Talk:Vilnius Conference

A fact from Vilnius Conference appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 February 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the representatives at the Vilnius Conference in 1917 elected a 20-member Council of Lithuania to negotiate with the Germans for the independence of Lithuania?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/February.

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Conflicting relations with Poland

I don't know how it could be stated in the text. Everybody knows, that though the common history of the most troublesome, but there were no conflicts between Poland and Lithuania. There were conflicts with Russia, Sweden, Prussia and cossacs. The Vilinus conference wanted to switch allegiance from Poland to Germany and it is clear for everybody. Do we need to rewrite the history to prove that Lithuania was always in alliance with Germany and always in conflict with Poland? (This seems to me Orwellian 1984 practise.) Cautious 09:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adding historic context

The article does need more context. Independence from whom is not clear to the reader unfamiliar to the area. So a few sentences about Grand Duchy, PL-LT Commonwealth, Russian Empire, WWI, and the dispute over Vilnius that would soon erupt.

Here are some refs I'm planning to use in discussing the immediate context: [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Also these sentences from [6]: "During this period, the nationalist movement persisted and was encouraged by Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. In 1918, after a series of struggles with Poland, Russia and Germany, Lithuania proclaimed its independence, although this proclamation was followed by several years of continuing battles with the Russians and territorial struggles with Poland."

Novickas 13:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead, but please be aware that to break up from Poland was decided long before the conference: just that the Poles were not invited should speak for itself. The long and 'complicated story how it was decided probably belongs to Lithuanian National Revival. Renata 18:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is something new for me! What Czeslaw Milosz wrote about this process showed quite different development. Some people decided thay are Lithuanians, some decided they are Poles, but, according to him, the educated class of Lithuania developed out of noble, rather Polish speaking class. Are you sure that those guys didn't spoke Polish as good as Lithuanian? This would rather mean, some Polish-Lithuanian split and some group oriented on independence. Cautious 18:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, according to this source [7] the serious divisions between the LT and PL independence movements began soon after the 1863 uprising. My plan for this article is just to state these issues briefly and reference them. The little brain reels at the idea of writing the Revival article! Novickas 19:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The simple question: how dominant those groups were versus the groups oriented on futher union with Poland? Cautious 18:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I actually read the first of your attachements. There were some Lithuanian movement, but serious start can be dated not from 1863, but rather from 1902 maybe 1905. By 1918 the issue of break up with Poland was not decisively decided in the view of the large part of Lithuanian society. Therefore it must be considered as important factor during the Vilnius conference. Cautious 18:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is about relation between the Vilnius conference and Mitteleuropa concept?? Cautious 18:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On a topic this sensitive, we must use sources. The source dating significant PL-LT conflicts to 1863 is the Lithuanian Institute of History. I was unable to find any academic discussions concerning the Vilnius Conference and Mitteleuropa, that of course doesn't mean there aren't some out there.

A lot of ink has been spilled writing about LT-PL conflicts, including by a Nobel laureate as you say, and the subject is still being hotly disputed on Wikipedia. This instability makes for slow progress in these areas of WP. The articles Vilnius Question and Lithuanian National Revival have not been written yet; in the meantime we do have the articles Polish-Lithuanian relations and History of Vilnius. If and when the former 2 articles get written, and are deemed NPOV, we could certainly incorporate their findings in this article. Novickas 19:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Source

Another source in Lithuanian: http://images.katalogas.lt/maleidykla/lit21/L-019.pdf Renata (talk) 05:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]