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112-585: Built by the Russian hermit Timofej Vasilyevich Prokhorov and his wife Natasha without a building permit in the 1950s, the church was destroyed in a fire on 11 June 2023. The chapel was located in the Munich borough of Neuhausen-Nymphenburg , south of the Olympic Lake at Spiridon-Louis-Ring 100. During World War II , Timofej said he had a vision of Mary , in which he was instructed to move west from Russia to build

224-590: A Baltic ethnic group . They are native to Lithuania , where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another two millions make up the Lithuanian diaspora , largely found in countries such as the United States , United Kingdom , Brazil and Canada . Their native language is Lithuanian , one of only two surviving members of the Baltic language family along with Latvian . According to the census conducted in 2021 , 84.6% of

336-526: A Germanisation of Prussia . The subsequent imperial Russian occupation from 1795 until 1915, with some interpositions such as the French invasion of Russia in 1812, the Uprisings of 1831 and 1863 , accelerated this process of Slavicization. While under Russian occupation, Lithuanians endured Russification , which included the 40-year-long ban on public speaking and writing in Lithuanian (see, e.g., Knygnešiai ,

448-585: A Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which Baltic languages retain numerous exclusive and non-exclusive lexical, morphological, phonological and accentual isoglosses in common with the Slavic languages , which represent their closest living Indo-European relatives. Moreover, with Lithuanian being so archaic in phonology, Slavic words can often be deduced from Lithuanian by regular sound laws ; for example, Lith. vilkas and Polish wilk ← PBSl. *wilkás (cf. PSl. *vьlkъ ) ← PIE *wĺ̥kʷos , all meaning " wolf ". When

560-507: A great power ; and one of the most powerful states in Europe after the victory over Napoleon . Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. The Emperor Alexander II abolished Russian serfdom in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and revolutionary pressures grew. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms of 1906–1914, the constitution of 1906 , and

672-476: A rave band, has gained popularity in Russia and across Europe. Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin . Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky , would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov , who developed

784-569: A state entity before the modern era . During the Late Middle Ages , Lithuania was ravaged by the Lithuanian Crusade , which ended only by the Treaty of Melno in 1422. In fact, the crusade persisted after the definite Christianization of Lithuania in 1387, when Europe's last pagan people were baptised. Simultaneously, the Lithuanian state reached its apogee under the rule of Vytautas

896-404: A Lithuanian population revealed that Lithuanians are close to both Indo-European and Uralic -speaking populations of Northern Europe. Y-chromosome SNP haplogroup analysis showed Lithuanians to be closest to Latvians , Estonians , Belarusians and southern Finns . This is the result of Iron Age Europe . Autosomal SNP analysis situates Lithuanians most proximal to Latvians , followed by

1008-470: A church there. For this, he left his family. On his journey, he met his future wife, Natasha, in Vienna in 1944. In 1952, after another vision, he moved to Munich. In a third vision, Timofej received the order to build a church at Oberwiesenfeld and, along with his wife, began to build the church and the dwelling from remains of a nearby rubble mountain. Upon completion, Timofej offered his church building to both

1120-641: A coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to seizure of power by the communist Bolsheviks on 25 October 1917 (7 November New Style ). In 1922, Soviet Russia, along with Soviet Ukraine , Soviet Belarus , and the Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , officially merging all four republics to form the Soviet Union as a country. Between 1922 and 1991,

1232-428: A decision was made, or with what we have offended Your Lordship so much that Your Lordship has deservedly been directed against us, creating hardship for us everywhere. First of all, you made and announced a decision about the land of Samogitia , which is our inheritance and our homeland from the legal succession of the ancestors and elders. We still own it, it is and has always been the same Lithuanian land, because there

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1344-477: A defence against the marauding Teutonic Order and Eastern Slavs . The Lithuanian state was formed in the High Middle Ages , with different historians dating this variously between the 11th and mid-13th centuries. Mindaugas , Lithuania's only crowned king and its first baptised ruler, is generally considered Lithuania's founder. The Lithuanians are the only branch of Baltic people that managed to create

1456-469: A greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar -winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace , which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl 's White Sun of

1568-573: A heavy Lithuanian presence. Lithuanians in the early 20th century were among the thinnest people in the developed countries of the world. In Lithuanian cuisine there is some emphasis on attractive presentation of freshly prepared foods. Lithuania has been brewing midus , a type of Lithuanian mead for thousands of years. Locally brewed beer ( alus ), vodka ( degtinė ), and kvass ( gira ) are popular drinks in Lithuania. Lithuanian traditional beer of Northern Lithuania, Biržai , Pasvalys regions

