After World War I , Žemaitija became a part of the newly re-established Lithuanian State . The Žemaičiai resisted the Bolsheviks and the Bermontians . During World War II , Lithuania was occupied in turn by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russians as the Eastern Front shifted . At the end of the war , all of Lithuania was surrendered to the Soviet Union , along with the other Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia , as a consequence of the Yalta Agreement . Although the United States maintained after Yalta that the Baltic states had been illegally annexed to the Soviet Union , this meant little until the administration of Mikhail Gorbachev conceded that the departure of the Baltic states was inevitable , and the Soviet Union at last recognized their independence on 6 September 1991 . The last Soviet troops withdrew in August 1994
Yalta Agreement
Yalta Conference
Samogitia