Polish autonomy in the Vilnius Region (; ) was an idea about a politically autonomous territorial unit for Poles in Lithuania, which began to be discussed in autumn 1988, when Lithuania was regaining its independence from the Soviet Union. As a result of perestroika, under the influence of their own national revival, and also fearing an attempt at Lithuanianization in independent Lithuania, Poles in Lithuania attempted to protect their own cultural identity by establishing autonomy. According to the Polish sociologist , this project never gained full support from the Lithuanian authorities, nor was implemented unilaterally by the Poles. The project was subject to several years of discussion and design work in 1988–1991, various groups of the Polish minority differed about its ultimate shape, basically agreeing only that autonomy should cover areas where Poles are the majority, and the Polish language should be given equal status.

On 6 and 15 September 1989, the Šalčininkai and Vilnius municipalities, respectively, declared themselves to be self-governing national territorial districts within the Lithuanian SSR, where Russian, Polish and Lithuanian languages had equal status. Following the re-establishment of Lithuanian independence on 11 March 1990, the Šalčininkai municipality adopted a declaration on 15 May 1990 which stated that the restoration of Lithuanian independence was invalid and that the Lithuanian SSR continues to be a part of the USSR. The closest to its creation was in October 1990, with the adoption by the congress of Polish delegates in Eišiškės of a declaration creating the . The declaration was sent to the Lithuanian Parliament for approval, where it was denied by the Lithuanian authorities, who partially accepted Polish demands with the amendment of the Minorities Act on 29 January 1991, which make changes in the fields of language and education, and promised a new administrative division that would take national divisions into account. The latter postulate was never realized. Works on autonomy were continued at the congress in Mostiškės on 22 May 1991, where the deputies agreed on the basic principles of the autonomy system. The attempt to create a Polish autonomy collapsed together with the failed 1991 Soviet coup attempt, because its main supporters, the hard-line Soviet Communists, were defeated. After Lithuania actually regained its independence on 4 September 1991, it suppressed the movement and dissolved the district councils of Vilnius and Šalčininkai.

Background From 1922 to 1939 Vilnius and its region were part of the Second Polish Republic as the Wilno voivodeship, succeeding the short-lived Polish puppet state of Central Lithuania. During World War II, they briefly returned to Lithuania, but Lithuania was twice occupied by the Soviet Union and once by Nazi Germany. During 1944–1989, these areas were in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the USSR, as a result of territorial changes after World War II, but the Vilnius and Šalčininkai districts became isolated from the republic's social and cultural life. This was a result of not only the region's complicated demographic situation, but also by Moscow's specific policy towards the Lithuanian Poles. The Polish historian Krzysztof Buchowski has written: "The Soviet authorities successfully applied the tactic of 'divide and rule' in this case... Time has shown that the tactic was effective." For example, Moscow closed down almost all Lithuanian schools in the two districts in 1950–1955, while Polish schools were established instead of the Lithuanian ones. Lithuanian language was practically not taught in Polish schools.

In two waves of emigration in the years 1945–47 and 1956–1959, at least 243,708 people left for Poland, mainly city dwellers, intellectuals and wealthy peasants. A similar number of people of Polish nationality remained on the territory of Lithuania. Many immigrated from the rest of the Soviet Union to replace those, who left, mainly from the Byelorussian SSR, they were attracted by the possibility of better living conditions. This included Poles from Belarus. As a result of these changes, Poles became a minority, consisting mainly of people with a lower social status, with a low rate of people with higher education, but a high rate of manual workers. Hence, the newcomers were generally the party and economic leaders of these districts. In 1989, Poles made up 7% of Lithuania's population (all national minorities combined 20.4%). Despite the initial attempts Lithuanisation of the Polish population was largely fruitless, but significant portion of Poles became Russified. While in 1959 96.4% of Poles indicated Polish as their native language, in 1989 it was 85%. In 1989, 58% of Poles declared knowledge of Russian as a second language, and only 15.6% of Lithuanian. Nevertheless, 59% of them declared acceptance of using Lithuanian as an official language, while only 8% were in favor of Russian.

According to the historian Alfred E. Senn, the Polish minority was divided into three main groups: Vilnius' inhabitants supported Lithuanian independence, the residents of the southeastern part of Vilnius district and Šalčininkai district were pro-Soviet, while the third group scattered throughout the country did not have a clear position. According to surveys from the spring of 1990, 47% of Poles in Lithuania supported the pro-Soviet Communist party (in contrast to 8% support among ethnic Lithuanians), while 35% supported Lithuanian independence.