1680-596: A majority of the population not only in what is now Lithuania , but also in northwestern Belarus , in large areas of the territory of the modern Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, and in some parts of modern Latvia and Poland. In 1940, Lithuania was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union , and forced to join it as the Lithuanian SSR . The Germans and their allies attacked the USSR in June 1941, and from 1941 to 1944, Lithuania

1792-405: A solo mission on Vostok 6 . In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk , exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2 . Until the 18th century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances. In the 19th century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful , and

1904-417: A state as a result of in-fighting between members of the princely family that ruled it collectively. After the 13th century, Moscow became a political and cultural center. Moscow has become a center for the unification of Russian lands . By the end of the 15th century, Moscow united the northeastern and northwestern Russian principalities, overthrew the "Mongol yoke" in 1480, and would be transformed into

2016-443: A stuffed potato creation, is the most popular national dish. It is popular among Lithuanians all over the world. Other national foods include dark rye bread , cold beet soup (šaltibarščiai), and kugelis (a baked potato pudding). Some of these foods are also common in neighboring countries. Lithuanian cuisine is generally unknown outside Lithuanian communities. Most Lithuanian restaurants outside Lithuania are located in cities with

2128-440: A variety of influences during the country's rich history. Since shared similarities in history and heritage, Lithuanians, Jews and Poles have developed many similar dishes and beverages: dumplings ( koldūnai ), doughnuts ( spurgos ), and crepes ( lietiniai blynai ). German traditions also influenced Lithuanian cuisine, introducing pork and potato dishes, such as potato pudding ( kugelis ) and potato sausages ( vėdarai ), as well as

2240-509: Is россияне ( rossiyane ), derived from Россия ( Rossiya , Russia), which denotes "people of Russia", regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation. In daily usage, those terms are often mixed up, and since Vladimir Putin became president, the ethnic term русские has supplanted the non-ethnic term. The name of the Russians derives from the early medieval Rus' people , a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across

2352-533: Is Christianity —It has the world's largest Orthodox population . According to differing sociological surveys on religious adherence, between 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church . Non-religious Russians may associate themselves with the Orthodox faith for cultural reasons. Some Russian people are Old Believers : a relatively small schismatic group of

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2464-588: Is Russian , the most spoken Slavic language . The majority of Russians adhere to Orthodox Christianity , ever since the formation of the Russian identity in the Middle Ages . By total numbers, they are the largest Slavic and European nation . Genetic studies show that Russians are closely related to Poles , Belarusians , Ukrainians , as well as Estonians , Latvians , Lithuanians and Finns . They were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry

2576-698: Is one language and the same inhabitants. But since the land of Samogitia is located lower than the land of Lithuania , it is called as Samogitia, because in Lithuanian it is called lower land [ Žemaitija ]. And the Samogitians call Lithuania as Aukštaitija , that is, from the Samogitian point of view, a higher land. Also, the people of Samogitia have long called themselves Lithuanians and never – Samogitians, and because of such identity ( sic ) we do not write about Samogitia in our letter, because everything

2688-544: Is based in Kievan Rus' . The Russian word for the Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus' . Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples, and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians . The vast majority of Russians live in native Russia, but notable minorities are scattered throughout other post-Soviet states such as Belarus , Kazakhstan , Moldova , Ukraine , and

2800-566: Is one: one country and the same inhabitants." — Vytautas the Great , excerpt from his 11 March 1420 Latin letter sent to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor , in which he described the core of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , composed from Žemaitija (lowlands) and Aukštaitija (highlands). Term Aukštaitija is known since the 13th century. The territory inhabited by the ethnic Lithuanians has shrunk over centuries; once Lithuanians made up

2912-510: Is popular among Lithuanians in Lithuania as well as in the diasporic communities. Basketball came to Lithuania through the Lithuanian-American community in the 1930s. Lithuanian basketball teams were bronze medal winners in the 1992 , 1996 , and 2000 Summer Olympics . Joninės (also known as Rasos ) is a traditional national holiday, celebrated on the summer solstice. It has pagan origins. Užgavėnės ( Shrove Tuesday ) takes place on

3024-508: Is remembered mainly for his novel Oblomov . Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov , non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky , and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky . The beginning of

