
The Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian language: ''Lietuva'') is a republic in Northeastern Europe. One of the three Baltic States along the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with fellow Baltic State Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland to the south, and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia to the southwest. Vilnius is a capital of Lithuania since 1940 (as well as for centuries from 1323 to 1919). Between 1919 and 1940, its capital was at Kaunas, though until March 1938 Lithuanian authorities did not recognize Poland's control of Vilnius at the time and considered Kaunas a "temporary capital". {| border=1 align=right cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=300 style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |+Lietuvos Respublika |- | style="background:#efefef;" align="center" colspan=2 | {| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" | align="center" width="140px" | | align="center" width="140px" | |- | align="center" width="140px" | (Flag of Lithuania) | align="center" width="140px" | (Coat of Arms of Lithuania) |} |- | align="center" colspan=2 |''National motto: Vienybė težydi (Let the unity bloom)''
|-
| align=center colspan=2 |
|-
| Official language
| Lithuanian language
|-
| Capital
| Vilnius
|-
| List of Presidents of Lithuania
| Valdas Adamkus
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| Prime Minister of Lithuania
| Algirdas Brazauskas
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| Area
- Total
- % water | List of countries by area
1 E10 m2
Negligible |- | Population
- Total (July 2004 est.)
- Population density | List of countries by population
3,607,899
55.1/km² |- | Gross Domestic Product (PPP)
- Total (Year)
- GDP/head | List of countries by GDP
$44.4 billion
$12,837 |- | Independence
- Declared
- Recognised
- Lost
Collapse of the Soviet Union
- Declared
- Recognised | From Imperial Russia
16 February 1918
12 July 1920
1940
From Soviet Union
11 March 1990
6 September 1991 |- | Currency | Litas |- | Time zone
- in European Summer Time | Eastern European Time (Coordinated Universal Time+2)
Eastern European Summer Time (Coordinated Universal Time+3) |- | National anthem | ''Tautiska Giesme'' |- | Top-level domain | .lt |- | List_of_country_calling_codes | 370 |} == History == ''Main article: History of Lithuania'' First mentioned in February 14 1009, Lithuania grew to be a significant nation in the Middle Ages. The date of statehood is counted from the official crowning of Mindaugas as a King of Lithuania in July 6 1253 in Voruta. Mindaugas managed to unite warring dukes into a single nation and state. Later, in course of Gediminas' conquers, Lithuania became a part of an independent multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania, that also united lands of modern Belarus and Ukraine. Grand Duchy stretched across much of Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea in 15th century. Since February 2, 1386, when Grand Duke Jogaila was crowned the King of Poland, Grand Duchy was joint with Poland in a Polish-Lithuanian Union. In 1569 Poland and Grand Duchy formally merged into the new state of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This union remained in force until the May Constitution of Poland of 1791, which abolished all the subdivisions of the states and merged into Kingdom of Poland. However, the new state was annexed soon afterwards by Imperial Russia, Prussia and Austria in the effect of the Partitions of Poland of 1795. Lithuania re-established its independence in severely limited territory on February 16th, 1918. It subsequently lost most of its previous grounds to Soviet Union and was plagued by territorial disputes with Poland (over Central Lithuania and Suvalkija/Suwalki) and Germany (over Klaipeda/Memel). It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 during World War II in line with the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939. Communist rule ended after the advent of glasnost and Lithuania, lead with anti-communist and anti-soviet movement for independence Sajudis, proclaimed its renewed independence on March 11, 1990. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to do so, though Soviet forces unsuccessfully tried to suppress this until August 1991. The last Russian troops left on 31 August 1993 - even earlier than from East Germany. On February 4, 1991 Iceland became the first country to recognise Lithuanian independence and Sweden first country to open its embassy in the country. The United States of America never recognized the U.S.S.R.'s claim on Lithuania. Lithuania was admitted into the United Nations on September 17, 1991. On May 31, 2001, Lithuania became 141st member of the World Trade Organization. Lithuania has since 1988 sought closer ties with the West and so on January 4, 1994, it became the first of the Baltic States to apply for NATO membership. On November 21, 2002 Lithuania was invited to start membership negotiations with NATO and on March 29, 2004 it became a full and equal NATO member. On February 1, 1998 it became an Associate Member of the EU and on April 16, 2003 it signed the EU Accession Treaty. 91% of Lithuanians backed EU membership in a referendum held on May 11, 2003 and on May 1, 2004 Lithuania became a member of the European Union. == Politics == ''Main article: Politics of Lithuania'' The Lithuanian head of state is the List of Presidents of Lithuania, elected directly for a five-year term, who also functions as commander in chief overseeing foreign and security policy. The president, on the approval of the parliament, also appoints the prime minister and on the latter's nomination the rest of the cabinet (government), as well as a number of other top civil servants and the judges for all courts, including the Constitutional Court (''Konstitucinis Teismas''). The unicameral Lithuanian parliament, the ''Seimas'', has 141 members that are elected for a four-year term. About half of the members of this legislative body are elected in single constituencies (71), and the other half (70) are elected in the nationwide vote by proportional representation. A party must receive at least 5% of the national vote to be represented in the Seimas. == Administrative division == ''Main article: Administrative division of Lithuania'' Lithuania consists of 10 apskritys', (singular - ''apskritis''), each named after their principal city. The counties are subdivided into 56 municipalities, both cities and districts (see: List of municipalities in Lithuania). Municipalities cosists of over 300 elderships. This administrative division was created in 1994. The most important unit is the municipality (some muicipalities are historically called "district municipalities", and thus shortened just to "district", others are called "city municiaplities", sometimes shortened just to "city", or leaving just the name of city, and some are called just "municipalities"). Each municipality has its elected government, which is elected in elections of municipality councils, which previously used to be done every 3rd year but now is done every 4th year. Then the municiaplity council elects mayor of the municipality and other required personell (larger municipalities has larger councils and more officials). Also, municipality council sends elder (administrative title) to the elderships in its territory (small municipalities do not have elderships though). Now there is a proposal though that both mayors and elders would be elected in direct elections by people. As for apskritys, these are regions to which whole Lithuania is partitioned and they are ruled by people (called "Ruler of Apskritis") who are sent by central government. Their job is to ensure that in the municipalities which are in territory of their apskritis are working according to the laws of Lithuania and the constitution. They don't have a big power vested on them, and so there is idea that 10 apskritys are not needed for Lithuania, because that puts on average each just 6 municipalities to look after (and in reality smaller ones has only 4 municipalities in their territory), therefore there is a proposal to change apskritys by 4 lands, a new administrative unit, which would be carved according to the Regions of Lithuania. Another proposed solution is to expand apskritys so that there would be 5 of them, each based in one of five largest cities, while territories of 5 other municipalities, those, based in smaller cities, would be merged into these remaining municipalities. Also see: Apskritys of Lithuania, List of municipalities in Lithuania, Elderships == Geography == ''Main article: Geography of Lithuania'' The largest and most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania is a partly maritime country with about 100 km of sandy coastline, of which only 38 km face the open Baltic Sea. Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipėda lies at the narrow mouth of ''Kuršių Marios'' (Curonian Lagoon), a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad. The main river Nemunas and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping. The Lithuanian landscape is glacially flat, except for moraine hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 m, with the highest point being the Juozapinės at 292 m. The terrain is marked by numerous lakes (e.g. Lake Vistytis) and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers 30% of the country. The climate lies between maritime and continental, with wet, moderate winters and summers. According to some geographers, Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, lies a few kilometres south of the Geographic Center of Europe. Lithuania consists of Regions of Lithuania: *Aukstaitija (literally the ''Highlands''). *Samogitia, (also known as ''Žemaitija,'' or literally the ''Lowlands''). *Lithuania Minor (''Mažoji Lietuva'') also known as ''Prussian Lithuania'' (''Prūsų Lietuva''). *Dzukija (''Dzūkija'' or ''Dainava''). *Sudovia (''Sūduva'' or ''Suvalkija''). == Economy == ''Main article: Economy of Lithuania'' In 2003 Lithuania had the highest economic growth ratio among all European Union candidates, reaching 8.8% in the third quarter. In 2004, Lithuania's 6.6% growth in GDP reflects impressive economic development. Prior to 1998 Lithuania was the Baltic state that conducted the most trade with Russia; however, the 1998 Russian financial crisis forced the country to orient toward the West. Lithuania has since gained membership in the World Trade Organization, and joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. Accession to the EU has reduced previously high unemployment to 10.6% in 2004. Lithuania has nearly completed its privatization of the large, state-owned utilities, with one of two power distribution networks and railways left. The litas, the national currency, has been pegged to the euro since 2 February 2002 at a rate of EUR 1.00 = LTL 3.4528 and country is expected to switch to the euro and thus become one of the first among the new EU members to do so in 2006. == Demographics == ''Main article: Demographics of Lithuania'' 83.5% of the Lithuanian population are ethnically Lithuanian and speak Lithuanian language (one of two remaining living members of the Baltic languages), which is also the official language of the state. Several sizable minorities exist, such as Russians (6%), Poles (6%) and Belarusians (1.5%), and each respective language is also spoken in Lithuania. The predominant religion is Roman Catholicism, but Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism, and Karaism (an ancient offshoot of Judaism represented by a long-standing community in Trakai) also exist as minority religions. == Culture == ''Main article: Culture of Lithuania'' * List of famous Lithuanians * Lithuanian mythology * Music of Lithuania == Lithuanians Abroad == * Little Lithuania, Chicago * Lithuanians in Brazil * Lithuanians in France * Lithuanians in Cleveland == Miscellaneous topics == * Communications in Lithuania * Transportation in Lithuania * Military of Lithuania * Foreign relations of Lithuania * Tourism in the Baltics * Holidays in Lithuania * List of cities in Lithuania * Sports in Lithuania * List of Lithuanian rulers == External links == * [http://www.lietuva.lt/index.php?Lang=5&ItemId=27616 Lithuanian Central Internet Gates] - Main Lithuanian portal * [http://www.lrv.lt/main_en.php Vyriausybe] - Official governmental site * [http://www.president.lt/en Prezidentas] - Official presidential site * [http://www3.lrs.lt/pls/inter/w3_eng_h.home Seimas] - Official parliamentary site * [http://www.on.lt Lithuania Online] - Wide collection of Lithuanian links * [http://neris.mii.lt/ mii.lt] - Portal of the Lithuanian Institute of Mathematics and Informatics with rich material about Lithuania * [http://www.istorija.net Istorija.net] - Pages and forum on the history of Lithuania (in Lithuanian, English, Russian) == Maps & GIS == * [http://www.maps.lt Maps of Lithuania on Maps.lt] * [http://www.mapquest.com/maps/main.adp?country=LT Maps of Lithuania on Mapquest] Lithuania Republics European Union member states hi:लिथुआनिया la:Lituania lv:Lietuva li:Litauwe ms:Lithuania zh-min-nan:Lietuvos nds:Litauen se:Lietuva scn:Lituania simple:Lithuania yi:ליטע
