Thirty-one years ago, on March 11, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania declared independence. As inevitable as it seems today, many countries were very far from supporting this outcome.
Thus, Moscow said the action was meaningless, and the administration of George H W Bush worried it could trigger the collapse of what it saw as a new international order made possible with Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm of the USSR.
https://balticword.com/thirty-one-years-of-lithuanian-dreams/

Goodness me - someone has been a busy little beaver decrying Lithuania's regaining its Independence in the 1990's. We're all aware
that there was a shroud of silence over the Soviet Regime's occupation of the Baltic States by the West. But things changed under Gorbachev and "Perestroika" where given the chance the Balts voted with their feet. The chain of where they linked hands for freedom
showed the world - they wanted their freedom back!

It needs to be remembered that Lithuania (indeed all the Baltic states) have only been free and independent for short, atypical periods over the past ~300 years. Once during the interbellum years while its main adversaries - Russia, Germany and Poland - were weakened by the loss of wars and the current 30 year period when its imperial overlords in Moscow lost the ability and willingness to defend their imperial lands.

Even during the 20 year interbellum years, Lithuania was not really whole in that Vilnius was occupied by Poland and nor was it really free since, following a short period of democracy, it was under authoritarian rule for most of the period.

The fact is that Lithuania exists at the discretion of Russia which is currently too weak to enforce its dominance in the region. As such, Lithuania independence relies utterly on the good graces of NATO and therefore the US. Were the US to declare a lack of interest in protecting the independence of the Baltic states, the current Russian regime would snuff that independence out in short order.

The Pax Americana is the only thing that allows these nations to exist and tweeking the noses of their protector is hardly good policy.

Adomas writes :"As inevitable as it seems today, many countries were very far from supporting this outcome."

In one of the more shameful episodes of the Whitlam years, in 1974 Australia recognised the legitimacy of the Soviet conquest the Baltic states. There was no reason or advantage in doing so other than to curry favour with the Russians and appease the communist wing of the ALP.

Let's just do to Lithuania what has been done to Australia: hand it to the Chinese and let China transmigrate millions of its people there.

They can do what they did in Australia: put all the signs at the airport in Chinese and English, where the Chinese is for the Chinese and the English is for everybody else. It works: they did it at Sydney Airport - albeit Sydney is a Chinese city.

It's the proper multicultural thing to do!

Through the centuries Lithuanians have managed to maintain
their culture and identity. Invaders came and went. And
yet today - Lithuania still exists and through sheer
stubborness will continue to do so.

If we look at England's occupation of Wales and Scotland -
and yet the Welsh are still Welsh, and the Scots are still Scottish.
You can not destroy centuries of history and culture.

Foxy,

Wanna bet?

Wait until the Chinese get there!

This could happen to a Lithuania near you:

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/chinese-takeover-of-island-near-australian-military-training-area-causes-unease-inside-defence-and-government/ar-BB1euKCt

Hi Foxy

Don't worry about Mr Opinion's repetitive OLO Comment Thread Debasing quips about China.

"Hark! Mopi be an idiot signifying nothing."

Shakespeare's "Planta III"

plantagenet,

If you guys don't think China poses a threat to Australia then just open the gates and let the Chinese walk in.

The politicians and bureaucrats have been letting it happen for the past four decades under an Asianization program (aka Australian Multiculturalism) during the Great Asianization Period (1980-2020).

But now they've realised that the Chinese are not the great bunch they thought they were and China is now a threat to Australia.

Bit late to be worrying now. The horse has bolted and the enemy is already inside the gate.

Australia was done for in 1788. English came in where other people were living, declared the land theirs, slaughtered a number of the original inhabitants, enforced their superstition on them even though they had superstitions of their own and made a country with the surviving original inhabitants second class citizens in 1967 when they were allowed to be citizens.

Lithuania was done for in 1368. Lithuania was a rarity, a feudal, multicultural society. The ruling house was pagan, but the nobility was representative of the general population – pagans, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Tatars etc. The Teutonic Knights mounted crusades against this non-Christian land at the edge of Christian Europe. In 1368 the ruling house of Lithuania contracted a marriage with the ruling house of Poland. Lithuania became Christian, and its days as a free, multicultural society were over.

david f,

So what's your point?

And David F., what do you think happened when the first white settlers (Pilgrim Father's) first landed at what's known as Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island all those years ago, David? Skirmishes broke out, resulting in a loss of life between indigenous Indians and the new white settlers. Often which were the result of misunderstandings or the un-avoidable pointing of weapons from both sides. It's good to hear from you, David F.

o sung wu,

You have to keep in mind that david f is not a historian, anthropologist, sociologist, archaeologist, or someone who has knowledge of those things so for him it's all a bit grey and fuzzy so you need to take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

Dear o sung wu,

There were two conflicting tendencies in colonial America. The Pilgrims came to America not for religious freedom but to establish a theocracy. Originally they fled England for the Netherlands. In the Netherlands they had complete religious freedom, but that was not what they wanted. They saw the Indians as 'creatures of the devil' and did their part in exterminating them. Roger Williams was a notable exception to New England bigotry. Massachusetts had a state church until 1838.

