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105-603: Inspired by the Moscow Helsinki Group , the Lithuanian grouped was founded by five dissidents of different walks of life: Jesuit priest Karolis Garuckas, Jewish " refusenik " Eitanas Finkelšteinas, poet and deportee Ona Lukauskaitė-Poškienė, twice-imprisoned Catholic dissident Viktoras Petkus , and poet Tomas Venclova . The formation was formally announced in a press conference to foreign journalists from Reuters and Chicago Tribune on November 27 or December 1, 1976 in

210-484: A Lithuanian peasant. — Antoine Meillet 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 the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with

315-644: A Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which the Baltic languages retain 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 ". Initially, Lithuanian

420-903: A Russian Pentecostal living in Vilnius . The group produced not only reports concerning specific individuals, but also reports on broader issue. In 1977, the group produced reports on situation of the former political prisoners, focusing on prohibition to return to Lithuania even after their prison term ended, and the Catholic church. It also sent a report to the Follow-up Meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Belgrade (4 October 1977 – 8 March 1978). In January 1979, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe nominated Helsinki Groups of

525-612: A foreign agent in compliance with the Russian foreign agent law . In 2015, the Moscow Helsinki Group continued fighting against being labeled as a "foreign agent". As of 2021 , MHG is co-chaired by two participants of the Soviet-era dissident movement - Vyacheslav Bakhmin (political prisoner in 1980-84) and Valery Borshchev (formerly Duma deputy from the opposition Yabloko party). Two of its main projects include: annual reports on

630-550: A former Lithuanian partisan . Vytautas Skuodis, a professor of geology, also joined the group but was arrested in November 1979 for the possession of a 300-page manuscript titled Spiritual Genocide of Lithuania . On February 14, 1980, Statkevičius was arrested and transferred to a psychiatric hospital . The group protested the arrests and wanted to admit Vytautas Vaičiūnas, a worker, but Jurevičius and Vaičiūnas were arrested on March 25, 1981. Therefore, in early 1981, Lukauskaitė-Poškienė

735-505: A result of a decrease in the usage of spoken Lithuanian in the eastern part of Lithuania proper, in the 19th century, it was suggested to create a standardized Lithuanian based on the Samogitian dialect. Nevertheless, it was not accomplished because everyone offered their Samogitian subdialects and the Eastern and Western Aukštaitians offered their Aukštaitian subdialects. In the second half of

840-500: A second language. Lithuanian is closely related to neighbouring Latvian , though the two languages are not mutually intelligible. It is written in a Latin script . In some respects, some linguists consider it to be the most conservative of the existing Indo-European languages , retaining features of the Proto-Indo-European language that had disappeared through development from other descendant languages . Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to

945-618: A single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century and perhaps as late as the 17th century. The German Livonian Brothers of the Sword occupied the western part of the Daugava basin, which resulted in colonization of the territory of modern Latvia (at the time it was called Terra Mariana ) by Germans and had a significant influence on the language's independent development due to Germanisation (see also: Baltic Germans and Baltic German nobility ). There

1050-586: A single sound, the velar fricative [ x ] , while dz and dž are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds): Dz dz [ dz ] (dzė), Dž dž [ dʒ ] (džė), Ch ch [ x ] (cha). The distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė was used for the first time in the Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica and firmly established itself in Lithuanian since then. However, linguist August Schleicher used Ë (with two points above it) instead of Ė for expressing

1155-456: A text containing unprecedented human rights provisions. The so-called "Third Basket" of the Accords obliged the signatories to "respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief." The signatories also confirmed "the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights and duties in this field." The "Public Group to Promote Fulfillment of

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1260-849: Is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lord's Prayer , the Hail Mary , and the Nicene Creed written in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect. On 8 January 1547 the first Lithuanian book was printed – the Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas . At the royal courts in Vilnius of Sigismund II Augustus , the last Grand Duke of Lithuania prior to the Union of Lublin , both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken equally widely. In 1552 Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of

1365-676: Is an East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of the official languages of the European Union . There are approximately 2.8 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 1 million speakers elsewhere. Around half a million inhabitants of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian background speak Lithuanian daily as

1470-442: Is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody. The alleged (or certain, as certain as historical linguistics can be) similarities due to contact are seen in such phenomena as the existence of definite adjectives formed by the addition of an inflected pronoun (descended from the same Proto-Indo-European pronoun), which exist in both Baltic and Slavic yet nowhere else in

1575-545: Is divided into West, North and South; Aukštaitian into West (Suvalkiečiai), South ( Dzūkian ) and East. Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics . It has 32 letters . In the collation order, y follows immediately after į (called i nosinė ), because both y and į represent the same long vowel [ iː ] : In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph ch represents

