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105-527: It was secretly formed on 22 April 1941, announced on 23 June 1941, and dissolved on 5 August 1941. It was formed by members of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Kaunas and Vilnius . "The Lithuanian nation, tormented by the brutal Bolshevik terror, decided to build its future on the basis of national unity and social justice." Leonas Prapuolenis , the first announcement of

210-493: A Lithuanian peasant. — Antoine Meillet Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is conservative in its grammar and phonology, retaining archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit (particularly its early form, Vedic Sanskrit ) or Ancient Greek . Thus, it is an important source for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with

315-652: A Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which the Baltic languages retain exclusive and non-exclusive lexical, morphological, phonological and accentual isoglosses in common with the Slavic languages , which represent their closest living Indo-European relatives. Moreover, with Lithuanian being so archaic in phonology, Slavic words can often be deduced from Lithuanian by regular sound laws ; for example, Lith. vilkas and Polish wilk ← PBSl. *wilkás (cf. PSl. *vьlkъ ) ← PIE *wĺ̥kʷos , all meaning " wolf ". Initially, Lithuanian

420-530: A few weeks, and seeing no more reason to continue, dissolved on August 5, 1941, LAF as an organization remained in existence. On September 15, it sent Germany a memorandum, About the status of Lithuania after the German Civil Administration started to operate ( Apie Lietuvos būklę, vokiečių civilinei administracijai pradėjus veikti ), protesting the occupation of Lithuania and expressing hope that Germany would not extend its territory at

525-550: A list of members of the planned Provisional Government of Lithuania . Urban LAF units had more liberal political views than those in the countryside. Lack of communication between the Berlin unit and the Lithuanian units prevented ideological discussion though. "Attention! Attention! This is Kaunas speaking. Independent Lithuania. Declaration of the restoration of Lithuania’s independence...The Lithuanian nation, tormented by

630-516: A result of a decrease in the usage of spoken Lithuanian in the eastern part of Lithuania proper, in the 19th century, it was suggested to create a standardized Lithuanian based on the Samogitian dialect. Nevertheless, it was not accomplished because everyone offered their Samogitian subdialects and the Eastern and Western Aukštaitians offered their Aukštaitian subdialects. In the second half of

735-500: A second language. Lithuanian is closely related to neighbouring Latvian , though the two languages are not mutually intelligible. It is written in a Latin script . In some respects, some linguists consider it to be the most conservative of the existing Indo-European languages , retaining features of the Proto-Indo-European language that had disappeared through development from other descendant languages . Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to

840-627: A single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century and perhaps as late as the 17th century. The German Livonian Brothers of the Sword occupied the western part of the Daugava basin, which resulted in colonization of the territory of modern Latvia (at the time it was called Terra Mariana ) by Germans and had a significant influence on the language's independent development due to Germanisation (see also: Baltic Germans and Baltic German nobility ). There

945-592: A single sound, the velar fricative [ x ] , while dz and dž are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds): Dz dz [ dz ] (dzė), Dž dž [ dʒ ] (džė), Ch ch [ x ] (cha). The distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė was used for the first time in the Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica and firmly established itself in Lithuanian since then. However, linguist August Schleicher used Ë (with two points above it) instead of Ė for expressing

1050-489: A small minority of the city's population. The uprising was therefore smaller there, than elsewhere and only started on June 23. The rebels took the post office and radio station, and hoisted the Lithuanian flag over Gediminas' Tower . It was relatively easy to take Vilnius, as most Red Army units were outside the city and quickly retreated. The LAF is controversial for its anti-Semitism . The LAF's manifesto "What Are

1155-585: A subsequent clarification issued in 2019 by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Congress said the investigation was not conclusive and did not amount to a "rehabilitation" of Ambrazevičius/Brazaitis. The investigation into his wartime activities was discontinued after Ambrazevičius/Brazaitis passed away in 1974. Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( endonym : lietuvių kalba , pronounced [lʲiəˈtʊvʲuː kɐɫˈbɐ] )

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1260-878: Is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lord's Prayer , the Hail Mary , and the Nicene Creed written in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect. On 8 January 1547 the first Lithuanian book was printed – the Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas . At the royal courts in Vilnius of Sigismund II Augustus , the last Grand Duke of Lithuania prior to the Union of Lublin , both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken equally widely. In 1552 Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of

1365-699: Is an East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of the official languages of the European Union . There are approximately 2.8 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 1 million speakers elsewhere. Around half a million inhabitants of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian background speak Lithuanian daily as

1470-442: Is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody. The alleged (or certain, as certain as historical linguistics can be) similarities due to contact are seen in such phenomena as the existence of definite adjectives formed by the addition of an inflected pronoun (descended from the same Proto-Indo-European pronoun), which exist in both Baltic and Slavic yet nowhere else in

