Lithuania has not yet formally recognised the Circassian genocide, but it has become an important site of parliamentary advocacy and public discussion. This essay examines the 2024 Circassian outreach to Lithuanian institutions, the 2025 Seimas conference on the Circassian genocide, and current efforts to bring recognition onto the Seimas agenda in the coming months.
Lithuania has not yet formally recognised the Circassian genocide at the level of a completed parliamentary resolution. Its importance lies elsewhere: Lithuania has become a site of parliamentary advocacy, public discussion, and international networking around recognition. The Lithuanian case should therefore be understood not as a finished recognition precedent equivalent to Georgia or Ukraine, but as an emerging recognition initiative within an EU and NATO member state with its own history of Russian imperial and Soviet domination.
The distinction is important. Georgia recognised the Circassian genocide in 2011, and Ukraine followed on 9 January 2025. Recent scholarship on Georgia’s and Ukraine’s recognition describes them as the two state-level recognitions of the Circassian genocide and places both within memory politics, nationalism, and conflict with Russia. Lithuania, by contrast, represents the next stage of the recognition movement: the movement of the Circassian question into parliamentary spaces, policy conferences, advocacy meetings, and draft-recognition discussions before a final state act has occurred.
The visible Lithuanian track began with organised Circassian outreach. In September 2024, the Council of United Circassia reported that it had visited Lithuania between 1 and 5 September and submitted an application to the Lithuanian Presidency and the Lithuanian Parliament requesting recognition of the Circassian genocide. The same report stated that the delegation held meetings with politicians, members of the European Parliament, former ministers, and academics, and discussed the political and democratic rights of the Circassian nation. This was a significant advocacy step because it placed recognition before Lithuanian political institutions rather than leaving it only in diaspora or scholarly circles.
The Lithuanian context is especially relevant because Lithuanian historical memory is strongly shaped by occupation, deportation, Russification, and resistance to imperial domination. Circassian advocates have drawn parallels between Lithuanian and Circassian experiences, including Russian imperial rule, assimilation, language pressure, and national survival. Such comparisons do not make the histories identical, but they create a language through which Lithuanian political actors may understand the Circassian case. Recognition initiatives often advance when a receiving parliament can connect another people’s historical trauma to its own memory of domination.
The most important public development was the international conference “The Circassian Genocide in the Context of History and Contemporary Politics,” held in the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on 17 December 2025. The official programme identifies the event as a parliamentary conference held in Constitution Hall and lists opening remarks by Laurynas Šedvydis, a member of the Seimas and chairman of the Seimas Human Rights Committee, alongside representatives of the Council of United Circassia and other participants. Huseyin Oylupinar, Director of the Center for Circassian Studies at the Institute for Knowledge, Research, and Society, was invited to participate as one of the speakers. The fact that the event was held inside the Lithuanian parliament gave the Circassian issue a level of institutional visibility that went beyond ordinary community commemoration.
The conference programme shows that the event was structured around both historical documentation and contemporary politics. Its first panel, “Historical Background and Documentation,” was designed to provide a historical foundation for understanding the Circassian genocide by tracing Russian imperial expansion, mass deportations, and the humanitarian catastrophe of 1864. The programme stated that the discussion aimed to establish an accurate record of events and underline their lasting impact on Circassian identity and displacement. Speakers listed in the programme included Circassian activists, scholars, and public figures, among them Walter Richmond, author of The Circassian Genocide, who was included by video message.
The Lithuanian conference also broadened the Circassian issue beyond a single-community framework. The programme included a panel on “Shared Histories of Exile and Survival,” which connected the Circassian experience to other histories of occupation, forced displacement, cultural erasure, resilience, and collective memory. This matters because recognition campaigns often gain traction when they move from narrow ethnic advocacy to a wider comparative vocabulary of empire, deportation, genocide, and historical justice. Lithuania is a particularly suitable venue for such a framing because its own twentieth-century history gives public weight to debates about occupation, deportation, Russification, and national survival.
The Lithuanian initiative has now entered a more consequential phase. According to current advocacy and parliamentary discussions, the question of recognising the Circassian genocide is expected to be placed on the Seimas agenda in the coming months. Until an official vote is held, this should not be described as Lithuanian recognition. But it does indicate that the issue has moved beyond public discussion and into the preparatory stages of parliamentary consideration. That development makes Lithuania one of the most important current European cases for the Circassian recognition movement.
