Attitudes of Vilnius citizens and the issue of Vilnius political Lithuanianness in November-December of 1918

Wandering away from the tradition entrenched in historiography, the article offers an attempt to view the processes in the Vilnius of late 1918 from a more objective perspective, i.e. from a point of view other than that of one way or another engaged renowned state figures of that time, attempting to analyse and estimate the proportion of power in the then society of Vilnius. The Lithuanian elite which in the years of WWI decisively took the direction towards its own ethnocentric state with the capital in Vilnius faced a really serious challenge - to gain over the non-Lithuanians of Vilnius. It was the only possible way to incorporate Vilnius into the design of Lithuania as the percentage of Lithuanians in the city was minor. However, in the years of the war institutions representing other nationalities were being established and developed in the old capital and gradually turning into centres of their political consolidation opposing the aspirations of Lithuanians. Therefore, the efforts of the Lithuanian elite had little success for quite a long time. It was not until the end of 1918 that, regarding geopolitical changes in the region, the possibility of political compromise became visible. At that time Lithuanians were granted the support of the Belarusian centre and part of the Jews (Zionists). The Polish, however, were strictly following hard-line national policy and were focused on reviving Poland. The newly formed power - the Soviet of Vilnius - was increasingly inclined towards Bolshevik Russia. Fragile balance between different political forces operating in the city that was still in existence in the last days of 1918, still allowed to view the society of Vilnius as a bound together whole and hope for its natural consolidation in the civil Lithuanian state. But Polish officers, by taking the decision to become part of the Polish military force, violated the balance and opened the door to military intervention of external forces, thus starting a new stage in the development of Vilnius society