| Lithuania at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships | |
|---|---|
 | |
| FINA code | LTU |
| National federation | Lietuvos plaukimo federacija |
| Website | www |
| in Fukuoka, Japan | |
| Competitors | 4 in 1 sports |
| Medals |
|
| World Aquatics Championships appearances (overview) | |
| Other related appearances | |
 | |
Lithuania competed at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
4 swimmers represented Lithuania: [1]
| Athlete | Event | Heat | Semifinal | Final | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Rank | Time | Rank | Time | Rank | ||
| Saulius Binevičius | 100 m freestyle | 51.97 | 37 | Did not advance | |||
| 200 m freestyle | 1:52.56 | 25 | Did not advance | ||||
| Rolandas Gimbutis | 50 m freestyle | 23.08 | 31 | Did not advance | |||
| 100 m freestyle | 50.65 | 22 | Did not advance | ||||
| 50 m butterfly | 25.27 | 39 | Did not advance | ||||
| Darius Grigalionis | 50 m backstroke | 25.97 | 6 Q | 26.08 | 12 | Did not advance | |
| 100 m backstroke | 56.77 | 23 | Did not advance | ||||
| Mindaugas Špokas | 50 m backstroke | 26.59 | 29 | Did not advance | |||
| 100 m backstroke | 58.00 | 31 | Did not advance | ||||
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. Lithuania is one of the Baltic states. Situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the southeast of Sweden and Denmark, Lithuania is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.8 million people as of 2019. The capital and largest city is Vilnius and other major cities are Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians are Balts. The official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, the other being Latvian.
The history of Lithuania dates back to settlements founded many thousands of years ago, but the first written record of the name for the country dates back to 1009 AD. Lithuanians, one of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. It remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt Christianity. A formidable power, it became the largest state in Europe in the 15th century through the conquest of large groups of East Slavs who resided in Ruthenia. In 1385, the Grand Duchy formed a dynastic union with Poland through the Union of Krewo. Later, the Union of Lublin (1569) created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that lasted until 1795, when the last of the Partitions of Poland erased both Lithuania and Poland from the political map. Afterward, the Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century.
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Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915.
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, after 1791, the Commonwealth of Poland, was a country and bi-federation of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch in real union, who was both King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th- to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered almost 1,000,000 square kilometres (400,000 sq mi) and as of 1618 sustained a multi-ethnic population of almost 12 million. Polish and Latin were the two co-official languages.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that lasted from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. The state was founded by the Lithuanians, a polytheistic nation born from several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija.
The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania is a social-democratic political party in Lithuania. Founded as an underground Marxist organization in 1896, it is the oldest extant party in Lithuania. During the time of the Soviet Union, the party went into exile, emerging once again in Lithuania in 1989.
Lithuanians are a Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,561,300 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language is Lithuanian, one of only two surviving members of the Baltic language family. According to the census conducted in 2001, 83.45% of the population of Lithuania identified themselves as Lithuanians, 6.74% as Poles, 6.31% as Russians, 1.23% as Belarusians, and 2.27% as members of other ethnic groups. Most Lithuanians belong to the Roman Catholic Church, while the Lietuvininkai who lived in the northern part of East Prussia prior to World War II, were mostly Evangelical Lutherans.
The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, or simply the Seimas, is the unicameral parliament of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendments to the Constitution, passing the budget, confirming the Prime Minister and the Government and controlling their activities.
The Karaim language is a Turkic language with Hebrew influences, in a similar manner to Yiddish or Judaeo-Spanish. It is spoken by only a few dozen Crimean Karaites in Lithuania, Poland and Crimea and Galicia in Ukraine. The three main dialects are those of Crimea, Trakai-Vilnius and Lutsk-Halych all of which are critically endangered. The Lithuanian dialect of Karaim is spoken mainly in the town of Trakai by a small community living there since the 14th century.
Mindaugas Murza, officially changed his name to Mindaugas Gervaldas in 2012, is a Lithuanian radical nationalist and a Neo-Nazi. He was a member of the Lithuanian National Defence Volunteer Forces. He has been a member, founder, and chairman of several different Neo-Nazi political parties. Only one party, the National Democratic Party of Lithuania, was officially registered and participated in the 2003 municipal elections. Murza and three others were elected to the council of the Šiauliai City Municipality.
Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate and was deprived of his Soviet citizenship. Since 1980 he has taught Russian and Polish literature at Yale University. Considered a major figure in world literature, he has received many awards, including the Prize of Two Nations, and The Person of Tolerance of the Year Award from the Sugihara Foundation, among other honors.
Lithuania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 20 times since its debut in 1994, where Ovidijus Vyšniauskas finished last, receiving "nul points". Lithuania withdrew from the contest, not returning until 1999. LT United's sixth place in 2006 with the song "We Are the Winners" is Lithuania's best result in the contest. The country reached the top ten for a second time in 2016, when Donny Montell finished ninth with "I've Been Waiting for This Night".
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The Lithuanian Security Police (LSP), also known as Saugumas, was a local police force that operated in German-occupied Lithuania from 1941 to 1944, in collaboration with the occupational authorities. Collaborating with the Nazi Sipo and SD, the unit was directly subordinate to the German Kripo. The LSP took part in perpetrating the Holocaust in Lithuania, persecuting Polish resistance and communist underground.
The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 208,000–210,000 Jews, an estimated 190,000–195,000 were murdered before the end of World War II, most between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year German occupation—a more complete destruction than befell any other country affected by the Holocaust. Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The Holocaust resulted in the largest-ever loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.
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The Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions were paramilitary units (battalions) formed during the occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1944. Similar units, known as Schutzmannschaft-Bataillonen, were organized in other German-occupied territories of Eastern Europe. In Lithuania, the first battalions originated from units formed during the anti-Soviet Uprising of June 1941. Lithuanian activists hoped that these units would become the basis for the reestablished Lithuanian Army. Instead, these units were absorbed into the German military apparatus and aided German forces: guarded strategic objects, engaged in anti-partisan operations, participated in the Holocaust. The 12th and the 13th battalions, tracing their roots from the Tautinio darbo apsaugos batalionas (TDA), were particularly active in the executions of the Jews and were responsible for estimated 78,000 Jewish deaths in Lithuania and Belarus. While the battalions were often deployed outside Lithuania, they generally did not participate in combat. In total, 26 battalions were formed and approximately 13,000 men served in them. In July–September, 1944, the remaining units were combined into two Lithuanian Volunteer Infantry Regiments.