1575-549: Is divided into West, North and South; Aukštaitian into West (Suvalkiečiai), South ( Dzūkian ) and East. Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics . It has 32 letters . In the collation order, y follows immediately after į (called i nosinė ), because both y and į represent the same long vowel [ iː ] : In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph ch represents

1680-637: Is known that Jogaila , being ethnic Lithuanian by the male-line , himself knew and spoke Lithuanian with Vytautas the Great , his cousin from the Gediminids dynasty. During the Christianization of Samogitia none of the clergy, who arrived to Samogitia with Jogaila, were able to communicate with the natives, therefore Jogaila himself taught the Samogitians about Catholicism ; thus he

1785-498: Is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter i represents either the vowel [ ɪ ] , as in English sit , or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized . The latter is largely the case when i occurs after a consonant and is followed by a back or a central vowel , except in some borrowed words (e.g.,

1890-606: The Antanas Smetona government. But since the city had been taken in a false flag operation in October 1920, the city had become more Polish and more Jewish, a situation made even more so by refugees, garrisons and POW camps after the German invasion of Poland. The LAF section in Vilnius under Vytautas Bulvičius was dismantled by Soviet arrests just before the German invasion and even before that Lithuanians had only been

1995-708: The Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae singled out that the Lithuanians of the Vilnius Region ( Latin : in tractu Vilnensi ) tend to speak harshly, almost like Austrians , Bavarians and others speak German in Germany . Due to the historical circumstances of Lithuania , Lithuanian-speaking territory was divided into Lithuania proper and Lithuania Minor , therefore, in the 16th–17th centuries, three regional variants of

2100-764: The Galindai ( Γαλίνδαι ) and Sudinoi ( Σουδινοί ), in the 2nd century AD. Lithuanian originated from the Eastern Baltic subgroup and remained nearly unchanged until c.   1 AD, however in c.   500 AD the language of the northern part of Eastern Balts was influenced by the Finnic languages , which fueled the development of changes from the language of the Southern Balts (see: Latgalian , which developed into Latvian , and extinct Curonian , Semigallian , and Selonian ). The language of Southern Balts

2205-582: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1/3 residents in Lithuania proper and up to 1/2 residents in Samogitia ) and 53% of residents in Lithuania Minor (more than 90% of the deceased were Prussian Lithuanians ). Since the 19th century to 1925 the amount of Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania Minor (excluding Klaipėda Region ) decreased from 139,000 to 8,000 due to Germanisation and colonization . As

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2310-617: The Holocaust . Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The goal of the June uprising organized by the LAF was to seize control of Lithuania as Soviet forces retreated in the face of Germany's attack. LAF paramilitaries committed many atrocities in the uprising (rapes, murders, pillage). According to Tadeusz Piotrowski ,

2415-811: The January Uprising , Mikhail Muravyov , the Russian Governor General of Lithuania , banned the language in education and publishing and barred use of the Latin alphabet altogether, although books continued to be printed in Lithuanian across the border in East Prussia and in the United States . Brought into the country by book smugglers (Lithuanian: knygnešiai ) despite the threat of long prison sentences, they helped fuel growing nationalist sentiment that finally led to

2520-625: The Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions (Lithuanian version of Schutzmannschaft ). The original TDA eventually became the 12th and the 13th Police Battalions. These two units took an active role in mass killings of the Jews in Lithuania and Belarus. Based on the Jäger Report , members of TDA murdered about 26,000 Jews between July and December 1941. Later Juozas Ambrazevičius actively participated in

2625-529: The Lithuanian nobility to participate in the social-political life of the state. In 1599, Mikalojus Daukša published his Postil and in its prefaces he expressed that the Lithuanian language situation had improved and thanked bishop Merkelis Giedraitis for his works. In 1776–1790 about 1,000 copies of the first Catholic primer in Lithuanian – Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško – were issued annually, and it continued to be published until 1864. Over 15,000 copies appeared in total. In 1864, following

2730-588: The Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas . In the 16th century, following the decline of Ruthenian usage in favor of Polish in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Lithuanian language strengthened its positions in Lithuania due to reforms in religious matters and judicial reforms which allowed lower levels of

2835-615: The Paneriai woods (see Ponary massacre ) and the Ninth Fort . The LAF anticipated Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union and planned to use it to rebel against the Soviet Union and establish an independent Lithuania. Kazys Škirpa , a former Lithuanian military attaché to Germany, founded the LAF on 17 November 1940. to unite people with a wide spectrum of political beliefs who wanted to see an independent Lithuania that

2940-624: The Provisional Government through the recently captured Kaunas radio. The Lithuanian Activist Front announced the creation of the provisional government on 22 June 1941, as the June Uprising in Lithuania began. The Nazi regime envisioned Lithuania as a future part of Greater Germany , and was not much interested in Lithuanian independence. It did allow the Provisional Government to operate while it

