| | Lithuania
The Country History
At the end of the 14th century Lithuania became the largest state in Europe. Through alliances and conquests it included the present-day Belarus and Ukraine within its territory. The union of Lithuania and Poland was formed in 1969, and it survived till 1795, when its remnants were partitioned by surrounding countries.
Lithuania longed for independence but it was not until after the First World War that independence was declared. However in 1940 it was again captured by Soviet Russia. At the end of the Second World War Lithuania became a Republic of the USSR. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence. Lithuania subsequently restructured its economy for integration into western European institutions; it joined both NATO and the EU in the spring of 2004. |
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