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Ethnographic Lithuania is a concept that defines Lithuanian territories as a significant part of the territories that belonged to the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lit ...

and Lithuanians as all people living on them, regardless of whether those people contemporarily or currently speak the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( ) is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language of Lithuania and one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.8 mill ...

and considered themselves Lithuanian. The concept was in contrast to those of "historic Lithuania", the territories of the Duchy, and the "linguistic Lithuania", the area where

was overwhelmingly spoken.Thomas Lane, ''Lithuania: Stepping Westward'', Routledge, 2001,
Google Print, p. 30
/ref> The concept of ethnographic Lithuania clashed with the right for self-determination of people living in that large territory, particularly Poles and Belarusians, who, according to the supporters of the ethnographic Lithuania, were "

slavicized Slavicisation or Slavicization, is the acculturation of something Slavic into a non-Slavic culture, cuisine, region, or nation. To a lesser degree, it also means acculturation or adoption of something non-Slavic into Slavic culture or terms. Th ...

Lithuanians" who needed to be re- Lithuanized. They argued that an individual cannot decide on his ethnicity and

nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

, which are decided not by language but ancestry. In 1920 Lithuanian politician

Mykolas Biržiška Mykolas Biržiška (; ; 24 August 1882, in Viekšniai – 24 August 1962, in Los Angeles), a Lithuanian editor, historian, professor of literature, diplomat, and politician, was one of the twenty signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuan ...

wrote about

"One cannot define it according to the opinion of every individual. Belonging or not to a given nationality is not something everybody can decide for themselves, it is not something that can be solved according to political liberalism, even if hidden under the cloak of democratic slogans. It is too complex, too tied with ancient history, too related with the history of a given nation, for the will or passivity of any individual to challenge it. ..Ethnographic Lithuania does not end where the locals no longer speak Lithuanian, it spreads further, to the regions which do not speak - but used to - Lithuanian, since it is composed of one Lithuanian nation, regardless of whether it speaks Lithuanian, has forgotten the language or even holds it in contempt."

The geographical scope of

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

Lithuania was noted in 1905, the year of

Great Seimas of Vilnius The Great Seimas of Vilnius ( lt, Didysis Vilniaus Seimas, also known as the ''Great Assembly of Vilnius'', the ''Grand Diet of Vilnius'', or the ''Great Diet of Vilnius'') was a major assembly held on December 4 and 5, 1905 (November 21–22, 19 ...

, when

Russian prime minister The chairman of the government of the Russian Federation, also informally known as the prime minister, is the nominal head of government of Russia. Although the post dates back to 1905, its current form was established on 12 December 1993 f ...

Sergei Witte Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (; ), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the tsar as head of the government. Neither a liberal nor a conservative, he attract ...

received the following memorial:

"Lithuanians, knowing that territory inhabited by them since the historical times consists of the Lithuanian
gubernya A governorate, gubernia, province, or government ( rus, губе́рния, p=ɡʊˈbʲɛrnʲɪjə, also romanized ; uk, губернія, huberniia), was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire. After the empir ...
s of the Northwestern Krai:
Vilna Governorate The Vilna Governorate (1795–1915; also known as Lithuania-Vilnius Governorate from 1801 until 1840; russian: Виленская губерния, ''Vilenskaya guberniya'', lt, Vilniaus gubernija, pl, gubernia wileńska) or Government of V ...
,
Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate ( rus, Ковенская губеpния, r=Kovenskaya guberniya; lt, Kauno gubernija) or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kaunas (Kovno in Russian). It was forme ...
and
Grodno Governorate The Grodno Governorate, (russian: Гро́дненская губе́рнiя, translit=Grodnenskaya guberniya, pl, Gubernia grodzieńska, be, Гродзенская губерня, translit=Hrodzenskaya gubernya, lt, Gardino gubernija, u ...
, part of Courland and
Suwałki Governorate Suwałki Governorate (russian: Сувалкская губерния, pl, gubernia suwalska, lt, Suvalkų gubernija) was a guberniya, governorate (administrative area) of Congress Poland ("Russian Poland") which had its seat in the city of Suwał ...
(incorporated into the
Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to: Historical political entities * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031 * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exi ...
), consider them in the ethnographic perspective Lithuanian, and their inhabitants living there alongside the Lithuanians as either newcomers - such as Poles,
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and
Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...
- or slavicized Lithuanians, such as Belarusians."

Demands of this early program would only slightly be modified in the coming decades (some would also include part of the

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partitio ...

around Naugardukas and the Lithuanian Minor territory around Memel). In essence, Lithuanian elites demanded the creation of a Lithuanian country with , from the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

in the West,

Daugava River , be, Заходняя Дзвіна (), liv, Vēna, et, Väina, german: Düna , image = Fluss-lv-Düna.png , image_caption = The drainage basin of the Daugava , source1_location = Valdai Hills, Russia , mouth_location = Gulf of Riga, Baltic S ...

in the north, to

Bug River uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...

and Polesie marshes in the south. That territory was inhabited in the early 20th century by 5,850,000 people; out of those, according to the official

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

statistics, linguistic Lithuanians formed 1,659,000 - i.e. less than 30%. Out of the regions mentioned in the 1905 declaration, only the Kovno Governorate and the northern part of Suwałki Governorate had a clear Lithuanian-speaking majority. The concept of ethnographic Lithuania conflicted with newly Polish state, which sought to recreate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Currently, the

Republic of Lithuania A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

has no territorial claims.

References

External links

*T. Norus, Tomas Naruševičius, Jonas Žilius, ''Lithuania's case for independence''. 1918. Public domain due to age
p.25-34
discuss the concept of ethnographic Lithuania

See also

References

External links

Further reading