3136-445: Is summed up in the popular phrase (sometimes attributed to Emperor Alexander III of Russia ) - Хочешь быть русским - будь им! ( transl.   You want to be Russian - be that! ). Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia. It is the most-spoken native language in Europe, the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language . Russian

3248-664: Is the third-most used language on the Internet after English and Spanish , and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed. It can be traced to the Middle Ages , when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By

3360-408: Is well appreciated in Lithuania and abroad. Starka is a part of the Lithuanian heritage, still produced in Lithuania. Among Indo-European languages , Lithuanian is conservative in its grammar and phonology, retaining archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit (particularly its early form, Vedic Sanskrit ) or Ancient Greek . Thus, it is an important source for

3472-505: The 1972 Summer Olympics , the site of the church was designated as part of the Olympic site . The illegally built church and apartment building were to be demolished for this purpose, and Timofej was to move with his wife to a city apartment. After protests from Munich citizens, and in favor of pre-Olympic peace, the Olympic site was planned further north, so that the church was preserved. The site

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3584-825: The 2021 Russian census , the number of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation decreased by nearly 5.43 million, from roughly 111 million people in 2010 to approximately 105.5 million in 2021. Among Russians, a number of ethnographic groups stand out, such as: the Northern Russians , the Southern Russians , the Cossacks , the Goryuns , the Kamchadals , the Polekhs , the Pomors ,

3696-524: The Age of Enlightenment , literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov , Denis Fonvizin , Gavrila Derzhavin , and Nikolay Karamzin . From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry , literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to

3808-505: The Baltic Sea and played an important part in the foudation of the first East Slavic state that later became the Kievan Rus' . The idea of a single " all-Russian nation " encompassing the East Slavic peoples , or a "triune nation" of three brotherly " Great Russian ", " Little Russian " (i.e. Ukrainian ), and " White Russian " (i.e. Belarusian ) peoples became the official doctrine of

3920-444: The Baltic states . A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russian-speaking non-Russians), estimated at 25 million people, has developed all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States , Germany , Brazil , and Canada . There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is русские ( russkiye ), which in modern Russia most often means "ethnic Russians". The other one

4032-639: The Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in Munich as a place of worship. However, those in charge of each rejected the offer, as the Catholics saw too many elements of the Orthodox in the building, and the Orthodox in turn saw too many Catholic elements. As a result, Timofey himself celebrated the liturgy . He did not administer the sacraments of baptism and marriage , but instead referred to Catholic or Orthodox priests. In 1968, when plans were made for

4144-650: The Christianization of Kievan Rus' , for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine Empire . Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia. The 16th century saw the development of the unique tent-like churches ; and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl , gradually paving

4256-484: The Don , Terek , and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of parts of Russia. In accordance with the 2008 research results of Russian and Estonian geneticists, two groups of Russians are distinguished: the northern and southern populations. Central and Southern Russians, to which the majority of Russian populations belong, according to Y chromosome R1a, are included in

4368-700: The Hunger Plan and the Generalplan Ost , including one million civilian casualties during the Siege of Leningrad . After the victory of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies , the Soviet Union became a superpower opposing Western countries during the Cold War . By the mid-1980s, with Soviet economic and political weaknesses becoming acute, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms; these culminated in

4480-700: The Lithuanian Wars of Independence . However, a third of Lithuania's lands, namely the Vilnius Region , as well as its declared capital, fell under Polish occupation during the Interwar . A standardised Lithuanian language was approved. In the lead-up to the World War II, the Klaipėda Region was occupied by Nazi Germany after the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania . "We do not know on whose merits or guilt such

4592-759: The Russian Chinese , the Siberians ( Siberiaks ), Starozhily , some groupings of Old Believers ( Kamenschiks , Lipovans , Semeiskie ), and others. The main ones are the Northern and Southern Russian groups. At the same time, the proposal of the ethnographer Dmitry Zelenin in his major work of 1927 Russian (East Slavic) Ethnography to consider them as separate East Slavic peoples did not find support in scientific circles. Russia's Arctic coastline had been explored and settled by Pomors , Russian settlers from Novgorod . Cossacks inhabited sparsely populated areas in

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4704-602: The Russian Empire from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes , whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes , one of the largest wetlands in Europe. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia with Moscow included in two waves: one moving from Kiev toward present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov . Prior to

4816-797: The Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein . The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era , was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff , one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin , Alexander Glazunov , Igor Stravinsky , Sergei Prokofiev , Dmitri Shostakovich , Georgy Sviridov and Alfred Schnittke . Soviet and Russian conservatories have turned out generations of world-renowned soloists. Among

