Description: On January 13, 1991, thousands of unarmed Lithuanians rallied to defend Parliament against encircling Soviet tanks and many were crushed beneath their tracks. Television pictures flashed around the world, revealing the reality of Gorbachev's Soviet Union and stirring the world's conscience. These dramatic events were crucial not only for the re-emergence of an independent Lithuania but for the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Vytautas Landsbergis was the first president of the new independent Lithuania and leader of his people on that memorable night. In this book he retraces the process which led to Lithuania's independence and admission to the United Nations: the shifting positions of Gorbachev and Yeltsin; the attitudes of Bush, Thatcher, and Mitterand; the solidarity with the other Baltic states; the struggle between old Communists and new democrats within Lithuania; and the machinations of the KGB.

Landsbergis was born into a family of Lithuanian patriots and traces their influence as he grew up during the German and Soviet occupations. His deep involvement in the artistic and intellectual community -- he was professor of music history at the Vilnius Conservatoire -- led him into political life.

An impassioned personal statement and an essential document for historians of the last days of the Soviet Empire, this autobiography also offers unique insights into the life and capacity for survival of a small culture caught in the web of big-power politics.

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