Current government officials. Religions: Roman Catholic National Holiday: Independence Day, February Real growth rate: 3. Inflation: 1. Unemployment: Arable land: Agriculture: grain, potatoes, sugar beets, flax, vegetables; beef, milk, eggs; fish. Labor force: 1. Industries: metal-cutting machine tools, electric motors, television sets, refrigerators and freezers, petroleum refining, shipbuilding small ships , furniture making, textiles, food processing, fertilizers, agricultural machinery, optical equipment, electronic components, computers, amber jewelry.
Natural resources: peat, arable land, amber. Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: , ; mobile cellular: 5 million Broadcast media: AM 29, FM , shortwave 1 Radios: 1. Broadcast media: public broadcaster operates 3 channels with the third channel - a satellite channel - introduced in ; various privately owned commercial TV broadcasters operate national and multiple regional channels; many privately owned local TV stations; multi-channel cable and satellite TV services available; publicly owned broadcaster operates 3 radio networks; many privately owned commercial broadcasters, many with repeater stations in various regions throughout the country Internet users: 1.
Transportation: Railways: total: 1, km Roadways: total: 84, km; paved: 72, km; unpaved: 10, km Waterways: km perennially navigable. Ports and terminals: Klaipeda.
Airports: 61 International disputes: Lithuania and Russia committed to demarcating their boundary in in accordance with the land and maritime treaty ratified by Russia in May and by Lithuania in ; Lithuania operates a simplified transit regime for Russian nationals traveling from the Kaliningrad coastal exclave into Russia, while still conforming, as a EU member state having an external border with a non-EU member, to strict Schengen border rules; boundary demarcated with Latvia and Lithuania; as of January , ground demarcation of the boundary with Belarus was complete and mapped with final ratification documents in preparation.
Major sources and definitions. Lithuania is situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and borders Latvia on the north, Belarus on the east and south, and Poland and the Kaliningrad region of Russia on the southwest.
The Lithuanian Word. Memories Overview Gallery People Find. Sign in Create Account. Family Tree. From FamilySearch Wiki. Lithuania Wiki Topics. Categories : Lithuania History. Others were executed or died in prisons. All these persecutions triggered the longest major guerilla war in modern Europe. This Lithuanian armed resistance was crushed by large Soviet forces by mids with some 30 partisans killed.
More precise numbers of victims are in the article on World War 2. Lithuanian freedom fighter officer awards a female citizen. In Lithuanian forests sheltered an entire guerilla state with its own government, army, and courts of law. Some vainly hoped for Western help, for the others tough life in forest helped avoid an even quicker death in Soviet genocide.
In order to intimidate the remaining population Soviets used to publically display guerilla corpses in town squares. After a brutal genocide locals murdered, among them Lithuanians the region's population was replaced by Soviet settlers and new Russian placenames were coined for its towns and features. This effectively ended the history of Lithuania Minor. The agriculture remained collectivized and its outputs greatly diminished especially when taking into regard the improved technologies , the property remained nationalized, the ownership of Lithuanian symbols and any criticism of communism or the Soviet occupation were still punished by long terms of imprisonment in jails or insane asylums and the Lithuanians living in other parts of Soviet Union as well as those living in the multi-ethnic Vilnius region were Russified.
An example of all-encroaching Soviet propaganda, this is an early Soviet era postcard of Vilnius Gedimino Avenue. The number of cars is artificially increased to make the Union look more affluent in reality car remained a luxury until the USSR dissolution in All photographers had to follow guidelines for instance, not to take pictures of wooden homes and no foreigner was meant to see the real life of the Soviet citizens. Soviet Lithuania was isolated from the non-Soviet world with travel restrictions both for foreigners to enter anywhere except for several designated tourist places, and for the locals to travel abroad.
Religion and the religious were persecuted and many Roman Catholic churches, as well as all the monasteries, were closed down with the number of open Catholic churches in Vilnius becoming the same as that of Russian Orthodox churches despite there being ten Catholics for every single Orthodox. People were widely stealing from their workplaces and this was regarded as a normal practice by the society, therefore condoned by the peers and even many CEOs.
Few people if any were rich in terms of money but the community was far from egalitarian because it was who you knew that mattered the most: the people who had important friends also had access to many things that were inaccessible to most others, e.