4928-505: The State Duma (1906–1917) attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the Emperors refused to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power. A combination of economic breakdown, war-weariness , and discontent with the autocratic system of government triggered revolution in Russia in 1917 . The overthrow of the monarchy initially brought into office

5040-578: The Trinity as outlined by the Nicene Creed , Orthodox fasts , military service, and practices including water baptism . Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The largest of these groups are Islam with over 100,000 followers from national minorities, and Baptists with over 85,000 Russian adherents. Others are mostly Pentecostals , Evangelicals , Seventh-day Adventists , Lutherans and Jehovah's Witnesses . Since

5152-586: The Tsardom of Russia after Ivan IV was crowned tsar in 1547. In 1721, Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire , hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe. The state now extended from the eastern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Pacific Ocean , and became

5264-742: The United States . Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and South Beach, Staten Island in New York City are examples of large communities of recent Russian and Russian-Jewish immigrants. Other examples are Sunny Isles Beach , a northern suburb of Miami , and West Hollywood of the Los Angeles area. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the White army moved to China  — most of them settling in Harbin and Shanghai . By

5376-605: The Vilnius County . Especially large Polish communities are located in the Vilnius District Municipality and the Šalčininkai District Municipality . Despite being the capital, Vilnius was not the largest city by number of Lithuanians until mid-2000s. According to the 2011 census Vilnius had 337,000 Lithuanians while Kaunas – 316,000. Russians, even though they are almost as numerous as Poles, are much more evenly scattered. The most prominent community lives in

5488-662: The Visaginas Municipality (52%). Most of them are workers who moved from Russia to work at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant . A number of ethnic Russians left Lithuania after the declaration of independence in 1990. In the past, the ethnic composition of Lithuania has varied dramatically. The most prominent change was the extermination of the Jewish population during the Holocaust . Before World War II, about 7.5% of

5600-465: The atmosphere of Venus , and founded modern geology . Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky , who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry , and a prominent tutor Pafnuty Chebyshev , Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential. Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table , the main framework of modern chemistry . Sofya Kovalevskaya was a pioneer among women in mathematics in

5712-435: The ban against printing the Lithuanian language was lifted in 1904, various European literary movements such as Symbolism , impressionism , and expressionism each in turn influenced the work of Lithuanian writers. The first period of Lithuanian independence (1918–1940) gave them the opportunity to examine themselves and their characters more deeply, as their primary concerns were no longer political. An outstanding figure of

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5824-601: The baroque tree cake known as šakotis . Traditional dishes of Lithuanian Tatars and Lithuanian Karaites like Kibinai and čeburekai , that are similar to pasty , are popular in Lithuania. For Lithuanian Americans both traditional Lithuanian dishes of virtinukai (cabbage and noodles) and balandėliai (rolled cabbage) are growing increasingly more popular. There are also regional cuisine dishes, e.g. traditional kastinys in Žemaitija , Western Lithuania, Skilandis in Western and Central Lithuania, Kindziukas in Eastern and Southern Lithuania ( Dzūkija ). Cepelinai ,

5936-411: The de facto architectural style, and Nicholas I opened the gate of Eclecticism to Russia. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style. In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were the Art Nouveau , Constructivism , and Socialist Classicism . Russia's largest religion

6048-462: The dissolution of the Soviet Union , leaving Russia again alone and marking the beginning of the post-Soviet Russian period. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself the Russian Federation and became one of several successors to the Soviet Union . Ethnic Russians historically migrated within the areas of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union , though they were sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderland areas by

6160-578: The mixed economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s through the command economy and repressions of the Joseph Stalin era to the "era of stagnation" from the 1960s to the 1980s. The actions of the Soviet government caused the death of millions of citizens in the famine of 1930–1933 and the Great Purge . The attack by Nazi Germany and the ensuing war , together with the Holocaust , again claimed millions of lives . Millions of Russian civilians and prisoners of war were killed or starved to death during Nazi Germany's genocidal policies called

6272-402: The population of Lithuania identified themselves as Lithuanians, 6.5% as Poles , 5.0% as Russians , 1.0% as Belarusians , and 1.1% as members of other ethnic groups. Most Lithuanians belong to the Catholic Church , while the Lietuvininkai who lived in the northern part of East Prussia prior to World War II, were mostly Lutherans . The territory of the Balts, including modern Lithuania,