3045-633: The Russian and Ukrainian territory. Hydronyms and archaeology analysis show that the Slavs started migrating to the Baltic areas east and north-east directions in the 6–7th centuries, before then, the Baltic and Slavic boundary was south of the Pripyat River . In the 1960s, Vladimir Toporov and Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages: These scholars' theses do not contradict

3150-605: The Soviets occupied Lithuania . Its goal was to free Lithuania and regain its independence. The LAF planned and executed the June uprising and established the short-lived Provisional Government of Lithuania , which disbanded after a few weeks. The Nazi authorities banned the LAF in September 1941. Its role in the three World War II invasions of Lithuania and the massacre of 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population remains ambiguous and

3255-768: The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR restored Lithuanian as the official language of Lithuania, under from the popular pro-independence movement Sąjūdis . On 11 March 1990, the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania was passed. Lithuanian was recognized as sole official language of Lithuania in the Provisional Basic Law (Lithuanian: Laikinasis Pagrindinis Įstatymas ) and

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3360-413: The United States , Uruguay , and Spain . 2,955,200 people in Lithuania (including 3,460 Tatars ), or about 86% of the 2015 population, are native Lithuanian speakers; most Lithuanian inhabitants of other nationalities also speak Lithuanian to some extent. The total worldwide Lithuanian-speaking population is about 3,200,000. Lithuanian is the state language of Lithuania and an official language of

3465-653: The comparative method . Lithuanian is spoken mainly in Lithuania . It is also spoken by ethnic Lithuanians living in today's Belarus , Latvia , Poland , and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, as well as by sizable emigrant communities in Argentina , Australia , Brazil , Canada , Denmark , Estonia , France , Germany , Iceland , Ireland , Norway , Russia , Sweden , the United Kingdom ,

3570-631: The industrialization in the Soviet Union ). Russian consequently came into use in state institutions: the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania (there were 80% Russians among the 22,000 Communist Party members in the Lithuanian SSR in 1948), radio and television (61–74% of broadcasts were in Russian in 1970). Lithuanians passively resisted Russification and continued to use their own language. On 18 November 1988,

3675-467: The 13th–16th centuries under the influence of Curonian . Lithuanian dialects are closely connected with ethnographical regions of Lithuania . Even nowadays Aukštaitians and Samogitians can have considerable difficulties understanding each other if they speak with their dialects and not standard Lithuanian, which is mandatory to learn in the Lithuanian education system. Dialects are divided into subdialects. Both dialects have three subdialects. Samogitian

3780-581: The 18th century, was successful due to many publications and research. In contrast, the development of Lithuanian in Lithuania proper was obstructed due to the Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility , especially in the 18th century, and it was being influenced by the Samogitian dialect. The Lithuanian-speaking population was also dramatically decreased by the Great Northern War plague outbreak in 1700–1721 which killed 49% of residents in

3885-512: The 19th century, when the Lithuanian National Revival intensified, and the preparations to publish a Lithuanian periodical press were taking place, the mostly south-western Aukštaitian revival writers did not use the 19th-century Lithuanian of Lithuania Minor as it was largely Germanized . Instead, they used a more pure Lithuanian language which has been described by August Schleicher and Friedrich Kurschat and this way

3990-486: The Activists Fighting for?" stated: "The Lithuanian Activist Front, by restoring the new Lithuania, is determined to carry out an immediate and fundamental purging of the Lithuanian nation and its land of Jews...". The LAF's pro-Nazi rhetoric and stridently anti-Semitic propaganda, equating Jews with Bolshevism , was widely disseminated in Lithuania prior to and during the June uprising and likely encouraged

4095-464: The Baltic and Slavic languages closeness and from a historical perspective, specify the Baltic-Slavic languages' evolution. So, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic. However, as for the hypotheses related to the "Balto-Slavic problem", it is noted that they are more focused on personal theoretical constructions and deviate to some extent from

4200-466: The Baltic languages form their own distinct branch of the family of Indo-European languages , and Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact. There is also an opinion that suggests the union of Baltic and Slavic languages into a distinct sub-family of Balto-Slavic languages amongst the Indo-European family of languages. Such an opinion

4305-523: The Constitution of 1992, written during the Lithuanian constitutional referendum . Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages , along with Latvian , and they constitute the eastern branch of Baltic languages family. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian , was extinct by the 18th century; the other Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian , became extinct earlier. Some theories, such as that of Jānis Endzelīns , considered that

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4410-640: The European Union . In the Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae , published in 1673, three dialects of Lithuanian are distinguished: Samogitian dialect ( Latin : Samogitiae ) of Samogitia , Royal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Regalis ) and Ducal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Ducalis ). Ducal Lithuanian is described as pure ( Latin : Pura ), half-Samogitian ( Latin : SemiSamogitizans ) and having elements of Curonian ( Latin : Curonizans ). Authors of

