Lithuania

“ Lithuania.♦ Of this family were the tribes of Curland in their own peninsula, of Samigola or Semigallia, the Samaites of Samogitia to the south, the proper Lithuanians south of them, the Jatwages, Jatwingi—in many spellings—forming a Lithuanian wedge between the Slavonic lands of Mazovia and Black Russia. ♦Prussia.♦ The Lithuanians, strictly so called, reached the coast just north of the Niemen; from the mouth of the Niemen to the mouth of the Vistula the coast was held by the Prussians. Of these nations, Aryan and non-Aryan, the Lithuanians alone founded a national dominion in historic times. ”

“ Lithuania, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with Poland; passed to Russia in 1814. The Lithuanians are a distinct race of the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs. Of a strong religious temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century) , and still retain many pagan superstitions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping. ”

“ SCENE IX THE ROAD FROM SMOLENSKO INTO LITHUANIA [The season is far advanced towards winter. The point of observation is high amongst the clouds, which, opening and shutting fitfully to the wind, reveal the earth as a confused expanse merely.] SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Where are we? And why are we where we are? SHADE OF THE EARTH Above a wild waste garden-plot of mine Nigh bare in this late age, and now grown chill, Lithuania called by some. ”

“ Vitold himself, though called Grand Prince, rules Lithuania by appointment of Yagello, and is merely viceroy. His merit, therefore, will fall on the king. And what glory for newly baptized Lithuania, and for Polish power, if their united armies shall carry the Cross to regions in which if the name of the Saviour has ever been mentioned, it was only to be blasphemed, regions in which the foot of a Pole or Lithuanian has never stood up to this time! ”

“ Henceforth the kingdom of Poland and the grand duchy of Lithuania were to constitute one inseparable and indivisible body politic, under one sovereign, elected in common, with one diet and one currency. All dependencies and colonies, including Prussia and Livonia, were to belong to Poland and Lithuania in common. ”

“ When the plague is about to strike upon Lithuania, the eye of the seer divines its coming; for, if one may believe the bards, often in the desolate graveyards and meadows the Maid of Pestilence rises to sight, in a white garment, with a fiery crown on her temples ”

“ From this city of Wilno, as from the she-wolf of Rome, went forth Kiejstut and Olgierd and his sons,63 as mighty hunters as they were famous knights, in pursuit now of their enemies and now of wild beasts. A hunter's dream disclosed to us the secrets of the future, that Lithuania ever needs iron and wooded lands. ”

“ Lithuania
Introduction Lithuania Background: Independent between the two World Wars, Lithuania was annexed by the USSR in 1940. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence, but Moscow did not recognize this proclamation until September of 1991 (following the abortive coup in Moscow) . The last Russian troops withdrew in 1993. Lithuania subsequently restructured its economy for integration into Western European institutions; it joined both NATO and the EU in the spring of 2004. ”

“ There are above half a million of inhabitants in Lithuania; there are more towns than there ever were, more flocks than formerly, more wealth and more productiveness than in any other part of Germany. ”

“ Thou hadst long been heralded by the marvel in the sky and preceded by a vague rumour among the folk; with the coming of the spring sun the hearts of the Lithuanians were seized with a certain strange foreboding, as if the end of the world were approaching—by a certain yearning and joyous expectation. ”

“ Return of the young master—A first meeting in the chamber, a second at table—The Judge's weighty lecture on courtesy—The Chamberlain's political remarks on fashions—Beginning of the quarrel over Bobtail and Falcon—Lamentations of the Seneschal—The last Apparitor—Glance at the political conditions of Lithuania and Europe at this period.
Lithuania, my country, thou art like health; how much thou shouldst be prized only he can learn who has lost thee. To-day thy beauty in all its splendour I see and describe, for I yearn for thee. ”

