Lietuvos Tarybos institucionalizavimasis paskelbus nepriklausomybę

Abstract

This article reveals the tools for realization of the independence by the Lithuanian Council upon declaration of independence of Lithuania in 1918, i.e. the institutionalization of it with a purpose to take over the state authority from the German occupant administration. The Lithuanian Council formed by the Vilnius Conference of 21 September 1917 was of a social political nature. While acting as an institution representing the Lithuanian community it had, upon an assignment by the Conference, to prepare the conditions for recovering the state. Meanwhile the German occupant administration considered the Council as an endorsed secondary institution, which they hoped to use for their own purposes. In between 1917-1918 the activity of declaring the independence of Lithuania as performed by the Council was important not only for Lithuanians. It was also interesting for the occupants, however, only as an outcome of a Lithuanian decision to discontinue former political connections with Russia, which they intended to use in the Brest peace negotiations to cover their own plans for expansion. Therefore, the efforts of the Council to realize the declaration of independence by taking over the state authority from the German occupant administration did not fall within the plans of the occupants and thus immediately faced their resistance. [...]