Two hundred and twenty years ago, on April 15, 1795, Empress Catherine II signed the Manifesto on the annexation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Duchy of Courland and Semigalsk to the Russian Empire. This is how the famous Third Partition of the Commonwealth ended, as a result of which most of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Courland became part of the Russian Empire. As a result of the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, almost the entire Baltic region became part of the Russian Empire. The process of the annexation of the Baltic lands began under Peter I. Following the results of the Northern War, Estonia and Livonia became part of Russia. However, the Duchy of Courland retained its independence and formal vassalage in relation to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Likewise, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania remained an independent state in union with Poland.
Accession of Courland and Lithuania
However, while formally retaining its fief obligations to Poland, the Duchy of Courland has also been in the sphere of influence of Russia since the end of the Northern War. Back in 1710, Anna, the daughter of the Russian Tsar John V, brother of Peter I, became the Duchess of Courland through her marriage to Duke Friedrich Wilhelm Kettler. In 1730 Anna Ioannovna ascended the Russian throne. In Courland, the power of the Biron dynasty reigned. In 1737, Ernst-Johann Biron, the closest associate and favorite of Anna Ioannovna, became the duke, who later handed over the reins of the dukedom to his son. From that time on, the Russian Empire actually provided all-round support to the dukes of Courland, protecting their power from encroachments on the part of the disgruntled part of the local nobility. The incorporation of the Duchy of Courland into Russia was voluntary - the aristocratic families of the duchy, fearing the destabilization of the existing system in Courland after the invasion in 1794 by the troops of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish general who was inspired by the ideas of the Great French Revolution, turned to Russia for military assistance. Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov himself commanded the suppression of the Polish troops. After the suppression of the uprising, the Courland nobility turned to the Russian empress with a request to include the duchy into the empire. On the site of the Duchy of Courland, the province of the same name was formed, and the local aristocracy largely retained its positions. Moreover, the Courland and Livonian German nobility became one of the most prominent groups of the Russian nobility, playing a huge role in the political life of the Russian Empire until the beginning of the 20th century.
But the annexation of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was even more important than the admission of Courland to the Russian Empire. And not only strategically and economically, but also in terms of preserving the Russian language and the Orthodox faith in the lands that were previously under the rule of the principality. Indeed, in addition to Lithuania itself, the Grand Duchy included vast territories of modern Ukraine and Belarus with a Russian population (at that time there was no artificial division of the Russian people), most of them professing Orthodoxy. For centuries, the Orthodox population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, subjected to oppression by the Catholic gentry, appealed for help to the Russian state. The incorporation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Russia largely solved the problem of discrimination against the Russian and Orthodox population by the Catholic gentry. The actual Lithuanian part of the Grand Duchy, that is, its Baltic lands, became part of the Vilna and Kovno provinces of the Russian Empire. The population of the provinces was not only Lithuanians, who were mostly peasants who lived in farms, but also Germans and Jews, who made up the majority of the urban population, and Poles, who competed with the Lithuanians in agriculture.
Anti-Russian uprisings - attempts to revive the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Lithuanian nobility and peasantry, in contrast to the Baltic Germans, turned out to be less loyal to the Russian Empire. Although at first the Lithuanian population did not show their protest activity in any way, it was worth it in 1830-1831. flared up the first Polish uprising, as unrest began in Lithuania. The uprising against the Russian government took on the character of real hostilities, which engulfed not only the territory of Poland, but also Lithuania and Volhynia. The rebels seized the territory of almost the entire Vilna province, except for the city of Vilno and several other large cities. The rebels gained sympathy from the gentry and the peasantry by announcing the restoration of the 1588 Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which guaranteed the rights and freedoms of the population.
