Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania
act declaring the independence of Lithuania from the USSR
The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of 11 March (Lithuanian: Aktas dėl Lietuvos nepriklausomos valstybės atstatymo) was an independence declaration by Lithuania adopted on 11 March 1990, signed by all members of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania led by Sąjūdis. The act emphasized restoration and legal continuity of the interwar-period Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union and annexed in June 1940. In March 1990, it was the first of the 15 Soviet republics to declare independence, with the rest following to continue for 21 months, concluding with Kazakhstan's independence in 1991. These events (part of the broader process dubbed the "parade of sovereignties") led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.
Background
Loss of independence
After the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Council of Lithuania, chaired by Jonas Basanavičius, proclaimed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918. Lithuania enjoyed independence for two decades. In August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. The Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) were assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence and subsequently were occupied in June 1940 and converted into soviet socialist republics.
In Lithuania's case, President Antanas Smetona left the country rather than accept the occupation.
“Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania” enters the record as act declaring the independence of Lithuania from the USSR. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Re-Establishment, State and Lithuania can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Re-Establishment, State and Lithuania provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2823577. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1940, 1991 and 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.