Reports and commentary after the Vilnius conference described it as a turning point for the Circassian national movement, not because Lithuania had already recognised the genocide, but because the issue had entered the parliamentary space of a European Union member state. The Saratoga Foundation argued that the Vilnius meeting showed the Circassian genocide could serve as a bridge to other peoples affected by Russian violence and could help move the Circassian movement beyond isolation. That interpretation is politically sympathetic, but it captures a real strategic point: parliamentary conferences can create public legitimacy before formal resolutions are adopted.
The Lithuanian initiative should therefore be read as part of a staged recognition process. The first stage is community memory and scholarly documentation. The second is diaspora advocacy and public communication. The third is political access: meetings with parliamentarians, submission of applications, and the cultivation of institutional allies. The fourth is parliamentary discussion through conferences, committee engagement, draft resolutions, or agenda placement. Only the fifth stage is formal recognition. Lithuania appears to be moving from the third and fourth stages toward possible parliamentary consideration. That makes it an important case for future recognition work in Poland and other European states.
The Lithuanian case also helps clarify the role of civil society and diaspora organisations. In Georgia and Ukraine, recognition became possible through the interaction of state interests, historical scholarship, Circassian activism, and anti-imperial memory politics. Lithuania shows the same elements in an earlier phase. Circassian organisations are presenting documentation, building political relationships, connecting the Circassian case to Lithuanian historical experience, and seeking parliamentary recognition. This is how recognition campaigns often move from moral demand to institutional consideration.
A cautious reading remains necessary. Advocacy reports, conference programmes, and anticipated agenda placement are not the same as parliamentary recognition. Claims that Lithuania has already recognised the Circassian genocide would be inaccurate unless and until the Seimas adopts a formal resolution or equivalent official act. For a serious recognition dossier, this distinction strengthens credibility. Lithuania should be presented as a country where recognition has been requested, debated, given parliamentary visibility, and may soon be considered more formally — not as a state that has completed recognition.
At the same time, the absence of formal recognition does not make the Lithuanian case insignificant. Parliamentary recognition usually develops through preparatory stages. Conferences establish a public record. Applications place demands before institutions. Political meetings identify possible sponsors. Expert testimony provides legitimacy. Diaspora advocacy sustains pressure. Agenda placement, if carried forward, would represent a further movement from advocacy into parliamentary procedure. The 2025 Seimas conference is therefore part of the architecture of recognition, even if it is not recognition itself.
Lithuania’s role may also prove important because it links the Circassian question to European debates about Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since 2022, Baltic states have been among the most active European voices in naming Russia as an imperial and colonial power. Lithuania’s engagement with Circassian recognition fits into this wider regional context. It places the North Caucasus inside Europe’s debate about Russian imperial violence, rather than leaving the Circassian genocide as a specialised Caucasus issue.
For the Circassian recognition movement, Lithuania offers three lessons. First, recognition can be advanced through parliamentary access before a formal vote exists. Second, the Circassian case gains force when connected to wider histories of Russian imperial domination, deportation, and cultural suppression. Third, credibility depends on exact language: Georgia and Ukraine are recognition precedents; Lithuania is currently a parliamentary initiative and advocacy case, with possible formal consideration expected in the coming months.
Lithuania may therefore become an important bridge between existing recognition precedents and future European recognition efforts. Whether or not the Seimas adopts a formal resolution in the near future, the Lithuanian process already shows that the Circassian genocide can be discussed inside European parliamentary institutions, connected to human rights and historical justice, and framed as part of the wider legacy of Russian imperial violence. For Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and other states with strong historical memories of Russian domination, the Lithuanian case provides a practical model: begin with documentation, build political access, hold expert discussions, connect Circassian history to broader anti-imperial memory, and move carefully toward formal recognition.
Selected Reading and Sources
Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. “The Circassian Genocide in the Context of History and Contemporary Politics.” Conference programme, 17 December 2025.
Council of United Circassia. “Meetings with the Lithuanian Politicians.” Press release, 8 September 2024.
Saratoga Foundation. “Conference in Lithuanian Parliament Marks a Turning Point in the Circassian National Movement.” 18 February 2026.
Kelbaugh, Michael. “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Recognition of the Circassian Genocide.” Journal of Caucasian Studies, 2025.
Richmond, Walter. The Circassian Genocide. Rutgers University Press, 2013.
Shenfield, Stephen D. “The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide?” In The Massacre in History, edited by Mark Levene and Penny Roberts. Berghahn Books, 1999.