In contrast the Virginia colony had religious freedom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Statute_for_Religious_Freedom#:~:text=The%20Virginia%20Statute%20for%20Religious%20Freedom%20was%20drafted,Thomas%20Jefferson%20in%20the%20city%20of%20Fredericksburg,%20Virginia.

Those two opposing tendencies still exist in the current USA.

Hi there, David F. As usual, you've given me a very abridged version of American history, to which I'll defer. I realise your knowledge is far superior to mine in most things, save for contemporary policing methods, which we've discussed many times before. I was always under the impression the Pilgrim Father's were a very (harmonious) religious group that tried hard to live peacefully though quite separately from the many indigenous tribes that lived near them during that time. Thanks, David F., for again putting me straight, as it were.

Hi there Mr OPINION... Thank you for that; I understand DAVID F. is not a historian per se, rather he's a very talented mathematician, with an immense font of general knowledge, far, far, greater than mine. It's, for this reason, I will generally defer to him whenever he makes a carte blanch statement, rather than when he's just offering an opinion. Many thanks for your comment though.

Dear o sung wu,

The Pilgrims were not the first white English settlers in North America. They landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 while the English Virginia colony was founded in 1607.

Spaniards were in North America before the English. In 1565 the Spaniards established a fort in Florida which was later to become part of the United States.

The following links may be of interest:

http://www.brittannika.com/place/Lithuanian/History

http://www.lietuva.lit/100/en/discover-lithuania/history

Well that went well.

My apologies for the typos in both links.

I'll try again:

http://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuanian/History

http://www.lietuva.it/100/en/discover-lithuania/history

My last attempt:

http://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuania/History

http://www.lietuva.it/100/en/discover-lithuania/history

Dear Foxy,

My account of Lithuanian history differs from what you found in Britannica. My sources are:

Fletcher, Richard, The Conversion of Europe from Paganism to Christianity: 371-1386, London: Fontana (HarperCollins), 1998

Eliach, Yaffa, There Once Was a World.

Britannica is probably more accurate. The second book is the history of the 950 years of my grandmother’s village in Lithuania.

Again; Many thanks to you David F. for appraising me of your early American history, I do appreciate and admire your scholarship very much indeed.

Strictly speaking, the first European settlement in what became the USA was in 1508 in Puerto Rico. But it failed rather badly.

There were several other settlements prior to that of the Pilgrims but most of them failed and/or were just trading and/or military settlements. (Incidentally they didn't call themselves 'The Pilgrims' - that was a name given to them centuries later). Their settlement was important for two reasons...1) it was a true settlement colony that operated outside British control; 2) they signed a compact about how they were to govern which formed a basis for the later US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

People like david f malign the Pilgrims when he says they "did their part in exterminating them [the natives]". In fact the natives in the region had been fighting a long standing internal war among the tribes. The Pilgrims, for the sake of their own survival, allied with one side of that fight and supplied them with guns. The resultant death toll was largely native on native

Its a bit disingenuous to call Lithuania pre-1368 "a free, multicultural society" while at the same time acknowledging that it was a feudal state. In what sense were the serfs free? Indeed they were no less free in 1369 as they were in 1367. It might be true that the rulers of that land had less freedom to operate as they wished after conversion to Christianity but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As to Lithuania retaining its culture, well that's in the eye of the beholder. That they retain a culture which is somewhat different to that of their neighbours is true. But its also true that its somewhat different to that of those who occupied the land two, four or six centuries ago.

How could it be otherwise given that the land has been conquered by and assimilated by any number of empires? The Russification efforts of the 19th century. The Soviet suppression of the 20th century. The extermination of fully one in ten peoples (and a whole segment of that multicultural society) by the Nazis with the enthusiastic help of at least a part of Lithuania society which then went on to join the Nazis in the attempted conquest of their neighbours.

All of that changes a society in subtle but important ways. Sure they might still cook foods that have their origins in antiquity and dance in ways they think their ancestors did (much like the way Aboriginal groups do today). But is that all there is to a culture? Several centuries of authoritarian rule by others and by their own peoples has to change a society.

Its a comforting story that they came out of all this conflict unchanged. But its a myth.

Hmmm . . . . . . the amateur scholar.

Never ceases to amaze me . . . . . Actually reminds me of myself when I was an 8 year old.