Independent Lithuania
(1918–1940)

After Vilnius was occupied by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1919, the government of the Republic of Lithuania established its main base in Kaunas. Later, when the capital Vilnius was forcibly annexed by Poland, Kaunas became the temporary capital of Lithuania,a position it held until 28 October 1939, when the Red Army handed Vilnius back to Lithuania. Here a picture from the Presidential Palace of the Republic of Lithuania in Kaunas, around 1930

At the end of World War I the Germans allowed the Vilnius Conference (18–22 September 1917) to convene (elections for a formal representative assembly were not permitted), demanding that Lithuanians declare loyalty to Germany and agree to an annexation. The Conference instead announced basic principles of a limited in territorial scope, but independent ethnic Lithuanian state, with cultural rights for the minorities; accordingly, the publication of the Conference's resolution was not allowed. The Conference elected a 20-member Council of Lithuania (Taryba) and empowered it to act as the executive authority of the Lithuanian people. The Council declared on 11 December Lithuanian independence as a German protectorate, and then adopted the outright Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918. It proclaimed Lithuania as an independent republic, organized according to democratic principles.

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