Dukes established the Lithuanian state in the early 1200’s and the first king, Mindaugas, was crowned in 1253. During the following 150 years the nation had various rulers, became Catholic and experienced it’s peak as a great power in Europe when the kingdom reached from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

The Lithuanian nobility came under Polish influence and the state Poland-Lithuania was established in 1569. This limited the Lithuanian self-rule and the Lithuanian language and culture were to a large extent replaced by Polish.

Lithuania was an important “granary” for Western Europe and the large landowners got more power and the king less.

Splits of the nation during the 1700s ended with Lithuanian territory in the hands of Russia. The nobility wanted the recreate the Polish – Lithuanian state and a brutal battle in the mid 1800’s ended with the abolishment of the Lithuanian constitution and 40,000 nobles were deprived their titles in 1840.

Russia took over power in Lithuania and enforced new laws prohibiting the use of Latin letters, Polish language as educational language, closed Catholic schools and destroyed Catholic churches.

This was the beginning for the new national heroes – the book smuggler – who carried Lithuanian book from the other side of the Nemunas River to the Lithuanians.

Germany conquered Lithuania in World War I, but the Lithuanians were strong and stubborn and the independence of the country was declared only three years later in 1918.

Until World War II Lithuania was through difficult times with war against Poland over the “ownership” of Vilnius, conquering of Klaipeda from the Germans and a military coup resulting in 12 years leadership inspired by the Italian fascism.

A secret agreement between Soviet and Germany ended the independence when Lithuania was “given” to Hitler. He later exchanged the country for an extra “piece” of Poland.

Lithuania was the first Baltic country to be occupied by Soviet in June 1940 and in 1941 18,000 Lithuanians were brutally deported. A short occupation of Nazi Germany killed more than 250,000 Jews in Lithuania.

From 1944 Soviet took over power again and the brutal deportations began again.

In the late 1980’s protests against the Soviet rule took place. 2 million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians made a human chain of 600 km stretching from Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius.

Softening within the Soviet regime known as “Glasnost” made way for negotiations and on the 6^th of September 1991 Lithuania was finally recognised as a fully independent state.

Since then Lithuania has experienced growth and development and became a member of both NATO and the European Union along with Latvia and Estonia in 2004.