| Popis: |
The advent of the First World War on 1 August 1914, contemporaneously known as the Great War, already in the first days of the fighting radically changed the long-established daily lives of many European nations, states, regions, peripheries and their peoples. The everyday life and routines of people of different national and social backgrounds living in the territory of Lithuania also underwent radical change. In the wake of volatile military campaigns, in the autumn of 1915 the territory of Lithuania, devastated by the belligerent forces, was occupied by the Imperial German Army, which in an effort to consolidate its position in the occupied territories of the Russian Empire, created a military administrative unit Ober Ost (Oberbefehlshaber Ost or Oberkommando Ost) under the aegis of the Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East, which is commonly referred to as Oberostas in Lithuanian historiography. This territorial unit encompassed the former Russian governorates of Suwalki (Suvalkai) and Kovno (Kaunas) and the larger part of the territory of the governorates of Vilna (Vilnius), Grodno (Gardinas) and Courland (Kuršas). The central headquarters of Ober Ost was set up in Kaunas where it remained until August 1918 when the Lithuanian Military Government was established. The First World War and the related losses, mobilisation, forced migrations and violence that it involved, in other words the War Culture, had transformed the way of life and social relationships in Lithuanian society and, in parallel with other geopolitical factors, gave rise to the formation of Lithuanian statehood. |