1680-613: Is known that Jogaila , being ethnic Lithuanian by the male-line , himself knew and spoke Lithuanian with Vytautas the Great , his cousin from the Gediminids dynasty. During the Christianization of Samogitia none of the clergy, who arrived to Samogitia with Jogaila, were able to communicate with the natives, therefore Jogaila himself taught the Samogitians about Catholicism ; thus he

1785-493: Is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter i represents either the vowel [ ɪ ] , as in English sit , or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized . The latter is largely the case when i occurs after a consonant and is followed by a back or a central vowel , except in some borrowed words (e.g.,

1890-676: The Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae singled out that the Lithuanians of the Vilnius Region ( Latin : in tractu Vilnensi ) tend to speak harshly, almost like Austrians , Bavarians and others speak German in Germany . Due to the historical circumstances of Lithuania , Lithuanian-speaking territory was divided into Lithuania proper and Lithuania Minor , therefore, in the 16th–17th centuries, three regional variants of

1995-625: The Czechoslovakian government and the Soviet–Afghan War . However, arrests of four other members effectively discontinued the activities of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. The group was reestablished in 1988 when glasnost and perestroika policies allowed freer political expressions. On November 20, 1988, the group admitted three new members Balys Gajauskas , Kazimieras Kryževičius , and Nijolė Sadūnaitė . The group joined

2100-741: The Galindai ( Γαλίνδαι ) and Sudinoi ( Σουδινοί ), in the 2nd century AD. Lithuanian originated from the Eastern Baltic subgroup and remained nearly unchanged until c.   1 AD, however in c.   500 AD the language of the northern part of Eastern Balts was influenced by the Finnic languages , which fueled the development of changes from the language of the Southern Balts (see: Latgalian , which developed into Latvian , and extinct Curonian , Semigallian , and Selonian ). The language of Southern Balts

2205-564: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1/3 residents in Lithuania proper and up to 1/2 residents in Samogitia ) and 53% of residents in Lithuania Minor (more than 90% of the deceased were Prussian Lithuanians ). Since the 19th century to 1925 the amount of Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania Minor (excluding Klaipėda Region ) decreased from 139,000 to 8,000 due to Germanisation and colonization . As

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2310-776: The January Uprising , Mikhail Muravyov , the Russian Governor General of Lithuania , banned the language in education and publishing and barred use of the Latin alphabet altogether, although books continued to be printed in Lithuanian across the border in East Prussia and in the United States . Brought into the country by book smugglers (Lithuanian: knygnešiai ) despite the threat of long prison sentences, they helped fuel growing nationalist sentiment that finally led to

2415-454: The KGB , imprisoned, exiled or forced to emigrate. In 1977, KGB head Yuri Andropov said: "The need has thus emerged to terminate the actions of Orlov , fellow Helsinki monitor Alexander Ginzburg and others once and for all, on the basis of existing law." The first arrests of members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were carried out by Soviet authorities in early 1977. They followed an explosion in

2520-581: The Lithuanian nobility to participate in the social-political life of the state. In 1599, Mikalojus Daukša published his Postil and in its prefaces he expressed that the Lithuanian language situation had improved and thanked bishop Merkelis Giedraitis for his works. In 1776–1790 about 1,000 copies of the first Catholic primer in Lithuanian – Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško – were issued annually, and it continued to be published until 1864. Over 15,000 copies appeared in total. In 1864, following

2625-570: The Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas . In the 16th century, following the decline of Ruthenian usage in favor of Polish in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Lithuanian language strengthened its positions in Lithuania due to reforms in religious matters and judicial reforms which allowed lower levels of

2730-618: The Moscow metro on 8 January, after the Soviet press linked dissidents to the attack. Following the attack, Andrei Sakharov accused the KGB of a deliberate attempt to discredit dissidents in order to facilitate their persecution. The Moscow and Ukrainian Helsinki Groups and the Russian section of Amnesty International issued a joint statement denying any participation in the attack and emphasized their adherence to

2835-568: The Russian and Ukrainian territory. Hydronyms and archaeology analysis show that the Slavs started migrating to the Baltic areas east and north-east directions in the 6–7th centuries, before then, the Baltic and Slavic boundary was south of the Pripyat River . In the 1960s, Vladimir Toporov and Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages: These scholars' theses do not contradict

2940-755: The Russian invasion of Ukraine , the Moscow City Court ruled that the Moscow Helsinki Group must be dissolved citing group's activities outside of its region, Moscow . On 1 August 1975, the Soviet Union became one of the 35 nations to sign the Helsinki Accords during the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Helsinki , Finland . Although the Soviet Union had signed the Accords primarily due to foreign policy considerations, it ultimately accepted

