This Week's NATIONAL ETIQUETTE AWARD goes to... Lithuania!

Lithuania Page in Wikipedia

Lithuania HomePage

Internet Resources on Lithuania

I hereby grant the National Etiquette Award to Lithuania, as it is the norm in that country to remove shoes inside homes.

Lithuania recently joined the European Union and so Lithuanians are among the huge influx of Eastern European migrants to the United Kingdom. Personally, I have not met any Lithuanians, though there are a huge number of Poles in Worcester. I believe this wave of migration into Britain from Eastern Europe is very good for the country.

The Lithuanian language belongs to the Baltic family of languages. This Indo-European family is very ancient. In fact, Lithuanian is the closest language in Europe to Sanskrit, the ancient language of India.

Like many East European countries, Lithuania has been chopped up and divided between various European powers. It was once dominated by a German-speaking aristocracy. When Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire, the German nobility of Lithuania had considerable importance in the Czar's military and bureaucracy.

Lithuania gained her independance after the First World war, but was taken by the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Second World War, but then fell into German occupation. While many in Latvia and Estonia welcomed the Germans as liberators from the Soviets, the Lithuanians were mostly as anti-German as anti-Russian, though a few did co-operate with the Nazis. Most of Lithuania's Jewish population was wiped out by the Nazis.

After the Second World War, the Soviets were in charge again, but Communism eventually fell and the Baltic states were free.

Lithuania is a land of ancient forests. While the country is Roman Catholic, there is a strong element of Pagan nature worship that has influenced the folk religion of the country.