6384-554: The 14th century, corresponding to the establishment of Ashkenazi settlements in response to the invitation extended by Vytautas the Great in 1388. At the end of the 19th century, the average height of males was 163.5 cm (5 ft 4 in) and the average height of females was 153.3 cm (5 ft 0 in). By the end of the 20th century, heights averaged 181.3 cm (5 ft 11 in) for males and 167.5 cm (5 ft 6 in) for females. Lithuanian settlement extends into adjacent countries that are now outside

6496-479: The 1930s, Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Many of these Russians moved back to the Soviet Union after World War II . Today, a large group in northern China still speak Russian as a second language. Russians ( eluosizu ) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China (as the Russ ); there are approximately 15,600 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang , and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang . According to

6608-421: The 19th century. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006, both of which he declined. Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio , while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser . Zhores Alferov contributed significantly to

6720-450: The 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry . This era had poets such as Alexander Blok , Anna Akhmatova , Boris Pasternak , Konstantin Balmont , Marina Tsvetaeva , Vladimir Mayakovsky , and Osip Mandelstam . It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin , Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin , Leonid Andreyev , Yevgeny Zamyatin , Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely . After

6832-525: The Aryans (1892): "Thus it would seem that the Lithuanians have the best claim to represent the primitive Aryan race , as their language exhibits fewer of those phonetic changes, and of those grammatical losses which are consequent on the acquirement of a foreign speech." The Proto-Balto-Slavic language branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then sub-branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic. Baltic languages passed through

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6944-440: The Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern ; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space. In 2002, Russian Ark was the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. Today, the Russian cinema industry continues to expand. The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the architecture of Kievan Rus' . Following

7056-425: The Great ( r.   1392–1430), when it ruled the lands between the Baltic and Black seas. Thereafter, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania continued existing until 1795, however, since the Union of Lublin in 1569, it maintained its independence in the bi-confederal Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In the 16th century the Lithuanian humanists based the national consciousness of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on

7168-407: The Gulag camps. Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism . Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism . Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism . Mikhail Bakhtin 's writings have significantly inspired scholars. Helena Blavatsky gained international following as

7280-675: The Kaliningrad Oblast, but their number is small compared to what they used to be. Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, and was recognized by most countries in 1991. It became a member of the European Union on May 1, 2004. Among the Baltic states , Lithuania has the most homogeneous population. According to the census conducted in 2001, 83.45% of the population identified themselves as ethnic Lithuanians, 6.74% as Poles , 6.31% as Russians , 1.23% as Belarusians , and 2.27% as members of other ethnic groups such as Ukrainians , Jews , Germans , Tatars , Latvians , Romani , Estonians , Crimean Karaites etc. Poles are mostly concentrated in

7392-409: The Munich fire department was alerted to a fire on the Tollwood grounds. When the emergency services arrived, the church was already in flames and burned down completely. Trees and a power line were also damaged, but no persons were harmed. According to the current state of the investigation, the police assume as the cause of the fire the "presence of a technical defect in the installed electronics inside

7504-473: The Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the liturgical reforms introduced in the 17th century. Other schisms from Orthodoxy include Doukhobors which in the 18th century rejected secular government, the Russian Orthodox priests, icons, all church ritual, the Bible as the supreme source of divine revelation and the divinity of Jesus, and later emigrated into Canada. An even earlier sect were Molokans which formed in 1550 and rejected Czar's divine right to rule , icons,

7616-627: The Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky , who laid the foundations of this style. Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era. Nikolay Ostrovsky 's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov . Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , who wrote about life in

7728-435: The Russian ethnicity - and as a historic great power with imperial expansionist tendencies the Russian state has sometimes encouraged Russian-centred monoculturalism. Steppe peoples, Tatars, Baltic Germans, Lithuanians and native Siberians in Rus' , Muscovy or the Russian Empire could in theory become "Russians" ( Russian : русские ) simply by accepting Russian Orthodoxy as their faith. The attitude of ready inclusivity

7840-409: The Slavic migration in the 6-7th centuries, the Suzdal-Murom and Novgorod-Rostov areas were populated by Finnic peoples , including the Merya , the Muromians , and the Meshchera . From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finnic peoples, so that by year 1100, the majority of the population in Western Russia was Slavic-speaking. Recent genetic studies confirm

7952-692: The Tsarist and later Soviet government. Sometimes ethnic Russian communities, such as the Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or the Doukhobors in Canada , emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority. There are also small Russian communities in the Balkans — including Lipovans in the Danube delta — Central European nations such as Germany and Poland , as well as Russians settled in China , Japan , South Korea , Mexico , Brazil , Argentina and Australia . These communities identify themselves to varying degrees as Russians, citizens of these countries, or both. Significant numbers of Russians emigrated to Canada , Australia and