3045-730: The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR restored Lithuanian as the official language of Lithuania, under from the popular pro-independence movement Sąjūdis . On 11 March 1990, the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania was passed. Lithuanian was recognized as sole official language of Lithuania in the Provisional Basic Law (Lithuanian: Laikinasis Pagrindinis Įstatymas ) and

3150-413: The United States , Uruguay , and Spain . 2,955,200 people in Lithuania (including 3,460 Tatars ), or about 86% of the 2015 population, are native Lithuanian speakers; most Lithuanian inhabitants of other nationalities also speak Lithuanian to some extent. The total worldwide Lithuanian-speaking population is about 3,200,000. Lithuanian is the state language of Lithuania and an official language of

3255-628: The comparative method . Lithuanian is spoken mainly in Lithuania . It is also spoken by ethnic Lithuanians living in today's Belarus , Latvia , Poland , and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, as well as by sizable emigrant communities in Argentina , Australia , Brazil , Canada , Denmark , Estonia , France , Germany , Iceland , Ireland , Norway , Russia , Sweden , the United Kingdom ,

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3360-546: The independence movement and published many reports and documents (some 100 documents in 1991 alone). The documents were collected and published in two volumes by the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania in 1999 ( ISBN   9986-757-29-0 ) and by the Lithuanian Human Rights Association in 2006 ( ISBN   978-9955-9972-0-7 ). Many members of the group, including Viktoras Petkus, joined

3465-561: The industrialization in the Soviet Union ). Russian consequently came into use in state institutions: the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania (there were 80% Russians among the 22,000 Communist Party members in the Lithuanian SSR in 1948), radio and television (61–74% of broadcasts were in Russian in 1970). Lithuanians passively resisted Russification and continued to use their own language. On 18 November 1988,

3570-467: The 13th–16th centuries under the influence of Curonian . Lithuanian dialects are closely connected with ethnographical regions of Lithuania . Even nowadays Aukštaitians and Samogitians can have considerable difficulties understanding each other if they speak with their dialects and not standard Lithuanian, which is mandatory to learn in the Lithuanian education system. Dialects are divided into subdialects. Both dialects have three subdialects. Samogitian

3675-567: The 18th century, was successful due to many publications and research. In contrast, the development of Lithuanian in Lithuania proper was obstructed due to the Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility , especially in the 18th century, and it was being influenced by the Samogitian dialect. The Lithuanian-speaking population was also dramatically decreased by the Great Northern War plague outbreak in 1700–1721 which killed 49% of residents in

3780-501: The 19th century, when the Lithuanian National Revival intensified, and the preparations to publish a Lithuanian periodical press were taking place, the mostly south-western Aukštaitian revival writers did not use the 19th-century Lithuanian of Lithuania Minor as it was largely Germanized . Instead, they used a more pure Lithuanian language which has been described by August Schleicher and Friedrich Kurschat and this way

3885-501: The 75-year-old Sofia Kalistratova and there was a direct threat of her arrest. The Moscow Helsinki Group became the center of the new network of humanitarian protest in the USSR. Following the formation of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Helsinki watch groups were formed in Lithuania (November 1976), Ukraine (November 1976), Georgia (January 1977) and Armenia (April 1977). Other protest groups announced their formation at press conferences held by

3990-457: The Baltic and Slavic languages closeness and from a historical perspective, specify the Baltic-Slavic languages' evolution. So, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic. However, as for the hypotheses related to the "Balto-Slavic problem", it is noted that they are more focused on personal theoretical constructions and deviate to some extent from

4095-459: The Baltic languages form their own distinct branch of the family of Indo-European languages , and Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact. There is also an opinion that suggests the union of Baltic and Slavic languages into a distinct sub-family of Balto-Slavic languages amongst the Indo-European family of languages. Such an opinion

4200-517: The Constitution of 1992, written during the Lithuanian constitutional referendum . Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages , along with Latvian , and they constitute the eastern branch of Baltic languages family. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian , was extinct by the 18th century; the other Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian , became extinct earlier. Some theories, such as that of Jānis Endzelīns , considered that

4305-619: The European Union . In the Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae , published in 1673, three dialects of Lithuanian are distinguished: Samogitian dialect ( Latin : Samogitiae ) of Samogitia , Royal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Regalis ) and Ducal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Ducalis ). Ducal Lithuanian is described as pure ( Latin : Pura ), half-Samogitian ( Latin : SemiSamogitizans ) and having elements of Curonian ( Latin : Curonizans ). Authors of

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4410-618: The European languages of the participants in the Council of Constance in 1414–1418. From the middle of the 15th century, the legend spread about the Roman origin of the Lithuanian nobility (from the Palemon lineage ), and the closeness of the Lithuanian language and Latin, thus this let some intellectuals in the mid-16th century to advocate for replacement of Ruthenian with Latin, as they considered Latin as

