1 216 779	1 309 756

Ethnic and national identity

According to the first national census done in the county, on 17 September 1923, the population of Lithuania identified itself as:

• 1 701 900 (83.9%) as Lithuanians,
• 153 700 (7.6%) as Jewish,
• 65 600 (3.2%) as Poles,
• 50 500 (2.5%) as Russians,
• 29 200 (1.4%) as Germans,
• 14 300 (0.7%) as Latvians,
• 13 800 (0.7%) as others.

However, the data of the census did not reflect the exact true numbers, which was openly admitted by the Lithuanian military publications.

According to the military data from 1935, the population identified as:

• 80.6% as Lithuanians,
• 7.1% as Jewish,
• 4.1% as Germans,
• 3% as Poles
• 2.3% as Russians
• 2.9% as others.

Religion

Around 1935, the population of the country belived in:

• 80.5% in Catholic Church,
• 9.5% in Evangelicalism,
• 7.3% in Judaism
• 1.5% in Old Belive
• 1% in Eastern Orthodox Church
• 0.2% in others.

Notes

Bibliography

• Snyder, Timothy (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300105865.