It should be noted that during the uprising of 1830-1831. the actions of the Lithuanian rebels created significant obstacles to the actions of the Russian troops to suppress the unrest in Poland. Therefore, on the territory of the Vilna province in the 20th of April 1831, a punitive operation was launched under the general leadership of General Matvey Khrapovitsky - the Vilna and Grodno governors. By May 1831, control was restored over almost the entire territory of the Vilna province. However, relative order in the Vilna province was established only for three decades. In 1863-1864. the next Polish uprising broke out, no less large-scale and bloody than the uprising of 1830-1831. An extensive network of Polish gentry organizations headed by Yaroslav Dombrowski was involved in preparing the uprising. The activities of the Central National Committee extended not only to Polish, but also to Lithuanian and Belarusian lands. In Lithuania and Belarus, the committee was headed by Konstantin Kalinovsky. The uprising against Russian rule in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus was actively supported from abroad. Foreign volunteers from European states flocked to the ranks of the Polish insurgents, who considered it their duty to "fight the tyranny of the Russian Empire." In Belarus, the Catholic gentry, which formed the backbone of the insurrectionary movement, unleashed terror against the Orthodox peasantry, who did not support the uprising alien to their interests. At least two thousand people became victims of the rebels (according to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary).
Belarusian historian Yevgeny Novik believes that in many ways the history of the Polish uprising of 1863-1864. was falsified, not only by Polish researchers, but also by Soviet authors (https://www.imperiya.by/aac25-15160.html). In the USSR, the uprising was viewed exclusively through the prism of its national liberation character, on the basis of which its progressive character was recognized. At the same time, it was forgotten that the uprising itself was not actually popular. The overwhelming majority of its participants were represented by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry, the peasantry was no more than 20-30% in the West Belarusian lands and no more than 5% in Eastern Belarus. This was due to the fact that most of the peasants spoke Russian and professed Orthodoxy, and the uprising was raised by representatives of the Polish and Polonized gentry, professing Catholicism. That is, they were ethnically alien to the Belarusian population, and this explained the insignificant nature of support for the uprising on the part of the peasantry. The fact that the peasants supported the Russian Empire in this confrontation was acknowledged in their reports by the army and gendarme chiefs who were directly involved in establishing order in the Lithuanian and Belarusian provinces.
When the Old Believers in the Dinaburg district captured a whole detachment of rebels, the headquarters officer of the Vilna gendarmerie A. M. Losev wrote in a memorandum: “Dinaburg peasants have proved where the strength of the Government is - in the mass of the people. Why not use this force everywhere and thereby declare before Europe the real position of our western land? (The uprising in Lithuania and Belarus in 1863-1864. M., 1965, p. 104). For the Belarusian peasantry, the return of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not bring anything good in itself, except as a rollback to the terrible times of persecution of the Russian language and the Orthodox faith. Therefore, if the uprising was of a national liberation nature, it was only for the Polonized groups of the population and, above all, for the Catholic gentry, who were nostalgic for the times of the Commonwealth and the rights that it possessed in the Polish-Lithuanian unitary state.
The tsarist government treated the insurgent Poles and Lithuanians extremely humanely. Only 128 people were executed, 8-12 thousand people went into exile. Repressions, as a rule, affected the leaders, organizers and real participants in the rebel terror. However, in addition to court sentences, administrative measures followed. After the uprising, a ban was introduced on the official use of the names of Poland and Lithuania, and all Catholic monasteries and parish schools were closed. In the Vilnius province, teaching in schools in the Lithuanian language was completely prohibited, in the Kovno province it was retained only for elementary schools. All books and newspapers written in the Lithuanian language in the Latin alphabet were seized; accordingly, a ban was imposed on the use of the Lithuanian Latin alphabet. Through these measures, the tsarist government sought to prevent the preservation and spread of anti-Russian sentiments among the Polish and Lithuanian population, and in the future - to Russify it, to integrate Poles and Lithuanians into the Russian nation by approving the abandonment of the Latin alphabet, national languages and a gradual transition to the Orthodox faith.