4515-453: The Group later. The composition of the Moscow Helsinki Group was a deliberate attempt to bring together a diverse set of leading dissidents, and worked as a bridge between human rights activists, those focused on the rights of refuseniks and national minorities or on religious and economic issues, as well as between workers and intellectuals. Western radio stations such Voice of America and Radio Liberty helped disseminate news about

4620-410: The Group would discontinue its work, the Group also compiled numerous appeals to the signatory states, trade unions in the United States , Canada , Europe , and the world public. In January 1977, Alexander Podrabinek along with a 47-year-old self-educated worker Feliks Serebrov, a 30-year-old computer programmer Vyacheslav Bakhmin and Irina Kuplun established the Working Commission to Investigate

4725-451: The Group's founding members were Anatoly Shcharansky , Lyudmila Alekseeva , Alexander Korchak, Malva Landa, Vitaly Rubin, Yelena Bonner , Alexander Ginzburg , Anatoly Marchenko , Petro Grigorenko , and Mikhail Bernshtam. Ten other people, including Sofia Kalistratova , Naum Meiman , Yuri Mnyukh, Viktor Nekipelov , Tatiana Osipova, Feliks Serebrov  [ ru ] , Vladimir Slepak , Leonard Ternovsky, and Yuri Yarym-Agaev joined

4830-435: The Helsinki Accords in the USSR" was the idea of physicist Yuri Orlov , based on previous one-and-a-half-decade-old experience of dissent. Taking advantage of international publicity of the Helsinki Accords and contacts to Western journalists, on 12 May 1976 Orlov announced the formation of the Moscow Helsinki Group at a press-conference held at the apartment of Andrei Sakharov . The newly inaugurated Moscow Helsinki Group

4935-401: The Helsinki Final Act. After verifying the complaint, when possible, the Group would issue reports on the violations they observed. The reports typically included a survey of a specific case, followed by a discussion of the human rights violations relevant to the Helsinki and other international accords as well as the Soviet constitution and law. The documents closed with a call for action by

5040-498: The Indo-European family (languages such as Albanian and the Germanic languages developed definite adjectives independently), and that is not reconstructible for Proto-Balto-Slavic, meaning that they most probably developed through language contact. The Baltic hydronyms area stretches from the Vistula River in the west to the east of Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south of Kyiv . Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov (1961, 1962) studied Baltic hydronyms in

5145-411: The Lithuanian Human Rights Association, the first official human rights organization established in 1989. The Helsinki Group continues as an official group; in March 2014, it became co-founder of the Lithuanian Human Rights Coordination Centre ( Lithuanian : Lietuvos žmogaus teisių koordinavimo centras ). Tomas Venclova, a son of Antanas Venclova , a prominent Soviet writer, was allowed to emigrate to

5250-501: The Moscow Helsinki Group, such as the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes , the Christian Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Religious Believers, and other associations. In June 1976, the group's appeal to U.S. congresswoman Millicent Fenwick persuaded her to lead the creation of the U.S. Helsinki Commission (see the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe ), which included senators, congress members, and representatives from

5355-436: The Polish Ł for the first sound and regular L (without a following i) for the second: łupa , lutas . During the Lithuanian National Revival in the 19th century the Polish Ł was abolished, while digraphs sz , cz (that are also common in the Polish orthography ) were replaced with š and č from the Czech orthography because formally they were shorter. Nevertheless, another argument to abolish sz and cz

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5460-406: The Polish courtiers. Casimir IV Jagiellon's son Saint Casimir , who was subsequently announced as patron saint of Lithuania, was a polyglot and among other languages knew Lithuanian. Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon also could understand and speak Lithuanian as multiple Lithuanian priests served in his royal chapel and he also maintained a Lithuanian court. In 1501, Erazm Ciołek , a priest of

5565-459: The Polish dialect in the Vilnius Region and in the northeastern areas in general are very interesting variant of the Polish language as this dialect developed in a foreign territory which was mostly inhabited by the Lithuanians who were Belarusized (mostly) or Polonized, and to prove this Otrębski provided examples of Lithuanianisms in the Tutejszy language . In 2015, Polish linguist Mirosław Jankowiak  [ pl ] attested that many of

5670-500: The Soviet Union, including the Lithuanian group, for the Nobel Peace Prize . Petkus hoped to establish a broader Baltic organization that would represent all three Baltic states , but these plans were abandoned after his arrest in August 1977. After the arrest of Petkus, there was a lull in the group's activity. It became more active again in early 1979 and published further documents primarily protesting arrests of various dissidents, including Antanas Terleckas , and statements critical of

5775-418: The Soviet Union. Western journalists, in particular those posted to Moscow bureaus or working for the Voice of America or Radio Liberty , also disseminated the information and were essential to the development of a broader Helsinki network. The CSCE translated all documents it received and forwarded them to other CSCE states and interested groups. The Group's complaints would also be forwarded for review at