When Lithuania started the process of regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1988 large part of the Polish minority, still remembering the 1950s attempts to ban Polish, was afraid that the independent Lithuanian government might want to reintroduce the Lithuanization policies. Furthermore, some Lithuanian nationalists, notably the Vilnija organization, founded in 1988, viewed eastern Lithuania's inhabitants as Polonized Lithuanians. Many Poles in Lithuania undoubtedly do have Lithuanian ancestry. Because these Lithuanian nationalists viewed ethnicity as primordial, they argued that the Lithuanian state should work to restore their "true" identity. The pseudoscientific theory of the existence of a separate ethnic group, the so-called "vičuv Litevskich", i.e. descendants of the polonized Lithuanian nobles. The surname ending in -wicz was supposed to prove belonging to the group. These views were disseminated with the passivity of Sąjūdis, also by members of this organization.

There were no formalized political divisions among the activists of the Polish minority. In fact, the only Polish organization undertaking political activity in the first years of independent Lithuania was the Union of Poles in Lithuania (ZPL), established in 1989. In some way, all the activists of the Polish minority were connected with it. An important body, however, formed only on 23 October, was the Polish Parliamentary Faction, grouping Polish deputies to the Supreme Council of Lithuania. The ZPL as a whole basically stood for the establishment of limited territorial autonomy within the framework of independent Lithuania. Within the ZPL, there was also a group of activists who advocated for the aggremment with Lithuanian government, did not raise the topic of territorial autonomy, but rather opted for local government with extended competences. Representatives of this group were, for example, Sąjūdis activist Czesław Okińczyc and Zbigniew Balcewicz. There was also a radical group, represented by Jan Ciechanowicz, which sought fait accompli, and resorted to the help of the central Soviet authorities. In this group there were even ideas of separating the Vilnius region, either as an independent entity or within the framework of the USSR. Such radical tendencies were manifested also by group of Polish activists who were also members of the Communist Party, such as Czesław Wysocki from Šalčininkai. The moderate group, which was somewhere in between those two, was represented by the first president of ZPL, Jan Sienkiewicz.

History

Beginning of the autonomous movement On 6 October 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted Lithuanian as the sole state language. Nine municipal councils (Avižieniai, Buivydžiai, Grigaičiai, Lavoriškės, Medininkai, Mickūnai, Sudervė, Nemenčinė, Rudamina) issued a protest against this and wanted bilingualism, but the protest was ignored. On 25 January 1989, the Language Law was adopted. According to its enterprises, organizations and institutions were obliged to switch to Lithuanian within two years. As Lithuanian was recognized as the sole state language, toponyms in Lithuania could only be written in Lithuanian and that language had to be used at meetings of local government bodies, in courts and offices. A transitional period was provided. In response, the Rudamina municipality declared itself a Polish national municipality. This was the second such occurrence, as a month before that, on 28 December 1988 Sudervė municipality did it. Within few next months, a total of 16 out of 24 councils in the Vilnius district and 14 out of the 15 in Šalčininkai followed the suit. Meanwhile, on 23 February 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev mentioned for the first time the possibility of establishing autonomous regions within the USSR's republics in a speech in Kyiv.

During its first congress, the SSKPL transformed itself into the Union of Poles in Lithuania. On 12 May 1989, the 1st Congress of Deputies of the Vilnius Region (128 deputies representing towns: Šalčininkai, Eišiškės and Nemenčinė, and from 27 municipal councils of Šalčininkai, Vilnius and Švenčionys districts) was held in Mickūnai and decided to establish the Coordination Council for the Establishment of the Polish Autonomous Region (65 persons, with 5-person presidium).

In response, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the LSSR issued a statement on 22 June 1989 declaring that the establishment of autonomous regions is unconstitutional. This didn't stop the Coordination Council from presenting a project of the autonomy to the LSSR Supreme Council on 12 July 1989. The projected autonomy's territory included the whole Vilnius and Šalčininkai districts, as well as municipalities in the Trakai, Švenčionys and Širvintos districts, where Poles were in the majority. The state languages were to be Lithuanian and Polish, and Russian was to be the "contact" language. On 6 September 1989, the Šalčininkai District Council declared itself the Polish National-Territorial District (50 votes "for" and 14 "against") On 15 September 1989, the district council of the Vilnius district in Nemenčinė adopted a similar resolution. On 21 September 1989, Presidium of LSSR Supreme Council cancelled both resolutions. After the declaration of Lithuanian independence on 11 March 1990, some institutions were still recognizing the supremacy of the central Soviet authorities, while some recognised the newly established Lithuanian authorities. After the local elections of 24 March 1990, the newly elected Council of the Šalčininkai District with Czesław Wysocki, a member of the Communist Party of Lithuania, declared on 15 May 1990 the district the Šalčininkai Polish National-Territorial District of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Under the declaration, the laws and constitution of the USSR and LSRR were to be applied in the district. On 24 May 1990, the Vilnius district council supported the decision to create a national region, but recognized by an act of 11 March that the territory of Lithuania is "integral and indivisible".

Eišiškės congress