/archive1/ __FORCETOC__ ---- == Terms of administrative division == ''A vote started on the subject apskritis vs. county, see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming#Apskritys of Lithuania - Vote''. I see a problem now. user: DeyrYassin decided to change counties to apskritys. This thing becomes more problematic, than we could think, for the term ''apskritis'' is new, coined only in the Lithuanian national renaissance period, perhaps during the WWI. Slavic words, both Polish and Russian, very differ from spoken stylistic of Lithuanian language, so Lithuanians easily changed many words of Slavic origin to Lithuanian derivatives then. And ''pavietas'' or ''pavietis'', a Polish word, was among them. Using different names for different periods, we understand, that they signify the same entity, but I doubt if many users of wikipedia could understand it. I would prefer an English word to all this our lexical tangle. So, what English word do Poles use for ''powiat'' (in wikipedia and generally) and if you use any at all? user: LinasLit10:11, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) :As I see county is used for Polish powiat in English wikipedia. User:Wojsyl 16:20, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Well of course apskritis should be left untranslated, same as oblast, krai and the mentioned Polish derivatives too. Apskritis is a special word used almost only for Lithuanian administrative units. Apygarda in some cases might be translate dto county maybe, but grafystė is the best translation as county is derrived from count (grafas). Even when translating from English e.g. US counties it is frequently translated by grafystė even though there are no counts ("Santa Klaros grafystė"), therefore translating apskritis to county is strange and comes out of misconception. BTW, I made a special article, you can discuss there: Translations of Lithuanian administrative divisions User:DeirYassin 10:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) : You might also notice that Lithuanians use "apskritis" for Russian oblast -- 'Maskvos apskritis'. I believe county is a neutral English term for such subdivisions, its ethymology notwithstanding. Look it up in WordNet for instance. User:Alga 00:29, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC) ::Note - actually, "sritis" is used for "oblast" rather than "apskritits" (Kaliningrado sritis, Maskvos sritis and such). Poles use ''county'' along with ''powiat''. If You want to simplify the terminology and to make it more usable, introducing ''apskritis'' you'll get the reverse result. You argue, Lithuanians use the term ''apskritis'' alone. It's not too consequent. If we assumed this, we should leave all Lithuanian words untranslated. We give Lithuanian original in the brackets, but ''county'' is used for simplification, especially when Poles also use this term for ''powiat''. I welcome, what You do on normalizing this usage, but look at all this. You deal from the point of view of Lithuanians, but not according to the point of view of any users. - Well perhaps Eastern Europeans do believe the idea about existing some international words. They actually do exist, but with different meanings in a specific language. For example, there are no any counts in the USA with counties still existing. So we should assume, that this world has different meaning, than '”count-y” presently. Your proposed normalizing perhaps could be accepted in Lithuania, but I doubt if it will affect English usage. We, Lithuanians may translate, how we want it, either ''Santa Clar'os grafystė'' or ''Santa Clar'os apskritis'', but it doesn't concern English language wikipedia or English usage generally. '''I think it's much better, to leave county with Lithuanian translation in the brackets than introduce new words''' user: LinasLit11:23, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC) Well, in wikipedia powiat, voivodship is used, same for oblast, krai, gubernya, etc. So therefore apskritis also should be used, because it is a national term. Santa Klaros grafystė can be apygarda, but not apskritis. Apygarda is sometimes translated from county, but apskritis is generally used only as Lithuanian unit (maybe sometimes Estonian "Maakond" is translated as apskritis too, but definitely not what is "counties" in English speaking countries), same as I do believe Poles do not rename administrative units of other countrie sto "voivodships" when they are translating because that is national unit. On the other hand, oblast for example isn't national Russian unit as Russians uses word oblast while translating units of other nations, e.g. Belarussian Voblasc too, yet it is still used in WIkipedia. Therefore Apskritis should also be used. I am not advocating for using for example "Rajonas" which can be directly translated to "district", however as for apskritis, such clear translation does not exist and therefore would be mistranslation, unless new word would be made, e.g. "roundship", but I doubt the wisety of such move. And simplification is not needed here IMO; national things, such as national names of territorial units, national foods, national clothes and such shouldn't be translated to some "common" words which would be understood immidietly as such: simple clicking and reading apskritis article will help anyone understand what it is, while in 99% of contexts it will be understood anyways, because contexts are such as list of administrative divisions of Lithuania and such. User:DeirYassin 11:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) The translation of ''Rajonas'' is direct as much as the translation of ''apskritis'' (one could say, that we mayn't translate to ''district'', because the meaning of district in Lithuanian is ''apygarda'' (e. g. ''Washington federal district''). By the way, don't you feel, that ''rajonas'' (the word of French origin, got from Russian) means the same as ''apskritis'' (our own word), if we look for a direct meaning of these words. But when we don't look for this direct lexical meaning and start do things more natural, then we should assume some other moments, such as possibility of understanding and possibility of translation. Consequence of usage in English of ''apskritis'' will be that English speaking persons will revise into ''Vilnius apskritis'', ''Kaunas apskritis'', what is natural for English speakers, but I don't think, it's acceptable for you or it's your goal. Lithuanians then will revert these into''Vilniaus apskritis'', ''Kauno apskritis'' causing this way not understanding by English speakers. All this will increase confusion with no positive imput. So, translation should be made, remembering suitability of it and compatability of languages. Apskritis isn't any traditional national name. It's simply Lithuanian translation of French ''rayon'' or German ''bezirk'' (sorry for spelling, if false). But English hasn't an adequate word, looking the direct sense, although it doesn't mean, that these words couldn't be translated to English. County isn't a perfect substitution, but it is optimal at the moment. At least, we add Lithuanian translation anyway, which fact shows that translation may be conditional only, and all thinking wikipedia users will understand it. The article apskritis is also positive and welcomed. We however shouldn't turn English articles to collections of unused words nor revise usage of English according to Lithuanian believes. I don't say we mayn't do it in the sense of the KGB, but, I'm sure, it's a wasted work. user: LinasLit13:00, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Well, but as I said, because English doesnt has word for "oblast" it uses the Russian one... Lithuanian language has word "sritis" so we don't say "oblastas". Yet for example we say "teritorija" or "provincija" - adoptions of names where we have no direct translations. Same for English at wikipedia, as you can see. I just used the practice which was done elsewhere to change "counties" to "apskritis". Although wikipedia policy is made by concensus of people, so it could be addressed by posting a poll for wikipedians at some policy page "About usage of local names for administrative units in cases where direct translation is unavailable in English"; this also would be about similar Russian names, Belorussian names (Voblasc), some other eastern european language (and probably some other language) names which are comonly used in wikipedia, and that poll would decide wherether these should be translated into "counties", "provinces", "territories", "regions" and such or wherether they should remain as they are. Because this issue is rather touching quite a bunch of languages and countries, and so it would be decided on the policy once and for all that time, wherether to put infront simplicity to understand for English speakers, or to put infront accuracy in such cases, as it is currently. User:DeirYassin 13:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Adding more now, as I did not see the first part previously. I do not think "rajonas" and "apskritis" is the same litterally, e.g. rajonas (or mikrorajonas, derrivative from rajonas) could be said about part of city, e.g. Karoliniškės, and same for English word "district". Apskritis, neither apygarda could not be used this way. I don't see much bad if "Vilnius Apskritis" would be used, I was thinking myself werether case should be used or just the name of city should be left as is; decided for this version, but I wouldn't see tragedy if other version would be used too, as it is with Oblasts (e.g. Kaliningrad Oblast, not Kaliningradskaya Oblast), Voivodships and such. Then again, districts inside oblasts seems to be called by Russian respective case (example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pskov_Oblast ), but I understand that might be cause of lack of knowing names of their capitals User:DeirYassin 13:32, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I meant, that the general meaning of ''apskritis'' and ''rajonas'' is the same, remembering, that they are almost not used in this general meaning, using them as specific terms for any concrete division. If you negate, that ''apskritis'' has general meaning at all, leaving the specific meaning only (like some ''cepelinai'' /lithuanian national meal, its name is made from the Zeppelin airship/ or ''kepurinė'' /Lithuanian folk dance, name is made from ''kepurė'', a cap/), You aren't right. Without any doubt, any Lithuanian will understand it in this general sense.