4515-637: The European languages of the participants in the Council of Constance in 1414–1418. From the middle of the 15th century, the legend spread about the Roman origin of the Lithuanian nobility (from the Palemon lineage ), and the closeness of the Lithuanian language and Latin, thus this let some intellectuals in the mid-16th century to advocate for replacement of Ruthenian with Latin, as they considered Latin as

4620-546: The German Army, partisans and individuals should avoid public executions of Jews." It is known that the Provisional Government attempted to stop Algirdas Klimaitis and later condemned him for his actions during the Kaunas pogrom . Klimaitis and his gang members did not belonged to LAF, which organized the June Uprising, as he and his gang members were imprisoned in a Bolsheviks ' prison and left it only during

4725-451: The Germans referred to these "allies" as "organized robbers". At the beginning of the occupation, Acting Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania Juozas Ambrazevičius (also called Juozas Brazaitis) convened a meeting in of cabinet ministers with former President Kazys Grinius , Bishop Vincentas Brizgys and others. Ministers expressed distress at the atrocities being committed against Jews and decided to help them. However

4830-498: The Indo-European family (languages such as Albanian and the Germanic languages developed definite adjectives independently), and that is not reconstructible for Proto-Balto-Slavic, meaning that they most probably developed through language contact. The Baltic hydronyms area stretches from the Vistula River in the west to the east of Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south of Kyiv . Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov (1961, 1962) studied Baltic hydronyms in

4935-428: The Jewish population. The LAF and its paramilitaries initially proved useful for this. But Stahlecker later complained that it was "not a simple matter" to organize Lithuanians into taking actions against Jews. Lithuanian Minister of National Defence General Stasys Raštikis (former Commander of the Lithuanian Army ) met personally with Nazi Germany generals to discuss anti-Jewish violence and began narrating about

5040-414: The Jews. The hospitality that Vytautas the Great offered to the Jews in Lithuania has been revoked for all times for the ongoing betrayal of the Lithuanian nation." – LAF Pamphlet "Guidelines for the Liberation of Lithuania", March 1941 By some calculations, more than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred during the Nazi occupation, a more complete destruction than befell any other country in

5145-443: The LAF were arrested, executed, or exiled by the Soviet authorities. The Wehrmacht began disarming LAF activists in Kaunas on June 26 to 28. The last LAF activists were disarmed in Zarasai and Obeliai June 28–29. The German authorities did not use brute force, just established their own administrative structure, Reichskommissariat Ostland , and slowly deprived the would-be puppet government of its powers. It lost all authority in

5250-458: The Lithuanian society and Government dissatisfaction and concern about the persecution and extermination of the Lithuanian Jews started by the Germans and demanded that the campaign against Jews in Kaunas and in the province now be stopped, but the Nazi generals refused and one of them even unexpectedly poured cold water on Raštikis' head when he was leaving. Meanwhile, the LAF-established Provisional Government of Lithuania did little to oppose

5355-461: The Lithuanians rather rustic folk. Historians generally divide the Lithuanian Shoah in four stages, Stanislovas Stasiulis writes: By 1941 refugees had grown the Jewish population of Lithuania to approximately 250,000, or 10% of the total population. During the German invasion of June 1941, 141,000 Jews were murdered. Unlike in Western Europe, Lithuanian Jews were generally killed a short distance from their homes. Notable execution locations were

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5460-440: The Nazis had no interest in an independent Lithuania and General feldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch issued a directive on June 26, 1941 to the commander of Army Group North under which "small armed Lithuanian groups and Lithuanian police" were to be disarmed and sent to concentration camps. The Provisional Government was mainly recruited from the Vilnius and Kaunas sections. Over time, many members of this government and

5565-456: The Occupied Eastern Territories Franz Walter Stahlecker . In this report Stahlecker states that the extermination of Jews in the Wehrmacht -occupied territories should be performed in a way that would keep the Nazis "clean" and show no sign of actual Nazi inspiration, October 15, 1941 report to Reich Minister Heinrich Himmler . organization or management. It should look like the local population and its institutions on their own initiative executed

5670-436: The Polish Ł for the first sound and regular L (without a following i) for the second: łupa , lutas . During the Lithuanian National Revival in the 19th century the Polish Ł was abolished, while digraphs sz , cz (that are also common in the Polish orthography ) were replaced with š and č from the Czech orthography because formally they were shorter. Nevertheless, another argument to abolish sz and cz

5775-406: The Polish courtiers. Casimir IV Jagiellon's son Saint Casimir , who was subsequently announced as patron saint of Lithuania, was a polyglot and among other languages knew Lithuanian. Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon also could understand and speak Lithuanian as multiple Lithuanian priests served in his royal chapel and he also maintained a Lithuanian court. In 1501, Erazm Ciołek , a priest of

