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The most important event in Lithuania in the year 1921 was the second democratic election in the history of the nation. Democrat Artūras Vitkauskas sought reelection and reunited much of the Republican splinters from the Lithuanian Centre Party into the Democratic-Republicans. They were challenged by the reformed United Christians, now led by Steponas Bizauskas, previously an attache to France and later Italy in the Imperial period, as well as the Unitarian contingent under Povilas Višinskis. Considerably fewer political parties participated in the election when compared to 1917 - many of the smaller ones either merged into larger parties or disbanded for one reason or another. Still, there were a few new faces as well.

Much like in 1917, there was no majority, but it was clear which party was the winner - the United Christians. Their leader Steponas Bizauskas was soon voted to become the next Democrat of Lithuania - however, much like all of his predecessors, he lacked a majority mandate. Despite their relative success in their last term, the Democratic-Republicans somewhat fell down in popularity, even managing to lose a seat - a failure attributed to poor electoral campaign management and a lack of charisma within their leader, Artūras Vitkauskas. Višinskis's Democratic Unitarians acted as a major spoiler, too. Meanwhile, the radical nationalist parties, Imperialists and Revivalists, collected a little over 10% of the total vote.

Because of the lack of a majority in the Prezidiumas, Democrat Steponas Bizauskas was largely forced to continue the previous administration's policies due to filibustering by the Unitarians and Republicans. Land reform was lagging, much of the nobility retained their old offices and manors, while the peasantry remained poor. Relations between Lithuania, Krajina, Russia and Visegrad were slowly being rebuilt. The promised cuts to military spending and religious education reform also never happened, due to opposition from the militarists and the Democratic-Republicans respectively. The Bizauskas democracy was a test of Lithuanian belief in democracy - and unfortunately, many Lithuanians ended up disappointed by the democratic process.

Every party was just the same, there were no radical changes and no single sweep to fix everything wrong with the country like some hoped. Still, it would be hard to argue that things were not getting better - the instability has more or less been stabilized, the economy has started to grow again and has been geared back to civilian production. The military was content. Even the mass separatist movements in Estonia, Latgalia, Ingria and the White Rus' have fallen out of public view.

Of course, whether this was going to continue forever was not yet answered.


The most important event happening in Europe took place in the far north. After the Great European War, the Finns began a struggle for independence from Sweden known as the Finnish War of Independence, which soon devolved into guerilla warfare in the forests die to the inequal strength of the combatants. The intensity of the war was waning - however, fearing an escalation of the struggle into a full blown conflict or perhaps an entire revolution, Germania and Visegrad intervened, forcing the conservative Swedish government to seek compromise and organize a referendum on independence in their periphery. Unsurprisingly, the Finns voted to leave, and a Republic of Finland was established - however, not all of Finland left the Swedish kingdom, much of the land around Abo in the southwest, populated mostly by Swedes, remained. In a somewhat more surprising turn of events, Moonsund - Sweden's territory on the Eastern Baltic, populated by a peculiar mix of Swedish, Estonian and German culture - also separated from the nation - there was no more massive imperialist threat to the east of the archipelago, so the main thing tying it to the Motherland was severed. Only Norway voted to remain in their referendum - although at very small margins.

The Swedes, who were already snugged by the Coalition by gaining nothing in the Paris Peace Accords, were furious at this "dictat of 1922". The "mutilated victor" of Europe. They bled thousands in the Karelian Isthmus for the Coalition cause and yet got treated as bad as an Entente member in the following years. But no matter the anger, Sweden had no option but to fold.

And... that was it! Outside of this and the bloodbath of a civil war in Centrovespucia, the world had finally become peaceful! Right?

The period immediately after the post-war recession became known as the Era of Good Feelings. After the chaos of the 1910s, the world had finally stabilised and even entered a new era of prosperity. The economies of almost all of the world's countries were growing and developing into stable industrial societies. Culture and arts across the world were booking and evolving into modern consumerism, sports like basketball entered an era of fame, people were spending money on unprecedented things like cinema, comedy, entertainment... Optimism was at it's highest. It was widely believed that after witnessing the horror of the Great European War, no person could possibly dare to challenge the current state of affairs and try to restart the conflict.

Cultural changes were taking place, too. For example, German was starting to establish itself as the new lingua franca of Europe, replacing French - mirroring the political realities of the time. Because of the opening of the two countries to foreigners, interest in Chinese and Japanese culture was growing, too. The first non-profit societies dedicated to furthering the cause of decolonization were popping up in France and Spain. They believed that the ideals of democracy clash with the realities of colonialism in Africa, so the latter must be abandoned to achieve the former. Around the same time, archeology was entering a golden age - expeditions were taken to Egypt, Palestine, the Inca, Mejico and numerous other places across the planet to uncover the secrets of the past hidden within them. Meanwhile, in Turkey and India, modern culture was being suppressed in favor of building Unitarian culture - rooting out decadence and similar unwanted ideas and instilling a sense of communal identity within the populace. Propaganda departments had plenty of work.


However, the Era of Good Feelings was not just a time of prosperity, but also a time of reaction. Most of the Western countries were headed by Protectionist governments, who shunned any possibilities of social reform because of fears of Unitarianism and instead focused on a hands-off approach to economics. It's working now, so it should still work tomorrow, right? Wealth inequality was rapidly rising across much of the world - the rich were reaping the benefits of the prosperity, while the poor often lived in unsanitary conditions and in relative poverty. And coupled with a massive population boom in the years after the war, this didn't make for a good situation in the working classes.

But everything was just going so well that even the poorest beggar waited for the next day with hope and ambition.

Perhaps the most fitting illustration of the worldview held by the people in this period can be seen in the Prime Minister of the Union of the Three Crowns of Visegrad Jan Žuk's address on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1923: