Central Lithuania

The Republic of Central Lithuania (Polish: Republika Litwy Środkowej, Lithuanian: Vidurio Lietuvos Respublika, Kryvian: Рэспублıка Сѧрэднѧѧ Лıтва/Respublıka Śaredńaĭa Lıtva, Russian: Срединно-литовскаѧ республика, Yiddish: רעפובליק פון צענטראלער ליטע), commonly known as Central Lithuania or Middle Lithuania (Polish: Litwa Środkowa, Lithuanian: Vidurinė Lietuva, Kryvian: Сѧрэднѧѧ Лıтва/Śaredńaĭa Lıtva, Russian: Срединнаѧ Литва, Yiddish: צענטראלע ליטע), is a democratic republic situated in between Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Kryvia.

The status of the state is controversial: while de facto recognized by the League of Nations and Poland, it is not recognized by any of their neighbours and is in a state of “not peace, not war” with both Lithuania and Kryvia simultaneously. These two countries, as well as Poland accuse Central Lithuania of repressing national organizations and education, as well as of censoring and suspending nationalist publications.

History
Ethnicity never appears out of thin air. There is no singular reason as to why they are created (not counting the vague “realizing their differences from other groups”): some ethnicities have been developing over a long time in a certain land. Some ethnicities don’t have a land they would call their own but have their separate language, customs, beliefs or roles they traditionally serve in their society. Some ethnicities are a result of political differences, counter-culture movements, or were even created thanks to a stroke of dumb luck. To explain what exactly makes “ethnicity” is also a complicated topic. On one hand, the term has a strict scientific definition. On the other, outside of the dusty walls of think tanks, the general understanding of your own ethnic or even cultural identity is usually vague at best. That the idea of “nationality” and national identity has been around for only some two centuries is but proof of that. Before this, your identity was more tied to your religion, traditions, language, kings that owned your land, or even your social status. A situation where a village or even entire regions of commoners speaking a different language from that of nobles or burghers was commonplace in any part of the world. Similarly, it is worth noting that not all identities desire to build a nation for themselves. Some “locals” can live on their lands for centuries, speaking their language, following their traditions, and never bothering to engage with their mother state. And like ethnicities, nations also are created from many variables that form the future political and social culture of a nation, its myths, and norms. Change one of these variables and an entirely new nation is made, different from the one we know today.

The many faces of a “Lithuanian”
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is an “interesting” nation and like many “interesting” nations, its description would depend entirely on how much national pride you feel towards your current nation-state. In Poland proper, people think of it more through a prism of nostalgia for their glorious imperial past. To pretty much every nationalist of other PLC nations, it was an oppressive and corrupt state that was hellbent on eradicating their people from the face of the earth. The truth is, as per usual, somewhere in between.

Self-identifications during the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were dependent on religious identity and whether or not the person belonged to the nobility. The commoners were mostly considered to be at best racially different, at worst racially inferior to the Commonwealth noble and they mostly stuck to themselves, speaking their local tongues and observing their local cultures. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth nobility was bound together by a widespread belief in Sarmatism: an ideology that transcended ethnic identifications. This origin myth posited that the Commonwealth’s noble class stemmed from a group of warriors from Scythia, that its members were racially distinct from and superior to the other inhabitants of the area, and that various features of the Commonwealth such as the Polish culture, the Catholic Church, and the Polish language displayed its superiority. Polishness, thus, became a symbol of prestige among all Commonwealth nobility and the process of Polonization was gradual, but more or less voluntary, especially as the Polish language increasingly replaced both Latin and local languages as the prestige language of communication and religion.