However, anti-Russian sentiments persisted in Lithuania. This, in many respects, was facilitated by the activities of the Catholic Church and Western states. Thus, from the territory of East Prussia, Lithuanian literature was smuggled into Lithuania, printed in the Latin alphabet in printing houses in East Prussia and in the United States of America. A special subtype of smugglers - booksellers - were involved in the delivery of prohibited books. As for the Catholic clergy, they created underground schools in parishes, where they taught the Lithuanian language and the Latin alphabet. In addition to the Lithuanian language, which the native Lithuanians certainly had every right to master, anti-Russian, anti-imperial sentiments were also cultivated in the underground schools. Naturally, this activity was supported by both the Vatican and the Polish Catholic hierarchs.
The beginning of a short independence
In the Lithuanians professing Catholicism, who negatively perceived their being under the rule of the Russian Empire, the anti-Russian forces in Europe saw natural allies. On the other hand, the Lithuanian population was indeed discriminated against by the short-sighted policy of the tsarist authorities, which prohibited the use of the national language, which contributed to the spread of radical sentiments among various segments of the population. During the revolution of 1905-1907. in the Vilna and Kovno provinces, powerful demonstrations took place - both by revolutionary workers and peasants.
During the First World War, in 1915, the Vilnius province was occupied by German troops. When Germany and Austria-Hungary decided to create puppet states on the territory of the western regions of the former Russian Empire, on February 16, 1918, in Vilna, it was announced that a sovereign Lithuanian state would be restored. On July 11, 1918, the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania was proclaimed, and the German prince Wilhelm von Urach was to assume the throne. However, in early November, the Council of Lithuania (Lithuanian Tariba) decided to abandon plans to create a monarchy. On December 16, 1918, after the withdrawal of the occupying German troops, the Lithuanian Soviet Republic was created, and on February 27, 1919, the creation of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic was announced. In February-March 1919, the troops of the Lithuanian Tariba began fighting against the Soviet troops in alliance with German units, and then with the army of Poland. The territory of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR was occupied by Polish troops. From 1920 to 1922 on the territory of Lithuania and Western Belarus, there was Central Lithuania, later annexed to Poland. Thus, the territory of modern Lithuania was actually divided into two parts. The former Vilna province became part of Poland and from 1922 to 1939. was called the Vilna voivodeship. On the territory of the Kovno province, there was an independent state of Lithuania with its capital in Kaunas. Antanas Smeatona (1874-1944) was elected the first president of Lithuania. He headed Lithuania in 1919-1920, then taught philosophy at the Lithuanian University in Kaunas for some time. The second coming to power of Smeatona took place in 1926 as a result of a coup d'état.
Lithuanian nationalism of the twenties and thirties
Antanas Smeatonu can be distinguished among the founders of modern Lithuanian nationalism. After leaving the presidency in 1920, he did not leave politics. Moreover, Smeatona was extremely dissatisfied with the activities of the center-left government of Lithuania and began to form a nationalist movement. In 1924, the Union of Lithuanian Farmers and the Party of National Progress merged into the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists ("tautininki"). When a coup d'etat took place in Lithuania on December 17, 1926, led by a group of nationalist-minded officers led by General Povilas Plehavičius, the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists actually turned into a ruling party. A few days after the coup, Antanas Smeatona was elected President of Lithuania for the second time. The ideology of the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists was involved in a combination of Catholic values, Lithuanian patriotism and peasant traditionalism. The party saw the guarantee of the strength and independence of Lithuania in the preservation of the traditional way of life. Under the Union of Nationalists, there was a paramilitary organization - the Union of Lithuanian Riflemen. Formed in 1919 and incorporating many veterans of the First World War, as well as nationalist youth, the Union of Lithuanian Riflemen became a massive nationalist militia-type organization and existed until the fall of the Republic of Lithuania in 1940. By the end of the 1930s. the ranks of the Union of Lithuanian Riflemen consisted of up to 60,000 people.