I really don't understand such terms as ''national history'', ''national terminology'' and much more ''national'' in the sense, that some people use. Terms must be understandable, history should be objective and so on. It's more useful for any nation, than create legends or myths instead of history and speculate on national specifics like terms and so on. It's like some game, which some people like very much, but which is unnecessary at all. E. g. You serve national specifics, as You say, but You allow “I don't see much bad if "Vilnius Apskritis" would be used”. What national specifics You can see in this ''Vilnius Apskritis'', if not a game, and even without Das_Glasperlenspiel . There are some people, who like their mother language, who serve it, and it isn't a game for them, but the expression of their inner egos, but I doubt if ''Vilnius apskritis'' coincides well with their ideas. And in the looking after the how Russians or Belarusians name oblast one can see rather simple aping, the biggest enemy of national identity, than defending of national interests. One will see and will delete from your texts these ideas, ''influenced by Russian propaganda''. Acting without the aping, accordingly to the situation is more positive input to all, including national movements. By the way, Poles use name woyewodship in English and not wojewódstwo, so this name is at least adopted for English usage. That is all, what I could say in this situation. N. B. You don't increase amount of information about Lithuania, reverting things, which still were done. user: LinasLit15:00, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
Well I changed to quickly but appearently you were quicker to see it lol. Anyways, I did not fully understand what you meant, but if you meant that I am copying Russians, well, it has nothing to do with that, this is international wikipedia. If info about Russia is written in one way, it does not means we should write it in direct opposite, whatever opinion about Russians would be. There are policies in wikipedia, there are precendents, there are some common decitions, and it is not that every person would write each article whatever they'd want it to write like. And it is not game, but rather thinking of the best way to say it and discution werether in case some name of administrative unit is not translatable to English it should be used untranslated, or should be changed into some random name for administrative division (e.g. it might be not only county, but also province, region, etc. too and these names are probably all used at various places for apskritys of Lithuania). And well, if it is said "He lived in Vilnius" in English, it is not said "He lived Vilniuje" anyways, so it won't be so that Lithuanian cases will always be used anyways, that's why I said it wouldn't be tragedy. I am not saying it would be tragedy if it would remain Vilnius County either, just that seeing other precedents Apskritis is better IMO. And well, I written a bunch of articles on things about Lithuania so it's not like I wouldn't increase information here; and I explained in respective talk page why I removed that 1944 date. This exact change was just to "commonise" it. As for national names, well, national history might have some terms too, e.g. like wojewoda in Polish, samurai in Japanese, and such. It wouldn't be better to call samurais "knights" or such, or call cepelinai by name for some food which is the most similar to cepelinai out of foods which has names in English language. Anyways, I guess that is all I could say in this situation too, for now. Maybe others would comment their opinions now. User:DeirYassin 15:22, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:''(as a sidenote: cepelinai is not very old word and I don't think it's of Lithuanian origin either)'' ;-) User:Wojsyl
::''Surely, but they are tasty sometimes, especially home-made, not in a pub :-)))''user: LinasLit
===Polish example===
I don't really think we should be introducing foreign words into English Wikipedia where it is not necessary. Maybe an article explaining what apskritis is would be helpful, but I'm not even sure of this. In Polish administrative division we seem to have it a little easier, as województwo translates neatly into English voivodship, and then powiat translates into country and gmina into commune or municipality. They are also well established names throughout Poland's history, so it may make things again a bit easier. We also have only 16 voivodships in Poland, therefore the 3 levels of division make sense. 10 apskitis (what's the plural btw?) for a relatively smaller Lithuania seem a lot (but that's another story anyway) User:Wojsyl 16:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
::::Thank You, I agree with your position. You perhaps have miswritten and there should be county, not country, or I'm wrong? Perhaps logic itself dictate us, that we should inform rather than demonstrate. - Concerning Your next idea, our apskritys really equal to pavietai in the past, not to Woiewodships. Lithuania refused from earlier divisions into Voivodships or Gubernyas after 1918 leaving counties only (During Stalin's times, Oblasts like earlier gubernyas vere reverted, but administration of Lithuanian SSR refused from this larger division later again). There were more counties before WWII than now. So counties were enlarged. I think they are close to optimal now. Perhaps lesser animals may have lesser cells too, mayn't they? :-)) - The other thing, that during numerous reforms the administrative system lost its historic roots and some people say that elements of historical division should be reverted to the system. Their arguments are very firm, but it means yet one reform. user: LinasLit 16:53, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
:::::''Yes, was supposed to be county, not country, I'm typing too fast. But now it's too late to correct once you've spotted this.'' User:Wojsyl
:::::The point regarding reasoning for smaller size of apskritis is that actually municipality is the "main" unit of Lithuanian administrative system; it, unlike apskritis, is controlled by people, elected in municipality itself, instead of people sent "from above", and has way more powers. However, there are 60 municipalities now, which is quite much, therefore when doing the last reform it was decided also to create apskritys, so that government would send officials to each of apskritis who would be responsible to make sure that no municipality issues decitions which would contradict law of Lithuania or constitution. Supposedly with 60 municipalities and one government to control it, this might be overlooked. However now some apskritys has only 4 municipalities, and average number is 6, so some people of those who tends to conserve budget, argues that currently there are too many apskritys and it would be wise and cost less money to keep less of them. There are a few ideas for that, one proposed by Liberal democratic party and Rolandas Paksas, which advocated the mentioned division by ethnographic lands, while other, suggested by liberal and center union suggests just to leave 5 (if I am not mistaken; each based in one of 5 largest cities) apskritys instead of current 10 by artificially changing borders between and removing ones based in smaller cities to make the remaining ones larger. Also please note that apskritis, nor district, shouldn't be compared to any unit of past, because it is not the size what matters, but rather role. As far as I know, role of apskritis in interwar period was different from the role it has now, same as there were different roles between most of mentioned subjects. Anyways, taht was out of topic I guess.User:DeirYassin 17:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:::::Surely. Rolandas Paksas is Samogitian and Samogitians advocate this idea very much. user: LinasLit17:17, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
Apskritis is apskritys in plural. As I noted in other articles, there were plans to lower the number of them to 4 and make them to corelate to ethnlographic Regions of Lithuania more or less, nopw however this seems to be spoken less about. In past Polish voivodships were smaller too however. As for the topic, well, it seems word powiat is used in wikipedia rather than county, even if it would translate into county, and voivodship is direct translation from that Polish word anyways, that means, it is not used for anything else as far as I understand User:DeirYassin 16:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:I think/hope that generally in English wikipedia ''county'' is used for ''powiat'': List of counties in Poland by voivodships or category "Land counties of Poland". Voivodship is hardly Polish word and most Poles would not undertand it. Voivodship in Polish is województwo (not this redirects you back to voivodship). But anyway, I think that forcing foreign words in English wikipedia is not a good practice and can be only misleading. User:Wojsyl 16:44, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:Powiat is used at many places though.User:DeirYassin 17:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:I've just looked at my "Lietuvos kelių atlasas" and it has both Lithuanian and English names. ''Apskritis'' is translated into ''Region'' there. How about this ? User:Wojsyl 16:30, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
::As I said, in various places it is translated in different ways, including county, region, province and such, because it does not have any direct translation to English. And that is one of main reasons to use original apskritis, while from all possible (mis)translations there could be redirects. User:DeirYassin 16:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:::Well, I don't really have very strong opinion on this. Just "counties" seemed easier and more English. How do you think people on English language news programme will address Vilnius Apskritis ? Nobody would understand them if they'd start to use Lithuanian words there (similarly Polish "powiat" would not be understood by most of English speakers). There's simply no such word in English language and it is not being used. User:Wojsyl 17:06, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:::Well, Lithuanians (not me personally) like to translate these terms. Why? I tried to add some possible arguments here, but I don't think User:DeirYassin was persuaded. Perhaps declension plays some role here? For a word used in not declined system seems strange. For example, I always feel some discomfort, when my name is used by foreign people. For really my name is 'Lin' and 'as' is the ending only, which functions like article or preposition. For me it's a trouble. When I started editing in wikipedia, I also wasn't sure, that this translation should be namely ''county'', but I found later, that it is most acceptable and understandable for English speaking people in this case. user: LinasLit17:12, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
::The very word county causes some troubles to the non-anglo-saxon administrative systems. For instance, in the Polish-Lithuanian administrative system (which is still used in Poland) there was nothing similar to a county, neither ethymologically (no counts nor dukes, only one king and the equal szlachta) nor administratively. That's why I usually leave the term powiat in its original, Polish version. Of course, I could translate it as county for simplicity's sake, but I have a strong feeling that wikipedia should not be focused on simplicity but on accuracy. So, perhaps the Lithuanian example is not that isolated. User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 19:45, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
:::Nevertheless you have List_of_counties_in_Poland_by_voivodships and not "List of powiats", Zlotow County and not "Zlotow powiat" etc. I think we should respect the widely accepted usage in English and not reinvent our own, neither in Polish, Lithuanian or any other language. Therefore I believe that voivodship is all right, because it is in usage, while powiat is not. I don't even know how to pronounce it in English. User:Wojsyl 20:57, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've looked at a number of Lithuanian web sites in English, both more and less official ones, and have not found any that uses "apskritis" in its English language version. It seems that the widely accepted forms for this are "county" and "region". Try [http://www.lietuva.lt/ www.lietuva.lt] for example. User:Wojsyl 20:47, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/62955/255/ is an example; I will agree however that it is not widely used. However, there are a few widely used ways to translate it, which means, there is no direct translation, which was already estabilished, and therefore raises problems on why one of ways to translate should be chosen over another, when all are wrong. Also, I agree with Halibutt about powiats; therefore I tend to use powiat myself too when speaking about Poland or Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Wikipedia tends to be accurate rather than simple. County has direct ethymological translation in Lithuanian, it's "grafystė" (from "grafas" - "count"), but that is used only about certain foreign administrative units. Region is "Kraštas" in Lithuanian, or "Regionas" (latter is loan word): these words shares the fact that they could be said about some non-estabilished region too, e.g. "Lake region of Lithuania", "Ethnographical region", while Apskritis can only be used about estabilished administrative units with this name User:DeirYassin 21:02, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
All right. I don't have any more arguments :-) we just present different approach to the same thing. It's only important to remember to keep redirect where possible so that this does not result in duplicate articles. (un)Surprisingly no single English native speaker seems to have an opinion on this :-) User:Wojsyl 21:22, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:I'll take that as a challenge :-) As I've explained elsewhere, I'm technically not a native English speaker, as I spoke only Lithuanian until I was old enough to play with other children outside, but, certainly, for all practical purposes, English is my native language.
:I find it easier to read articles where an equivalent English word is chosen. The problem is that there are many English words that mean approximately the same thing: area, region, district, or (in a more specialized way) municipality, county, province. Therefore, if one is going to describe a multi-tiered set of administrative divisions, to avoid confusion, it is fairly important to do it consistently, i.e. it is no good if one author has regions made up of smaller areas, while another one has areas made up of several regions. As I use these words, there is no intrinsic hierarchy of which one refers to smaller divisions and which one refers to larger ones. It's fairly arbitrary, but one must choose a consistent set.
:For reference, I live in the Town of Oakville, which is in the Regional Municipality of Halton (which used to be called Halton County before they reorganized municipal governments a few years ago, and is south of Wellington County, which is still called a county, even though none of them has never had a "count" :-) ). All of Halton is part of the Greater Toronto Area, which is centered around the City of Toronto (which, before amalgamation, used to be called Metropolitan Toronto and was made up of the original City of Toronto and, for example, the City of Etobicoke, (which was the Borough of Etobicoke when I was a kid, and was itself an amalgamation of the Township of Etobicoke and several other townships)). All of this is in the Province of Ontario, which is part of the country called Canada. In other places, there will be a different hierarchy of administrative names.
:As always, when doing any translation, one has to maintain a balance between accuracy and readability. Mapping all the native terms into some arbitrary English equivalents will be more readable, at the cost of some subtleties of accuracy. Using the native terms (all in the nominative case, of course) will be more accurate, at the cost of readability. The question is, where do you want to draw the line? How much readability are you willing to sacrifice? How much precision in naming terms are you willing to sacrifice?
