Internal disagreements, charges of corruption, and economic recession led to a drop in the government’s popularity in the mid-1990s. In 1996 the LDLP won only 12 seats and was replaced in government by a coalition between the Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Party. The new government sought to further liberalize the economy and to attract foreign capital. In 1998 Valdas Adamkus, who had been naturalized a U.S. citizen and who sought to curb corruption, was elected president. Romuald J. Misiunas
Throughout the first half of the 1990s, Lithuania’s economy had remained reliant on Russia and was hit by recession. By the late 1990s it had dramatically increased its share of trade with western Europe, and inflation—which had exceeded 1,000 percent in 1991—was reduced to less than 10 percent. Rolandas Paksas, leader of Lithuania’s populist Liberal Democratic Party, defeated Adamkus in the 2003 presidential election. Paksas was impeached later that year, however, when the Constitutional Court ruled that he had violated the constitution on at least three occasions (most notably, in granting citizenship to a Russian-born financial supporter). Moreover, members of Paksas’s administration were linked to Russian organized crime. The chairman of the Seimas (legislature) became acting president, and Adamkus won a second term through a special presidential election held in 2004. That same year Lithuania gained full membership in both the EU and NATO, and its economic fortunes turned as European holidaymakers flocked to seaside resorts, including Palanga and Klaipėda.
By May 2008 the country’s economy had begun to sour, and the European Commission rejected Lithuania’s application to join the euro zone because of the country’s high inflation. The ailing economy spurred violent protests in the capital, some of the worst since 1991. Running as an independent with the promise of change, Dalia Grybauskaitė, the EU budget commissioner, won the May 2009 presidential election with about 69 percent of the vote. The first woman in Lithuania to be elected president, Grybauskaitė promised to stimulate exports, implement EU aid, and provide tax breaks to owners of small businesses.
Relations with Russia continued to remain tense into the 21st century. In 2006 Russia ceased supplying Lithuania’s main petroleum refinery and further refused to honour Lithuania’s request for reparations for the Soviet Union’s 50-year occupation of Lithuania. In 2008 Lithuania’s parliament banned any public display of Soviet or Nazi symbols. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Citation Information
Article Title: Lithuania
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 15 August 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuania
Access Date: August 21, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Simas Sužiedēlis (ed.), Encyclopedia Lituanica, 6 vol. (1970–78), is a comprehensive work, with many of the articles translated from Lithuanian. The following titles were published in the U.S.S.R. and present the Soviet point of view: Jonas Zinkus (ed.), Lithuania: An Encyclopedic Survey, trans. from Lithuanian (1986), informative but with no index; Bronius Akstinas, Glimpses of Lithuania, 2nd ed., trans. from Lithuanian (1978), a descriptive work; and Vilius Baltrēnas (compiler), In the Eyes of Foreign Guests: Meetings with Soviet Lithuania, trans. from Lithuanian (1983). Histories of the Lithuanian church contribute significantly to a characterization of the people in Antanas Musteikis, The Reformation in Lithuania: Religious Fluctuations in the Sixteenth Century (1988); Michael Bourdeaux, Land of Crosses: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Lithuania, 1939–78 (1979); and Kestutis K. Girnius, “Nationalism and the Catholic Church in Lithuania,” in Pedro Ramet (ed.), Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century (1988), pp. 82–103. History
A broad historical survey is offered in Albertas Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania, 700 Years, 6th ed. (1984). A good survey of Lithuanian history in the 20th century is John Hiden and Patrick Salmon, The Baltic Nations and Europe: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the Twentieth Century (1994). More specialized histories include Leonas Sabaliūnas, Lithuanian Social Democracy in Perspective, 1893–1914 (1990); Alfred Erich Senn, The Great Powers, Lithuania, and the Vilna Question, 1920–1928 (1966); and Robertas Ziugza, Lithuania and Western Powers, 1917–1940 (1987; originally published in Lithuanian, 1983). Robert A. Vitas, The United States and Lithuania: The Stimson Doctrine of Nonrecognition (1990), examines the diplomatic history of the 1940s; and Bronis J. Kaslas (ed.), The USSR-German Aggression Against Lithuania (1973), illustrates the period through documents. K.V. Tauras, Guerilla Warfare on the Amber Coast (1962), discusses underground movements in the 1940s; V. Stanley Vardys (ed.), Lithuania Under the Soviets: Portrait of a Nation, 1940–65 (1965), analyzes postwar developments; and Thomas Remeikis, Opposition to Soviet Rule in Lithuania, 1945–1980 (1980), carries the history into the late 20th century. The history of the Polish-Lithuanian confederation is brilliantly covered in Norman Davies, Europe: A History (1996). Analysis of the independence movement is presented in Alfred Erich Senn, Lithuania Awakening (1990); and Richard J. Krickus, Showdown: The Lithuanian Rebellion and the Breakup of the Soviet Empire (1997). A popular and well-written history of the Baltic states, mainly focusing on the period after glasnost, is Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Path to Independence (1994). Aivars Stranga