It should be noted, however, that adopting Polish culture and language did not make them Polish. Many of the local Cossack, Lithuanian and Kryvian nobility took pride in their differences, even inventing their off-shoots of Sarmatism to explain their uniqueness. Because of this the nobility often made use of the Latin 'natio-gens' construct (national identity combined with a familial or ethnic origin): Natione Polonus, gente Lithuanus (Polish by nationality, of the Lithuanian people); or Natione Polonus, gente Ruthenus, origine Judaeus (Polish by nationality, of the Ruthenian people, and of Jewish origin), etc. A Natione Polonus, gente Prussicus felt at home in the multicultural Commonwealth specifically thanks to their Sarmatian bond and Polish language, but they never really thought of themselves as “Polish” and the feeling from actual “Polish” was mostly mutual (there’s a reason PLC never accepted Ruthenian Cossacks as equal to themselves).

The Partitions of Poland did not make this noble identity go away. If anything, it made it stronger, even if temporarily. In lands captured by Prussia, this dual Commonwealth identity became one of the main bastions of the Catholic faith during the Kulturkampf. This identity slowly gave way to the rising sense of ethnic Polish nationalism, which has been a thorn in the Prusso-German side ever since.

But in lands captured by Russia, things went in a slightly different direction. Like with Prussia, “Polishness” quickly became a symbol of passive and even active resistance against Russian occupation. The Polish nobility, clergy and teachers spearheaded Polonization with their massive and widespread educational campaign all across the territory of modern Western and Central Ukraine, Lithuania and Kryvia, eventually culminating in a chain of uprisings against the Russian government. Many of the people leading these uprisings were ethnic Lithuanians and Kryvichi. For the patriotic Polish people and the Polonized, it was a process of (re)building Polish and/or Polish-Lithuanian national identity and reclaiming heritage that suffered under the prolonged foreign occupation by the neighbouring empires. But this only worked on the Polonized. The Halychan, Cossack, Kryvichi and Lithuanian peasantry had no loyalty towards the nobility and many felt their nationhood aspirations were thwarted specifically by Poland, the Catholic faith and the Polish language in particular. The leaders of the unsuccessful January Uprising of 1863–1865 invoked the former commonalities, appealing to "Brother Ruthenians and Lithuanians" and to "Brothers of the Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion". The peasants in the region were largely unmoved and some even helped Russians in capturing rebels.

This animosity towards each other was greatly utilized by the Russian government in clandestine campaigns of sponsoring and promoting separate Lithuanian, Halychian and later on – Kryvichi ethnic identities, not knowing, caring or understanding that those identities hold no loyalties towards Russians either. The dual identity of “gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus” still held strong among the nobility and Catholic peasantry for whom the word “Polish” was synonymous with “Catholic”. But with the rise of ethnic nationalism across Europe, such a position was proving to be more and more unfeasible. In the face of the emergence of the Lithuanian national movement, which considered only those who spoke Lithuanian as “Lithuanians”, Polish-speaking and Kryvich-speaking residents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania more and more often declared themselves as Poles or denounced Lithuanian-speaking Lithuanians as “Lithuanian” altogether, calling them either “Lietuvisy” (a Polonized form of the Lithuanian word for 'Lithuanians') or “Žmudź” (a Slavic word for Samogithians).

And in this tangled and confusing mess, the region of Vilnius or Wilno held a unique position of being the cultural capital of four ethnicities at the same time, alongside the Jewish diaspora and whatever immigrant population they held. Add to this the near-constant battle of Russian and Polish cultures in the region and what you have is a region whose ethnic composition can be best described as “vague”, as nearly all censuses of the area were biased in favour of one side or the other.

Aftermath of World War I
In the aftermath of the First World War, Poland, Lithuania and Kryvia regained independence. The conflict between them soon arose as all three claimed Vilnius (Polish: Wilno, Kryvian: Вільня) region.

Poland claimed Vilnius based on statistics. Demographically, the main groups inhabiting Vilnius were Polish, Polonized, and Jews, with Lithuanians constituting a small fraction of the total population and Kryvichi being an unknown factor, mostly considered a part of the larger “Polonized” category. The Lithuanians and Kryvichi nonetheless believed that their historical claim to Vilnius (former capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) had precedence and refused to recognize any Polish claims to the city and the surrounding area.

