Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The article is devoted to the new historical investigations concerning the project of Anti-King Confederacy in Lithuania in 1788. The oligarchs opposing the King Stanisław August Poniatowski attempted to wreck his plan of making an alliance with Russia. Their plan was to establish in coordination with Prussia a confederacy outside the structures of Polish-Lithuanian Parliament. It is known that two Lithuanian oligarchs: Karol Radziwiłł (then the Voivode in Vilnius) and Michał Kazimierz Ogiński (the Commander-in-Chief of the Lithuanian Army) sketched a project of confederacy in Lithuania. Up until autumn 1788 both did not collaborate with the opposition and were very cautious in their political moves.

The article is devoted to the research results on the sources of conspiratorial press in Vilnius from the period of January insurgency (1862–1864). Underground press from the period of January insurgency has never been the case in any other country that within four years (the first periodicals emerged in 1861) so many secret publications aimed at different groups of different political background were published in order to inspire resistance. The editors of those publications considered the tsar’s administration to be responsible for the precarious situation of the peasantry therefore the main goal of this periodical was to sway the populace to this notion and to win the inhabitants of rural areas for the revolutionary movement.

The article is devoted to research on relations with the Scandinavian countries in 1918-1939 in Lithuania and Poland. It is based on analysis of publications edited in 1995-2005. Presented hereby research became a topic of our research because of three reasons: 1) to start tradition of analysis of publications in Lithuania which deals with relations between Lithuania and Scandinavian countries; 2) to ascertain, do the similar aspects and problems of the mentioned research in Lithuania and Poland exist; 3) to answer the question, if the dialog between Lithuanian and Polish researchers prevails. Objectives of the report are as follows: 1) to show the dynamic of research on relations with the Scandinavian countries in 1918-1940 in Lithuania in 1995-2005; 2) to present the issues of Polish historians written during the last decade on relations between Poland and the Scandinavian countries; 3) to make (quantitative and qualitative) analysis of issues of Polish and Lithuanian historians and compare the results.

The article is devoted to the new historical investigations concerning Latvian reflections on Lithuanian-Polish conflict concerning Vilnius annex (1920-1921). The Polish occupation of the ancient Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and its annexation by Poland caused an irreparable damage in the relations between that country and her northern neighbours. The process of the Lithuanian-Polish conflict depended not only on these two feuding sides. Latvia’s position was important too. Latvia tried to trim between these two countries. In 1921 Latvia socially began to support Lithuanian’s policy regarding Vilnius, but in the same breath it officially declared neutrality.

The article is devoted to the research on the policy of the Polish government with a Lithuanian minority between 1920 and 1939. Polish authorities paid much less attention to the problem of the Lithuanian minority in comparison with those of Ukrainians or Germans at that time. Similarly, in the north-eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic, it was a Byelorussian minority, not Lithuanians that posed troubles to the government. Throughout the interwar period the authorities hoped for diplomatic relations with Lithuania. Therefore, the problem of the minority was treated as a foreign affair not as an interior problem.

The year 1923 was a critical moment in the history of the Weimar Republic. Due to Germany’s delay in paying war reparations, French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr region in January. Shortly afterwards the Lithuanians seized Memel (now Klaipėda), which in the Treaty of Versailles had been declared a Free City with a French Governor and garrison. German public opinion was outraged by this situation. In the press, a campaign against Lithuania was started. The article is devoted to publish the results of research on the military potential of Reichswehr in East Prussia in January 1923. The hypothesis concerning the military Reichswehr impossibility to influence the Klaipėda events has to be examined in this article.

The article is devoted to the historical investigations regarding the association of the Baltic countries versus the Republic of Poland in the policies of Vilnius conservatives (1922). The grounding of the Baltic countries during the First World War, especially of Lithuania and Latvia, was not considered in the programmes of any of the Polish parties and political factions. Resulting territorial claims made by Poland along with the demands made by the above mentioned Baltic countries were the cause of numerous conflicts between the Republic of Poland and these states and the late establishment of diplomatic relations, with the exception of Lithuania. They were commenced by talks concerning cooperation between the Baltic countries and Poland which resulted in signing of a repelling alliance treaty on the 17th of March 1922. The treaty did not come into force because of the lack of ratification from the parliament of Finland.

The article is devoted to the new historical investigations on the problem of Lithuanian-Polish relations in interwar period, as a first signs of a thaw. In the beginning of the 1930’s the political situation in Europe changed. Lithuanian and Polish politicians had to look for new ways to resolve the conflict between the two countries. Lithuanian foreign minister S. Lozoraitis had a real opportunity to put an end to the prolonged conflict. He had to finish the period of Lithuania’s previous political orientation and to start a new period of foreign policy, which is mentioned in historiography as a beginning of “the new course”.

The article is devoted to the new historical investigations on the problem of the Polish-Soviet state border admittance in the former East Prussia in the years 1945-1958. The matter of the final course of the Polish-Soviet border was not resolved until years 1956-1957. The Soviet side proposed formal delimitation in the territory of the Polish-Soviet border in the region of the Kaliningrad circuit in April 1956 doing the condition of temporariness away. The border was traced in the territory according to its already existing course after months of works of the delimitation committee. The agreement confirming the course of the border was signed in Moscow on the 5th of March 1957.