“ And so to see how far Lithuania has come since the Soviet days is a simply a joy. In the fifteen years since this country regained independence, it has become one of the world's great success stories. We in America count Lithuania as one of our closest friends, and we value its partnership in NATO and other important institutions of the West. ”

“ With inexpressible apprehension all the Lithuanian folk gazed each night at this heavenly marvel, foreboding ill from it, and likewise from other signs: for too often they heard the cries of ill-omened birds, which, gathering in throngs on empty fields, sharpened their beaks as if awaiting corpses. Too often they noticed that the dogs rooted up the earth, and, as if scenting death, howled piercingly, which was an omen of famine or of war. ”

“ The prince of Moscow knew well that the war with Lithuania—that state which Polish in the west, by its Russian provinces, in the east exercised a dangerous attraction over subjects of Moscow—was a struggle for existence. Lithuania was not only a foreign enemy—it was a domestic enemy, with intercourse and sympathies in the very heart of the Russian state, even in the palace of the czar ”

“ I am writing the story of my trip to Lithuania and return at the suggestion of some of my fellow citizens, to whom I have narrated some ideas of it, in which they took much interest as instructive information for anyone who prepares for a trip to any part of the world. As this country is composed of citizens and patriots of all nationalities, so every citizen may get attraction to visit his native land ”

“ Set in the Lithuanian country is Vilna, the station on the one reasonably dry entry from the west into Central Russia, and therefore a trading town with large German, Jewish, and Polish elements illustrating more tragically {77} than any other town the difficulty of creation of states in this eastern boundary zone of Western Europe. The forests of Lithuania are very important for the country's economic future. ”

“ I would not dare to undertake to describe to you the spirit of patriotism of the Lithuanians in their native land, for I am a Lithuanian, and some may say that it is quite natural to praise one's own. ”

“ The circumstances here mentioned are covered by some centuries. Both Lithuania, and her cruellest enemy, the Teutonic Order, have disappeared from the scene of political life; the relations between neighbouring nations are entirely changed; the interests and passions which kindled the wars of that time are now expired; even popular song has not preserved their memory. Litwa is now entirely in the past: her history presents from this circumstance a happy theme for poetry ”

“ In Lithuania the peasant question was treated the same way as in Estonia and Latvia. Of course there was one difference insofar as Lithuania had a larger number of small German peasant farms which at the end of 1939 were taken into the German Reich, and when the Germans marched into Lithuania they were returned to their original farms and were settled in as concentrated a manner as possible in certain settlement districts. ”

“ Members of the British mission at Kaunas (Kovo) told me that the Lithuanians are very brave soldiers who have so many enemies, yet nevertheless keep their spirit of patriotism so long and so firmly. It stands to reason then, that the Lithuanians, as a nation, are very brave, considering the numbers of Poles and Lithuanians, you could hardly imagine how the Lithuanians could dare oppose the Poles, and yet you see they attempt to oppose many armies. Lithuania has about one-fifth the population of Poland in Europe and about one-third the population of the Poles in America. ”

“ Our new Poland would not comprise the ancient Lithuania—the districts of Wilno, Kovno, and Grodno—although Lithuania formerly was part of Poland and still has about one million Polish inhabitants who form the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. Lithuania, which is really the region of the Niemen, is peopled by Letts, who have their own language, resembling neither Polish nor Russian, and they likewise hope to obtain some day a measure of autonomy in the Russian Empire, with the right to use their language in schools, churches, and civil proceedings. ”

“ If to the pure and unspoiled influence of his home Kościuszko owes something at least of the moral rectitude and devotion to duty from which he never swerved, the country life of Lithuania, with its freedom and its strange charm, the life that he loved above all others, has probably a good deal to say to the simplicity of nature and the straightness of outlook that are such strongly marked characteristics in this son of the Lithuanian forests. ”

