The Lithuanian Wars of Independence. Żeligowski’s ‘Mutiny’ and its Aftermath, 1920–1923

This is an unabridged English translation of Volume III, Parts V and VI of Antanas Rukša’s Kovos dėl Lietuvos nepriklausomybės (The Lithuanian Wars of Independence), originally published in Cleveland in 1982. This classic account shows the Lithuanian–Polish conflict in the wake of General Lucjan Żeligowski’s mutiny, tracing in detail the operations that led to the seizure of Vilnius in October 1920, the subsequent campaign on the so-called Żeligowski front, and the struggle in the neutral zone up to 1923, including the role of riflemen, partisans, and regular army formations. The translation preserves the operational narrative while clarifying place names and personal names against contemporary cartographic and archival sources, and supplements the text with an up to date analytical chapter on post Cold War Lithuanian–Polish reconciliation by Dr. Jacek Jędrysiak, thus making this key military historical source accessible and intelligible for today’s English speaking readers. 

All maps in the text were adapted from the original.

Edited by Dr. Asta Maskaliūnaitė, translated by Prof. Dr. Nijolė Maskaliūnienė.