On November 13, 1918, Soviet Russia renounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and began the Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919. The Bolsheviks followed retreating German troops and attacked ex-Ober Ost territories from the east trying to prevent their independence. They attempted to spread the global proletarian revolution, establish Soviet republics in the region, and join the German and the Hungarian Revolutions, all while trying to defend themselves from the Entente intervention from the Far East.

At the end of 1918, five groups of authorities existed in Vilnius: the occupational German government of Ober Ost, which was preparing to leave the city; the Lithuanian government under Augustinas Voldemaras; the Polish Committee and the Polish Temporary National Council for Lithuania supported by armed units of the Self-Defence of Lithuania and Kryvia; The Vilna Defence Committee supported by pro-Kryvian militia units and Vilna Soviet of Workers Deputies waiting for the Red Army. The Germans were planning on transferring the rights to the city to Lithuanians and because of that, they refused to provide weapons to Polish paramilitary units which intended to fight the approaching Red Army. The Ober Ost command also denied the Polish request to grant the Polish Land Forces free passage to Vilnius. This didn’t stop Polish Forces from moving in secrecy with the help of the underground Kryvichi government.

On December 1918, the Polish Self-Defence was disbanded, with all its former members formally absorbed into the Polish or Kryvian Army. In the meanwhile the Vilna Defence Committee in alliance with some of the Polish militia units attacked and defeated the city's Bolshevik Worker's Soviet (capturing around 1,000 weapons). In their proclamation, they declared the city to be the new capital of the Kryvian Democratic Republic, but that victory was short-lived. On 2 January 1919, the Polish Army took over Vilnius from both the Vilna Defence Committee and the retreating Imperial German Army. But all sides realized that defending the city from the Bolsheviks was impossible. And so the Council of Lithuania evacuated from Vilnius to Kaunas, while both the Polish and Kryvian forces retreated from Vilnius on January 4 after some token resistance against the Bolsheviks.

Initially, the Soviet offensive was successful, but it quickly came to a halt in February-March 1919, as local national, German and White Russian forces banded together and started to successfully repel the enemy, destroying five Soviet field armies. A combined force of Kryvichi and Polish Armed forces had managed to retake Vilnus in April 1919. Realizing that the local armed forces were far more organized and zealous than they expected and not able to extend more reserves due to Entente’s offensive in the Far East, Soviet Russia withdrew from their positions and started a process of negotiations with the countries, eventually recognizing their independence in 1920-1922.

The Viĺna Question
But though proven to be united against the Soviet invaders, the defenders were far from a unified force and were more of a tangled web of local and informal alliances of convenience. The most obvious example of this was the Lithuanian-Polish and Ukrainian-Polish relationships: initially neutral but quickly turned bitter, as territorial and cultural clashes became prevalent. Soviet Russia even tried to use this against them, by agreeing to support the Lithuanian claim on the Vilnius region and promising Ukrainian State more Polish lands.

Poland
Poland was politically divided between two factions/governments with quite different views on the creation of the modern state in Poland. One party, led by Roman Dmowski from France, saw modern Poland as a monoethnic state, another, led by Józef Piłsudski from Poland proper, wished to rebuild the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as a federation of states called Międzymorze or Intermarium. Both parties were determined to take the “Poles of Wilno”, alongside Lithuania and Kryvia into the new state. Both parties actively sabotaged each other every step of the way, which resulted in sporadic military and diplomatic activity all across Eastern Europe.

One of the more controversial episodes of the joint defence against the Soviet invasion was the Polish-Lithuanian War: an undeclared war between Lithuania and Poland. During the Battle of the Niemen River, Polish-Kryvichi forces decided to manoeuvre through the Lithuanian territory to encircle the Soviet Army, ignoring or denying the protests from the Lithuanian side and League of Nations as well. The Polish army took prisoner 1,700 Lithuanian troops who had surrendered and then marched, as planned across the Neman River near Druskininkai and Merkinė to the rear of the Soviet forces near Hrodna and Lida. The Red Army retreated. This attack, just two days after the League's resolution to respect Lithuanian neutrality, damaged both Poland's and the League's reputation. Some politicians began to view Poland as an aggressor while the newly formed League realized its shortcomings in light of such defiance.