5880-406: The Soviet authorities: Moscow Helsinki Group The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group , Russian: Московская Хельсинкская группа , romanized:  Moskovskaya Khel'sinkskaya gruppa ) was one of Russia's leading human rights organisations . It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and to report to

5985-411: The State, Defense, and Commerce Departments. In 1978, Helsinki Watch was founded in the U.S. The private NGO became the most influential Western NGO devoted to Helsinki monitoring. Its mandate was to produce reports on human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the United States, first of all for the next meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) which

6090-561: The USSR and, later, in Russia (above all, Chechnya). Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants , founder of the Glasnost periodical, was particularly scathing. Instead of the heroic and sacrificial traditions of the original Helsinki Groups, the re-established body was an intelligentsia-oriented elite club, forgotten by all. In 2001 he described it as "the most servile and pro-government" among NGOs then existing in Russia. Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( endonym : lietuvių kalba , pronounced [lʲiəˈtʊvʲuː kɐɫˈbɐ] )

6195-416: The United States ( Helsinki Watch , later Human Rights Watch ). Similar initiatives sprung up in countries such as Czechoslovakia, with Charter 77 . Eventually, the Helsinki monitoring groups inspired by the Moscow Helsinki Group formed the International Helsinki Federation . In late December 2022 the Russian Ministry of Justice filed a court order to dissolve the organization. On 25 January 2023, during

6300-411: The United States just two months after the group's formation. Viktoras Petkus was arrested on August 23, 1977. After a trial in 1978, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years in exile. He was freed after the introduction of glasnost in 1988. Karolis Garuckas died of cancer on April 5, 1979; Ona Lukauskaitė-Poškienė died on December 4, 1983. Eitan Finkelstein resigned from the group in 1979 and

6405-488: The Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes . The Commission was formally linked to and constituted as an offshoot of the Moscow Helsinki Group. It was composed of five open members and several anonymous ones, including a few psychiatrists who, at great danger to themselves, conducted their own independent examinations of cases of alleged psychiatric abuse. The members of the Working Commission were subjected to various terms and types of punishments. Alexander Podrabinek

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6510-644: The Vilnius Cathedral, explained to the Pope that the Lithuanians preserve their language and ensure respect to it ( Linguam propriam observant ), but they also use the Ruthenian language for simplicity reasons because it is spoken by almost half of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A note written by Sigismund von Herberstein in the first half of the 16th century states that, in an ocean of Ruthenian in this part of Europe, there were two non-Ruthenian regions: Lithuania and Samogitia where its inhabitants spoke their own language, but many Ruthenians were also living among them. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text

6615-447: The Vilnius Region's inhabitants who declare Polish nationality speak a Belarusian dialect which they call mowa prosta (' simple speech '). Currently, Lithuanian is divided into two dialects: Aukštaitian (Highland Lithuanian), and Samogitian (Lowland Lithuanian). There are significant differences between standard Lithuanian and Samogitian and these are often described as separate languages. The modern Samogitian dialect formed in

6720-464: The Vilnius Region, especially when Vilnius Voivode Ludwik Bociański issued a secret memorandum of 11 February 1936 which stated the measures for suppressing the Lithuanians in the region. Some Lithuanian historians, like Antanas Tyla  [ lt ] and Ereminas Gintautas, consider these Polish policies as amounting to an " ethnocide of Lithuanians". Between 1862 and 1944, the Lithuanian schools were completely banned in Lithuania Minor and

6825-437: The West on Soviet human rights abuses . It had been forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but was revived in 1989 and continued to operate in Russia. In the 1970s, Moscow Helsinki Group inspired the formation of similar groups in other Warsaw Pact countries and support groups in the West. Within the former Soviet Union Helsinki Watch Groups were founded in Ukraine , Lithuania , Georgia and Armenia , as well as in

6930-435: The acquirement of a foreign speech." Lithuanian was studied by several linguists such as Franz Bopp , August Schleicher , Adalbert Bezzenberger , Louis Hjelmslev , Ferdinand de Saussure , Winfred P. Lehmann and Vladimir Toporov , Jan Safarewicz, and others. By studying place names of Lithuanian origin, linguist Jan Safarewicz  [ pl ] concluded that the eastern boundaries of Lithuanian used to be in

7035-793: The apartment of Yuri Orlov ( Natan Sharansky acted as an interpreter to English). The group did not have a more formal structure or a defined leader, though Petkus was its unofficial leader and driving force. The various backgrounds of the founders were intended to serve a wide range interests. The group did not want to become yet another Catholic or nationalistic dissident group; instead it strove to work on fundamental and universal human rights that would attract intelligentsia , city residents, non-Lithuanians, and others. The group did not limit its reports to Lithuania or Lithuanians; for example, it reported on arrests of three Estonians (Mart Nikius, Erik Udam, and Enn Tarto ), discrimination of 49 Volga German families living in Radviliškis , and persecution of

