The Baltic Revolution
The Lithuanian Revolution Gallery
Since World War II, the Kremlin maintained that Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia had willingly joined the Soviet Union.
For the Baltic peoples, decades of resistance told a very different story.
Lithuanians fought an underground war against Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1956, while dissent and resistance continued in different forms for decades. By the late 1980s, a new kind of opposition emerged. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia built mass national movements that used culture, peaceful protest, political organizing, and democratic elections to challenge Soviet rule.
In Lithuania, Sąjūdis transformed from a reform movement into a powerful force for national independence. In 1990, Sąjūdis-backed candidates won a majority in Lithuania’s first competitive elections to the Supreme Council, which restored the independent Republic of Lithuania on March 11.
Moscow refused to accept Lithuania’s decision.
On January 13, 1991, Soviet forces attacked civilians and seized strategic sites in Vilnius, killing 14 people and injuring hundreds. Yet Lithuanians continued to defend their government through overwhelmingly nonviolent resistance, while international attention and support grew.
The Baltic Revolution is a testament to the power of truth, collective action, and ordinary people to change the course of history.
This gallery captures key moments in Lithuania’s struggle for freedom—when people took to the streets, challenged Soviet authority through peaceful protest and democratic action, and reclaimed the right to determine their own future.
