Historical region in present-day Lithuania and Belarus
"Vilna land" and "Vilnius Land" redirect here. For Vilnius Region in the interwar period, see Wilno Voivodeship (1926–39).
Map of the newly established states and frontiers in 1918Map showing the territory of Central Lithuania (green) created by the Second Polish Republic as compared with other Lithuanian claims[citation needed] on the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania c. 1921.
Vilnius Region[a] is the territory in present-day Lithuania and Belarus that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time.
The territory included Vilnius, the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania, after declaring independence from the Russian Empire, claimed the Vilnius Region based on this historical legacy. Poland argued for the right of self-determination of the local Polish-speaking population. As a result, throughout the interwar period the control over the area was disputed between Poland and Lithuania. The Soviet Union recognized it as part of Lithuania in the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920, but in 1920 it was seized by Poland and became part of the short-lived puppet state of Central Lithuania, and was subsequently incorporated into the Second Polish Republic.
Direct military conflicts (Polish–Lithuanian War and Żeligowski's Mutiny) were followed up by fruitless negotiations in the League of Nations. After the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, as part of the Soviet fulfilment of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the entire region was occupied by the Soviet Union. About one-fifth of the region, including Vilnius, was ceded to Lithuania by the Soviet Union on 10 October 1939 in exchange for Soviet military bases within the territory of Lithuania as part of the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty. The remaining part of the region was given to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The conflict over Vilnius Region was settled after World War II when both Poland and Lithuania were in the Eastern Bloc, as Poland was the Soviet satellite state of the Polish People's Republic and Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Poles were repatriated to Poland. From the late 1940s to 1990, the region was divided between the Lithuanian SSR and Byelorussian SSR, and since 1990 between modern-day independent Lithuania and Belarus.
VilniusRegion[a] is the territory in present-day Lithuania and Belarus that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania...
Vilnius (/ˈvɪlniəs/ VIL-nee-əs, Lithuanian: [ˈvʲɪlʲnʲʊs] ; previously known in English as Vilna, see other names) is the capital of and largest city in...
The city of Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania, and its surrounding region has been under various states. The VilniusRegion has been part of the Grand...
Polish autonomy in the VilniusRegion (Polish: Autonomia Wileńszczyzny; Lithuanian: Vilniaus krašto autonomija) was an idea about a politically autonomous...
located in the east of the country around the city Vilnius and is also known as Capital Region or Sostinės regionas by the Lithuanian statistics department...
The city of Vilnius, the capital and largest city of Lithuania, has an extensive history starting from the Stone Age. Vilnius was the head of the Grand...
Vilnius University (Lithuanian: Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, which is the first and largest university in Lithuania, as well...
1920, Poland took control of VilniusRegion and annexed it as Wilno Voivodeship in 1922. Lithuania continued to claim Vilnius as its de jure capital (the...
there was the Polish–Lithuanian War, whose main focus was Vilnius and the nearby region. In its aftermath, the majority of the Polish population living...
relations with Poland after 1920, protesting the annexation of the VilniusRegion by Poland. As pre-World War II tensions in Europe intensified, Poland...
seized the VilniusRegion that Lithuania made claims to. It was incorporated into Poland on 18 April 1922. The region centered around Vilnius, the historical...
Osip Senkovsky from St. Petersburg University, originally from the VilniusRegion, collaborated with the Tsarist administration and developed the theory...
evolution of Vilnius between 1766 and 2024: Demographic history of the Vilniusregion Some inhabitants of Vilnius district were registered at Vilnius city healthcare...
Zarasai, Naujieji Švenčionys, Vilnius, Eišiškės, Lida, Ashmyany and Hrodna) were reserved for territories in the VilniusRegion, that Lithuania had claims...
corresponded to the Vilnius Region, which was later occupied by Germany, Bolsheviks, and Poland. The first governorates, Vilnius Governorate (consisting of...
control of Vilnius on October 9, 1920, which led to the separation of the official Lithuanian capital and the surrounding Vilniusregion from Lithuania...
and mass-closure of Lithuanian language schools in the VilniusRegion, especially when Vilnius Voivode Ludwik Bociański issued a secret memorandum of...
Christian Stang, it was based on the Ruthenian dialects of the region around Vilnius. Also, the Podlachian microlanguage is referred to by locals as...
The Vilnius offensive (Lithuanian: Vilniaus operacija; Russian: Вильнюсская наступательная операция, lit. 'Vilnius offensive operation') occurred as part...
German–Lithuanian military alliance against Poland and promised to return the VilniusRegion, but Lithuania held to its policy of strict neutrality. When Germany...
[citation needed] As a self-identification, it persisted in Lithuania’s VilniusRegion into the late 20th century. For example, in 1989, a poll of persons...
governments included ministries for Jewish and Belarusian affairs; when the VilniusRegion was detached from the country after Żeligowski's Mutiny, however, the...
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