History
People of Polish ethnicity have lived in Lithuania for many centuries. Many Poles in Lithuania today are the descendants of Polonized Lithuanians or Ruthenians. Historically, the number of Poles in modern Lithuanian territory has varied during different periods. Polish culture began to influence the Grand Duchy of Lithuania around the time of the Union of Lublin (16th century), and during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) much of the Lithuanian nobility was Polonized and joined the Polish-Lithuanian szlachta class. Reformation gave another impetus to the spread of the Polish language, as the Bible and other religious texts were translated from Latin to Polish. In 1697 Polish replaced Ruthenian as a chancellery language. In the 19th century peasants of Polish nationality started to appear in Lithuania, mostly by Polonization of Lithuanian peasants in Dzūkija and to a lesser degree in Aukštaitija.
A large portion of the Vilnius area was controlled by the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period, particularly the area of the Republic of Central Lithuania, which had a significant Polish speaking population. For example, the Wilno Voivodeship (25% of it is a part of modern Lithuania and 75% - modern Belarus) in 1931 contained 59.7% Polish speakers and only 5.2% Lithuanian speakers; see Ethnic history of the region of Vilnius for details. From 1918 to 1921 there were several conflicts, such as the activity of the Polish Military Organization, Sejny uprising (that was met with massive outrage in Lithuania) and a discovered attempt at a Polish coup on the Lithuanian government. From the documents stolen from Polish Military Organization headquarters safe in Vilnius and given to Prime Minister of Lithuania Augustinas Voldemaras, it is clear that this plot was directed by Józef Piłsudski himself. The Polish-Lithuanian War and Żeligowski's Mutiny contributed to a worsening of Polish-Lithuanian relations; increasingly Polish people were viewed with suspicion in Lithuania. The loss of Vilnius was a stunning blow to Lithuanian aspirations and identity, and the unrelenting irredentist demand for its return became one of the most important elements of Lithuanian political and social life in the interwar period. The irredentist campaign resulted in the emergence of feelings of hatred and revenge directed against the Poles in the Lithuanian society. In fact, the largest social organization in interwar Lithuania was the League for the Liberation of Vilnius (Vilniaus Vadavimo Sąjunga, or VVS), which propagated irredentist views in its magazine "Our Vilnius" (Mūsų Vilnius)."
Hence, in the interwar period, the Polish minority was persecuted by the administration of independent Lithuania. The Lithuanian census of 1923 showed that Poles constituted 65,600 Lithuania inhabitants (3.2% of total population). In interwar Lithuania, people declaring Polish ethnicity were officially described as Polonized Lithuanians who merely needed to be re-Lithuanized, Polish-owned land was confistacted, and Polish religious services, schools, publications, and voting rights were restricted. After the establishment of Valdemaras regime in 1926, Polish schools were closed, many Poles were incarcerated, and Polish newspapers were placed under strict censorship.
During the World War II expulsions and shortly after the war, the Soviet Union, during its struggle to establish the People's Republic of Poland, forcibly resettled many Poles, who lived in the Lithuanian SSR and were seen as enemies of the state, into Siberia. After the war, in 1945-1948, the Soviet Union allowed 197,000 Poles to leave to Poland; in 1956-1959, another 46,600 were able to leave. In the 1950s the remaining Polish minority was a target of several attempted campaigns of Lithuanization by the Communist Party of Lithuania, which tried to ban any teaching in the Polish language; those attempts, however, were vetoed by Moscow, which saw them as too nationalistic. The Soviet census of 1959 showed 230,100 Poles concentrated in the Vilnius region (8.5% of the Lithuanian SSR's population). The Polish minority increased in size, but more slowly than other ethnic groups in Lithuania; the last Soviet census of 1989 showed 258,000 Poles (7.0% of the Lithuanian SSR's population). The Polish minority, subject in the past to massive, often voluntary Russification and Sovietization, and recently to mostly voluntary processes of Lithuanization, shows many and increasing signs of assimilation with Lithuanians. However, some young Poles don't speak Lithuanian fluently, so they prefer to study in Poland or in the Polish language University of Białystok branch in Vilnius, rather than in Lithuanian universities.
Some Poles who live southwards of Vilnius speak a dialect of Polish, that contains many substratical relics from Lithuanian and Belarusian.
Read more about this topic: Poles In Lithuania
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