Vilnius Region Totally Explained

Everything about Vilnius Region totally explained

Vilnius Region (Lithuanian: Vilniaus kraštas, ) generally refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania and Belarus that was assigned to Lithuania by the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920, but was under Polish control from 1920 to 1939. The territory included Vilnius, historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania, after announcing independence from the Russian Empire, claimed Vilnius Region based on historical legacy. Poland claimed the region as it had a sizeable Polish population and argued for its right of self-determination. Intense conflict ensured. Direct military conflicts (Polish-Lithuanian War and Żeligowski's Mutiny) were followed up by fruitless negotiations in the League of Nations and complete lack of any diplomatic relations between Poland and Lithuania until the Poland's ultimatum of March 17 1938. Poland demanded unconditional establishment of diplomatic relations. After the Soviet invasion of Poland the entire region came under Soviet control. About one fifth of the region, including Vilnius, was given to Lithuania by the Soviet Union on October 10 1939 in exchange for soviet military bases within the territory of Lithuania. The conflict over Vilnius Region was settled after World War II when both Poland and Lithuania came under the Soviet domination.

Territory and terminology

Initially Vilnius Region had no determined territory, but referred to Vilnius and surrounding territory, disputed between Lithuania and Poland from 1918. Later, the western limit of the region was defined as de facto administration line between Poland and Lithuania set up in late 1920. Lithuania refused to recognize this line. The eastern limit was defined by the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920. The eastern line was never turned into an actual border between states and remained only a political vision. The total territory covered about 32,250 km².
Today the eastern limit of the region is the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. This modern border divides the Vilnius Region into two parts: western and eastern. Western Vilnius Region, including Vilnius, is now part of Lithuania. It constitutes about one third of the total Vilnius Region. Lithuania gained about 6,880 km² on October 10 1939 from the Soviet Union and 2,650 km² (including Druskininkai and Švenčionys) on August 3 1940 from the Byelorussian SSR. Eastern Vilnius Region is now part of Belarus. No parts of the region are in modern Poland. None of the countries have any further territorial claims.
The term Central Lithuania (Polish: Litwa Środkowa) refers to the short-lived puppet state Republic of Central Lithuania, proclaimed by Lucjan Żeligowski after his staged mutiny in the annexed areas. After eighteen months of existence, it was incorporated into Poland on March 24 1922 thus finalizing Poland's claims over the territory.