The Union of Lithuanian Nationalists initially had a rather positive attitude towards Italian fascism, but later began to condemn some of Benito Mussolini's actions, obviously striving to maintain friendly relations with the Western countries - England and France. On the other hand, the mid-1920s. became a period of emergence in Lithuania and more radical nationalist organizations. Needless to say, they all bore a pronounced anti-Soviet character. In 1927, the fascist organization "Iron Wolf" appeared, which was on the positions of extreme Lithuanian nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism. Politically, the "iron wolves" were guided by German Nazism in the spirit of the NSDAP and considered the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists not radical enough.
At the head of the "Iron Wolf" was Augustinus Voldemaras (1883-1942). In 1926-1929. this man, who, by the way, was a professor at the Lithuanian University in Kaunas, served as the prime minister of Lithuania. Initially, together with Antanas Smyatona, he created and developed the Union of Lithuanian Nationalists, but later he parted with his comrade in ideological terms, considering his understanding of Lithuanian nationalism to be insufficiently radical and deep. In 1929 Voldemaras was removed from his post as prime minister and sent under police supervision to Zarasai. Despite the setback, Voldemaras did not abandon plans to change the course of Kaunas' policy. In 1934, with the help of the "iron wolves", he attempted a coup d'etat, after which he was arrested and sentenced to twelve years in prison. In 1938 Voldemaras was released and expelled from the country.
The USSR created Lithuania within its present-day borders
The end of the Lithuanian nationalist regime came in 1940. Although the first thunder for the political sovereignty of Lithuania sounded a little earlier. On March 22, 1939, Germany demanded that Lithuania return the Klaipeda region (then it was called Memel). Naturally, Lithuania could not refuse Berlin. At the same time, a non-aggression pact was signed between Germany and Lithuania. Thus, Lithuania refused to support Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. On September 17, 1939, taking advantage of the situation, Soviet troops entered the eastern regions of Poland. On October 10, 1939, the Soviet Union handed over to Lithuania the territory of Vilna and the Vilnius Voivodeship of Poland occupied by Soviet troops. Lithuania also gave its consent to the introduction of a 20,000-strong Soviet military contingent into the country. On June 14, 1940, the USSR issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, demanding that the government resign and allow additional Soviet troops to enter the country. On July 14-15, the Labor People's Bloc won the elections in Lithuania. On July 21, the creation of the Lithuanian SSR was proclaimed, and on August 3, 1940, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR granted the request of the Lithuanian SSR to be admitted to the Soviet Union.
Anti-Soviet and anti-Russian historians and politicians claim that Lithuania was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet period in the history of the republic is today called in Lithuania nothing more than "occupation". Meanwhile, had not Soviet troops entered Lithuania, it would have been annexed by Germany with the same success. Only the Nazis would hardly have left autonomy, albeit a formal one, under the name of Lithuania, would have developed a national language and culture, would have translated Lithuanian writers. Lithuania began to receive "bonuses" from the Soviet regime almost immediately after the alleged "occupation". The first bonus was the transfer to Lithuania of Vilna and Vilnius Voivodeship, which was occupied by Soviet troops in 1939. Let us remind you that at that time Lithuania was still an independent state and the Soviet Union could not transfer the lands occupied by it in the Vilnius Voivodeship to Lithuania, but include them in its composition - say, as the Vilna ASSR, or as the Lithuanian ASSR. Secondly, in 1940, having become a union republic, Lithuania received a number of Belarusian territories. In 1941, the Volkovysk region was included in Lithuania, which the Soviet Union acquired from Germany for 7.5 million dollars in gold. Finally, after the end of World War II, in which the Soviet Union won the main victory, in accordance with the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the USSR received the international port of Klaipeda (Memel), formerly owned by Germany. Klaipeda was also transferred to Lithuania, although Moscow had every reason to make it an enclave modeled on Kaliningrad (Konigsberg).