5880-459: The Polish dialect in the Vilnius Region and in the northeastern areas in general are very interesting variant of the Polish language as this dialect developed in a foreign territory which was mostly inhabited by the Lithuanians who were Belarusized (mostly) or Polonized, and to prove this Otrębski provided examples of Lithuanianisms in the Tutejszy language . In 2015, Polish linguist Mirosław Jankowiak  [ pl ] attested that many of

5985-445: The Provisional Government had already withdrawn. Žydų padėties nuostatai was not published anywhere at the time and the affairs of Lithuanian Jews were never governed by it. Nazi authorities surreptitiously encouraged and involved the local population in attacks on Jews. These tactics are well disclosed in October 15, 1941 report to Reich Minister Heinrich Himmler . Schutzstaffel General Brigadeführer and Security Police Chief of

6090-453: The Provisional Government helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust . Stanislovas Stasiulis pictured the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania as "three layers and periods." The first, he wrote, involves the relationship between Lithuanians and Jews during the Nazi occupation, and the second followed the Soviet re-occupation. The third period of interest covers the historiography since 1990, he wrote, which has attempted new and open discussions of

6195-429: The Status of Jews ), although according to some authors they were never actually adopted and were only considered by the Provisional Government. Žydų padėties nuostatai was widely used in the Soviet propaganda . However physical signs that this document initially was not kept with enacted legal texts and was pulled into a set of rulings by the German-appointed councillors as if it were a Provisional Government rule, when

6300-644: The Vilnius Cathedral, explained to the Pope that the Lithuanians preserve their language and ensure respect to it ( Linguam propriam observant ), but they also use the Ruthenian language for simplicity reasons because it is spoken by almost half of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A note written by Sigismund von Herberstein in the first half of the 16th century states that, in an ocean of Ruthenian in this part of Europe, there were two non-Ruthenian regions: Lithuania and Samogitia where its inhabitants spoke their own language, but many Ruthenians were also living among them. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text

6405-447: The Vilnius Region's inhabitants who declare Polish nationality speak a Belarusian dialect which they call mowa prosta (' simple speech '). Currently, Lithuanian is divided into two dialects: Aukštaitian (Highland Lithuanian), and Samogitian (Lowland Lithuanian). There are significant differences between standard Lithuanian and Samogitian and these are often described as separate languages. The modern Samogitian dialect formed in

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6510-464: The Vilnius Region, especially when Vilnius Voivode Ludwik Bociański issued a secret memorandum of 11 February 1936 which stated the measures for suppressing the Lithuanians in the region. Some Lithuanian historians, like Antanas Tyla  [ lt ] and Ereminas Gintautas, consider these Polish policies as amounting to an " ethnocide of Lithuanians". Between 1862 and 1944, the Lithuanian schools were completely banned in Lithuania Minor and

6615-435: The acquirement of a foreign speech." Lithuanian was studied by several linguists such as Franz Bopp , August Schleicher , Adalbert Bezzenberger , Louis Hjelmslev , Ferdinand de Saussure , Winfred P. Lehmann and Vladimir Toporov , Jan Safarewicz, and others. By studying place names of Lithuanian origin, linguist Jan Safarewicz  [ pl ] concluded that the eastern boundaries of Lithuanian used to be in

6720-433: The anti-Jewish violence and murder carried out by the Nazis and their local collaborators. Its main goal was to protect ethnic Lithuanians and reestablish an independent Lithuania under the patronage of Nazi Germany . Ministers expressed distress at the atrocities being committed against the Jews, but advised only that "despite all the measures which must be taken against the Jews for their Communist activity and harm done to

6825-405: The anti-Nazi underground, and four members of the Provisional Government were imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps . There are allegations by certain journalists that, in 1973, a Committee of the United States Congress made conclusions that Prime Minister of the Provisional Government Juozas Ambrazevičius' and Jonas Šlepetys' were not responsible for the Holocaust in Lithuania . However,

6930-406: The brutal Bolshevik terror, decided to build its future on the basis of national unity and social justice." Leonas Prapuolenis , first announcement of the Provisional Government on the captured Kaunas radio station. The Provisional Government was short-handed when it took office on June 24, intending to exert the autonomy the Lithuanians hoped the Germans brought with them. Four members of

7035-607: The common language emerged. Lithuanians in Lithuania Minor spoke Western Aukštaitian dialect with specifics of Įsrutis and Ragainė environs (e.g. works of Martynas Mažvydas , Jonas Bretkūnas , Jonas Rėza , and Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica ). The other two regional variants of the common language were formed in Lithuania proper: middle, which was based on the specifics of the Duchy of Samogitia (e.g. works of Mikalojus Daukša , Merkelis Petkevičius , Steponas Jaugelis‑Telega , Samuelis Boguslavas Chylinskis , and Mikołaj Rej 's Lithuanian postil ), and eastern, based on

