ABSTRACT
The Lithuanian movement originated in the political and social setting of late imperial Russia. Starting from the 1860s the empire underwent slow yet increasing modernization in different realms of its life. Most significant features of the post-reform years were growing social mobility of its multiethnic peasant populations, belated industrialization and urbanization and rising tensions in the centre-periphery relations as a result of the policy of forced integration introduced after 1863. These were the key developments that provided a historical background to the birth of multiple national movements among non-Russian populations of Russia, including the Lithuanians.