- demonstration in Vilnius in 1940 in support of the Soviet Union and I. V. Stalin
In anti-Soviet journalism traditionally dominated by the myth of the "nationwide" resistance of the Lithuanians to the establishment of Soviet power. At the same time, as an example, first of all, the activities of the famous "Forest Brothers" are cited - a partisan and underground movement on the territory of Lithuania, which began its activities almost immediately after the proclamation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and only a few years after the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, suppressed by the Soviet troops. Naturally, the inclusion of Lithuania into the Soviet Union was not welcomed by significant sections of the republic's population. Catholic clergy, who received direct instructions from the Vatican, nationalist intellectuals, yesterday's officers, officials, police officers of independent Lithuania, prosperous farmers - they all did not see their future as part of the Soviet state, and therefore were ready to deploy full-fledged resistance to Soviet power immediately after the inclusion of Lithuania to the USSR.
The Soviet leadership was well aware of the specifics of the socio-political situation in the newly acquired republic. It was for this purpose that the mass deportation of anti-Soviet elements to the deep regions and republics of the USSR was organized. Of course, among the deported there were many random people who were not Lithuanian nationalists and enemies of the Soviet regime. But when such massive companies are held, this is unfortunately inevitable. On the night of June 14, 1941, about 34 thousand people were deported from Lithuania. Nevertheless, it was just the real opponents of the Soviet regime that to a large extent managed to stay on the territory of the republic - they went underground long ago and were not going to voluntarily go into exile echelons.
Hitler's Lithuanian accomplices
The Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance was actively supported by Hitler's Germany, which was hatching plans to attack the Soviet Union and hoping to enlist the support of Lithuanian nationalists. Back in October 1940, the Lithuanian Front of Activists was created, led by the former Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to Germany Kazis Škirpa. Naturally, the position of this person speaks for itself. Kazis Škirpa, a native of the Lithuanian village of Namayunai, lived a long life. He was born in 1895, and died back in 1979, having lived in the United States of America for the last thirty years. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Lithuanian front of activists raised an armed anti-Soviet uprising on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR. It began with the murders of non-Lithuanian officers by Lithuanians who served in the local units of the Red Army. On June 23, the Provisional Government of Lithuania was formed, headed by Kazis Škirpa formally, but in fact it was headed by Juozas Ambrazevicius (1903-1974). The restoration of the independence of the Republic of Lithuania was announced. Nationalists began to destroy Soviet activists - both Russians and Lithuanians, and people of other nationalities. Mass Jewish pogroms began in Lithuania. It is the Lithuanian nationalists who bear the main responsibility for the genocide of the Jewish population in Lithuania during the Nazi occupation. When on June 24, 1941, Wehrmacht units entered Vilnius and Kaunas, by which time activists had been seized by the rebels of the Lithuanian Front, the latter managed to carry out bloody Jewish pogroms, the victims of which were at least four thousand people.
The provisional government of Lithuania hoped that Germany would help the republic regain political sovereignty. However, Hitler had completely different plans for Lithuania. The entire region was included in the Ostland Reichskommissariat. In accordance with this decision, the bodies of power of the “sovereign Republic of Lithuania” created by the Lithuanian Front of Activists were disbanded, in the same way as the armed formations of the Lithuanian nationalists. A significant part of yesterday's ardent supporters of Lithuanian independence immediately took their bearings in the situation and joined the auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht and the police. The organization "Iron Wolves", once created by ex-Prime Minister Voldemaras, at the time of the events described was led by former Major of the Lithuanian Air Force Jonas Piragus. His subordinates played one of the main roles in the anti-Soviet uprising, and then welcomed the arrival of the Nazis and en masse joined the ranks of the police and counterintelligence units.
