Lifting of Soviet Blockade of Lithuania

Date: July 2, 1990 • Location: Moscow, Russia

Singing Revolution: The Soviet economic blockade of Lithuania (pictured) was lifted when the Lithuanian parliament agreed to suspend the effects of their act to re-establish Lithuania as a state.

The Singing Revolution was a series of events from 1987 to 1991 that led to the restoration of independence of the three Soviet-occupied Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania at the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union annexed the Baltics around 1940, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, though this annexation was not widely recognized. During the subsequent occupation, the Soviet Union suppressed local languages, religious institutions, and cultural expression, and carried out large-scale deportations and political repression.