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The Klaipėda Revolt was the last armed conflict in Lithuania before World War II. [108] 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.
On 11 March 1990, the Republic of Lithuania was re-established as an independent state, the first Soviet Republic to leave Moscow and leading other states to do so. Lithuania considered the Soviet occupation and annexation illegal and, like the other two Baltic States, claimed state continuity.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were considered to be under Soviet occupation by the United States, the United Kingdom, [21] Canada, NATO, and many other countries and international organizations. [22] During the Cold War, Lithuania and Latvia maintained legations in Washington DC, while Estonia had a mission in New York City.
Lithuania, [b] officially the Republic of Lithuania, [c] is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. [d] It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west.
During the 13th century the Duchy of Lithuania was bordered by Slavic lands. The Slavs did not create the name; they used the existing Lithuanian ethnonym. [3] The Lithuanian diphthong-ie- has, in Slavic languages, shifted to the vowel-i- (и), and the short -u- became extra-short (reduced) -ŭ- which, being unstressed, later disappeared from the East Slavic, hence Litva.
The same pattern holds true for Estonia and Lithuania. This economic exploitation and heavy militarization explain why the Baltic nations, which had been relatively advanced before the war, became economically stunted compared to Western Europe, underlining the extractive nature of the Soviet occupation. [64] [65] [66] [better source needed]
Lithuania also received immigrants, but to a lesser degree. [7] Ethnic Estonians constituted 88 percent before the war. In 1970, the figure dropped to 60 percent. Ethnic Latvians constituted 75 percent, but the figure dropped to 56.8 percent in 1970 [10] and further down to 52 percent in 1989. [11] In contrast, in Lithuania the drop was 4 percent.
By 1920, German troops had withdrawn and the Russian Civil War was in its final phase. Consequently, the Baltic states signed peace treaties with Soviet Russia. Estonia signed the Treaty of Tartu on 2 February, Lithuania signed the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty on 12 July and Latvia signed the Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty on 15 August 1920. [3]