On June 29, Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania Iosif Skvirekas publicly announced the full support of the Catholic clergy of Lithuania for the struggle that the "Third Reich" is waging against Bolshevism and the Soviet Union. Flirting with the Catholic Church, the German administration of Lithuania allowed the restoration of theological faculties in all universities in the country. However, the Nazis allowed activities on the territory of Lithuania and the Orthodox diocese - with the hope that the priests would influence the sympathies and behavior of the Orthodox population.
The bloody trail of the Nazis
In November 1941, under the leadership of the German administration, the paramilitary units of the Lithuanian self-defense were transformed. On its basis, the Lithuanian auxiliary police was created. By 1944, there were 22 Lithuanian police battalions in operation, with a total of 8,000 men. The battalions served on the territory of Lithuania, the Leningrad region, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and were even used in Europe - in France, Italy and Yugoslavia. In aggregate from 1941 to 1944. there were 20,000 Lithuanians in the auxiliary police units. The consequences of the activities of these formations are impressive and terrifying at the same time. Thus, by October 29, 1941, 71,105 persons of Jewish nationality had been killed, including a mass execution of 18,223 people carried out in the Kaunas Fortress. In May 1942, in Panevezys, Lithuanian policemen shot 48 members of the exposed underground communist organization. The total number of those killed in the territory of Lithuania during the years of the Nazi occupation reaches 700,000 people. 370,000 citizens of the Lithuanian SSR and 230,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed, as well as residents of other republics of the USSR and foreign citizens.
To the credit of the Lithuanian people, it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of Lithuanians stayed away from the fanaticism of the nationalists and Hitler's accomplices. Many Lithuanians took part in the anti-fascist and partisan movement. On November 26, 1942, by the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, the Lithuanian headquarters of the partisan movement was created under the leadership of Antanas Snechkus. By the summer of 1944, at least 10,000 partisans and members of underground organizations were active on the territory of Lithuania. People of all nationalities acted as part of partisan organizations - Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Jews, Belarusians. By the end of 1943, 56 groups of Soviet partisans and underground fighters were active in Lithuania. After the war, the number of partisans and underground fighters operating during the Second World War on the territory of Lithuania was established by name. It is known about 9187 partisans and underground fighters, 62% of whom were Lithuanians, 21% - Russians, 7.5% - Jews, 3.5% - Poles, 2% - Ukrainians, 2% - Belarusians and 1.5% - people of the rest nationalities.
During 1944-1945. Soviet troops liberated the territory of the Lithuanian SSR from the Nazi occupiers. However, Lithuanian nationalists almost immediately turned to an armed struggle against the return of Soviet power. In 1944-1947. the struggle of the “Lithuanian Freedom Army” and other armed formations, often united under the name “Lithuanian forest brothers”, was open. Lithuanian nationalists sought to achieve international recognition and received moral support from the United States and Great Britain, which for a long time did not want to recognize the return of Soviet power in the Baltics. Therefore, Lithuanian nationalists tried to present themselves not as a partisan movement, but as a regular army. They retained, albeit formally, the structure of the regular army, with military ranks, headquarters and even their own officers' school, which was later captured during the operation of the Soviet troops. In 1947, the active actions of the Soviet troops and the state security forces forced the "forest brothers" to move from open confrontation to guerrilla warfare and terrorism.
The activities of the “forest brothers” are a topic for a separate and interesting study. Suffice it to say that armed detachments of Lithuanian nationalists operated on the territory of the republic until the end of the 1950s, and in the 1960s. there were separate forays of the "forest brothers". During the years of the anti-Soviet terror they unleashed, 25 thousand people died at the hands of the so-called "Lithuanian patriots". 23 thousand of them are ethnic Lithuanians who were killed (often with their children) for cooperation with the Soviet regime, or even on fictitious suspicions of sympathy for the communists. In turn, the Soviet troops managed to destroy up to thirty thousand members of the "forest brothers" bandit formations. In modern Lithuania, the “forest brothers” are heroized, monuments are erected to them and are considered fighters for the country's “independence” from the “Soviet occupation”.