::I would draw the line where some term can be translated directly into Einglish and where there is a common translation available, that way avoiding use of diffeerent terms for same thing. I think district of Lithuania qualifies that and therefore should be named "district" rather than "rajonas" and it is named that way. "Savivaldybė" is "municiaplity", and therefore should be and is left that way. "Kunigaikštystė" should be and is "duchy". "Žemė" is "land". With some other units, including apskritis, I'd rather leave the original name. I mentioned myself that there are counties without counts now, however, to Lithuanian they are still usually translated as "grafystė" or, in some cases, "apygarda". User:DeirYassin 13:01, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:User:Ifdef 12:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes. I guess in future it might be possible to do a vote on it in Wikipedia policy, that way a general policy on things like that would be made which would then apply for all countries with cases like that. The question would be about werether to keep administrative division names in original languages when there is no direct translation into English available, and there would be a list of names concerned in particularly, which would be Apskritis of Lithuania, powiat of Poland, oblast, krai, federal subject of Russia, oblast of Ukraine, gubernya of Imperial Russia and maybe some other if there are more such cases. In that case we'd get more opinions from people from respective countries maybe (more Poles, some Russians too maybe), and, what's more important probably, opinions of people living outside mentioned countries. However, I'm not sure if it is needed right now, but it might be a good idea for the fture to delimit a common policy once, so it would be known for everybody what to do in case some new arministrative divisions would come up too. User:DeirYassin 21:34, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
As I see discussion about administrative divisions of Lithuania is still unfinished as I understood. Then a short comment. Commonly accepted not only in media but also in scholarly translations from Lithuanian into English of word ''apskritis'' is county. And this is not from purely linguistic but from special terminological point of view. i. e. from comparative politics position the same term should be used when we have the same political institution. Apskritis is in various countries not only self-government(sometimes it is wholly not self government) but mostly deconcentrated territorial unit of central government. So it is the main reason to translate it as a county. The same way danish translate their ''amt'' as county, norwegian their ''fylke'' as county or swedish their ''län'' as county. I also translate these terms as well as english county, when speaking not about history but about current political system as ''apskritis'' in lithuanian.
User:LituanusSapiens 18:08, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
==The need of a phonetic transcription==
I've said, that using of extraneous words causes plenty of troubles. But let it be. Let's go further. When i revised these “Vilnius apskritis”, “Kauno apskritis” before our current revisions I decided to use the English word for apskritis because using of Lithuanian words complicates the system too much. The one problem of it is, how to deal with Lithuanian pronouncing. Now, I have an additional idea on it: user page: LinasLit/simplified_phonetic_transcription_of_Lithuanian_language_(wikipedia). Now, how it looks specifically and this problem generally?
Notes:
# I know without any doubt, that we may add English phonetic transcription. And even more, if we add any other transcription we should add English one too. But the English transcription isn't precise for Lithuanian language. If we give the precise coat of arms, if we don't translate “cepelinai” for precision, we also should add a precise transcription, i think.
# The Lithuanian scientific transcription or the International Phonetic Alphabet (which even hasn't any commonly adopted variant for Lithuanian) for Lithuanian both are complicate and cause troubles for editors not linguists, both for them who revise and for them who simply read the article. user:LinasLit 12:07, 2005 May 4 (UTC)
*I think it is good. But a few comments: if it is done specially for understanding in English, maybe "sh" (š), "kh" ("ch") and such could be used? I am not advocating it, just a possibility. I'd personally prefer just using Lithuanian letters which would be explained at some place, and bolding the accented letter.
*As for diphtongs, maybe it could just be used that way: first long letter (dashed) if there is or long second letter (dashed) if it is . Pvz. Klaipėda wiuld be with dashed "i" and Petrauskaitė would be with dashed "a". As it might be hard to understand the accenting of diphtongs for English speakers (čia iš patirties žinau, niekaip neišėjo vienam raštu paaiškint kaip reikia "žemaitis" tart, vis tvirtapradę priegaidę dėjo kai į mikrofoną pasakydavo).User:DeirYassin 12:26, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
On the first paragraph: You are right. There are three already existing possible variants of transcription. I've already inserted some examples of the first, which consists of usage of English syllables: e. g. Utena ---> Oo-ten-nah. But this variant is very unofficial and it's the most inaccurate. For example, how one will decide, if “oo” mean short [u] or long? The second possibility is to use the standard English transcription, which is very similar in different vocabularies of English and thus well known for English speaking persons. One can use it for Lithuanian too: e. g. Šiauliai --> [ʃǝʊ'leı]. But although it's more precise than the first for general, it's still not sufficient for Lithuanian; for example you can't distinguish hard and soft consonants in it clearly. So we should use the third variant, taking a specific transcription system for Lithuanian. Surely, it should be understandable for English speakers. But I think we should use in it phonetic signs ʃ, ʒ rather than sh and zh (zh and kh aren't a standard English literals at all, they're used by Russians mostly to transliterate ж and х in Russian names). I think we may include also ɳ for such cases as in Dubingiai [... iɳg] and æ for the long e. I doubt if more English transcripting signs are good to use in this case, especially the vowel signs, because English vowel transcription is too incompatible with Lithuanian phonetics.
On the second paragraph: We should write our simplified transcription not in contradiction with existing scientific transcription. I thought , that it may be good to use the dash above for expressing the ''priegaidė'', but it confuses length with ''priegaide'' and makes our construction less solid looking from the point of linguists. So, it's better to abstain from it. But I think it's possible, especially cases with the ''tvirtapradė'' are possible ( āǐ, āŭ, æǐ), which actually are pronounced long. Did You notice, that I bold not the whole syllable, but a separate vowel accented. It allows to express ''priegaides'' for diphthongs (''dvibalsiams''). Perhaps it's sufficient. In any case, true pronouncing of ''priegaidė'' requires going more deep in it, as You've already seen. user:LinasLit 14:54, 2005 May 4 (UTC) (UTC)
I dont see most of special symbols used (except dashed ones and ones with ae probably) but see just squares, and it is that way both i baltic and western European, and as well in unicode encoding. Kh is used in English, only loan words though (khan, khaki, etc.), russians usually just writes x for ch as far as I know, even in latin translitterations. You are right about "zh" however. As for , they still tends not to understand how it differs if one letter is accented or other; but I guess that might be very hard to explain in written words anyways. Those are just my remarks however, I do not oppose such system, and as filologist You are probably more knowledgable at this field, therefore I wouldn't argue against any of final proposals you'd do I think.User:DeirYassin 18:37, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
== Changes in text ==
1) Vilnius always was capital of Lithuania (since Gediminas times). Lithuania never recognized occupation of capital by poland (1920 - 1939). In 1938 it only created diplomatic relations with that country after ultimatum to begin war (see Talk:Lithuania -> Archive);
2) Lithuanian rulers after Mindaugas to Jogaila were pagan Kings of Lithuania, not Grand Dukes (the first Grand Duke was Vytautas The Great (since 1392)) (see Talk:Lithuania -> Archive);
3) Mindaugas continued uniting (began his father) only Lithuanian dukes to one state (see Talk:Lithuania -> Archive);
4) There was Third Partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, not poland (see Talk:Lithuania -> Archive);
5) Lithuanians established great medieval Empire which included lands of present Ukraine, Bielorussia, Russia and poland;
6) Poland occupied (1920 - 1939) Eastern Lithuania (Southern Suvalkija including), not unrecognized by nobody puppet "state" of "central Lithuania".
I will do my changes. Could I? User:Zivinbudas 06:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Zvinbudai, dabar yra anglu kalboi prirasyta daugiau ir gilesniu straipsniu apie Lietuva negu yra parasyta Lietuviu kalboi. Nekankink cia visus, prisidek prie darbo ir pradekite pyldyti Lietuviskus straipsnius.User:Linas 05:11, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Gerbiamasai, išmok pirma rašyti lietuviškai be klaidų. Tavo trumpame tekste yra 3 gramatinės klaidos, nekalbant apie baisią stilistiką. Iš to sprendžiu, kad tamsta esi ''tuteišas''. User:85.206.192.246 05:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
== to polish "administrators" ==
Why did you protect false polish version, but not discussed last (see Talk:Lithuania -> above) version? User:85.206.193.33 09:48, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
:Because it's always :m:The Wrong Version here in wikipedia. User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 16:05, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
Not exactly. Always polish version - lets be correct. User:85.206.194.143 18:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
== Comments on Current Disputes ==
From a Wikipedia member who studied this area's history extensively, here's my two cents worth:
1. The historical comments by Zivinbudas ("changes in text") above all look right to me. I did not double check the Medieval rulers against a book, but the info sounds right. The 20th century info is absolutely right. I recommend that he be allowed to enter the information listed in his Talk section.
2. The writing of "Poland" as "poland" was probably not intended as an insult. In the United States many people use almost no capitals when writing online, as in "i was happy to see you, david, while you were in california." I prefer to use capitals, but all lower case is common.
3. It feels inappropriate for me as an American to tell Lithuanians what to call their administrative divisions -- we can give input but we have no basis from which to dictate. I would respectfully suggest that all other nationalities use the same restraint.
4. On that basis, as input for the Lithuanian members writing in English, I find "County" easier to understand (and the Lithuanian system corresponds to the way Counties are set up in England) than apskritis. If I were describing American states in Spanish I would use the Spanish term "estados" rather than "states" for clarity. I would respectfully suggest that if most Lithuanian government websites in English translate to "county" that may be the most clear choice. Of course, on a Lithuanian wiki page I would expect to see apskritis.
5. I believe that the tragedies of the 20th Century (and the 1790's) are igniting tempers on these issues, and everyone needs to calm down and return to 2005. Before Sarajevo, Versailles, Hitler and Stalin changed everything, my family's home town in Eastern Europe had Catholics, Jews and Protestants living together reasonably well. By the time the Versailles "compromises" were implemented and the Communists and Nazis were done everyone had been turned against each other, murdered, sent to the Gulag or fled for their lives. Many in my family were killed by one side or the other.
Each country has lost cities and territories they held for centuries. The boundaries are where they are, communities have been exterminated, there has been a diaspora. It's a tragedy, but 1991-2005 has been so much better than 1891-1991 that we should all be celebrating.