A new concrete slab borough under construction in Vilnius in Such buildings provided a home for former peasants, settlers from Russia and those evicted from old houses alike. Still, however, the Lithuanian economy remained one of the most robust ones inside the Soviet Union — in Central Asia, Siberia or the Caucasus the situation was even worse. It took an increasingly pro-independence stance and its protests were attended by hundreds of thousands.
The pro-independence underground always existed in Lithuania in the form of Lithuanian Freedom League or the Roman Catholic secret newspaper describing the brutality of the Soviet regime.
But only by the year , the majority of Lithuanians dared to tell their thoughts publically. Baltic way - the km long human chain of some 2 million people that connected Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn total population of the Baltic States was 7,5 million. It demonstrated the unity of the Baltic States and the determination to achieve freedom. The idea of this protest form was later copied by political movements as far away as in Israel and Taiwan, but neither the size nor the length of the human chain was ever surpassed.
The Soviets subsequently attempted to reimpose their control by force and the attack of January 13th, led to the deaths of 14 unarmed civilians together with tens of thousands of others, they protected key buildings such as the Vilnius TV tower and the Supreme Council from the Russians. On July 31 of , seven customs officers were killed by Russian forces on the newly established Lithuanian-Belarusian border.
These attempts consolidated the Western support for the Lithuanian independence and de jure recognitions started to pour in by early many countries, like the USA, never recognized the occupation of Lithuania and thus did not have to recognize independence.
By the end of , the Soviet Union completely collapsed and turned into 15 independent countries. Russians withdrew their final soldiers from Lithuania by the first completed withdrawal in entire Eastern Europe.
Unimaginable under the Soviet anti-religious regime merely 5 years ago this event boosted Lithuanian morale and signified regained freedom. Long-awaited independence brought many personal freedoms which the people had eagerly sought. This was an era of massive new churches, telenovelas and anime on prime-time TV, hip-hop, mass import of used non-Soviet cars, and the first travels to the West.
Criminal news hidden from the public in the Soviet Union were now the first pages of a newspaper a regular reader would skim. It was easier for new ideas to gain acceptance than ever before or since. Private property was again the norm and nationalized land was returned to former pre owners where possible.
Freedom euphoria was, however, joined by a hardship of economic transition. Factories that had been built for the Soviets were horribly outdated and unable to compete in the free market both due to low technology and their management not understanding things such as marketing. The inefficient system of collective agriculture has been swiftly disbanded.
Only a small part of these Soviet-established businesses survived. Car ownership rates soared but few would drive every day or keep cars near home, having opted for such far-away garages instead. This Bing Bird's eye image taken in shows a largely abandoned 'garage city' in Vilnius which has subsequently been cleared for IKEA mall. The early years of Lithuanian economy — had a frontier feeling with organized crime especially extortion burgeoning. Some people that stood in the "mafia's" way businessmen, a journalist, prosecutors were murdered.
By the lawless businesses gave way to modern developments, while certain key state institutions telecommunications, passenger sea lines, oil refinement were privatized by foreign consortiums. What started with the first skyscrapers of Vilnius in quickly expanded to other main cities.
By the year , Lithuania was effectively a modern society. Lithuanian entrepreneurs pioneered massive shopping mall development in Eastern Europe in the s. In the year , Lithuania joined the European Union and NATO, both memberships having been a major foreign policy goal since independence. European Union membership required an adaptation of Lithuanian laws, ushering the end of libertarian Lithuania.
Entrepreneurship decreased, bureaucracy replaced idealism while political correctness engulfed the freedom of speech. Foreign policy goals in the East were less successful with Russia also Israel and Belarus refusing to try the Soviet war criminals now residing in these countries. The post-independence economic growth has been sweeping but the Soviet occupation left Lithuania decades behind the West leading to lower salaries. Some Lithuanians refused to wait and opted to leave their homeland instead primarily to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The population of Lithuania went down from 3,5 million to 3 million people in a decade between censae of years and Currently, the population of Lithuania is even smaller than that before the World War 2. Such emigration levels are unheard of anywhere outside of the countries struck by wars and disasters. Comparison of economies left and populations right in Lithuania and Finland. Prior to Lithuania and Finland had similar histories and economies. However, the relative decline of Lithuanian population continues.
See also: Top 10 post-independence sights in Lithuania Ethnic relations in modern Lithuania Share this:. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History 1 Comment. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History 4 Comments. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History 80 Comments. President Antanas Smetona takes oath before a Catholic bishop. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History 3 Comments. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History Comments. Click to learn more about Lithuania: History 39 Comments.
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