Lithuania Minor — known in Lithuanian as Mažoji Lietuva — refers to the historical region of northeastern Prussia where a substantial Lithuanian-speaking population lived under German administration for centuries, largely cut off from the Lithuanian state. The 1923 Klaipėda Revolt, a French-administered territory seized by Lithuanian paramilitary forces in a calculated gamble that the great powers would accept a fait accompli, brought the region's capital briefly into Lithuanian hands. It was lost again in 1939 when Hitler personally demanded its return, arriving by warship to accept the territory.
Most of the region's Lithuanian-speaking population was expelled or killed during World War II and never returned. Today it falls almost entirely within the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.
Lithuania Minor — known in Lithuanian as Mažoji Lietuva — refers to the historical region of northeastern Prussia where a substantial Lithuanian-speaking population lived under German administration for centuries, largely cut off from the Lithuanian state. The 1923 Klaipėda Revolt, a French-administered territory seized by Lithuanian paramilitary forces in a calculated gamble that the great powers would accept a fait accompli, brought the region's capital briefly into Lithuanian hands. It was lost again in 1939 when Hitler personally demanded its return, arriving by warship to accept the territory.
Most of the region's Lithuanian-speaking population was expelled or killed during World War II and never returned. Today it falls almost entirely within the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.