Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How large is Lithuania?
In 1260 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the land of Lithuania, and ethnic Lithuanians formed majority (67.5%) of its 400,000 people.[52] With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, in 1340 this portion decreased to 30%[53] By the time of the largest expansion towards Rus' lands, which came at the end of the 13th and during the 14th century, the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was 800 to 930 thousand km2, just 10% to 14% of which was ethnically Lithuanian.[52][54]
Since 1945, Lutheranism in Lithuania has declined largely due to the ongoing secularization that sweeps throughout Europe.
The fact that the Polish national poem begins with the words "O Lithuania" largely stems from the fact that the 19th-century concept of nationality had not yet been geopoliticized in his time. The term "Lithuania" used by Mickiewicz refers to a geographical region encompassed by the present-day borders of Belarus and Lithuania as well as the eastern edge of present-day Poland.
Little is known of the fortunes of the Jews of Lithuania during the troubled times that followed the death of Gediminas and the accession of his grandson Vytautas (1341). To the latter, the Jews owed a charter of privileges which was momentous in the subsequent history of the Jews of Lithuania. The documents granting privileges first to the Jews of Brest (July 1, 1388) and later to those of Trakai, Grodno (1389), Lutsk, Vladimir, and other large towns are the earliest documents to recognize the Jews of Lithuania as possessing a distinct organization.
In the spring of 1938 Adolf Hitler personally stated that gaining Klaipėda was one of his highest priorities, second only to gaining the Sudetenland. When Poland presented its ultimatum to Lithuania in March 1938, Germany openly declared that in the event of a military clash between Poland and Lithuania, its army would invade Lithuania to capture Klaipėda and a large portion of western Lithuania. A week after Lithuania accepted the Polish ultimatum, Germany presented an eleven-point memorandum that demanded freedom of action for pro-German activists in the region and a lessening of Lithuanian influence there. Its points were worded in a deliberately vague manner, which would enable Germany to accuse Lithuania of violations. Lithuania chose to postpone dealing with the problem, hoping that the international situation would improve. In the meantime it hoped to give the German population no reasons for complaint.
After the semi-final, the voting method used during the show was commented upon, with the non-qualifying artists finding the results "weird and not right". The voting method saw the televotes of 10 regions of Lithuania being converted into points, 1 point for the least favoured and 12 for the most preferred. Alanas, who failed to qualify to the final, said that she found the voting "very bizarre", and that she would like to know how many people voted for her. Augustė, who also failed to qualify, called it "nonsense", commentating on the difference in the number of votes cast in Vilnius in comparison to smaller towns in Lithuania: "I don't understand how can we compare points of Vilnius and of some small city in Lithuania. In Vilnius we need thousands of votes to get 12 points. Meanwhile in a small city a hundred votes can be enough".
Also in 1943, several underground political groups united under the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania ("Vyriausias Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas", or "VLIK"). The committee issued a declaration of independence that went largely unnoticed. It became active mostly outside Lithuania among emigrants and deportees, and was able to establish contacts in Western countries and get support for resistance operations inside Lithuania (see Operation Jungle). It would persist abroad for many years as one of the groups representing Lithuania in exile.
The concept of ethnographic Lithuania clashed with the right for self-determination of people living in that large territory, particularly Poles and Belarusians, who, according to the supporters of the ethnographic Lithuania, were "slavicized Lithuanians" who needed to be re-Lithuanized. They argued that an individual cannot decide on his ethnicity and nationality, which are decided by not language but ancestry.
The Great Seimas of Vilnius was a major assembly held on December 4 and 5, 1905 in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, largely inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1905. It was the first modern national congress in Lithuania, with over 2,000 participants. The assembly made the decision to demand wide political autonomy within the Russian Empire and achieve this by peaceful means. It is considered an important step towards the Act of Independence of Lithuania, adopted on February 16, 1918 by the Council of Lithuania, as the Seimas laid the groundwork for the establishment of an independent Lithuanian state.
