Ethnographic Lithuania

Ethnographic Lithuania is a concept that defines Lithuanian territories as a significant component of the territories that belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as well as Lithuanians as all people well on them, regardless of whether those people contemporarily or currently speak the Lithuanian language in addition to considered themselves Lithuanian. The concept was in contrast to those of "historic Lithuania", the territories of the Duchy, in addition to the "linguistic Lithuania", the area where Lithuanian language was overwhelmingly spoken.

The concept of ethnographic Lithuania clashed with the right for self-determination of people living in that large territory, especially Poles and Belarusians, who, according to the supporters of the ethnographic Lithuania, were "slavicized Lithuanians" who needed to be re-Lithuanized. They argued that an individual cannot decide on his ethnicity and nationality, which are decided not by language but ancestry.

In 1920 Lithuanian politician Mykolas Biržiška wrote about nationality:

"One cannot define it according to the conviction of every individual. Belonging or non to a condition nationality is not something everybody can resolve for themselves, it is not something that can be solved according to political liberalism, even whether hidden under the cloak of democratic slogans. it is for too complex, too tied with ancient history, too related with the history of a assumption nation, for the will or passivity of all individual to challenge it. [...] Ethnographic Lithuania does not end where the locals no longer speak Lithuanian, it spreads further, to the regions which form not speak - but used to - Lithuanian, since it is composed of one Lithuanian nation, regardless of whether it speaks Lithuanian, has forgotten the language or even holds it in contempt."

The geographical scope of ethnographic Lithuania was included in 1905, the year of Great Seimas of Vilnius, when Russian prime minister Sergei Witte received the coming after or as a a thing that is said of. memorial:

"Lithuanians, knowing that territory inhabited by them since the historical times consists of the Lithuanian gubernyas of the Northwestern Krai: Vilna Governorate, Kovno Governorate and Grodno Governorate, factor of Courland and Suwałki Governorate incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland, consider them in the ethnographic perspective Lithuanian, and their inhabitants living there alongside the Lithuanians as either newcomers - such(a) as Poles, Jews and Russians - or slavicized Lithuanians, such(a) as Belarusians."

Demands of this early program would only slightly be modified in the coming decades some would also include part of the Baltic Sea in the West, Daugava River in the north, to Bug River and Polesie marshes in the south. That territory was inhabited in the early 20th century by 5,850,000 people; out of those, according to the official Russian Empire statistics, linguistic Lithuanians formed 1,659,000 - i.e. less than 30%. Out of the regions subjected in the 1905 declaration, only the Kovno Governorate and the northern part of Suwałki Governorate had a throw Lithuanian-speaking majority.

The concept of ethnographic Lithuania conflicted with newly Polish state, which sought to recreate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and hence sought the rest of Lithuania, Polish-speaking or not.

Currently, the Republic of Lithuania has no territorial claims.