International role of Lithuania — What we did, it was not for ourselves. Even sometimes, we were fighting for our own rights, but as they were always the general rights of any nation, of all people, and it was successful and understood. It was encouragement. And Lithuania had a leading role there. Therefore, during the recent period until now– recent period of history after the Second World War, all– a way to Europe free and whole, you know who said it. [President George H.W. Bush described his vision for a “whole and free Europe” in a May 31, 1989 speech in Mainz, Germany.]
All the way to Europe free and whole, my country Lithuania, not being among the larger ones, played a significant role. We disagreed to stop this movement of democracy eastwards. [Referring the views of some at the time that wanted to preserve the Soviet Union.] And that of course, in a long time view, our role was a role, rather, of victim of two dictatorships, totalitarian dictatorships, but it was a role of resisting victim, which always resisted. And that made Lithuania itself a freedom fighter. And the leading a role it played in the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. It is a great evaluation. Sometimes a little bit threatening.
Vytautas Landsbergis was born in Lithuania in 1932 to a family of noted intellectuals. During the Second World War, Lithuania was occupied by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Nazi Germany, and once again by the USSR, which abolished Lithuania’s independence and forcibly annexed it. Landsbergis studied music and pursued a career as an educator, eventually becoming a professor of music history at the Lithuanian Academy of Music. He has written ten books on music and art history, five political books, and a book of poetry.
In 1988, Landsbergis joined other artists and intellectuals in forming the Sajudis movement, which developed to support the restoration of Lithuanian independence from the Soviet Union. He was elected as chairman of the movement. Under his leadership, Sajudis quickly won broad popular support from the Lithuanian population.
In February 1989, Sajudis declared the Soviet occupation illegal and formally proclaimed its goal of restoring independence. Landsbergis was elected as a deputy to the new USSR Congress of People’s Deputies in March 1989. Sajudis won 36 of the 42 seats at stake and used their mandates to lobby for Lithuanian independence.
On August 23, 1989, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet treaty that led to the abolition of the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and their forcible incorporation into the USSR, Landbergis and the leaders of Sajudis joined with their counterpart organizations, the Rahvarinne Popular Front of Estonia and the Popular Front of Latvia, in organizing the Baltic Way demonstration. Over one million people joined hands to form a 600 kilometer long human chain across the three countries. The nonviolent protest drew worldwide attention to the Baltic nations’ quest for freedom and independence.
In the first free Lithuanian elections held in February 1990, Landsbergis was elected to the legislature. When the new legislature convened in March, Landsbergis was elected chairman (speaker) and proclaimed the reestablishment of independence. In 1990 and 1991, he served as chairman of the commission that drafted the new Lithuanian constitution. He also chaired the Lithuanian delegation for negotiations with the USSR, achieving a withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Lithuania and securing widespread international recognition of the restored Lithuanian republic. In 1993, he cofounded the Lithuanian Conservative Party – Homeland Union and was elected party chairman.
From 1992 to 1996, he served as the leader of the opposition in the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament. After his party won the 1996 elections, he served again as Chairman of the Seimas until 2000. He was an unsuccessful candidate for President in the 1997 elections.
In 2004, he was elected to the European Parliament as Lithuania joined the European Union. He was reelected in 2009.
Landsbergis has received numerous international honors for his artistic and political activities. In 2013, he received the Democracy Service Award from the National Endowment for Democracy’s for his efforts to build a stable democracy in Lithuania and to assist democratic development abroad.
Along with its Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Latvia, modern Lithuania achieved independence after the collapse of imperial Russia in the First World War. From 1918 to 1940, Lithuania was an established and recognized state. This period of independence ended when Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia fell victim to the designs of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact, Hitler and Stalin divided much of Central and Eastern Europe. Lithuania was occupied and annexed by the Soviets in 1940. During World War II, Nazi Germany occupied Lithuania in 1941 and killed most of the Jewish population. USSR reconquered Lithuania in 1944. In 1945, Lithuania was proclaimed the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, but many Western governments never recognized the Baltic States’ incorporation into the USSR.
Under Soviet rule, Lithuania was subject to mass deportations and efforts to stifle its culture and language. Armed resistance to the USSR was largely extinguished in the early 1950s. After Stalin’s death in 1953, some modest liberalization occurred.
Like the rest of the Soviet Union, conditions in Lithuania stagnated during the 1970s and 1980s. The elevation of Mikhail Gorbachev to General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 sparked new movements for reform. Gorbachev’s glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) policies were designed to revive the Communist system, but also unleashed efforts to bring down the Soviet Union. Much of Lithuania’s Communist Party resisted the sweeping changes being instituted by Gorbachev.
In 1988, anti-Soviet intellectual and cultural elites were joined by some pro-reform Communists in forming Sajudis (meaning “movement” in Lithuanian), in part to support Gorbachev’s efforts for reform, but also to restore Lithuanian independence. Vytautas Landsbergis, a professor of music, became chairman of Sajudis. It quickly became a mass movement, organizing a number of large demonstrations during 1988 and 1989. In February 1989, Sajudis declared the Soviet occupation illegal and formally proclaimed its goal of restoring independence. In August 1989, Lithuanian activists joined with their counterparts in Estonia and Latvia to form a human chain stretching across the three Baltic countries. An estimated 2 million people joined hands in this peaceful protest to mark the 50th anniversary of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact that had consigned their countries to Soviet rule.
Candidates associated with Sajudis swept the February 1990 parliamentary elections, the first free elections held since the Soviet occupation began. On March 11, 1990, the new legislature elected Sajudis Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis as chairman of the parliament and proclaimed the reestablishment of independence. Gorbachev declared the declaration of independence illegal and began applying economic and military pressure against Lithuania. In September 1991, the Soviet Union formally recognized Lithuanian independence and the country joined the United Nations.
During the 1990s and 2000s, Lithuania underwent wrenching economic and social change, as the country privatized agriculture and industry and built a free market economy. It has held regular democratic elections since the restoration of independence, and parties have alternated in power. Lithuania, along with its Baltic neighbors, joined the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 2004.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2013, Lithuania earned the status “Free,” (as it has since 1991) receiving the best possible rankings in the categories Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Since the restoration of its independence, Lithuania has become a leader in assisting democratic development in the countries of the former Soviet Union.