The word about the Lithuanians triumph spread wide. The defeated Spanish of "El Mundo" considered that "the good Spanish mood, accuracy and the joy of the game evaporated in front of the Lithuania national team victory desire", and "El Periódico de Catalunya" added that "when Lithuania was leading 62–48, what the Spanish players wished the most was to end the game and to head into the locker rooms just to finish this suffering." In Italy, "Tuttosport" described the victorious squad as "a true Lithuania national team. Without NBA stars.", while "La Gazzetta dello Sport" noted how "there is no other country in the Old Europe which would love the venerable, precious basketball more."
Before 1918, all of Lithuania Minor was part of the Kingdom of Prussia's province of East Prussia, the core of medieval Prussia. It was a region outside of Lithuanian state, inhabited by a large population of Prussian Lithuanians. The ethnic Lithuanian-Prussians were Protestants in contrast to the inhabitants of Lithuania Major, who were Roman Catholics.
Lithuania's nationalist movement continued to grow. During the 1905 Russian Revolution, a large congress of Lithuanian representatives in Vilnius known as the Great Seimas of Vilnius demanded provincial autonomy for Lithuania (by which they meant the northwestern portion of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania)[127] on 5 December of that year. The tsarist regime made a number of concessions as the result of the 1905 uprising. The Baltic states once again were permitted to use their native languages in schooling and public discourse, and Catholic churches were built in Lithuania.[99] Latin characters replaced the Cyrillic alphabet that had been forced upon Lithuanians for four decades. But not even Russian liberals were prepared to concede autonomy similar to that that had already existed in Estonia and Latvia, albeit under Baltic German hegemony. Many Baltic Germans looked toward aligning the Baltics (Lithuania and Courland in particular) with Germany.[128]
The success of Lithuania's anti-corruption methods has been difficult to measure. This was a main criticism made in a 2014 report by the European Commission measuring Lithuania's implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Whilst Lithuania has put appropriate anti-corruption measures in place, the success of such measures is difficult to measure due to limited disclosure of statistics and further limited public release as to how such anti corruption institutions work in practice.
According to the Lithuanian census of 2011, the Polish minority in Lithuania numbered 200,317 persons, or 6.6% of the population of Lithuania. It is the largest ethnic minority in modern Lithuania, the second largest being the Russian minority. Poles are concentrated in the Vilnius region. The vast majority of Poles live in Vilnius county (185,912 people, or 24% of the county's population); Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, has 88,408 Poles, or 16.5% of the city's population. Especially large Polish communities are found in Vilnius district municipality (52% of the population) and Šalčininkai district municipality (77.75%).
All four of Shiller's grandparents came to America from Lithuania in 1906-1910. Shiller remains in contact with some of his relatives in Lithuania because both of his grandmothers corresponded by mail with their families back home their entire lives. Although he has admitted that Lithuania is largely a foreign country to him, Shiller is an honorary professor at ISM University of Management and Economics (Vilnius, Lithuania) and has given several open lectures at Vilnius and ISM Universities.
The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also known as the Moscow Peace Treaty, was signed between Lithuania and Soviet Russia on July 12, 1920. In exchange for Lithuania's neutrality and permission to freely move its troops in the recognized territory during its war against Poland, Soviet Russia recognized the sovereignty of Lithuania. The treaty was a major milestone in Lithuania's struggle for international recognition. It also recognized Lithuania's eastern borders. Interwar Lithuania officially maintained that its "de jure" borders were those delineated by the treaty despite the fact that a large territory, the Vilnius Region, was in fact controlled by Poland.
The wildlife populations have rebounded as the hunting became more restricted and urbanization allowed replanting forests (forests already tripled in size since their lows). Currently, Lithuania has approximately 250,000 larger wild animals or 5 per each square kilometer. The most prolific large wild animal in every part of Lithuania is the roe deer, with 120,000 of them. They are followed by boars (55,000). Other ungulates are the deer (~22,000), fallow-deer (~21,000) and the largest one: moose (~7,000). Among the Lithuanian predators, foxes are the most common (~27,000). Wolves are, however, more ingrained into the mythology as there are just 800 in Lithuania. Even rarer are the lynxes (~200). The large animals mentioned above exclude the rabbit, ~200,000 of which may live in the Lithuanian forests.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania dates back to the Reformation, when Kaunas, a large town in Lithuania, accepted the Augsburg Confession in 1550. In the 16th century Lutheranism started to spread from the two German-controlled neighbouring states of Livonia to the north and the Protestant formerly monastic, Teutonic State of Prussia to its south.
Lithuania, my fatherland! You are like health;
How much you must be valued, will only discover
The one who has lost you.O Lithuania, my country, thou
Art like good health; I never knew till now
How precious, till I lost thee.Lithuania, my country! You are as good health:
How much one should prize you, he only can tell
Who has lost you.Oh Lithuania, my homeland,
you are like health--so valued when lost
beyond recovery; let these words now stand
restoring you, redeeming exile's cost.Thee, Lithuania, I sing, my native land.
Thou art like health, for he can only understand
Thy merit and thy worth who lost thee long ago.
My pen now limns thy beauty, for I miss thee so.Maude Ashurst Biggs published "Master Thaddeus" in 1885 in London, Watson Kirkconnell "Sir Thaddeus" in 1962. George Rapall Noyes published a prose translation of the poem in 1917. At least "Book Four" was published in 2000 by Christopher Adam Zakrzewski. A full version translation by Marcel Weyland in the original metre was published in Sydney in 2004, London and New York in 2005 ( US, and 1873106777 UK). A new English verse translation by Bill Johnston is forthcoming in September 2018 from Archipelago Books ().
In 2007, Narkiewicz-Laine, under the auspices of the Embassy of Finland in Lithuania, mounts an exhibition of his latest work entitled: Babylon at ARKA Gallery in Vilnius, Lithuania. The centerpiece is a large-scale installation of exotic perfumes contained in crystal containers, video, and large-scale light boxes filled by pixilated butterflies.
The Lithuanian delegation, led by Tomas Naruševičius, demanded that Russia recognize independent Lithuania as a legal successor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while the Soviet delegation, led by Adolph Joffe, was prepared to recognize Lithuania only based on the self-determination principle. Territorial disputes were the most contentious issue. Lithuania demanded the territories of former Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, and Suwałki Governorates. These areas, according to the Lithuanians, were ethnically Lithuanian. M. Balinsky's census of 1857 was provided as evidence that the territory was inhabited primarily by Lithuanians. Lithuanians asserted that the Jewish and Belarusian populations in the region, which were large, wished to be part of Lithuania. They brought a representative of each group, Simon Rosenbaum and Dominyk Semashko, to support this case. It was agreed that the territory of Lithuania could be easily identified, as it was inhabited by Litvaks. The Second Polish Republic also laid claim to this territory and had actual control over it at the time.
In order to break down Gazprom's monopoly in natural gas market of Lithuania, first large scale LNG import terminal (Klaipėda LNG FSRU) in the Baltic region was built in port of Klaipėda in 2014. 
The Klaipėda LNG terminal was called Independence, thus emphasising the aim to diversify energy market of Lithuania. 
Norwegian company Equinor will be supplying 540 million cubic meters of natural gas annually from 2015 until 2020.
The terminal is able to meet the Lithuania's demand 100 percent, and Latvia’s and Estonia’s national demand 90 percent in the future.
Importantly, the annexation gave Lithuania control of a year-round ice-free Baltic port. Lithuania made full use of Klaipėda's port, modernizing and adapting it, largely for its agricultural exports. The port reconstruction was certainly one of the larger long-term investment projects enacted by the government of Lithuania in the interwar period.
An important component to the Holocaust in Lithuania was that the occupying Nazi German administration fanned antisemitism by blaming the Soviet regime's recent annexation of Lithuania, a year earlier, on the Jewish community. Another significant factor was the large extent to which the Nazis' design drew upon the physical organization, preparation and execution of their orders by local Lithuanian auxiliaries of the Nazi occupation regime.
Lithuania, situated at the border of Greek and Roman Church had developed by the defence of its paganism, especially against the Teutonic Order to become a state and in the 14th century a major power. The territory of nowaday's republic, except Lithuania Minor, which was ruled by the Teutonic Order, was the Lithuanian speaking part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with its Slavic and Orthodox majority of subjects. The centre of power of this large state lay among Kaunas, Trakai and Vilnius.