8064-848: The United States and Israel. Now there are about 3,200 Jews living in Lithuania. Apart from the various religious and ethnic groups currently residing in Lithuania, Lithuanians themselves retain and differentiate between their regional identities; there are 5 historic regional groups: Žemaičiai , Suvalkiečiai , Aukštaičiai , Dzūkai and Prūsai , the last of which is virtually extinct. City dwellers are usually considered just Lithuanians, especially ones from large cities such as Vilnius or Kaunas . The four groups are delineated according to certain region-specific traditions, dialects, and historical divisions. There are some stereotypes used in jokes about these subgroups, for example, Sudovians are supposedly frugal while Samogitians are stubborn. Since

8176-604: The actions against the Catholic Church). In such a context, the Lithuanian National Revival began in the 19th century. Some believed at the time that the Lithuanian nation as such, along with its language, would become extinct within a few generations. Some of the Polish- and Belarusian-speaking persons from the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania expressed their affiliation with the modern Lithuanian nation in

8288-479: The anti-communist movements, and thousands of Latin crosses were placed on the Hill of Crosses near Šiauliai , despite its being bulldozed in 1961. Lithuanian folk music is based around songs ( dainos ), which include romantic and wedding songs, as well as work songs and archaic war songs. These songs used to be performed either in groups or alone, and in parallel chords or unison . Duophonic songs are common in

8400-503: The best known are violinists David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer , cellist Mstislav Rostropovich , pianists Vladimir Horowitz , Sviatoslav Richter , and Emil Gilels , and vocalist Galina Vishnevskaya . During the Soviet times, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers — Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava , and performers such as Alla Pugacheva . Jazz , even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of

8512-487: The church building". According to BR24 from June 11, 2023, the former mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, publicly advocated the reconstruction of the East-West Peace Church as a symbol of hope for peace. Russians Russians ( Russian : русские , romanized :  russkiye [ˈruskʲɪje] ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe . Their mother tongue

8624-623: The contemporary Northern Russians also are genetically close of all Slavic peoples only to the Poles and similar to the Balts. However, this does not mean the northern Russians origin from the Balts or the Poles, more likely, that all the peoples of the Nordic gene pool are descendants of Paleo-European population, which has remained around Baltic Sea . Russians have sometimes found it useful to emphasize their self-perceived ability to assimilate other people to

8736-476: The country's most popular musical forms. The Ganelin Trio have been described by critics as the greatest ensemble of free-jazz in continental Europe . By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria , Aquarium , DDT , and Kino . Pop music in Russia has continued to flourish since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u. In the recent times, Little Big ,

8848-560: The creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics . Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions , and discovered light-emitting diodes . Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry , biogeochemistry , and radiogeology . Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology . Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning . Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics . Nikolai Vavilov

8960-503: The day before Ash Wednesday , and is meant to urge the retreat of winter. There are also national traditions for Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas . Lithuanian cuisine has much in common with other European cuisines and features the products suited to its cool and moist northern climate: barley, potatoes, rye, beets, greens, and mushrooms are locally grown, and dairy products are one of its specialties. Nevertheless, it has its own distinguishing features, which were formed by

9072-487: The early 20th century was Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius , a novelist and dramatist. His many works include Dainavos šalies senų žmonių padavimai (Old Folks Tales of Dainava , 1912) and the historical dramas Šarūnas (1911), Skirgaila (1925), and Mindaugo mirtis (The Death of Mindaugas , 1935). Petras Vaičiūnas was another popular playwright, producing one play each year during the 1920s and 1930s. Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas wrote lyric poetry, plays, and novels, including

9184-423: The early 20th century, including Michał Pius Römer , Stanisław Narutowicz , Oscar Milosz and Tadas Ivanauskas In February 1918, while World War I was ongoing, the re-establishment of an independent Lithuanian state was declared , 122 years after it was destroyed. In the aftermath of World War I , Lithuanians militarily defended their country's independence from Poland , Whites and Soviet Russia during

9296-467: The fall of the Soviet Union various new religious movements have sprung up and gathered a following among ethnic Russians. The most prominent of these are Rodnovery , the revival of the Slavic native religion also common to other Slavic nations . Football is the most popular sport in Russia. The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960 , and reached