User:Coll7
:Yes, I noticed that most of Živinbudas's changes are correct too, however, a few of them kinda makes article more POV however and I guess because he always just makes back the previous version instead of going to compromises it is not accepted. When article will be unprotected I'll maybe try to do some of his changes without full reverts. As for apskritis, it is not always translated as country, sometimes it's translated as region or province too and such. User:DeirYassin 08:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I will do my changes without revert. But result will be the same - reverting to previous version by polish fanatics. Please see Vilnius, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Partitions of PLC, Confederation. User:Zivinbudas 09:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Esmė yra tokia, kad Vikipedijoje reikia daug įrodinėti. Gali kaip pavyzdį pažiūrėti straipsnį Armia Krajowa ir Talk:Armia Krajowa, ten užėmė daug laiko, kol įrodžiau, kad Armija Krajova žudė lietuvius, bet dabar jau rodos straipsnyje ir liko ta informacija, nepaisant to, kad iš pradžių kokie keturi lenkai irgi nesutiko. Tiesa, jei tik būčiau atstatinėjęs praeitą variantą, greičiausiai jie irgi būtų tik atstatinėję savo, ten reikėjo daug įrodinėti, duoti interneto nuorodų ir panašiai. Gali pažiūrėti tą diskusiją jei nori.User:DeirYassin 09:38, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Malonu pabendrauti čia su saviškiu. Pažiūrėjau tą straipsnį - toli iki realybės. Bet šiaip neblogai - ypač patiko tas perspėjimas viršuje (!). Mes, lietuviai, visada turime čia palaikyti vienas kitą - kitaip pralaimėsime. Pats juk puikiai supranti, kad lenkų fanatikai sąmoningai išnaudoja anglišką Wikipedią savo propagandai skleisti pasaulyje. Juk sekei visą eigą Partitions ir PLC - kiek berašytum, pateiktum nenuginčijamų faktų - rezultatas tas pats - pervertimas i lenkišką versiją. Turime būti labai vieningi. Kartu juos įveiksime. User:Zivinbudas 10:07, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Aš paprastai naudoju tokią taktiką: pakeičiu kaip reikia, tada jeigu kas nors revertina, rašau į diskusiją kodėl ir pradedu diskutuoti. Atrevertinti atgal tokiu atveju nebūtina, nes laikas čia nespaudžia, svarbaiau, kad nauja versija būtų galutinė ir niekas jos nerevertintų. Tada po diskusijos dažniausiai prieinamas šioks toks kompromisas, arba yra parašomos abi nuomonės. Jei straipsnis apskritai vienašališkas (kaip buvo History of Vilnius iki man pradedant redaguoti), tai galimas dalykas kad pavyks įrodyti, kad nauja versija teisinga. Jeigu kas nors truputį paredaguoja mano versiją vienašališkai, tuomet aš irgi ją truputį paredaguoju, neištrinu redagavimo, bet padarau jį neutraliu (pvz. kažkas prirašė kažkur "Lietuviai žudė lenkų civilius", aš tada pakeičiau "Lenkai kaltina lietuvius lenkų civilių žudymu, tai grindžia tuo ir tuo, bet lietuviai teigia taip ir taip ir tai grindžia tuo ir anuo" ar ten kažkaip panašiai. Visas šitas užima laiko, bet paprastai taip suformuotas straipsnis jau nebbūna revertinamas. O nesamonių beje prirašo ir pvz. baltarusiai, kurie teigia, kad Baltarusija buvo pagrindinė LDK o Lietuva tai buvo atsilikėlių kraštas, ir kad pirmoji sostinė buvo Naugardukas (žr. Navahradak (kur visiška nesąmonė buvo iki aš patasiau truputį), Belarus). Bet esmė yra kad wikipedija - bendras darbas, taigi jie jei pas juos moyklose moko istoriją taip, tik tokią ją ir žino, taip ir rašo į vikipediją. Tai bus vienpusė nuomonė. O mes, pridėdami dar ir savo požiūrį, galime adaryti ją neutralia.User:DeirYassin 12:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Once we agree among ourselves (which is hard!), we should give the Wiki admins the chance to help us protect against emotion-driven reversions. But first we have to prove to them that we have in fact agreed. If the people who believe "Kas bus, kas nebus, o zemaitis neprazus" cannot agree with each other we will never convince everyone else they should protect our edits. Also, this is the English language article we're debating -- we have to remember that we're educating English speakers for whom some subtle issues are in fact not that important. Millions of Lithuanian-Americans (like me, sadly) have lost the Lithuanian language over several generations. Thanks for considering my input.
User:Coll7
Problem is that most of "administrators" operating here are unfortunately poles and they do what they want. Ie see my mentioned articles - all protected versions are polish. But we have try. User:Zivinbudas 22:32, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
::As far as I know there is only one Polish admin here on English wiki. Which makes exactly 1/423rd of wiki admins Polish (check the Wikipedia:List of administrators). User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 01:33, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
:::Great point. We're supposed to be creating unbiased narratives of the known, and our national origins or opinions shouldn't shine through and inhibit that mission. Until those of us who have studied these topics extensively can agree we're going to get no support from the admins. Once we have an article that stands up to rigorous scrutiny I bet we'll get all the protection we need against prejudicial rev's. User:Coll7
::::Zivinbudas version:
:::: ''"Vilnius is a capital of Lithuania since 1940 (as well as for centuries from 1323 to 1919). Between 1919 and 1940, its capital was at Kaunas, though until March 1938 Lithuanian authorities did not recognize Poland's control of Vilnius at the time and considered Kaunas a "temporary capital"."'' (deleted)
::::"''Municipalities cosists of over 300 elderships. This administrative division was created in 1994. The most important unit is the municipality (some muicipalities are historically called "district municipalities", and thus shortened just to "district", others are called "city municiaplities", sometimes shotrtened just to "city", or leaving just the name of city, and some are called just "municipalities"). Each municipality has its elected government, which is elected in elections of municipality councils, which previously used to be done every 3rd year but now is done every 4th year. Then the municiaplity council elects mayor of the municipality and other required personell (larger municipalities has larger councils and more officials). Also, municipality council sends elder (administrative title) to the elderships in its territory (small municipalities do not have elderships though). Now there is a proposal though that both mayors and elders would be elected in direct elections by people. As for apskritys, these are regions to which whole Lithuania is partitioned and they are ruled by people (called "Ruler of Apskritis") who are sent by central government. Their job is to ensure that in the municipalities which are in territory of their apskritis are working according to the laws of Lithuania and the constitution. They don't have a big power vested on them, and so there is idea that 10 apskritys are not needed for Lithuania, because that puts on average each just 6 municipalities to look after (and in reality smaller ones has only 4 municipalities in their territory), therefore there is a proposal to change apskritys by 4 lands, a new administrative unit, which would be carved according to the Regions of Lithuania. Another proposed solution is to expand apskritys so that there would be 5 of them, each based in one of five largest cities, while territories of 5 other municipalities, those, based in smaller cities, would be merged into these remaining municipalities."'' (deleted)
:::: ''"Gediminas' conquers, Lithuania became a part of an independent multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania"'' - changed to: - ''"Lithuanians established a great medieval Empire - Kingdom of Lithuania (later Grand Duchy of Lithuania),"'' (Kingdom for 9 years (Mindaugas) a great empire?? - Was the Grand Duchy not multi-ethnic?)
:::: ''when Grand Duke Jogaila was crowned the King of Poland,'' - changed to -''when King Jogaila became the King of Poland,'' (was Jagiello king befor he was crowned as King of Poland? )
::::''In 1569 Poland and Grand Duchy formally merged into the new state of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.'' - changed to - ''In 1569 Poland and Grand Duchy merged into the confederation of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.'' (confederation?!?)
:::: ''May Constitution of Poland of 1791, which abolished all the subdivisions of the states and merged into Kingdom of Poland.'' (deleted)
:::: ''territorial disputes with Poland (over Central Lithuania and Suvalkija/Suwalki)'' - changed to - territorial disputes with Poland ''(over Eastern Lithuania)'' (no territorial disputes over Cetral Lithuania? - Suwalki Eastern Lithuania?!)
::::Coll7 wrote: ''The historical comments by Zivinbudas ("changes in text") above all look right to me''
::::DeirYassin wrote: ''Yes, I noticed that most of Živinbudas's changes are correct too''
::::Are you really sure? :)--User:Witkacy 03:23, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
:::::Some explainations of changes whcih I think are correct or semi-correct: Grand Duchy of Lithuania started in Lithuanian ethnic lands, with 70% of people Lithuanians (Baltic) at the start. Therefore it is so that Lithuania established the GDL, which later became multiethnic. The version that Lithuania became part of it seems that it was already established and Lithuania just joined it. As for king Jogaila, there is this interpretation that styles of all pre-union with Poland grand dukes should be King actually - they werent kings because back then king by Europeans was considered a person who was Christian and received crown from pope. However, their were leaders of their nation, and in some documents styled as kings appearently. And for example when we talk about early African states or early Asian states of that time, we call the rulers kings frequently, even though they were not Christians and in case their countries would have been in constant contact to Europeans, nobody would have considered them kings at the time. I am not sure if it really should be changed to kings, however it could be mentioned that some considers the grand dukes to be kings and reason for that. The Central Lithuania is not correct term, it was Eastern/Southrn Lithuania. I think should be written "Vilnius region and Suvalkai region in the southern and eastern Lithuania", would be more clear. And there was no dispute over Suvalkija, Suvalkija was and is part of Lithuania, around Marijampole. Suvalkai region is not the same as Suvalkija - Suvalkija, although started as a name to call anybody from Suwalki gubernya, later became synonim to call Sudovia ethnographic region. As for deletion of constitution, I guess it was done because the constitution was disputed, short lived and during it's time there were "confederacies" which declared it repelled and such. I think however that the constitution should be mentioned, but maybe a bit more written about it. User:DeirYassin 09:41, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Your comments are simply funny. I will not repeat the same 10 times. Read discussions. About municipalities - I have nothing against this - it was mistakenly deleated because of reverting - will be remained in future. User:Zivinbudas 05:53, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, I would like to point some points: 1) I wouldn't call Lithuania in time of establishing of state "Grand Duchy" - certainly this term is from late XIVth century; 2) I have very big doubts that in Lithuania at the time of establishing of state were 70% of Lithuanians. As you know our state started from Mindaugas' (correctly his father's) domain. Land of Black Russia (Naugardukas region) was united only in the middle of XIIIth century. The same about Breslauja and Vileika regions; 3) I agree that discussion about Lithuanian pagan rulers' titles is continuing in Lithuania. My opinion you know - ie pagan Irish and British Kings. So I would agree with your proposed version; 4) I think we should use the term Eastern Lithuania because it always was used in political circles of the time - there was one problem, not problems of two different teritories. The term Suvalkija is late (probably from 19th century) and emerged certainly from Suvalkai town. Historical term of this teritory is Suduva (Sudovia). User:Zivinbudas 10:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
:I got the number of 70% from history books, however this might be a bit later than the establishing (I think during the time when Lithuania already included Naugardukas and such), so during the founding itself it might have been somewhat higher percentage - anyhow, there were probably no real censuses then so it would be hard to get the fully correct percentages. But the point is that the country started from Lithuania. Suvalkija emerged from Suvalkai town (Suvalkų Gubernija, as I said), however as it mentions in the article now is that Suvalkija = Suvalkai region and it is even translated to Polish as Suwalki, that is misleading because it seems that in Lithuanian that city is called Suvalkija, not Suvalkai. User:DeirYassin 10:45, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I fully agree with you. And I propose to use Eastern Lithuania - political, not only geografical term (Southern Suduva/Sudovia including). User:Zivinbudas 11:40, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
::So, when was Eastern Lithuania a distinct political entity? User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 14:42, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
:::If Lithuanians of some kind knew, why Poles call Central Lithuania central, perhaps they wanted to do the same? Lithuanians wanted to create the new state, in the territory defined in ethnological way, but Poles kept traditions of the GDL. This way Lithuania has the east, where the GDL (in its postunial variant) had the center. Who doesn't agree with this sentence? (By the way, Belarusians name it “the Western Belarus”). I keep this Polish point of view very very very nationalistic, because it can inspire our nationalists and Polish users will suffer even more (for example: “why did you poles occupied the point of view that LIthuania can be larger for account of belarusia, when it's true our LIthuanian point of view”). - Speaking more seriously, users should be informed, that ''the Eastern Lithuania'' can be used instead of the ''Central'', or vice versa, but let's not reduce all to absurd. user: LinasLit 16:08, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
The issue is more complicated than you describe. Some poles would like to use the term "central Lithuania" not by ''geografical'' but by ''political'' reasons - because of pointing on puppet unrecognized by any state and organization "state" of "central Lithuania". It is full nonsens. User:Zivinbudas 17:22, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
:Thanks for dropping in, Linas. So, is Central Lithuania the same as Eastern Lithuania in terms of territory (I mean geographically speaking}? User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 01:31, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
I think the Eastern Lithuania is rather the part of the Central Lithuania in the present Lithuania, but it depends on context. In pre-war sources the Eastern Lithuania was used as synonym for Polish Central Lithuania, but in a clear context only (for it could be understood as the Eastern part in the administrative boarders of then Lithuania). The problem of understanding, what the phrase ''the Eastern Lithuania'' means, is complicated by the fact, that the both (or even three, including Belarusians) sides involved hadn't common conception about Lithuania itself. So, before WWII, the Eastern Lithuania could mean "the Eastern part of the historical Lithuania (including of territories ruled by Poland, but not necessary), where Lithuanians live", "the part of historical Lithuania, coinciding with pre-WWI Vilnius diocese (also not necessary Polish, Lithuanians got a part of the diocese too, there Kaišiadoriai diocese later was founded), or, especially, with the eastern part of this diocese" or "The Vilnius region, ruled by Polish administration". And "The Eastern Lithuania" can be used in these senses sometimes now too.
