Poles in Lithuania

Common card · No. 493228

The Poles in Lithuania (Polish: Polacy na Litwie, Lithuanian: Lietuvos lenkai), also called Lithuanian Poles, estimated at 183,000 people in the 2021 Lithuanian census or 6.5% of Lithuania's total population, are the country's largest ethnic minority. The first Polish people in Lithuania were mainly enslaved war captives from the Polish–Lithuanian Wars (13th–14th centuries). During the subsequent Polish–Lithuanian union until the Commonwealth's end in 1795, there was a gradual Polonization of Lithuania's upper classes, namely the nobility, which still maintained a Lithuanian identity. In addition, there was an influx of Poles into the country. Polish migration to Lithuania continued despite the Third Lithuanian Statute's attempt to prohibit Polish settlement. During the 19th century, Polonization of Lithuanian and Belarusian peasants led to a large Polish-speaking population stretching to Daugavpils and including Vilnius by the 1890s. The rise of Polish nationalism and the Lithuanian National...

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