ethnographic boundaries and territorial claims and Lithuania, criticizing Lithuanian unwillingness to compromise over Vilnius region. Marshal Piłsudski offers the sausage labelled "agreement" to the dog (with the collar labelled Lithuania); the dog barking "Wilno, wilno, wilno" replies: "Even if you were to give me Wilno, I would bark for
Grodno and
Białystok because this is who I am." in interwar Poland soldiers parade in the
Cathedral Square, Vilnius, 1919 in Cathedral Square, Vilnius, 1920 In the
Middle Ages, Vilnius and its environs had become a nucleus of the early ethnic Lithuanian state, the
Duchy of Lithuania, also referred to in Lithuanian historiography as a part of the
Lithuania Propria, that became
Kingdom of Lithuania and later
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the
Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century it was annexed by the
Russian Empire which established the
Vilna Governorate there. As a result of
World War I, it was seized by Germany and given to the civilian administration of the
Ober-Ost. With the German defeat in World War I and the outbreak of hostilities between various factions of the
Russian Civil War, the area was disputed by the newly established Lithuanian, Polish and
Belarusian states. The Poles based their claims on demographic grounds and pointed to the will of the inhabitants. The Lithuanians used geographical and historical arguments and underlined the role Vilnius had played as the capital of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. According to Lithuanian national activists, the Poles and Belarusians in the region were "
Slavicized Lithuanians". Their view is confirmed by both Polish and Lithuanian research. The
Vilnius Conference of September 1917, organized by
Lithuanian nationalist activists under German auspices, elected a
council of Lithuania, and an
Act of Independence of Lithuania proclaimed an independent Lithuanian state, with its capital in Vilnius. The
Lithuanian government, however, failed to recruit soldiers among the Vilnius area inhabitants and was unable to organize the defence of the region against the
Bolsheviks. During November and December 1918, local Polish self-defence formations were created in Vilnius and many surrounding localities. They were formally included into the
Polish Army by the end of the year. The Lithuanian
Taryba left Vilnius together with the German garrison at the start of January 1919, when the first Polish-Soviet military clashes occurred east of the city. After the outbreak of the
Polish–Soviet War, during the summer offensive of the
Red Army, the region came under Soviet control as the part of planned
Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel). Following the
Lithuanian–Soviet War,
Bolshevik Russia signed the
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty with Lithuania on 12 July 1920, according to which, all areas disputed between Poland and Lithuania, at the time controlled by the Bolsheviks, were to be transferred to Lithuania. However, the area remained in the Bolsheviks' hands. After the
Battle of Warsaw in 1920 it became clear that the advancing
Polish Army would soon recapture the area. Seeing that they could not secure it, the Bolshevik authorities started to transfer the area to Lithuanian sovereignty. The advancing Polish Army managed to retake much of the disputed area before the Lithuanians arrived, though the most important part—the city of Vilnius—was secured by Lithuania. Due to Polish-Lithuanian tensions, the
allied powers withheld diplomatic recognition of Lithuania until 1922. Since the two states were not at war, diplomatic negotiations were begun. The negotiations and international mediation led nowhere and until 1920 the disputed territory remained divided into Lithuanian and Polish regions. In the 1920s,
League of Nations twice attempted to organise plebiscites, although neither side was eager to participate. After a staged mutiny by
Lucjan Żeligowski, the Poles took control of the area and organised
elections, which were boycotted by most Lithuanians, as well as by many Jews and Belarusians because of strong Polish military control. The Polish government never acknowledged the Russo-Lithuanian convention of July 12, 1920, that granted the latter state territory seized from Poland by the Red Army during the Polish–Soviet War, then promised to Lithuania as the Soviet forces were retreating under the Polish advance, particularly as the Soviets had previously renounced claims to that region in the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In turn, the Lithuanian authorities did not acknowledge the Polish–Lithuanian border of 1918–1920 as permanent nor did they ever acknowledge the sovereignty of the puppet Republic of Central Lithuania. parade in the
Gediminas Avenue, Vilnius, 1939 In 1922 the Republic of Central Lithuania voted to join Poland, and the choice was later accepted by the
League of Nations, The area granted to Lithuania by the Bolsheviks in 1920 continued to be claimed by Lithuania, with Vilnius being treated as that state's official capital, with the
temporary capital being
Kaunas, and the states officially remained at war. It was not until the Polish ultimatum of 1938 that the two states resolved diplomatic relations. Some historians speculated, that the loss of Vilnius might have nonetheless safeguarded the very existence of the Lithuanian state in the interwar period. Despite an alliance with the Soviets (Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty) and the war with Poland, Lithuania was very close to being invaded by the Soviets in the summer of 1920 and having been forcibly converted into a socialist republic. They believe it was only the Polish victory over the Soviets in the Polish–Soviet War (and the fact that the Poles did not object to some form of Lithuanian independence) that derailed the Soviet plans and gave Lithuania an experience of interwar independence. In 1939, the Soviets proposed to sign the
Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty. According to this treaty, about one-fifth of the Vilnius Region, including Vilnius itself, was to be returned to Lithuania in exchange for stationing 20,000 Soviet troops in Lithuania. Lithuanians at first did not want to accept this, but later the Soviet Union said that troops would enter Lithuania, anyway, so Lithuania accepted the deal. A fifth of the Vilnius region was ceded, even though the Soviet Union had always recognised the whole Vilnius region as part of Lithuania previously.
Vilnius Region was under Lithuanian administration until June 1940, when all of Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was awarded the Vilnius region during the
Yalta Conference, and it subsequently became part of the
Lithuanian SSR.
About 150,000 of the Polish residents were repatriated from the Lithuanian SSR to Poland. ==Ethnography==