But the Central Lithuania as a political unit had certain borders and the term "the Eastern Lithuania" is never used instead of "the Central Lithuania as a political unit".
On the other hand "the Central Lithuania" can have the common geographic sense, and could be used in this sense, e. g. before 1920. user: LinasLit 14:36, 2005 May 11 (UTC)
P.S. I see a problem in the Central Lithuania, but not like it was described here. The definition is of the political unit, but the description concerns mostly wider problems of this ethno-geographic region. I understand, that in many cases it's impossible to do another (e. g. The government of the Central Lithuania didn't pursued a census, etc.), but it seemed me confusing. I wanted to find more information about the Central Lithuania from other sources, but a time deficit didn't allowed to finish it.
I think it should be discerned in some way, for the Central Lithuania under names ''the eastern Lithuania'' and ''the Western Belarus'' exist till now, if we speak about the ethno-geographic region, but if we speak about the state, it ceased to exist in 1922 and the later development seems a bit not relevant. Perhaps we could give double definition (1. the ethno-geographic region with its present status 2. the state in 1920 – 1922) in the article, where the meanings of the Eastern Lithuania and the Western Belarus would be explained too? user: LinasLit 14:59, 2005 May 11 (UTC)
== Context on Vilnius conflicts 1918-39 ==
Relevant background: After the partitions of Poland & Lithuania by Prussia and Russia in the 1790's, much of the area that was once Lithuania was governed by Russia. Where ethnic groups had ALREADY been intermixed for centuries the arbitrary borders were now different, so still more mixing (sometimes orchestrated by the Russian government) occurred. Then comes the Versailles treaty, the Russian Civil War and armies and people fighting to settle new borders.
Some areas that had many Poles, Lithuanians and Russians intermixed ended up in Russia. (And some of the "Russians" were in fact other minorities like Ukrainians etc.)
Some areas that had many Poles, Lithuanians and Russians intermixed ended up in Poland.
Some areas that had many Poles, Lithuanians and Russians intermixed ended up in Lithuania.
To the west you can add Germans and the descendents of the Austrian refugees from the expulsion of Protestants from Salzburg in 1731 in place of Russians, and you have an improbable Lithuanian-Polish-German-Austrian Catholic-Protestant mix. They were divided by new borders in sometimes illogical ways as well.
Some of the 20th century arguments that are interfering with finishing this article come from this period. Vilnius is historically a Lithuanian city. During the centuries-long alliance between Poland and Lithuania the city absorbed a lot of Polish culture, and there's a lot of documentation of it being regarded as a gem in the Polish-Lithuanian empire. A Polish minority came to live there.
In 1918-24 each side was fighting to establish those new borders. The Poles had to turn the Russians back from Warsaw. The Lithuanians had to beat back the Russians from Vilnius. I could list another 25 such battles, many in ethnically mixed areas where sizable minorities (and sometimes majorities) ended up on the "wrong" side.
EVERY side lost land that was dear to them where some of their people lived. Sometimes a more powerful neighbor took a region where they were the minority.
In that context the Poles (who were getting pushed at from all sides in the post-Versailles rumbles) seized Vilnius. They called the area Central Lithuania presumably because under the then-current borders it was in the center of the Versailles border between Poland and Lithuania. As I said, it was one of 25 such events as everyone jockied for control of the areas around them.
After World War II the Russians took over the whole region and administratively linked it to Lithuania again, since those were its deep historical roots. But the whole area fell under the control of the Soviet Empire.
Another reason this creates so much emotion for Lithuanians and Poles: In 1939 Russia joined with Hitler to again invade, conquer and divide Poland. The Jews who had lived in Poland and Lithuania for centuries were destroyed by the Holocaust. After World War II Russia took the eastern "slice" of Poland 200 miles wide that Hitler had given them and made it part of Russia, and in turn they gave a similar slice of eastern Germany to Poland. The Russians also took the German areas of East Prussia and the major German city of Konigsberg as compensation for the damage of the war. All these areas had heavily mixed populations for centuries. All the Germans were expelled from the new Poland and the new Russia by force, often on 24 hours notice. Not long after this, most Poles were expelled from the corresponding parts of Russia by force. It was "ethnic cleansing," just as we saw in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
During this post-war period many Lithuanians, Poles (and Germans and Austrians) were killed by the Soviets or sent to the Gulag.
If readers wonder why we have a hard time settling on an impartial academic view of the period, it is because there were millions of deaths in the wars and the ethnic cleansings... AFTER the incomprehensible tragedy of the Holocaust. Lithuanians, Poles, Germans and Austrians all suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis and the Soviets. The fate of the native Russians at the hands of the Soviets often wasn't much better.
My family suffered many dead and many disappeared. I'm sure that many of the people on this page who debate these issues have the same history.
We still have to calm down and create a documented, impartial Wiki article before we can ask the admins to help us defend its accuracy. But anyone who thinks all this passion just comes from silly nationalism doesn't understand. The Poles and Lithuanians have both suffered terribly in this century, and places like Vilnius where there was conflict between us are merely side effects of much greater mistakes at Versailles, by the Nazis and by the Soviets.
I think we Lithuanians and Poles should focus on documenting what was done by the Nazis, the Soviets and the horse-traders of Versailles, not on blaming each other.
~~
===Why dukes, why kings? ===
The problem of kings before Jogaila is more problem of tradition. I didn't check it very accurate, but as I know, the tradition to call Lithuanian rulers dukes raised in the Great Duchy of Lithuania not later than in the beginning of the 16th century. We deal with the tradition of the chancellery office of our state, and historians almost without any exception keep this tradition. However this tradition is ... wrong indeed. Why? Some historians argue, that it based on acknowledgment of the Pope. This argument is false totally. The acknowledgment of popes was necessary during certain period of the history and in the Western European countries. For example the later kings of Prussia (I thing , nobody doubts, that they were kings) were not crowned by popes, as well as kings of many countries outside Europe. Lithuania wasn't catholic country before 1387, and looking from the point of the modern history, the argumentation of papal rights weren't valid for it (as they aren't valid for the majority of present crowned persons in Europe). ''Lithuanian rulers before 1387 called themselves kings (''rex'' in Latin, which translation don't leave any doubts) and were often recognized as bearers of this title (e. g. by Bizantyne Emperors).'' - I don't actually know, why later officials of the state changed this thing, creating the new tradition still existing till now. Perhaps they didn't want to be accused in paganism? Or they didn't want to degrade the memory of Vytautas the Great, who hadn't been crowned? Or other reasons existed? In any case we have things as they are, now. user: LinasLit 15:34, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
I fully agree with you. But situation is changing now. Algirdas even called themselves ''Bassileus'' (Emperor) and it was completely truth - he was the emperor. User:Zivinbudas 17:07, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
==Don't whitewash Lithuanian culpibility in WWII.==
No focus on the mass killings of Jews which many Lithuanians willingly took part in, as well as supplying SS camp guards and at least one Lithuanian Waffen-SS division [all volunteers] to the Nazis?