9408-505: The finals of Euro 1988 . In 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union won gold at the Olympic football tournament . Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008. The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008 . Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup , and the 2018 FIFA World Cup . Lithuanians Lithuanians ( Lithuanian : lietuviai ) are

9520-423: The fore. Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov , Nikolay Nekrasov , Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy , Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet . The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol . Then came Ivan Turgenev , who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Ivan Goncharov

9632-561: The general "East European" gene cluster with the rest East and West Slavs (Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), as well as the non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Genetically, East Slavs are quite similar to West Slavs; such genetic similarity is somewhat unusual for genetics with such a wide settlement of the Slavs, especially Russians. The high unity of the autosomal markers of the East Slavic populations and their significant differences from

9744-494: The groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school , the All-Union Institute of Cinematography . Dziga Vertov 's " Kino-Eye " theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev , The Cranes Are Flying , and Ballad of a Soldier . The 1960s and 1970s saw

9856-690: The history of Russia became essentially the history of the Soviet Union , effectively an ideologically based state roughly conterminous with the Russian Empire before the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . From its first years, government in the Soviet Union based itself on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The approach to the building of socialism, however, varied over different periods in Soviet history: from

9968-458: The idea of their national singularity or uniqueness and considered the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an independent country. There is a current argument that the Lithuanian language was considered non-prestigious enough by some elements in Lithuanian society, meaning that the number of Lithuanian language-speakers decreased with Polonization in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , as well as

10080-535: The late Neolithic period the native inhabitants of the Lithuanian territory have not been replaced by migrations from outside, so there is a high probability that the inhabitants of present-day Lithuania have preserved the genetic composition of their forebears relatively undisturbed by the major demographic movements, although without being actually isolated from them. The Lithuanian population appears to be relatively homogeneous, without apparent genetic differences among ethnic subgroups. A 2004 analysis of mtDNA in

10192-475: The late 19th century, including the concertina , accordion and bandoneon . Sutartinė can be accompanied by skudučiai , a form of panpipes played by a group of people, as well as wooden trumpets ( ragai and dandytės ). Kanklės is an extremely important folk instrument, which differs in the number of strings and performance techniques across the country. Other traditional instruments include švilpas whistle, drums and tabalas (a percussion instrument like

10304-482: The leading theoretician of Theosophy , and co-founded the Theosophical Society . Vladimir Lenin , a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism . Leon Trotsky , on the other hand, founded Trotskyism . Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher in the second half of the 20th century. Mikhail Lomonosov proposed the conservation of mass in chemical reactions , discovered

10416-524: The majority of Lithuanians have been members of the Roman Catholic Church . According to the 2021 census, 74% of Lithuanians are Roman Catholic. Under Article 26 of the Constitution of Lithuania , persons can freely practice a religion of their choosing. Catholicism played a significant role in Lithuanian anti-communist resistance under the Soviet Union . Several Catholic priests were leaders of

10528-596: The modern Lithuanian state. A small Lithuanian community exists in the vicinity of Puńsk and Sejny in the Suwałki area of Poland, an area associated with the Lithuanian writer and cleric Antanas Baranauskas . Although most of the Lithuanian inhabitants in the region of Lithuania Minor that formed part of East Prussia were expelled when the area was annexed by the Soviet Union as the Kaliningrad Oblast , small groups of Lithuanians subsequently settled that area as it

10640-578: The neighboring Finnic, Turkic and Caucasian peoples were revealed. Northern Russians , according to mtDNA , Y chromosome and autosomal marker CCR5de132, are included in the "North European" gene cluster (the Poles , the Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples ). Consequently, the already existing biologo-genetic studies have made all hypotheses about the mixing of the Russians with non-Slavic ethnic groups or their "non-Slavism" obsolete or pseudoscientific. At

10752-742: The novel Altorių šešėly (In the Shadows of the Altars, 3 vol., 1933), a remarkably powerful autobiographical novel. Keturi vėjai movement started with publication of The Prophet of the Four Winds by talented poet Kazys Binkis (1893—1942). It was rebellion against traditional poetry. The theoretical basis of Keturi vėjai initially was futurism which arrived through Russia from the West and later cubism , dadaism , surrealism , unanimism , and German expressionism . The most influensive futurist for Lithuanian writers

10864-515: The population was Jewish ; they were concentrated in cities and towns and had a significant influence on crafts and business. They were called Litvaks and had a strong culture. The population of Vilnius, which was sometimes nicknamed the northern Jerusalem , was about 30% Jewish. Almost all its Jews were killed during the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania , some 75,000 alone between the years 1941 – 1942, while others later immigrated to

