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Crow named Kranksius celebrating the 11th of March - the Day of the Restoration of Lithuanian Independence from the Soviet Union

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USSR (now LITHUANIA). Vilnius. January 17, 1991. Anti-Soviet political graffiti fill an entire wall. The wall surrounding the Lithuanian parliament was erected to defend against a possible raid by Soviet troops. Many Soviet army deserters pinned their draft cards to a defaced poster of President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Photograph: Liu Heung Shing/AP

official-lithuania

Of all European languages, the Lithuanian has the greatest number of affectionate and diminutive terms, more than the Spanish or Italian, even more than Russian, and they can be multiplied almost indefinitely by adding them to verbs and adverbs as well as adjectives and nouns. If the value of a nation in the total sum humanity were to be measured by the beauty of its language, the Lithuanian ought to have the first place among the nations of Europe.

Benjamin W. Dwight (via official-lithuania)

official-lithuania

In Lithuania we don’t ‘learn by heart’. We ‘hammer out’.

historyoflithuania

As a matter of fact, no other language in the world has received such praise as the Lithuanian language. The garlands of high honour have been taken to Lithuanian people for inventing, elaborating, and introducing the most highly developed human speech with its beautiful and clear phonology.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

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how religion works in Lithuania

it’s funny how statistics say that ~70% of lithuanians are catholic because I know for sure A LOT of us are atheists. not to mention, we are still pagan as heck.

the statistics only show the number of baptized people and baptizing is sort of tradition of our nation. (during occupation religion was one of the main things that helped us to fight for our independence. communists were strict atheists so of course we did everything that they hated). but baptized person doesn’t mean a believer in Lithuania. f.e. from my 24 classmates only 1 boy identifies himself as catholic, other say they are atheists/pantheists. but 23 of 24 are baptized (I am that one person who is not like others).

and having in mind all the pagan stuff we do, the whole “Lithuania is catholic” stuff seems really stupid. we celebrate more pagan holidays than christian holidays. and our “christian holidays” are just pagan celebrations with christian names. we do spells and tell christian fairytales on Christmas (seems like catholic thing to do, yes?), our Easter is 90% pagan, the celebration doesn’t evolve christianity almost at all. we still celebrate Vėlinės, Žolinės, Joninės, Užgavėnės and they are 100% pagan: spells, tales, enchantments, we still do that.

we name our children with baltic pagan names and then we give them another, holy name. our language is still influenced by paganism (example: we call rainbow the Ribbon of Witch), we still have a lot respect for snakes and bees (they are holy animals in paganism).

basically, paganism is alive and it’s in Lithuania. hiding, lurking in the shadows of catholism.

balticmythology

On the 6th of July 2015 this mighty 600-year-old oak burst into flames in Kretinga, Lithuania after being hit by a thunder during a rough thunderstorm. Some people considered it to be an intended arson but according to the witnesses the thunder hit straight in the middle of the oak and the tree immediately blazed up.

The locals called the firefighters and tried to extinguish the fire themselves which they succeeded to do. However, few hours later the oak mysteriously flamed up again and was destroyed completely.

It was always known to be a sacred place ever since pagan times. A ritual stone used to be nearby the tree decades ago but, unfortunately, it was blown up. As an old tree the oak was partly hollow so town’s people had turned it into a chapel. Ever since then the tree has been struck by thunders many times. As the witnesses claim, it seemed like the chapel was thrown out of the oak.

What an unexplainable mystery some would say. But to us Baltic pagans the answer is pretty clear. It is not a coincidence that the oak burned down on the 6th of July. On this day in 1253 Lithuanian Grand Duke Mindaugas was crowned King of Lithuania. To receive the crown he was also baptized.

Oaks are the sacred trees where our ancestors held rites and prayed for the gods. They are the trees of Perkūnas - the god of thunder. One could not expect our god to sit still after his sacred tree was turned into a chapel. And he found a very subtle way to send his disapproval - by burning it down on the 6th of July.