On 5 September 2013 at 11.30 am the documentation and photography exhibition Lithuania’s Return to the World Community of Free Countries will open in the Exhibition Gallery of the Seimas. The exhibition will be presented by Vydas Gedvilas, Speaker of the Seimas, and Gediminas Kirkilas, Deputy Speaker of the Seimas and Chair of the Committee on European Affairs.

On 11 March 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania adopted the Act on the Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania and declared that Lithuania restored its statehood, interrupted by the 1940 occupation. For more than a year before the failed pro-communist putsch in Moscow in August 1991, Lithuania persistently and consistently sought international recognition for the restored independence of the Republic of Lithuania. Negotiations, interaction with governments and parliaments worldwide, and personal contacts with the world’s most renowned politicians were crowned by its global recognition. Lithuania became a fully-fledged member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, and an active member of other multilateral inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as an initiator and leader of international projects.

“Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Treaty of Accession to the European Union and holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Lithuania recalls with gratitude the states that supported and recognised its restored independence and contributed to our return to the international community and our state’s establishment among world democracies,” Vydas Gedvilas writes in the foreword to the exhibition.

The exhibition Lithuania’s Return to the World Community of Free Countries features the documents that have consolidated the foundations of Lithuania’s statehood: the letters of credence presented by the ambassadors of European Union Member States, candidate countries and Eastern Partnership countries, which were signed by the heads of state, prominent politicians of the time, and both record our historical developments and attest to the diplomatic and cultural traditions of the countries.

The exhibition will display the Act on the Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania adopted by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania on 11 March 1990, the Appeal of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania to the Nations of the World and the first documents on international recognition of the independent state of Lithuania by foreign countries, and the letters of credence presented to the heads of state of the Republic of Lithuania from 1991 to 2009 by the ambassadors of European Union Member States, candidate countries and Eastern Partnership countries, which are kept in the archives of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania.

Visitors of the Exhibition Gallery are invited to view the exposition during the open hours from 11 am to 3 pm on Friday.

Lina Žilytė, Public Relations Unit, tel. +370 5 239 6875, e-mail: [email protected].