• Also, shared with other European Union member states.: Lithuania ( ( );: Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika), is a country in the of. One of the three, it is situated along the southeastern shore of the, to the east of and. It is bordered by to the north, to the east and south, to the south, and (a ) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.8 million people as of 2017, and its capital and largest city is. The official language,, along with, is one of only two living languages in the of the language family. For centuries, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various.
In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, the, was created on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the was the largest country in Europe; present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were the territories of the Grand Duchy. With the of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries it from 1772 to 1795, with the annexing most of Lithuania's territory. As neared its end, Lithuania's was signed on 16 February 1918, declaring the founding of the modern Republic of Lithuania. In the midst of the, Lithuania was first and then.
No one alive today remembers the royal families in Lithuania. Several sources I contacted could not agree on the validity of his claims or his family rights.
As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, the. On 11 March 1990, a year before the formal, Lithuania became the first to declare itself independent, resulting in. Lithuania is a member of the, the, a full member of the, and. It is also a member of the, and part of cooperation of countries.
The United Nations lists Lithuania as a 'very high human development' country. The former residence of the Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by, who was crowned as on 6 July 1253. After his assassination in 1263, was a target of the of the and the. Is noted for the Lithuanians' heroic defense against the intruders. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the expanded rapidly, overtaking former Slavic principalities of.
On 22 September 1236, the between and the took place close to. The Livonian Brothers were smashed during it and their further conquest of the lands were stopped. The battle inspired rebellions among the,,,, tribes previously conquered by the Sword-Brothers. Some thirty years' worth of conquests on the left bank of were lost. In 2000, the Lithuanian and Latvian parliaments declared 22 September to be the Day of Baltic Unity. And in the centre After two civil wars, became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its territorial expansion, centralization of the state began, and the became increasingly prominent in state politics.
In the great in 1399, the combined forces of and Vytautas were defeated by the. Thanks to close cooperation, the armies of Lithuania and Poland achieved a great victory over the Teutonic Knights in 1410 at the, one of the largest battles of medieval Europe. In January 1429, at the Vytautas received the title of with the backing of, but the envoys who were transporting the crown were stopped by Polish in autumn of 1430. Another crown was sent, but Vytautas died in the several days before it reached Lithuania. He was buried in the. After the deaths of Jogaila and Vytautas, the Lithuanian nobility attempted to break the union between and Lithuania, independently selecting Grand Dukes from the.
But, at the end of the 15th century, Lithuania was forced to seek a closer alliance with Poland when the growing power of the threatened Lithuania's Russian principalities and sparked the and the. During the in 1514 Lithuanians hopelessly trounced the forces On 8 September 1514, between Lithuanians, commanded by the, and Muscovites was fought. According to by, the primary source for information on the battle, the much smaller army of Poland–Lithuania (under 30,000 men) defeated a force of 80,000 Muscovite soldiers, capturing their camp and commander. The battle destroyed a military alliance against Lithuania and Poland. Thousands of Muscovites were captured as prisoners and used as laborers in the, while Konstanty Ostrogski delivered the captured Muscovite flags to the Cathedral of Vilnius.
The Livonian War was ceased for ten years with a signed on 15 January 1582 according to which the already recovered, and, but transferred to the. The was extended for twenty years in 1600, when a to Moscow led by concluded negotiations with Tsar. The truce was broken when. In the modern capital The was created in 1569.
As a member of the Commonwealth, Lithuania retained its institutions, including a separate army, currency, and statutory laws. Eventually affected all aspects of Lithuanian life: politics, language, culture, and national identity. From the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries, culture, arts, and education flourished, fueled by the and the. From 1573, the Kings of Poland and Grand Dukes of Lithuania were, who were granted ever increasing. These liberties, especially the, led to anarchy and the eventual dissolution of the state. The and Senate adopts, which is claimed to be the second oldest in the world after the The was adopted by the (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth trying to save the state. The legislation was designed to redress the Commonwealth's political defects due to the system of Golden Liberties, also known as the 'Nobles' Democracy,' had conferred disproportionate rights on the nobility (szlachta) and over time had corrupted politics.