7140-519: The defensive (emigré) and ideological (Soviet) reactions to the Holocaust. The Soviet refusal to acknowledge the racialism of the Holocaust helped trigger a defensive cultural response known as double genocide theory , which equated the Holocaust and the Stalinist brutality meted out to Lithuanian by the Soviets. Considered a form of Holocaust trivialization, this paradigm has sometimes been taken as far as portraying Nazi pogroms as retaliation. LAF leader Kazys Škirpa , former Lithuanian envoy to Germany,

7245-451: The earliest texts dating only to c.  1500 AD , whereas Ancient Greek was first written down about three thousand years earlier in c.   1450 BC). According to hydronyms of Baltic origin, the Baltic languages were spoken in a large area east of the Baltic Sea , and in c.   1000 BC it had two linguistic units: western and eastern. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name,

7350-480: The eastern Prussian Lithuanians ' dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor . These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian , while other dialects had experienced different phonetic shifts . Lithuanian became the official language of the country following the restoration of Lithuania's statehood in 1918. The 1922 Constitution of Lithuania (the first permanent Lithuanian constitution ) recognized it as

7455-470: The expense of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Activist Front was banned on September 26, its property confiscated, and its leader Leonas Prapuolenis arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp . Other members like Pilypas Žukauskas  [ lt ] and Petras Paulaitis  [ lt ] joined the anti-Nazi resistance. For historic and religious reasons, Vilnius was very important to Lithuanians. In 1900 Jonas Biliūnas called it “the very heart” of

7560-502: The fatherland. Its effect on Lithuanian national consciousness after World War II has been described as "selective memory" which downplayed the religious aspects of the history while stressing its "secular, cultural and linguistic aspects." Lithuania accepted a military presence to regain administrative control of Vilnius. The former capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth clearly was part of Lithuania, to

7665-432: The first consonant in lūpa [ˈ ɫ ûːpɐ] , "lip", is a velarized dental lateral approximant ; on the other hand, the first consonant in liūtas [ˈ lʲ uːt̪ɐs̪] , "lion", is a palatalized alveolar lateral approximant ; both consonants are followed by the same vowel, the long [ uː ] , and no [ ɪ ] can be pronounced in liūtas ). Due to Polish influence , the Lithuanian alphabet included sz , cz and

7770-452: The first days of the war. According to Lithuanian-American Holocaust historian Saulius Sužiedėlis, "none of this amounted to a public scolding which alone could have persuaded at least some of the Lithuanians who had volunteered or been co-opted into participating in the killings to rethink their behavior." The Lithuanian TDA Battalions , military units of the Provisional Government, were soon taken over by Nazi officials and reorganized into

7875-525: The first of the three invasions of Lithuania in the Second World War, the Soviets overthrew the government of Antanas Smetona in 1940 on the basis of a changing list of disparate pretexts. Many Lithuanians were relieved; newspapers had shut down, "the militia confiscated private property, ejected tenants from their homes, publicly called for liquidation of ' enemies of the people ' and terrorized

7980-426: The formation of standard Lithuanian. The conventions of written Lithuanian had been evolving during the 19th century, but Jablonskis, in the introduction to his Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika , was the first to formulate and expound the essential principles that were so indispensable to its later development. His proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitian dialect with some features of

8085-565: The government were arrested by Soviet authorities on June 21, proposed prime minister Kazys Škirpa was under house arrest in Berlin, and another minister was also unable to serve. Juozas Ambrazevičius became prime minister. "The historic interplay between the growth of anti-Soviet resistance in 1940–1941 and the behavior of many pro-Nazi Lithuanian collaborators during 1941–1944 is a complex story of nationalist idealism, political naivite, ideological contamination, obsequious opportunism and criminal intent," wrote historian Saulius Sužiedelis. But

8190-425: The government: This article about politics in Lithuania is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Lithuanian history -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lithuanian Activist Front The Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF ( Lithuanian : Lietuvių Aktivistų Frontas ) was a Lithuanian underground resistance organization established in 1940 after

8295-615: The help would have been very limited; at the very beginning of the Nazi occupation, the affairs of Jews and Poles were excluded from Lithuanian jurisdiction and taken over by the Germans and German military commanders. On the other hand, a number of laws issued by the LAF-instituted Provisional Government of Lithuania discriminated against Jews. for example Žydų padėties nuostatai (English: Regulation on

8400-419: The highest population literacy rates: Vilna Governorate (in 1897 ~23.6–50% Lithuanian of whom 37% were literate), Kovno Governorate (in 1897 66% Lithuanian of whom 55.3% were literate), Suwałki Governorate (in 1897 in counties of the governorate where Lithuanian population was dominant, 76,6% of males and 50,2% of females were literate). Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) made significant contributions to