Lithuania
While Lithuania and Poland were forced to recognize each other in 1918, the issue of the border and the belonging of Vilnius was not addressed. This became a thorn in the side of Lithuanian-Polish relationships to this very day.

Poland wanted either a federation or annexation of Lithuanian lands. Poland also did not intend to make any territorial concessions and justified its actions not only as part of a military campaign against the Soviets but also as the right of self-determination of local Poles.

The Lithuanians claimed Vilnius as their historical capital and refused any federation with Poland, desiring an independent Lithuanian state. They regarded Polish federalism as a recreation of Polish cultural and political dominance and the Polish state itself as a bigoted entity that is a threat to any minority they encountered (Jews, Ukrainians, etc.)

The Kryvichi in this question were initially not accounted for, in part because Germany hadn’t considered them as an independent entity. Polish and Lithuanian delegations were of roughly the same opinion, considering them to be either “too infantile” or “Polonized Lithuanians” respectively. Things changed when Kryvichi and their leadership were proven to be not only active participants in local politics but also staged attacks against Lithuanian and Polish nationalists, forcing them to reconsider their thoughts on the matter.

The Kryvichi were deemed ideological enemies by the Lithuanians, specifically because both nations claimed the same historical ancestry i.e. Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. The fact that they helped Polish forces in retaking Vilnius didn’t help much.

Kryvia
But out of all the countries, Kryvia was in an especially complicated position, being stuck between supporting the Polish Army and the combined force of Ruthenian, Sloboda and Don Cossacks. To the Polish leadership, the Kryvian people were seen as more “agreeable” Ukrainians, who could be convinced to either be annexed into the Polish state by granting Kryvichi territorial autonomy within ethnic boundaries (Dmowski’s argument) or be a part of the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a joint Polish-Lithuanian-Kryvian federation (Piłsudski argument). For this reason, the Polish even agreed to station the Kryvian army in Vilnius in late 1919. To the Cossacks, the Kryvian lands were a buffer against the Soviet and Polish invaders and outside of small territorial disagreements they had no real plans on incorporating Kryvia into anything. Even propositions of entering their Eternal Union were something of an afterthought that came much later in history. Eventually, the question of loyalties became so heated it split the Kryvian leadership into two opposing camps: the pro-Polish High Council comprised mostly of nobility and Ruthenian Lithuanians and the pro-Cossack People's Council comprised mostly of commoners with an active Kryvichi position. The competition between the two positions became so heated that the two sides started to collude with outside forces.

The High Council started to allow Polish troops to be stationed in areas of their control, which also included the current capital of Mensk. This had given them more leverage during joint negotiations over the fate of the Suwałki and Vilnius Regions, culminating in the Vilno Agreement of September 28, 1920, where the Polish forces agreed to give the Vilno region to the Kryvich Democratic Republic in return for guarantees of protecting the rights of Polish minority and control over railways.

The People’s Council in the meanwhile was engaged in secret negotiations with the Lithuanian government in Kaunas in hopes of creating an alliance against the Polish forces. The Vilno Agreement was initially met with outrage from Lithuanians, but it also opened a window for further negotiations and a possible peaceful transition of the Vilnius region from Kryvia to Lithuania in exchange for a strong anti-Polish alliance with Ukraine (the future Eternal Union).

Żeligowski's Mutiny
Poland, Lithuania and Kryvia were to adhere to a mutually agreed upon ceasefire in Suwałki and Vilnius Region on October 10, but the Poles decided to circumvent the ceasefire by creating a "fait accompli". Piłsudski concluded that the best course of action would be one that supported the pro-Polish faction in Lithuania, but that could not be traced directly to Poland. However, his plans for a coup d'état in 1919 had been foiled by the premature and unplanned Sejny Uprising, which had led to the destruction of the Polish Military Organization (P.O.W.) intelligence network in Lithuania by the Lithuanian Army and State Security Department. And so instead he decided to move to Kryvichi.