7140-607: The common language emerged. Lithuanians in Lithuania Minor spoke Western Aukštaitian dialect with specifics of Įsrutis and Ragainė environs (e.g. works of Martynas Mažvydas , Jonas Bretkūnas , Jonas Rėza , and Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica ). The other two regional variants of the common language were formed in Lithuania proper: middle, which was based on the specifics of the Duchy of Samogitia (e.g. works of Mikalojus Daukša , Merkelis Petkevičius , Steponas Jaugelis‑Telega , Samuelis Boguslavas Chylinskis , and Mikołaj Rej 's Lithuanian postil ), and eastern, based on

7245-426: The creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group, leading to relatively broad awareness throughout the Soviet Union. Soviet citizens who learned about the existence of the group passed on written complaints to members, or in many cases found a group member in person to report a firsthand case of abuse when in Moscow. The members of the Helsinki group also traveled throughout the Soviet Union to conduct research on compliance with

7350-451: The earliest texts dating only to c.  1500 AD , whereas Ancient Greek was first written down about three thousand years earlier in c.   1450 BC). According to hydronyms of Baltic origin, the Baltic languages were spoken in a large area east of the Baltic Sea , and in c.   1000 BC it had two linguistic units: western and eastern. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name,

7455-480: The eastern Prussian Lithuanians ' dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor . These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian , while other dialects had experienced different phonetic shifts . Lithuanian became the official language of the country following the restoration of Lithuania's statehood in 1918. The 1922 Constitution of Lithuania (the first permanent Lithuanian constitution ) recognized it as

7560-432: The first consonant in lūpa [ˈ ɫ ûːpɐ] , "lip", is a velarized dental lateral approximant ; on the other hand, the first consonant in liūtas [ˈ lʲ uːt̪ɐs̪] , "lion", is a palatalized alveolar lateral approximant ; both consonants are followed by the same vowel, the long [ uː ] , and no [ ɪ ] can be pronounced in liūtas ). Due to Polish influence , the Lithuanian alphabet included sz , cz and

7665-426: The formation of standard Lithuanian. The conventions of written Lithuanian had been evolving during the 19th century, but Jablonskis, in the introduction to his Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika , was the first to formulate and expound the essential principles that were so indispensable to its later development. His proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitian dialect with some features of

7770-419: The highest population literacy rates: Vilna Governorate (in 1897 ~23.6–50% Lithuanian of whom 37% were literate), Kovno Governorate (in 1897 66% Lithuanian of whom 55.3% were literate), Suwałki Governorate (in 1897 in counties of the governorate where Lithuanian population was dominant, 76,6% of males and 50,2% of females were literate). Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) made significant contributions to

7875-567: The human rights situation in Russia; monitoring police activities; and educational programs. In September 2021, MHG issued a statement denouncing the non-transparency of electronic voting used in the preceding elections to the Duma and urging Russia's board of elections to cancel electronic voting results. On 20 December 2022 the Russian Justice Ministry filed a court order seeking to dissolve

7980-491: The independent Republic of Lithuania to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union . Soviet authorities introduced Lithuanian– Russian bilingualism, and Russian, as the de facto official language of the USSR, took precedence and the use of Lithuanian was reduced in a process of Russification. Many Russian-speaking workers and teachers migrated to the Lithuanian SSR (fueled by

8085-685: The international follow-up meetings to Helsinki, including the 1977 Belgrade meeting and the 1980 meeting in Madrid. In addition, the documents and appeals were circulated via samizdat . Many documents that reached the West were republished in periodicals such as the Cahiers du Samizdat and the Samizdat Bulletin . Over time, the Group's documents focused on a wide range of issues, including national self-determination,

8190-777: The language was almost completely eliminated there. The Baltic-origin place names retained their basis for centuries in Prussia but were Germanized (e.g. Tilžė – Tilsit , Labguva – Labiau , Vėluva – Wehliau , etc.); however, after the annexation of the Königsberg region into the Russian SFSR , they were changed completely, regardless of previous tradition (e.g. Tilsit – Sovetsk , Labiau – Polesk , Wehliau – Znamensk , etc.). The Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 , German occupation in 1941 , and eventually Soviet re-occupation in 1944 , reduced

8295-865: The lifting of the ban in 1904. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897 (at the height of the Lithuanian press ban), 53.5% of Lithuanians (10 years and older) were literate, while the average of the Russian Empire was only 24–27.7% (in the European part of Russia the average was 30%, in Poland – 40.7%). In the Russian Empire Lithuanian children were mostly educated by their parents or in secret schools by "daractors" in native Lithuanian language, while only 6.9% attended Russian state schools due to resistance to Russification . Russian governorates with significant Lithuanian populations had one of