8505-616: The independent Republic of Lithuania to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union . Soviet authorities introduced Lithuanian– Russian bilingualism, and Russian, as the de facto official language of the USSR, took precedence and the use of Lithuanian was reduced in a process of Russification. Many Russian-speaking workers and teachers migrated to the Lithuanian SSR (fueled by

8610-794: The language was almost completely eliminated there. The Baltic-origin place names retained their basis for centuries in Prussia but were Germanized (e.g. Tilžė – Tilsit , Labguva – Labiau , Vėluva – Wehliau , etc.); however, after the annexation of the Königsberg region into the Russian SFSR , they were changed completely, regardless of previous tradition (e.g. Tilsit – Sovetsk , Labiau – Polesk , Wehliau – Znamensk , etc.). The Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 , German occupation in 1941 , and eventually Soviet re-occupation in 1944 , reduced

8715-896: The lifting of the ban in 1904. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897 (at the height of the Lithuanian press ban), 53.5% of Lithuanians (10 years and older) were literate, while the average of the Russian Empire was only 24–27.7% (in the European part of Russia the average was 30%, in Poland – 40.7%). In the Russian Empire Lithuanian children were mostly educated by their parents or in secret schools by "daractors" in native Lithuanian language, while only 6.9% attended Russian state schools due to resistance to Russification . Russian governorates with significant Lithuanian populations had one of

8820-455: The local population to engage in mass violence against Jews that began prior to the arrival of Nazi forces in the country and continued during the Nazi occupation (1941–1945). "Our aim is to compel the Jews to flee Lithuania together with the Red Army troops and Russians. The more Jews abandon Lithuania under these circumstances, the easier it will be later to achieve complete liberation from

8925-500: The native language of Lithuanians. Initially, Latin and Church Slavonic were the main written ( chancellery ) languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but in the late 17th century – 18th century Church Slavonic was replaced with Polish. Nevertheless, Lithuanian was a spoken language of the medieval Lithuanian rulers from the Gediminids dynasty and its cadet branches: Kęstutaičiai and Jagiellonian dynasties . It

9030-551: The population", and Smetona had stopped holding elections. The Germans arrived on 22 June 1941 and within days required the Jewish population to wear a star, among many other restrictions. Within a few more days, Einsatzkommando 9 was pulling Jewish men from their homes for purported work assignments. Just days earlier, the NKVD had rounded up and deported between 15,851 and 20,000 “anti-Soviet elements” from across Lithuania. Most of

9135-547: The same. In the Grammatica Litvanica Klein also established the letter W for marking the sound [v], the use of which was later abolished in Lithuanian (it was replaced with V , notably by authors of the Varpas newspaper). The usage of V instead of W especially increased since the early 20th century, likely considerably influenced by Lithuanian press and schools. The Lithuanian writing system

9240-801: The shape of zigzags through Grodno , Shchuchyn , Lida , Valozhyn , Svir , and Braslaw . Such eastern boundaries partly coincide with the spread of Catholic and Orthodox faith, and should have existed at the time of the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387 and later. Safarewicz's eastern boundaries were moved even further to the south and east by other scholars (e.g. Mikalay Biryla  [ be ] , Petras Gaučas  [ lt ] , Jerzy Ochmański  [ pl ] , Aleksandras Vanagas , Zigmas Zinkevičius , and others). Proto-Balto-Slavic branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then sub-branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic. The Baltic languages passed through

9345-499: The sole official language of the state and mandated its use throughout the state. The improvement of education system during the interwar period resulted in 92% of literacy rate of the population in Lithuania in 1939 (those still illiterate were mostly elderly). Following the Żeligowski's Mutiny in 1920, Vilnius Region was detached from Lithuania and was eventually annexed by Poland in 1922. This resulted in repressions of Lithuanians and mass-closure of Lithuanian language schools in

9450-695: The specifics of Eastern Aukštaitians, living in Vilnius and its region (e.g. works of Konstantinas Sirvydas , Jonas Jaknavičius , and Robert Bellarmine 's catechism ). In Vilnius University , there are preserved texts written in the Lithuanian language of the Vilnius area, a dialect of Eastern Aukštaitian, which was spoken in a territory located south-eastwards from Vilnius: the sources are preserved in works of graduates from Stanislovas Rapolionis -based Lithuanian language schools, graduate Martynas Mažvydas and Rapalionis relative Abraomas Kulvietis . The development of Lithuanian in Lithuania Minor, especially in

9555-519: The tens of thousands of people deported were sent to Siberia. Hundreds of political prisoners were tortured to death. The widespread press coverage blames the local Communists but also Jews, who were stereotyped by the Lithuanian media of the time as closely associated with the Soviets. Other stereotypes existed on both sides. Lithuanians for instance considered language an important part of national identity, yet Litvaks tended to speak Yiddish or Russian, and to live in cities, while they in turn considered

