Lithuanian Declaration of Sovereignty

Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Lithuania, On Restoring the Independence of the Lithuanian State. March 11, 1990

Adopted in the first days of perestroika-era pluralism, Lithuania’s Declaration of Sovereignty moved beyond cautious reform to make a concrete juridical claim: the republic’s Supreme Soviet asserted primary authority over its territory, resources, economy, and legal order. It treated sovereignty as an operating rule, insisting that all-Union measures take effect only through Lithuanian institutions and claiming control over citizenship, borders, and external relations. The text captured a Baltic strategy that used Soviet legality against the Soviet center to build a parliamentary route toward independence.

Original Source: Sovetskaia Litva, 13-14 March 1990; Pravda, 9 June 1990.

Expressing the will of the people, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Lithuania resolves and solemnly proclaims that the sovereign rights of the Lithuanian State, which were violated by a foreign power in 1940, are restored and that henceforth Lithuania is again an independent state.

The Lithuanian Council's Feb. 16, 1918, Act on Independence and the Constituent Seimas May 15, 1920, Resolution on the Restoration of the Democratic Lithuanian State never lost legal force and are the constitutional foundation of the Lithuanian State.

The territory of the Lithuanian State is integral and indivisible, and no other state's constitution is in effect therein.

The Lithuanian State stresses its commitment to generally recognized principles of international law, recognizes the inviolability of borders as codified in the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, adopted in 1978, and guarantees the rights of the individual, the citizen and national communities.

With this act, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Lithuania, as the exponent of sovereign will, begins the realization of full sovereignty for the State.

V. Landsbergis, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Republic of Lithuania.
L. Sabutis, Secretary of the Supreme Soviet. Vilnius, March 11, 1990.

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XLII, No. 10 (April 11, 1990), pp. 7-8; No. 23 (July 11, 1990), p. 13.