There was no Lithuanian SS unit, Germans tried to make one out of the "Local Squad" allegedly, but the leaders of that squad seeing this possibility (to join that squad to German military or other units), ceased the existance of that squad. User:DeirYassin 21:19, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
:Indeed, the problem with Lithuanian-Nazi collaboration is not with some Lithuanian SS or Waffen SS unit, but with the Lithuanian police forces and volunteer units. Most notably various formations recruited from the Lietuvos Šaulių sąjunga (Lithuanian Riflemen Society), including the infamous Ypatingas Burys that took part in the mass murder in Ponaren (Ponary, Panierai). On the other hand, out of roughly 45.000 of its members, some were indeed drafted to various SS Sonderkommando guarding units and other SS units. User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 00:09, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
::The fact that some Lithuanian policemen assisted the einsatzkommando death squads is well documented, and in more than one of the towns where executions took place. All Lithuanians should not be tarred with that brush, since many Catholic-Protestant-Jewish communities lived together for centuries, but any assertion that all the perpetrators were German is inaccurate. User:Coll7
In 1943 Germans ordered to form "Lithuanian Waffen SS Legion". But anti-nazi underground command appealed to Lithuanians to boycott this unit. This nazis' plan was totaly boycotted by Lithuanian population and Waffen SS unit wasn't formed. The repressions from nazis followed - were closed Vilnius and Kaunas Universities, many famous Lithuanian intellectuals and militaries were sent to the concentration camps. User:Zivinbudas 06:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
::: That's the point I (keep) trying to express. It is not all good nor all bad. Some people helped the Nazis. Many others resisted them, and some risked their lives to protect Jewish families whom they knew. The same thing happened all over Europe under Nazi occupation. But we cannot say that some Lithuanian policement didn't help the ''einsatzkommandos'', because the records of the policemen's trials have been published. User:Coll7
:::: Yes, that's true. On the one hand Liethuania was maybe the only occupied state which resisted to form its own SS unit (as I remember from school),
::::''(as a sidenote: why the only ? have you heard of any Polish SS unit?)'' (note written by Wojsyl - --User:Gvorl 05:17, 18 May 2005 (UTC))
::::: ''(to a sidenote: yes, I was bit incorrect in my note, simply I thought that nazi regime counted poles as a nation which is inlegible to serve SS and they do not tried to form polish SS units at all. Actually, I do not know about this much, can you correct me?)'' --User:Gvorl 05:17, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
::::but on the other hand there were really sick nazi collaborators too. Few remarks: nazis used facts of mass murders and exiles executed in Lithuania by Soviet Union to convince that all the jews are communists regime supporters and that was the metod which helped involving some lithuanians to conduce the Holocaust. The later genocide of most Lithuanian population was planned by nazis too, partially because of Klaipeda region problem and partially because of the resistance to nazi regime. --User:Gvorl 05:07, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
::::I had not read all of that, but it lines up with other things I have read that are well documented. The Nazis certainly seemed like they were ready treat Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the same way that the Soviets DID treat Konigsberg and the coast of East Prussia: export or exterminate the local population, change the name of every town, hill and river, and then import their own people to inhabit the empty country. Then the Soviets rewrote all the books to say that East Prussia and Lithuania Minor were really part of Russia all along. My perception: If the Nazis had defeated the Soviets it would have been the same, but the capital city and language of the executioners would have been different. --User:Coll7
==Vote for deletion==
I think people here will be interested to tell their opinion at this vote for deletion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Occupied_territories_of_Baltic_States
Lietuviai, nebūkit abejingi, paremkit mūsų poziciją! User:Zivinbudas 09:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
::English please. User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt 09:49, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
:::Translation: "Lithuanians, don't be apathetic, support our position" User:Ifdef 12:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
:::: :) thanks User:HalibuttUser talk:Halibutt
== Confederation ==
Prašau pareikšti savo nuomonę Talk:Confederation. Ačiū. User:Zivinbudas 15:21, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
== Discution and vote about the Polish and Lithuanian city names ==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_conventions/Vote_on_city_naming , tell your opinion on the matter User:DeirYassin 22:11, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Protection ==
Oh, this is SO being unprotected. A month and a half is far too long. --User:Golbez 03:42, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
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Lithuania
The Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian language: ''Lietuva'') is a republic in Northeastern Europe. One of the three Baltic States along the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with fellow Baltic State Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland to the south, and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia to the southwest. Vilnius is a capital of Lithuania since 1940 (as well as for centuries from 1323 to 1919). Between 1919 and 1940, its capital was at Kaunas, though until March 1938 Lithuanian authorities did not recognize Poland's control of Vilnius at the time and considered Kaunas a "temporary capital". {| border=1 align=right cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=300 style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |+Lietuvos Respublika |- | style="background:#efefef;" align="center" colspan=2 | {| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" | align="center" width="140px" | | align="center" width="140px" | |- | align="center" width="140px" | (Flag of Lithuania) | align="center" width="140px" | (Coat of Arms of Lithuania) |} |- | align="center" colspan=2 |
- Total
- % water | List of countries by area
1 E10 m2
Negligible |- | Population
- Total (July 2004 est.)
- Population density | List of countries by population
3,607,899
55.1/km² |- | Gross Domestic Product (PPP)
- Total (Year)
- GDP/head | List of countries by GDP
$44.4 billion
$12,837 |- | Independence
- Declared
- Recognised
- Lost
Collapse of the Soviet Union
- Declared
- Recognised | From Imperial Russia
16 February 1918
12 July 1920
1940
From Soviet Union
11 March 1990
6 September 1991 |- | Currency | Litas |- | Time zone
- in European Summer Time | Eastern European Time (Coordinated Universal Time+2)
Eastern European Summer Time (Coordinated Universal Time+3) |- | National anthem | ''Tautiska Giesme'' |- | Top-level domain | .lt |- | List_of_country_calling_codes | 370 |} == History == ''Main article: History of Lithuania'' First mentioned in February 14 1009, Lithuania grew to be a significant nation in the Middle Ages. The date of statehood is counted from the official crowning of Mindaugas as a King of Lithuania in July 6 1253 in Voruta. Mindaugas managed to unite warring dukes into a single nation and state. Later, in course of Gediminas' conquers, Lithuania became a part of an independent multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania, that also united lands of modern Belarus and Ukraine. Grand Duchy stretched across much of Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea in 15th century. Since February 2, 1386, when Grand Duke Jogaila was crowned the King of Poland, Grand Duchy was joint with Poland in a Polish-Lithuanian Union. In 1569 Poland and Grand Duchy formally merged into the new state of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This union remained in force until the May Constitution of Poland of 1791, which abolished all the subdivisions of the states and merged into Kingdom of Poland. However, the new state was annexed soon afterwards by Imperial Russia, Prussia and Austria in the effect of the Partitions of Poland of 1795. Lithuania re-established its independence in severely limited territory on February 16th, 1918. It subsequently lost most of its previous grounds to Soviet Union and was plagued by territorial disputes with Poland (over Central Lithuania and Suvalkija/Suwalki) and Germany (over Klaipeda/Memel). It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 during World War II in line with the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939. Communist rule ended after the advent of glasnost and Lithuania, lead with anti-communist and anti-soviet movement for independence Sajudis, proclaimed its renewed independence on March 11, 1990. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to do so, though Soviet forces unsuccessfully tried to suppress this until August 1991. The last Russian troops left on 31 August 1993 - even earlier than from East Germany. On February 4, 1991 Iceland became the first country to recognise Lithuanian independence and Sweden first country to open its embassy in the country. The United States of America never recognized the U.S.S.R.'s claim on Lithuania. Lithuania was admitted into the United Nations on September 17, 1991. On May 31, 2001, Lithuania became 141st member of the World Trade Organization. Lithuania has since 1988 sought closer ties with the West and so on January 4, 1994, it became the first of the Baltic States to apply for NATO membership. On November 21, 2002 Lithuania was invited to start membership negotiations with NATO and on March 29, 2004 it became a full and equal NATO member. On February 1, 1998 it became an Associate Member of the EU and on April 16, 2003 it signed the EU Accession Treaty. 91% of Lithuanians backed EU membership in a referendum held on May 11, 2003 and on May 1, 2004 Lithuania became a member of the European Union. == Politics == ''Main article: Politics of Lithuania'' The Lithuanian head of state is the List of Presidents of Lithuania, elected directly for a five-year term, who also functions as commander in chief overseeing foreign and security policy. The president, on the approval of the parliament, also appoints the prime minister and on the latter's nomination the rest of the cabinet (government), as well as a number of other top civil servants and the judges for all courts, including the Constitutional Court (''Konstitucinis Teismas''). The unicameral Lithuanian parliament, the ''Seimas'', has 141 members that are elected for a four-year term. About half of the members of this legislative body are elected in single constituencies (71), and the other half (70) are elected in the nationwide vote by proportional representation. A party must receive at least 5% of the national vote to be represented in the Seimas. == Administrative division == ''Main article: Administrative division of Lithuania'' Lithuania consists of 10 apskritys', (singular - ''apskritis''), each named after their principal city. The counties are subdivided into 56 municipalities, both cities and districts (see: List of municipalities in Lithuania). Municipalities cosists of over 300 elderships. This administrative division was created in 1994. The most important unit is the municipality (some muicipalities are historically called "district municipalities", and thus shortened just to "district", others are called "city municiaplities", sometimes shortened just to "city", or leaving just the name of city, and some are called just "municipalities"). Each municipality has its elected government, which is elected in elections of municipality councils, which previously used to be done every 3rd year but now is done every 4th year. Then the municiaplity council elects mayor of the municipality and other required personell (larger municipalities has larger councils and more officials). Also, municipality council sends elder (administrative title) to the elderships in its territory (small municipalities do not have elderships though). Now there is a proposal though that both mayors and elders would be elected in direct elections by people. As for apskritys, these are regions to which whole Lithuania is partitioned and they are ruled by people (called "Ruler of Apskritis") who are sent by central government. Their job is to ensure that in the municipalities which are in territory of their apskritis are working according to the laws of Lithuania and the constitution. They don't have a big power vested on them, and so there is idea that 10 apskritys are not needed for Lithuania, because that puts on average each just 6 municipalities to look after (and in reality smaller ones has only 4 municipalities in their territory), therefore there is a proposal to change apskritys by 4 lands, a new administrative unit, which would be carved according to the Regions of Lithuania. Another proposed solution is to expand apskritys so that there would be 5 of them, each based in one of five largest cities, while territories of 5 other municipalities, those, based in smaller cities, would be merged into these remaining municipalities. Also see: Apskritys of Lithuania, List of municipalities in Lithuania, Elderships == Geography == ''Main article: Geography of Lithuania'' The largest and most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania is a partly maritime country with about 100 km of sandy coastline, of which only 38 km face the open Baltic Sea. Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipėda lies at the narrow mouth of ''Kuršių Marios'' (Curonian Lagoon), a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad. The main river Nemunas and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping. The Lithuanian landscape is glacially flat, except for moraine hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 m, with the highest point being the Juozapinės at 292 m. The terrain is marked by numerous lakes (e.g. Lake Vistytis) and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers 30% of the country. The climate lies between maritime and continental, with wet, moderate winters and summers. According to some geographers, Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, lies a few kilometres south of the Geographic Center of Europe. Lithuania consists of Regions of Lithuania: *Aukstaitija (literally the ''Highlands''). *Samogitia, (also known as ''Žemaitija,'' or literally the ''Lowlands''). *Lithuania Minor (''Mažoji Lietuva'') also known as ''Prussian Lithuania'' (''Prūsų Lietuva''). *Dzukija (''Dzūkija'' or ''Dainava''). *Sudovia (''Sūduva'' or ''Suvalkija''). == Economy == ''Main article: Economy of Lithuania'' In 2003 Lithuania had the highest economic growth ratio among all European Union candidates, reaching 8.8% in the third quarter. In 2004, Lithuania's 6.6% growth in GDP reflects impressive economic development. Prior to 1998 Lithuania was the Baltic state that conducted the most trade with Russia; however, the 1998 Russian financial crisis forced the country to orient toward the West. Lithuania has since gained membership in the World Trade Organization, and joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. Accession to the EU has reduced previously high unemployment to 10.6% in 2004. Lithuania has nearly completed its privatization of the large, state-owned utilities, with one of two power distribution networks and railways left. The litas, the national currency, has been pegged to the euro since 2 February 2002 at a rate of EUR 1.00 = LTL 3.4528 and country is expected to switch to the euro and thus become one of the first among the new EU members to do so in 2006. == Demographics == ''Main article: Demographics of Lithuania'' 83.5% of the Lithuanian population are ethnically Lithuanian and speak Lithuanian language (one of two remaining living members of the Baltic languages), which is also the official language of the state. Several sizable minorities exist, such as Russians (6%), Poles (6%) and Belarusians (1.5%), and each respective language is also spoken in Lithuania. The predominant religion is Roman Catholicism, but Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism, and Karaism (an ancient offshoot of Judaism represented by a long-standing community in Trakai) also exist as minority religions. == Culture == ''Main article: Culture of Lithuania'' * List of famous Lithuanians * Lithuanian mythology * Music of Lithuania == Lithuanians Abroad == * Little Lithuania, Chicago * Lithuanians in Brazil * Lithuanians in France * Lithuanians in Cleveland == Miscellaneous topics == * Communications in Lithuania * Transportation in Lithuania * Military of Lithuania * Foreign relations of Lithuania * Tourism in the Baltics * Holidays in Lithuania * List of cities in Lithuania * Sports in Lithuania * List of Lithuanian rulers == External links == * [http://www.lietuva.lt/index.php?Lang=5&ItemId=27616 Lithuanian Central Internet Gates] - Main Lithuanian portal * [http://www.lrv.lt/main_en.php Vyriausybe] - Official governmental site * [http://www.president.lt/en Prezidentas] - Official presidential site * [http://www3.lrs.lt/pls/inter/w3_eng_h.home Seimas] - Official parliamentary site * [http://www.on.lt Lithuania Online] - Wide collection of Lithuanian links * [http://neris.mii.lt/ mii.lt] - Portal of the Lithuanian Institute of Mathematics and Informatics with rich material about Lithuania * [http://www.istorija.net Istorija.net] - Pages and forum on the history of Lithuania (in Lithuanian, English, Russian) == Maps & GIS == * [http://www.maps.lt Maps of Lithuania on Maps.lt] * [http://www.mapquest.com/maps/main.adp?country=LT Maps of Lithuania on Mapquest] Lithuania Republics European Union member states hi:लिथुआनिया la:Lituania lv:Lietuva li:Litauwe ms:Lithuania zh-min-nan:Lietuvos nds:Litauen se:Lietuva scn:Lituania simple:Lithuania yi:ליטע
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/archive1/ __FORCETOC__ ---- == Terms of administrative division == ''A vote started on the subject apskritis vs. county, see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming#Apskritys of Lithuania - Vote''. I see a problem now. user: DeyrYassin decided to change counties to apskritys. This thing becomes more problematic, than we could think, for the term ''apskritis'' is new, coined only in the Lithuanian national renaissance period, perhaps during the WWI. Slavic words, both Polish and Russian, very differ from spoken stylistic of Lithuanian language, so Lithuanians easily changed many words of Slavic origin to Lithuanian derivatives then. And ''pavietas'' or ''pavietis'', a Polish word, was among them. Using different names for different periods, we understand, that they signify the same entity, but I doubt if many users of wikipedia could understand it. I would prefer an English word to all this our lexical tangle. So, what English word do Poles use for ''powiat'' (in wikipedia and generally) and if you use any at all? user: LinasLit10:11, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) :As I see county is used for Polish powiat in English wikipedia. User:Wojsyl 16:20, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Well of course apskritis should be left untranslated, same as oblast, krai and the mentioned Polish derivatives too. Apskritis is a special word used almost only for Lithuanian administrative units. Apygarda in some cases might be translate dto county maybe, but grafystė is the best translation as county is derrived from count (grafas). Even when translating from English e.g. US counties it is frequently translated by grafystė even though there are no counts ("Santa Klaros grafystė"), therefore translating apskritis to county is strange and comes out of misconception. BTW, I made a special article, you can discuss there: Translations of Lithuanian administrative divisions User:DeirYassin 10:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) : You might also notice that Lithuanians use "apskritis" for Russian oblast -- 'Maskvos apskritis'. I believe county is a neutral English term for such subdivisions, its ethymology notwithstanding. Look it up in WordNet for instance. User:Alga 00:29, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC) ::Note - actually, "sritis" is used for "oblast" rather than "apskritits" (Kaliningrado sritis, Maskvos sritis and such). Poles use ''county'' along with ''powiat''. If You want to simplify the terminology and to make it more usable, introducing ''apskritis'' you'll get the reverse result. You argue, Lithuanians use the term ''apskritis'' alone. It's not too consequent. If we assumed this, we should leave all Lithuanian words untranslated. We give Lithuanian original in the brackets, but ''county'' is used for simplification, especially when Poles also use this term for ''powiat''. I welcome, what You do on normalizing this usage, but look at all this. You deal from the point of view of Lithuanians, but not according to the point of view of any users. - Well perhaps Eastern Europeans do believe the idea about existing some international words. They actually do exist, but with different meanings in a specific language. For example, there are no any counts in the USA with counties still existing. So we should assume, that this world has different meaning, than '”count-y” presently. Your proposed normalizing perhaps could be accepted in Lithuania, but I doubt if it will affect English usage. We, Lithuanians may translate, how we want it, either ''Santa Clar'os grafystė'' or ''Santa Clar'os apskritis'', but it doesn't concern English language wikipedia or English usage generally. '''I think it's much better, to leave county with Lithuanian translation in the brackets than introduce new words''' user: LinasLit11:23, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC) Well, in wikipedia powiat, voivodship is used, same for oblast, krai, gubernya, etc. So therefore apskritis also should be used, because it is a national term. Santa Klaros grafystė can be apygarda, but not apskritis. Apygarda is sometimes translated from county, but apskritis is generally used only as Lithuanian unit (maybe sometimes Estonian "Maakond" is translated as apskritis too, but definitely not what is "counties" in English speaking countries), same as I do believe Poles do not rename administrative units of other countrie sto "voivodships" when they are translating because that is national unit. On the other hand, oblast for example isn't national Russian unit as Russians uses word oblast while translating units of other nations, e.g. Belarussian Voblasc too, yet it is still used in WIkipedia. Therefore Apskritis should also be used. I am not advocating for using for example "Rajonas" which can be directly translated to "district", however as for apskritis, such clear translation does not exist and therefore would be mistranslation, unless new word would be made, e.g. "roundship", but I doubt the wisety of such move. And simplification is not needed here IMO; national things, such as national names of territorial units, national foods, national clothes and such shouldn't be translated to some "common" words which would be understood immidietly as such: simple clicking and reading apskritis article will help anyone understand what it is, while in 99% of contexts it will be understood anyways, because contexts are such as list of administrative divisions of Lithuania and such. User:DeirYassin 11:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) The translation of ''Rajonas'' is direct as much as the translation of ''apskritis'' (one could say, that we mayn't translate to ''district'', because the meaning of district in Lithuanian is ''apygarda'' (e. g. ''Washington federal district''). By the way, don't you feel, that ''rajonas'' (the word of French origin, got from Russian) means the same as ''apskritis'' (our own word), if we look for a direct meaning of these words. But when we don't look for this direct lexical meaning and start do things more natural, then we should assume some other moments, such as possibility of understanding and possibility of translation. Consequence of usage in English of ''apskritis'' will be that English speaking persons will revise into ''Vilnius apskritis'', ''Kaunas apskritis'', what is natural for English speakers, but I don't think, it's acceptable for you or it's your goal. Lithuanians then will revert these into''Vilniaus apskritis'', ''Kauno apskritis'' causing this way not understanding by English speakers. All this will increase confusion with no positive imput. So, translation should be made, remembering suitability of it and compatability of languages. Apskritis isn't any traditional national name. It's simply Lithuanian translation of French ''rayon'' or German ''bezirk'' (sorry for spelling, if false). But English hasn't an adequate word, looking the direct sense, although it doesn't mean, that these words couldn't be translated to English. County isn't a perfect substitution, but it is optimal at the moment. At least, we add Lithuanian translation anyway, which fact shows that translation may be conditional only, and all thinking wikipedia users will understand it. The article apskritis is also positive and welcomed. We however shouldn't turn English articles to collections of unused words nor revise usage of English according to Lithuanian believes. I don't say we mayn't do it in the sense of the KGB, but, I'm sure, it's a wasted work. user: LinasLit13:00, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Well, but as I said, because English doesnt has word for "oblast" it uses the Russian one... Lithuanian language has word "sritis" so we don't say "oblastas". Yet for example we say "teritorija" or "provincija" - adoptions of names where we have no direct translations. Same for English at wikipedia, as you can see. I just used the practice which was done elsewhere to change "counties" to "apskritis". Although wikipedia policy is made by concensus of people, so it could be addressed by posting a poll for wikipedians at some policy page "About usage of local names for administrative units in cases where direct translation is unavailable in English"; this also would be about similar Russian names, Belorussian names (Voblasc), some other eastern european language (and probably some other language) names which are comonly used in wikipedia, and that poll would decide wherether these should be translated into "counties", "provinces", "territories", "regions" and such or wherether they should remain as they are. Because this issue is rather touching quite a bunch of languages and countries, and so it would be decided on the policy once and for all that time, wherether to put infront simplicity to understand for English speakers, or to put infront accuracy in such cases, as it is currently. User:DeirYassin 13:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) Adding more now, as I did not see the first part previously. I do not think "rajonas" and "apskritis" is the same litterally, e.g. rajonas (or mikrorajonas, derrivative from rajonas) could be said about part of city, e.g. Karoliniškės, and same for English word "district". Apskritis, neither apygarda could not be used this way. I don't see much bad if "Vilnius Apskritis" would be used, I was thinking myself werether
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