10976-506: The presence of a Finnic substrate in modern Russian population. Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD, when the Primary Chronicle starts its records. By 600 AD, the Slavs are believed to have split linguistically into southern , western , and eastern branches. The Rus' state was established in northern Russia in

11088-474: The reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with the earliest texts dating only to c.  1500 A.D. , whereas Ancient Greek was first written down in c.  1450 B.C. ). There was fascination with the Lithuanian people and their language among the late 19th-century researchers, and the philologist Isaac Taylor wrote the following in his The Origin of

11200-480: The renowned sutartinės tradition of Aukštaitija . Another style of Lithuanian folk music is called rateliai , a kind of round dance . Instrumentation includes kanklės , a kind of zither that accompanies sutartinės, rateliai, waltzes , quadrilles and polkas , and fiddles , (including a bass fiddle called the basetle ) and a kind of whistle called the Lamzdeliai lumzdelis ; recent importations, beginning in

11312-602: The same time, the long-standing identification of the Northern Russian and Southern Russian ethnographic groups by ethnologists was confirmed. The previous conclusions of physical anthropologists, historians and linguists (see, in particular, the works of the academician Valentin Yanin ) about the proximity of the ancient Novgorod Slavs and their language not to the East, but to west Baltic Slavs . As can be seen from genetic resources ,

11424-509: The way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1690s. After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture . During Alexander I 's rule, Empire style became

11536-405: The westernmost East Slavs ; furthermore, Germans and West Slavs (especially Poles ) are situated more proximal to Lithuanians than Finns and northern Russians. Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jews display a number of unique genetic characteristics; the utility of these variations has been the subject of debate. One variation, which is implicated in familial hypercholesterolemia , has been dated to

11648-538: The year 862, which was ruled by the Varangians . Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finns . In 882, the prince Oleg seized Kiev , thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the East Slavs under one authority. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as

11760-569: Was Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky . Oskaras Milašius (1877–1939) is a paradoxical and interesting phenomenon in Lithuanian culture. He never lived in Lithuania but was born and spent his childhood in Cereja (near Mogilev , Belarus ) and graduated from Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris. His longing for his fatherland was more metaphysical. Having to choose between two conflicting countries — Lithuania and Poland — he preferred Lithuania which for him

11872-490: Was an idea even more than a fatherland. In 1920 when France recognized the independence of Lithuania, he was appointed officially as Chargé d'Affaires for Lithuania. He published: 1928, a collection of 26 Lithuanian songs; 1930, Lithuanian Tales and Stories ; 1933, Lithuanian Tales ; 1937, The origin of the Lithuanian Nation . Since the Christianization of parts of Lithuania proper in 1387 and of Samogitia in 1413,

11984-433: Was best known for having identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés . Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer . Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis . George Gamow

12096-424: Was later described by Munich's former mayor , Christian Ude , as the "most charming black building in Munich". After Timofej died on July 14, 2004, at the age of 110, an association took care of the church. Timofeij's home was converted into a museum after his death. The annual Tollwood Festival is held around the grounds of the East-West Peace Church during the summer. On Sunday, June 11, 2023, at around 1:10 am,

12208-558: Was occupied by Germany. The Germans retreated in 1944, and Lithuania fell under Soviet rule once again. The long-standing communities of Lithuanians in the Kaliningrad Oblast ( Lithuania Minor ) were almost destroyed as a result. The Lithuanian nation as such remained primarily in Lithuania, few villages in northeastern Poland, southern Latvia and also in the diaspora of emigrants. Some indigenous Lithuanians still remain in Belarus and

12320-415: Was once inhabited by several Baltic tribal entities ( Aukštaitians , Sudovians , Old Lithuanians, Curonians , Semigallians , Selonians , Samogitians , Skalvians , Old Prussians ( Nadruvians )), as attested by ancient sources and dating from prehistoric times. Over the centuries, and especially under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , some of these tribes consolidated into the Lithuanian nation, mainly as

12432-573: Was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is called the father of theoretical astronautics , whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Valentin Glushko , and many others. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin . In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space , having flown

12544-460: Was repopulated with new Soviet citizens. Small groups of Lithuanians are still present in Belarus within the Grodno and Vitebsk regions . Apart from the traditional communities in Lithuania and its neighboring countries, Lithuanians have emigrated to other continents during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Lithuanian national sport is usually considered to be basketball ( krepšinis ), which

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