“ The Duke of Lithuania is no hot-brained youth to be entangled and destroyed by a woman's smiles. To have a month's happiness, as men phrase it, and then the midnight dagger of a jealous monarch—I seek no such adventures. It is the crown of Poland—yes, the crown—that you must help me to, fair lady."
As he stood reflecting on his ambitious schemes, his rival in the state, Count Laski, minister and chancellor of the king, passed by him on his way to the palace. The duke, assuming a frank and cordial manner, called to him. Laski paused. "What would the Duke of Lithuania?" ”

“ Accordingly the vocabulary of Lithuanian betrays Polish, that of Lettish, German influence. Lettish has also been influenced by the proximity of its neighbours of Finnish race, whom the Letts gradually propelled northwards into the extreme northern corner of the promontory of Kurland, where a portion of them still remains, and into Livonia proper. Lithuanian has also been much influenced by White Russian, the dialect current in those provinces which in the Middle Ages formed the lands of the Lithuanian crown, and later with Lithuania became part of Poland. ”

“ The next morning I was fortunate indeed to say mass for the first time in the church in which I was baptized. That afternoon at a meeting of the Lithuanian Sales Corporation, I lectured on American Lithuanians and Americans in general. Monday I went to Kaunas, or Kovno, to meet the [Pg 10] [A] President of Lithuania, Anthony Smetona, to extend to him the congratulations of the Lithuanian Total Abstinance Organization of America. ”

“ Alexander's election cemented, indeed, once for all, the union between Poland and Lithuania, inasmuch as, on the eve of it (Oct. 3, 1501) the senates of both countries agreed that, in future, the king of Poland should always be grand-duke of Lithuania, but this was the sole benefit which the Republic derived from the reign of Alexander, under whom the Polish government has been well described as a rudderless ship in a stormy sea, with nothing but the grace of God between it and destruction. In Lithuania the increasing pressure of the Muscovite was the chief danger. ”

“ After repulsing the Bolshevik from the Dvinsk, they had a few weeks' rest and then marched to Kaunas.
At the time I was visiting Lithuania she was surrounded by enemies—on the north and east by the Bolsheviks, on the west by Kolchak and the insurgent Germans, and on the south by the Poles. The most stupendous fact is that at present the Poles are the most dangerous foes of the Lithuanians. The Poles, rejoicing in their own liberation from the yoke of oppression, are altogether unmindful that they are striving to place the Lithuanian nation under worse oppression. ”

“ There was no corner in the Lithuanian land to which its roar did not reach; amid dark forests, the peasant, whose grandfathers and kinsmen had died without seeing beyond the boundaries of the wood, who understood no other cries in the sky than those of the winds, and none on earth except the roaring of beasts, who had seen no other guests than his fellow-woodsmen, now beheld how a strange glare flamed in the sky—in the forest there was a crash—that was a cannon ball that had wandered from the battlefield and was seeking a path in the wood, tearing up stumps and cutting through boughs. ”

“ Observance of the anniversary of Lithuania's Declaration of Independence is natural for Americans, who faithfully celebrate our own Independence Day each year. America has long been a beacon of hope to Lithuania, because Americans cherish their self-determination, individual liberty, and independence-the God-given rights the Lithuanian people seek to reclaim in the face of religious and political persecution, forced Russification, and ethnic dilution. It is therefore fitting to show our solidarity with the people of Lithuania. ”

“ Basques and Bretons are not ethnographically French, nor are the Welsh English, but just as no sane thinker would dream of demanding for any of those a separate independent existence, so no one who has studied the problems of Eastern Europe could wish to create an independent Lithuania. ”

“ When the Germans occupied Lithuania they did not treat them as roughly as the Poles are doing at this moment. For example, I was in Lithuania when the Poles took Seinai, the seat of Bishop Karosas, which is a Lithuanian city, imprisoned the Lithuanian Bishop in his residence, expelled the ecclesiastical students from their seminary, arrested two priests and carried them to Poland. If any of the remaining priests are called out on a sick call, they send armed soldiers to accompany the priest and guard his movements strictly. ”