Excerpts from Polish/Lithuanian Relations Famous Vilnian Czesław Miłosz once wrote in his «Dialogue about Vilnius»: «neither is it Poland, nor Lithuania; neither the countryside, nor the capital». <...> The lawyer Tadeusz Wrуblewski, when asked by Count von Pfeil in September 1915 as the Germans were entering the city, stated as follows: «The intelligentsia and bourgeoisie are Poles, while the masses are heterogeneous, representing various tribes and faiths <…> Actually, we do not know ourselves (what country this is. — J. G.-K.), as it all depends on where we stand: Christianity and culture as a whole were introduced here by Poles, who funded the schools and the university; but recently, the country has entirely been Russian on the outside and Polish life was being suppressed with most effort»1 . <...> The Lithuanians had declared their ambition of having the city exclusively to themselves as early as 1905, in their memorial handed to Sergius Witte. <...> The departure of almost the entire Russian community, previously amounting to 20 % of the popula1 Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius (LVIA). <...> Saint-Petersburg Historical Journal N 2 (2016) J. Gierowska-Kałłaur 53 tion of the city, resulted in Vilnius being dominated by two national groups, Poles and Jews, while even Belarusians (3 % of the population) were almost two times more numerous than Lithuanians3 . <...> The question of the affiliation of Vilnius and its region with Poland during the Interwar years (1918–1939) was settled by the Vilnius Sejm. <...> Its establishment, its sessions, and the circumstances of the adoption of the resolution incorporating the Vilnius region into Poland (20 February 1922), as well as the history of Central Lithuania, constitute the subject of a study by Wrocław-based historian Aleksander Srebrakowski4 . <...> However, it should be made clear that the events recounted therein depict the ultimate failure of the numerous attempts made by Jуzef Piłsudski to implement the main (I), and then the backup (II) variant of his federalist programme. <...> The Polish political press of the period hailed the decision of the Vilnius Sejm as Poland’s victory, but with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that this «victory» was in fact a very problematic one. <...> Speaking later as a private citizen <...>