The Kryvich general Lucjan Żeligowski, a native of the historic lands of Lithuania, was in command of the 7th Kryvian Infantry Division (comprising mostly individuals from Western Kryvia, also known in Poland as Kresy). Żeligowski had been contacted by Piłsudski as early as late September 1920 with suggestions to carry out a mutiny. They prepared a plan by which Żeligowski and forces under his command were to desert from the Kryvian Army and then take control of the city of Vilnius and the Vilnius region. The Polish government would support them logistically, but officially deny its involvement, thereby preserving its reputation on the international scene.

On October 1, 1920, the deal between the Lithuanian government and the People’s Council was leaked to the wider public, sparking outrage among Polish and pro-Polish Kryvians.

On October 6, Żeligowski informed his officers of the plans for mutiny; at that point, no one under his command knew that he was acting with Piłsudski's backing, and some refused to follow him. Eventually, however, most of the officers and men decided to follow him, and he proceeded with the operation. Declaring that he would “Defend Vilno from Lithuanian occupation”, Żeligowski's forces of some 14,000 soldiers from both Kryvian and Polish armies set out on the morning of October 8. These forces quickly subjugated local Kryvian loyalists and were welcomed by the city’s Polish population. On October 12, Żeligowski proclaimed the independence of the Vilno Area as the Republic of Central Lithuania, with Vilno as its capital.

The mutiny disoriented the Kryvian government, the People’s Council openly accused the High Council of treason and from an outside perspective it looked as if a civil war was brewing. Meanwhile, more elements from the Polish Army joined the mutiny. Local Kryvian regiments were immediately sent to retake the city from the mutineers. Under the pretence of helping the allied Kryvichi government, the Polish troops stationed in Kryvia had attempted to take control of the state, with the bloodiest battle happening in the Kryvichi capital of Mensk. The People’s Council requested assistance from Ruszy People’s Republic and they obliged. The joint Kryvichi and Ukrainian-Don forces have managed to retake most of the captured areas from the Polish Army, while Poland, not wishing to antagonize them any further had withdrawn from Kryvia altogether, retaliating only when the Kryvian forces attempted to capture Suwałki.

In the meantime, Żeligowski's forces have engaged Lithuanian forces and begun to push them to Kaunas. Month of sporadic skirmishes and battles later and two sides were exhausted and afraid of other nations joining the battle. With the help of the League of Nations, a ceasefire was negotiated, but not before two counterattacks from the Lithuanian side occurred. The Lithuanian forces stopped after a strong-worded request from the League of Nations, and a truce was finally signed on November 29.

The Rise of Central Lithuania
On December 1, 1920, most of the Kryvian High Council have been evacuated into Central Lithuania and with the help of Żeligowski became the official Sejm of Central Lithuania. Żeligowski’s military units became the Army of Central Lithuania. Soon the courts and the police were formed and the civil rights of Central Lithuania were granted to all people who lived in the area on January 1, 1919, or for five years before August 1, 1914. From that point onward, the main goal of the Central Lithuanian government was to stabilize the political and economic situation in the new country. With Piłsudski’s advice, many positions were taken by Polish-Lithuanian loyalists.

Meanwhile, extensive diplomatic negotiations continued behind the scenes. Kryvia demanded the return of the lands given to them by the Vilno Agreement and reparations from Poland. Poles rejected this condition. League of Nations proposed creating a confederation of Baltic Western Lithuania (with Lithuanian as an official language) and Central Lithuania (with Polish as an official language), as well as agreeing to monetarily compensate Kryvia for this. Kryvichi rejected this condition. Poland added the condition that the new state must be also federated with Poland, pursuing Józef Piłsudski's goal of creating the Międzymorze Federation. Lithuanians rejected this condition. The League of Nations considered the Polish proposal of a plebiscite on the future of Central Lithuania, but neither the Kryvich nor Lithuanian sides agreed on this, with the Kryvich delegation even openly threatening to declare war on Poland should such plebiscite occur.

