Who has lived near Vilnius for 4,000 years?

Straipsnio tikslas – moksliškai įvertinti diskusinę literatūrą apie Vilniaus apylinkių etnokultūrines, istorines problemas, pateikti tiksliausius jų sprendimus.In scientific literature it is an undisputed fact that from at least the 2nd c. BCE until the current era, the area of Vilnius has been inhabited by the Balts. From around the 5th−6th c., th Lithuanian language formed from the Eastern Baltic tongue and in the beginning of the 1st c. − the Lithuanian nation and state. From the 5th c. to the 16th c., Lithuanians, speaking the Lithuanian language, made up the majority of the population. Having lost Lithuania’s independence, the Lithuanian people, due to forced denationalisation (especially 160 years ago, when public use of the Lithuanian language was outlawed), began to speak Belarusian, Polish, and because of their Catholic faith were recorded as being Poles, Belarusians, or ‘tuteišiai’. Lithuanian place-names (with a Slavic influence) and personal names remained. They will be collected and revised for 2019, which will be the year of place-names. The dates for the founding of Vilnius may be 1250, 1129, or even earlier. In 2023 we will celebrate 700 since Vilnius was first mentioned as Lithuania’s capital in historical sources. Now Lithuanians make up over 60 per cent of the population. It may have been this way also in the 16th−17th c. The article reviews publications that lack objectivity and the sources used are current research in the relevant field. In performing scientific research, it is key to apply similar historical and cultural assessments of one’s own nation (state) and those of other nations (states). Historians should know that Vilnius, Lithuania’s long- term capital, was returned in 1939 in accordance with the 1920-07-12, 1926-09-28, 1939-10-10 treaties between the Republic of Lithuania and the Soviet Union, the 1920-10-07 Suwałki Agreement with Poland, as well as International conventions. The functioning of the national language in England, Poland, Lithuania, or any other nation cannot be considered Anglicisation, Polisation, and Lithuanisation. In using international terms like nationalism, nationalist, nationalise, etc. their meaning should be retained, as officially approbated by the Lietuvių kalbos žodynas, Tarptautinių žodžių žodyno, and the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language