The idea emerged in early 1990, following the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania on 11 March 1990, in which Lithuanian SSR declared independence from the Soviet Union. The activists of the Polish minority in Lithuania, afraid of the marginalization and Lithuanization of the minority, proposed the establishment of the Polish autonomous regions, that would be eventually united into the Soviet republic. The exact borders of the region weren't determined, however, it was proposed that they would include the area with the majority of Polish population of Vilnius Region (with or without the city of Vilnius) in Lithuania and area around the city of Grodno, Belarus.[1][2][3]