8400-494: The native language of Lithuanians. Initially, Latin and Church Slavonic were the main written ( chancellery ) languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but in the late 17th century – 18th century Church Slavonic was replaced with Polish. Nevertheless, Lithuanian was a spoken language of the medieval Lithuanian rulers from the Gediminids dynasty and its cadet branches: Kęstutaičiai and Jagiellonian dynasties . It

8505-427: The organization. The Justice Ministry claimed that the organization's own charters do not meet the requirements of the law and authorities alleged that they also prohibit it from defending human rights outside of Moscow, which co-chair Valery Borshchev dismissed as "nonsense". Borshchev described the dissolution, which was ordered on 25 January, as "a serious blow to the human rights movement not only in Russia but also

8610-576: The principle of non-violent protest. During the following year, a number of members were sentenced to prison camps, incarcerated in psychiatric institutions, and sent into internal exile within the USSR: The Soviet authorities encouraged other activists to emigrate. Lyudmila Alexeyeva left the Soviet Union in February 1977. Founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group emigrated - Mikhail Bernshtam, Alexander Korchak and Vitaly Rubin. Pyotr Grigorenko

8715-522: The re-established Moscow Helsinki Group was Larisa Bogoraz, followed in 1994 by Kronid Lubarsky . In May 1996, Lyudmila Alexeyeva (who returned from emigration in 1993) became its head, leading it until her death in 2018. In November 1998, she was also elected president of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights . In 2012, the Moscow Helsinki Group renounced foreign funding and connections in order avoid being labeled as

8820-444: The right to choose one's residence, emigration and the right of return, freedom of belief, the right to monitor human rights, the right to a fair trial, the rights of political prisoners, and the abuse of psychiatry. In the six years of its existence in the Soviet Union, the Moscow Helsinki Group compiled a total of 195 such reports. Between 12 May 1976 and 6 September 1982, when the last three members who were not imprisoned announced

8925-532: The same. In the Grammatica Litvanica Klein also established the letter W for marking the sound [v], the use of which was later abolished in Lithuanian (it was replaced with V , notably by authors of the Varpas newspaper). The usage of V instead of W especially increased since the early 20th century, likely considerably influenced by Lithuanian press and schools. The Lithuanian writing system

9030-801: The shape of zigzags through Grodno , Shchuchyn , Lida , Valozhyn , Svir , and Braslaw . Such eastern boundaries partly coincide with the spread of Catholic and Orthodox faith, and should have existed at the time of the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387 and later. Safarewicz's eastern boundaries were moved even further to the south and east by other scholars (e.g. Mikalay Biryla  [ be ] , Petras Gaučas  [ lt ] , Jerzy Ochmański  [ pl ] , Aleksandras Vanagas , Zigmas Zinkevičius , and others). Proto-Balto-Slavic 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. The Baltic languages passed through

9135-543: The signatory states. The Helsinki Group would then campaign internationally by passing on the reports on the violations for publication abroad, calling for intervention by the other signatory states. The Group's strategy was to make thirty-five copies of each document and send them by registered mail to the thirty-four Moscow embassies affiliated with the CSCE and directly to Leonid Brezhnev . Moscow Helsinki Group members also met with foreign correspondents to reach audiences beyond

9240-499: The sole official language of the state and mandated its use throughout the state. The improvement of education system during the interwar period resulted in 92% of literacy rate of the population in Lithuania in 1939 (those still illiterate were mostly elderly). Following the Żeligowski's Mutiny in 1920, Vilnius Region was detached from Lithuania and was eventually annexed by Poland in 1922. This resulted in repressions of Lithuanians and mass-closure of Lithuanian language schools in

9345-641: The specifics of Eastern Aukštaitians, living in Vilnius and its region (e.g. works of Konstantinas Sirvydas , Jonas Jaknavičius , and Robert Bellarmine 's catechism ). In Vilnius University , there are preserved texts written in the Lithuanian language of the Vilnius area, a dialect of Eastern Aukštaitian, which was spoken in a territory located south-eastwards from Vilnius: the sources are preserved in works of graduates from Stanislovas Rapolionis -based Lithuanian language schools, graduate Martynas Mažvydas and Rapalionis relative Abraomas Kulvietis . The development of Lithuanian in Lithuania Minor, especially in

9450-475: The world". Opinions differed as to the effectiveness and impact of the revived Moscow Helsinki Group. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was no longer alone, but one among a variety of new organisations ( Memorial , For Human Rights, the Glasnost Defence Foundation ) that were engaged in defending human rights and freedom of expression, and carrying out missions to hot-spots in different parts of

