GEOGRAPHY
Lithuania is flanked by Latvia to the north, by Belarus to the east and south, by the Baltic Sea and Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast to the west, and by Poland to the southwest. Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia constitute the Baltic States. Lithuania has an area of about 25,200 square miles; low-lying plains cover the majority. Uplands lie in the south and east, and marshes and swamps are found in northern and western Lithuania. A long sandbar extending from Lithuania’s Baltic coast forms the Courland Lagoon, shared with Russia. Lithuania has many rivers—the Nemunas is the largest—and more than 3,000 lakes.
INCEPTION AS A NATION
In the 13th century c. e. the Lithuanians, Samogitians, and other tribes resisted invasions of the Germanic Brothers of the Sword and Teutonic Knights by forming a unified state under Mindaugas. Pope Innocent IV recognized him as grand duke of Lithuania in 1251. Throughout the 14th century Lithuania expanded southward to include present-day Belarus and the Black Sea territories, and eastward, encompassing Moscow. Lithuania united with Poland in 1386 by marriage, and in 1569 the Treaty of Lublin formed a political union, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) Lithuania was annexed by Russia.
At the end of World War I (1918) Lithuania declared independence. It was briefly occupied by Poland in 1920. Two years later Lithuania approved a new constitution, establishing an independent republic. Soviet troops invaded Lithuania in 1940, making Lithuania a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR), the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Lithuania won full independence in 1991.
CULTURAL IDENTITY
The crux of Lithuanian cultural identity lies in the variety of its antecedents. Lithuanians sometimes point to their centuries-long textile tradition as a metaphor for Lithuanian society, woven of many colored threads in a unique pattern. Indeed Lithuanian culture consists of an unusual integration of many colorful traditions, values, and forces. Among the cultural elements that are interwoven are pagan mythology with Christianity. Another interweaving occurred in the Renaissance period and later, when Lithuanian high art emerged and absorbed a great influence from western Europe. Moreover productive contact between Lithuania and the rest of Europe during the independence period of the 20th century were an enormous contribution to the development of modern Lithuanian culture.
Lithuanian cultural variety is rooted in the multiethnic heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thus people who maintain a Lithuanian cultural identity live beyond the limits of the original Lithuanian ethnic territory. Today Lithuanian culture exists in Poland,
Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, the United States of sistent in preserving elements that form the America, and many countries of western Europe. identity of their traditional culture. A notable At the same time as they were absorbing example of this is the Lithuanian style of folk influences from abroad Lithuanians were per - music called sutartine (the name originating
Further Reading
Become a link between the ancient heritage of folklore culture and contemporary national culture as well as professional art.
Alexandria Ashbourne. Lithuania: The Rebirth of a Nation, 1991-1994 (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 1999).
Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds. Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Walter R. Iwaskiw, ed. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: Country Studies (Washington, D. C.: Library of Congress, 1997).
Anatol Lieven. The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994).
Judith B. Sedaitis and V. Stanley Vardys. Lithuania: The Rebel Nation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997).
Alfred E. Senn. Lithuania Awakening (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1991).
Graham Smith, ed. The Baltic States: The National Self-Determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996).
Saulius Suziedelis. Historical Dictionary of Lithuania (London: Scarecrow, 1997).
Lituians See Veletians.
A Lithuanian woman mends a fishing net in the late 19th century. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-91799])
From the word sutarti—to sing in unison). It is a polyphonic style of two or three voices singing either in heterophony (with the themes rising and falling independently of one another), in parallel (with the themes moving in parallel motion, rising and falling together, although beginning on different tones), or canonically (with themes imitating one another but beginning at different times, as in a round) as well as in free imitation. One of the most outstanding phenomena of traditional Lithuanian culture, the tradition of cross crafting, that is, making wooden crosses, originated in the pre-Christian times. Crosses are embellished in geometrical and floral decorations that have symbolic meanings. Paganism is now recognized as an important part of the Lithuanian tradition in that Lithuania was the last part of Europe to maintain the pagan tradition in its resistance to the Christian crusaders.
A century-old celebration—a national song and dance festival held every four years— is one of the major cultural festivals in Lithuania. This is the most universal manifestation of Lithuanian national, cultural, artistic, public, and political identity nationwide. It has
World History