Eventually, all talks and attempts of negotiation came to a halt. Sensing danger to their independence, the Central Lithuanian government, which was initially supportive of the pro-Polish activists in the region started to actively hunt them down and deport them into Poland proper, which sparked a flurry of criticism of Piłsudski from the Polish right wing. As a result, most of the actively pro-Polish parties departed from the country, leaving mostly autonomists.

On January 8, 1922, the Republic of Central Lithuania made their first general election. It was mostly boycotted by local Lithuanians and Jews, although still saw an over 70% voter turnout. The two largest political groups in the new parliament were the Democratic Party and Organizations with 46 seats and the Polish Socialist Party of Lithuania and Kryvia with 34 seats. On February 20 they passed the request of incorporation into Poland as an autonomous region with their parliament and system of laws. The request was denied by the Polish Sejm on March 22, 1922.

On 12 May 1926, Józef Piłsudski carried out an attempt at a coup d'état against the Polish government and failed. While some of the coup leaders were captured, Piłsudski and some of his loyalists managed to escape to the Republic of Central Lithuania.

Current Day
There is only one word to describe the current Republic of Central Lithuania and that word is “confusion”. Possibly even “betrayal”. As a country that has never planned on being independent for this long, the current government had to start being creative to ensure its economic and social stability. A grand economic reform had reinvigorated the lower classes to be more productive and the previously vigorous pro-Polish campaign has been replaced with a campaign for a separate “Lithuanian identity”.

Said identity is mostly based on the veneration of the Slavic population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the united Polish-Lithuanian identity overall. Because of this many important government positions are mandated to be occupied by people of noble blood, something local socialists have a strong opinion about. This identity also constantly clashes with nationalist Kryvian, Polish and Lithuanian identities, resulting in a peculiar state where freedom of expression is protected by law and various nationalities thrive, but only so long as they don’t start advocating re-unification (i.e. whenever they can).

Central Lithuania’s economy is also not in the best shape, suffering from Kryvian and Lithuanian boycotts and having to rely on trade with Poland (which itself is not the most stable) and Latvia, Estonia and Soviet Russia, which are fickle allies at best.

And internationally, Central Lithuania is an even worse state, being officially recognized and supported only by Poland and merely accepted by Latvia and the League of Nations as the status quo. Lithuania broke off all diplomatic relations with Poland and refuses any actions that would recognize Central Lithuania's existence even de facto. They even broke off diplomatic relations with the Holy See after the Concordat of 1925 established an ecclesiastical province in Vilno. But while Lithuanian hostility is mostly diplomatic, Kryvian hostility is more overt, having established an entire invasion force near their borders they call “Border Forces”. Small-scale provocations and skirmishes are commonplace and only Polish forces stationed nearby and the ridiculously large size of their army prevent this from escalating any further.

But for all the hardships this little state faces, and will most likely face in the future, the local government and their supporters are still somewhat happy with the outcome. The dream of a free Slavic Lithuania lives and with it – the hope of a future where a federation of “free people with free people” from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea stands proud among the nation-states.

Military
Army of Central Lithuania

Language
As of 1930, the Republic of Central Lithuania has 5 official languages, namely, Polish, Kryvich, Lithuanian, Russian and Yiddish, with Polish being considered as de facto “official language of administration”.

Not everyone is happy with this, in part because of nationalist sentiment, in part because of the rising Slavic Lithuanian identity influencing decisions. The political elite of the country is divided between ones who wish to make Polish language the sole official language of the country, people who like the current status quo and people who instead wish to choose some other language as a cornerstone of their identity. In case of the latter, proposals vary from choosing to codify their own version of “Lithuanian” to choosing Esperanto or Latin as a neutral language.