9555-411: The writings has survived. The first recorded Lithuanian word, reported to have been said on 24 December 1207 from the chronicle of Henry of Latvia , was Ba , an interjection of a Lithuanian raider after he found no loot to pillage in a Livonian church. Although no writings in Lithuanian have survived from the 15th century or earlier, Lithuanian ( Latin : Lingwa Lietowia ) was mentioned as one of

9660-462: The written language of Lithuania Minor was transferred to resurgent Lithuania. The most famous standardizer of the Lithuanian, Jonas Jablonskis , established the south-western Aukštaitian dialect, including the Eastern dialect of Lithuania Minor, as the basis of standardized Lithuanian in the 20th century, which led to him being nicknamed the father of standardized Lithuanian. According to Polish professor Jan Otrębski 's article published in 1931,

9765-431: Was a spoken language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Duchy of Prussia , while the beginning of Lithuanian writing is possibly associated with the introduction of Christianity in Lithuania when Mindaugas was baptized and crowned King of Lithuania in 1250–1251. It is believed that prayers were translated into the local dialect of Lithuanian by Franciscan monks during the baptism of Mindaugas, however none of

9870-474: Was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian. Soon afterwards Vytautas the Great wrote in his 11 March 1420 letter to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor , that Lithuanian and Samogitian are the same language. The use of Lithuanian continued at the Lithuanian royal court after the deaths of Vytautas the Great (1430) and Jogaila (1434). For example, since the young Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellon

9975-596: Was allowed to emigrate to Israel in December 1983. Besides the five founding members, the group added six others. Bronius Laurinavičius , a Catholic priest, was admitted in January 1979 but he died in a suspicious traffic accident on November 25, 1981. In November 1979, the group added Algirdas Statkevičius, a physician and former member of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force , and Mečislovas Jurevičius,

10080-434: Was as the only member of the group, but due to poor health she was unable to continue group's activities. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the reestablished group added many new members. In total, the group had 41 official members plus about 84 unofficial members. Among them were Vytautas Bogušis , Gintautas Iešmantas , Nijolė Sadūnaitė , and Kazys Saja . The following members of the Group were arrested and sentenced by

10185-492: Was caused by independent parallel development, and the Proto-Balto-Slavic language did not exist. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski . He proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view

10290-713: Was due to open in Madrid in 1980. In 1988, Helsinki Watch evolved into Human Rights Watch . In 1982, the Helsinki monitoring groups of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States formed the International Helsinki Federation . In July 1989, the Moscow Helsinki Group was re-established by human rights activists Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Larisa Bogoraz , Sergei Kovalev , Alexey Smirnov, Lev Timofeev , and Boris Zolotukhin. Other prominent members are Yuri Orlov , Lyudmila Alexeyeva , Henri Reznik , Lev Ponomarev , and Aleksei Simonov. The chair of

10395-468: 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 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

10500-464: Was first represented by August Schleicher . Some supporters of the Baltic and Slavic languages unity even claim that Proto-Baltic branch did not exist, suggesting that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups: East Baltic , West Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Antoine Meillet and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay , on the contrary, believed that the similarity between the Slavic and Baltic languages

10605-456: Was less influenced by this process and retained many of its older features, which form Lithuanian. According to glottochronological research, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between c.   400 BC and c.   600 BC. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after c.   800 AD; for a long period, they could be considered dialects of

10710-407: Was sentenced to five years' internal exile, Irina Grivnina to five years' internal exile, Vyacheslav Bakhmin to three years in a labour camp, Dr Leonard Ternovsky to three years' labour camp, Dr Anatoly Koryagin to eight years’ imprisonment and labour camp and four years’ internal exile, Dr Alexander Voloshanovich was sent to voluntary exile. Members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were threatened by

10815-510: Was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in November 1977 while seeking medical treatment abroad. By the early 1980s, the members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were scattered between prisons, camps and exile in the USSR, while others lived abroad. At the end of 1981 only Elena Bonner , Sofia Kalistratova and Naum Meiman remained free. The dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group was officially announced by Elena Bonner on 8 September 1982. At this time, legal action had already been taken against

10920-553: Was to monitor Soviet compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act. In its founding statement, the Group announced its goal to inform the heads of the signatory states as well as the world public "about cases of direct violations" of the Helsinki Accords. It announced that it would accept information on violations of these articles from citizens and compile documents on them. Apart from Yuri Orlov,

11025-651: Was underage, the supreme control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Lithuanian Council of Lords , presided by Jonas Goštautas , while Casimir IV Jagiellon was taught Lithuanian and customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials. During the Polish szlachta 's envoys visit to Casimir in 1446, they noticed that in Casimir's royal court the Lithuanian-speaking courtiers were mandatory, alongside

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