Vilnius dispute

In the Middle Ages, Vilnius and its environs had become a nucleus of the early ethnic Lithuanian state, the Duchy of Lithuania, also referred to in Lithuanian historiography as a part of the Lithuania Propria. After the Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in late 18th century it was annexed by Imperial Russia. In the effect of World War I it was seized by Germany and given to the civilian administration of the Ober-Ost. With the German defeat in the World War I and the outbreak of hostilities between various factions of the Russian Civil War, the area, while controlled by Poles became disputed by Lithuania and the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic.
   After the outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik War, during the summer offensive of the Red Army, the region got under Soviet control as the part of planned Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In exchange for military cooperation after Lithuania-Soviet Russia war (1918-1920), the Bolshevist authorities signed a peace treaty with Lithuania on July 12 1920. According to the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920, all area disputed between Poland and Lithuania, at the time controlled by the Bolsheviks, was to be transferred to Lithuania. However, the actual control over the area remained in Bolsheviks hands. After the Battle of Warsaw of 1920 it became clear that the advancing Polish Army would soon recapture the area. Seeing that they couldn't secure it, the Bolshevik authorities started to transfer the area to Lithuanian sovereignty. The advancing Polish Army managed to retake much of the disputed area before the Lithuanians arrived, while the most important part of it with the city of Vilnius was secured by Lithuania.
   Since the two states were not at war, diplomatic negotiations started. As Lithuanians made a small minority in the disputed area and Poles constituted approximately 58% of its inhabitants (the rest being mostly Jews and Belarusians, see Ethnic history of the region of Vilnius), the Polish authorities demanded region to be transferred to Poland. Lithuanian government argued that the majority of those who declared Polish nationality were in fact Polonized Lithuanians, that the area historically belonged to Lithuania Propria part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and believed that their historical claim to the city of Vilnius (former capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which at that point was divided near evenly between Poles and Jews, with Lithuanian speaking as constituting a mere fraction - about 2-3% - of the total population ) had precedence over self-determination rights of the mostly Polish speaking population of the region. The negotiations and international mediation led to nowhere and until 1920 the disputed territory remained divided onto Lithuanian and Polish part.
   Finally, in 1920, after a staged coup in October 9, Polish general Lucjan Żeligowski seized the Lithuanian part of the disputed territory and created there a semi-independent state of Central Lithuania. Although the following year it voted to join Poland and the choice was later accepted by the League of Nations, the area granted to Lithuania by the Bolsheviks in 1920 continued to be claimed by Lithuania, with the city of Vilnius being treated as that state's official capital and the temporary capital in Kaunas, and the states officially remained at war. It wasn't until the Polish ultimatum of 1938, that the two states resolved diplomatic relations.
   The Polish government never acknowledged the Russo-Lithuanian convention of July 12 1920, that granted the latter state territory seized from Poland by the Red Army during the Polish-Bolshevik War, then promised to Lithuania as the Soviet forces were retreating under the Polish advance; particularly as the Soviets had previously renounced claims to that region in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In turn, the Lithuanian authorities didn't acknowledge the Polish-Lithuanian border of 1918-1920 as permanent nor did they ever acknowledged the sovereignty of puppet Republic of Central Lithuania that was soon incorporated into Poland.
   The loss of Vilnius might have nonetheless safeguarded the very existence of the Lithuanian state in the interwar period. Despite an alliance with Soviets (Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920) and the war with Poland, Lithuania was very close to being invaded by the Soviets in summer 1920 and having been forcibly converted into a socialist republic. It was only the Polish victory against the Soviets in the Polish-Soviet War (and the fact that the Poles didn't object to some form of Lithuanian independence) that derailed the Soviet plans and gave Lithuania an experience of interwar independence.
   In 1939 Soviets gave proposal to Lithuania to give 1/5th of Vilnius region, including city of Vilnius itself, to Lithuania in exchange for stationing Red Army troops in Lithuania. Lithuanians at first didn't want to accept this, but later Russians said that troops would enter Lithuania, anyway, so Lithuania accepted the deal. 1/5th of Vilnius region was ceded, despite of the fact that Soviet Union always recognised whole Vilnius region as part of Lithuania previously.

Ethnography

According to the 1916 census organised there by the German authorities Lithuanians constituted 18.5% of the population. The post-war Polish censae of 1921 and 1931, found 5% of Lithuanians living in the area, with several almost purely-Lithuanian enclaves located to the south-west of Vilnius and to the north of Švenčionys . The majority of the population was composed of Poles (roughly 60%) according the latter three censae. The results of Polish censae were questioned by some Lithuanian historians and the Lithuanian government claimed that the majority of local Poles were in fact Polonised Lithuanians. In the 1920s, League of Nations twice attempted to organise plebiscite, although both sides were not eager to participate. After staged mutinity by Lucjan Żeligowski Poles took control over the area, and organised elections, which was boycotted by most Lithuanians, but also many Jews and Belarusians because of strong Polish military control. Today, the Po prostu (badly learned Polish) dialect is the native language for Poles in Šalčininkai district and in some territories of Vilnius district, its speakers consider themselves to be Poles and believe po prostu language to be purely Polish . The population, including those of "the locals" (Tutejshy) who live in the other part of Vilnius region that was occupied by Soviet Union and passed on to Belarus, has extremely strong Polish identity and sometimes is angered when Lithuanians suggest that they're descendants of mostly ethnic Lithuanians who didn't learn Polish well enough. However, some of the locals admit their Lithuanian background.

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