Statehood Day or Coronation Day is an annual public holiday in Lithuania celebrated on July 6 to commemorate the

coronation A coronation ceremony marks the formal investiture of a monarch with regal power using a crown. In addition to the crowning, this ceremony may include the presentation of other items of regalia, and other rituals such as the taking of special v ...

in 1253 of

Mindaugas Mindaugas (, , , , ; c. 1203 – 12 September 1263) was the first known grand duke of Lithuania, Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only crowned King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power; he is mentioned in a ...

as the

King of Lithuania This is a list of Lithuanian monarchs who ruled Lithuania from its inception until the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1795. The Lithuanian monarch bore the title of Grand Duke, with the exception of Mindaugas, who was crowned king in 1 ...

.Lithuania celebrates Statehood Day
/ref> The exact day of the event is disputable and was chosen according to the hypothesis of Edvardas Gudavičius, formulated in 1989. The day has officially been celebrated since 1991.

Traditions

At 9 PM every year,

Lithuanians Lithuanians () are a Balts, Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another two million make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the Lithuanian Americans, United Sta ...

all over the world are encouraged to sing the

national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European ...

in the name of unity. The tradition has been around since 2009, when the anthem was sung to commemorate the millennium of the

name of Lithuania The first known record of the name of Lithuania () was recorded in the Quedlinburg Chronicle (, written between 1008 and 1030) in a 9 March 1009 story of Bruno of Querfurt, Saint Bruno. The Chronicle recorded in the form ''Litua'' (in the phras ...

References

Festivals in Lithuania July observances National days Annual events in Lithuania Summer in Lithuania {{Lithuania-stub

Traditions

See also

References