9660-546: The time the Wehrmacht arrived, and rescued over 300 political prisoners who would have been killed by Cheka . The June Uprising laid the foundations for anti-Nazi resistance that later transformed into an anti-Soviet resistance. The Provisional Government did little to stop the anti-Jewish violence encouraged by the Nazis and the anti-Semitic leadership of the Lithuanian Activist Front . Lithuanian police battalions formed by

9765-471: The topic of conflicting information and opinion. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ( Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ), signed on 23 August 1939, assured Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union of mutual non-aggression. A secret addendum divided the Baltic States and Poland between them and also reincorporated Vilnius into Lithuania. Another amendment a month reassigned Lithuania from Germany to Russia. In

9870-411: The writings has survived. The first recorded Lithuanian word, reported to have been said on 24 December 1207 from the chronicle of Henry of Latvia , was Ba , an interjection of a Lithuanian raider after he found no loot to pillage in a Livonian church. Although no writings in Lithuanian have survived from the 15th century or earlier, Lithuanian ( Latin : Lingwa Lietowia ) was mentioned as one of

9975-462: The written language of Lithuania Minor was transferred to resurgent Lithuania. The most famous standardizer of the Lithuanian, Jonas Jablonskis , established the south-western Aukštaitian dialect, including the Eastern dialect of Lithuania Minor, as the basis of standardized Lithuanian in the 20th century, which led to him being nicknamed the father of standardized Lithuanian. According to Polish professor Jan Otrębski 's article published in 1931,

10080-431: Was a spoken language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Duchy of Prussia , while the beginning of Lithuanian writing is possibly associated with the introduction of Christianity in Lithuania when Mindaugas was baptized and crowned King of Lithuania in 1250–1251. It is believed that prayers were translated into the local dialect of Lithuanian by Franciscan monks during the baptism of Mindaugas, however none of

10185-480: Was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian. Soon afterwards Vytautas the Great wrote in his 11 March 1420 letter to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor , that Lithuanian and Samogitian are the same language. The use of Lithuanian continued at the Lithuanian royal court after the deaths of Vytautas the Great (1430) and Jogaila (1434). For example, since the young Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellon

10290-500: Was caused by independent parallel development, and the Proto-Balto-Slavic language did not exist. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski . He proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view

10395-472: Was fascination with the Lithuanian people and their language among the late 19th-century researchers, and the philologist Isaac Taylor wrote the following in his The Origin of the Aryans (1892): "Thus it would seem that the Lithuanians have the best claim to represent the primitive Aryan race , as their language exhibits fewer of those phonetic changes, and of those grammatical losses which are consequent on

10500-468: Was first represented by August Schleicher . Some supporters of the Baltic and Slavic languages unity even claim that Proto-Baltic branch did not exist, suggesting that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups: East Baltic , West Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Antoine Meillet and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay , on the contrary, believed that the similarity between the Slavic and Baltic languages

10605-463: Was less influenced by this process and retained many of its older features, which form Lithuanian. According to glottochronological research, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between c.   400 BC and c.   600 BC. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after c.   800 AD; for a long period, they could be considered dialects of

10710-577: Was named prime minister . But he was in Berlin and the Germans put him under house arrest. Rapolas Skipitis , another minister-to-be in Berlin, was prevented from leaving as well. Vytautas Bulvičius was to become Minister of Defence but the Soviets arrested him on 2 June and General Stasys Raštikis replaced him. The Provisional Government dissolved in August 1941 after deciding that it had failed to achieve an autonomous if not independent Lithuania under German patronage. The people who were meant to be in

10815-455: Was not part of either the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany , Škirpa's Berlin unit mainly recruited Lithuanian expatriates and former diplomats, from most of the major pre-war Lithuanian factions and parties. The Nationalist Unionists and Christian Democrats were the most influential. The Provisional Government was mainly recruited from the Vilnius and Kaunas sections of the LAF. On 22 April 1941, representatives of those sections agreed on

10920-677: Was underage, the supreme control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Lithuanian Council of Lords , presided by Jonas Goštautas , while Casimir IV Jagiellon was taught Lithuanian and customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials. During the Polish szlachta 's envoys visit to Casimir in 1446, they noticed that in Casimir's royal court the Lithuanian-speaking courtiers were mandatory, alongside

11025-573: Was useful. Literary historian Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis became acting prime minister instead of Škirpa. He served from June 23, 1941 to August 5, 1941. Vygantas Vareikis  [ lt ] wrote that the Lithuanian Provisional Government "did not encourage brutal actions" against Jews or LAF leaders, and the local press proposed that only high-ranking Communist officials and NKVD officers should be punished by death. Lithuanian rebels had liberated Lithuania by

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