abstract
| - Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a sovereign state in variously defined as being part of Eastern or Northern Europe. It is situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. it Escaped the fate of its sister Republics Latvia and Estonia, which were annexed by Russia. During the 1300s, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, as Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state: the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was finally destroyed by its neighboring countries in 1795. Most of Lithuania's territory was annexed by the Russian Empire, until the Act of Independence was signed on February 16, 1918, which declared re-establishment of a sovereign state. On September 19, 1939 Lithuania joined the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany, regaining its lost capital of Vilnius in the process. It would later participate in Operation Barbarossa, the campaign against Russia, advocating with Finland for the independence of Latvia and Estonia.
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