Kate Connolly on how the artists in a neglected corner of Lithuania declared themselves an independent nation - and all because of the late great American rocker

There aren't many Lithuanians who have seen Passport to Pimlico, the classic Ealing comedy in which a group of Londoners declare independence from Britain after uncovering documents that reveal their home streets to be part of Burgundy.

That's a shame, because it might help the bemused residents of Vilnius understand what's going on in the ancient district of Uzupis. This too is a story of a bunch of eccentrics rebelling in their country's capital.

Uzupis, or the Republic of Angels as it has been dubbed, comprises only 148 acres and around 120 residents. It has one main street, surrounded by lanes and courtyards full of art galleries. But since last April it has had its own president, its own bishop, two churches, an embassy in Moscow and no fewer than four official flags - one for each season. Banners hang from neglected buildings, labelling them the Uzupis Sheraton, Chanel and Harods (sic).

Soon the tiny state will have its own Nelson's column or Eiffel tower - a bronze sculpture of an angel that will stand in the main square, in honour of Zeonas Steinys, a much-loved local painter who died in 1998. Its unveiling will mark the official founding of the Republic of Angels - and if that causes problems with the rest of Lithuania, there is a 12-strong army to call on.

In Pimlico the rebellion began with the detonation of an unexploded bomb left over from the second world war. In Uzupis the trigger was Frank Zappa, the gifted but undeniably weird American rock star.

Nine years ago Lithuania broke away from the Soviet Union, leaving a lot of empty plinths that had previously been occupied by statues of Lenin, Marx and their regional disciples. An obvious question remained: what to do with the empty plinths?

Saulius Paukstys, a civil servant and member of the Vilnius bohemian set, saw the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition. He founded the Frank Zappa Fan Club and commissioned a socialist realist sculptor to create a statue of Zappa on a patch of land in front of a children's hospital in the centre of the city.

"We were desperate to find a symbol that would mark the end of communism, but at the same time express that it wasn't always doom and gloom," Paukstys recalls. He now holds the post of national security chief.

At first the authorities criticised the plan, particularly after discovering that Zappa was a bit of a leftie. "They said: 'What has he got to do with Lithuania anyway?' We said: 'Nothing really.' Then someone convinced them that Zappa had Jewish features and seeing as Jewish history is very important to Lithuania, they plumped for that."

The statue was erected in downtown Vilnius five years ago. The most famous of modern Bohemians, Czech president Vaclav Havel, was invited to the unveiling, where a military brass band played Zappa hits. Membership of the fan club ballooned; a radio station allocated airtime for a weekly Zappa broadcast, which included doses of Zappa philosophy; and a Zappa Love Letter Club was set up to bring Vilnius's lonely hearts together.

The fan club and the city's artistic community are practically synonymous, so when the artists started drifting back to their old haunt of Uzupis, Zappa was the natural candidate for patron saint. And last spring, when the local artists and young people decided to take a stand against the city council's neglect of Uzupis, he was the figure they rallied behind. "The spirit of Zappa made us see that independence from Moscow was not enough and persuaded us to declare independence from the rest of Vilnius," says Paukstys.

"We're trying to relearn the smell of identity," agrees Roman Lileikis, president of Uzupis and one of Lithuania's leading musicians and film-makers. The smell may be rather pungent. The name Uzupis means "the other side of the river" and the waterway has long served as a natural border - the area remained cut off from the old town until two bridges were erected in the 16th century. For hundreds of years it was the home of Russian and Jewish residents but during the war almost all of its population disappeared, leaving empty homes which were occupied by prostitutes and bandits.

When I visited the republic, having first obtained the visa stamp in my passport (a hand with a red hole to symbolise the blisters of a worker), it was not hard to track down the founding fathers, president and all, who were sitting sipping Trejos Devynerios - a Lithuanian mead made from 27 different roots and grasses - in their regular haunt, Uzupio Kavine. The place's menu is as ironic as the republic itself: Monmarto salad, Uzupio ruins and Bohemia roast.

Apart from the artists there was an engineer, a doctor and several business people, most of whom admitted they had been highly sceptical about independence, but who now fondly embraced Uzupian values and hoped their children would do the same.

President Lileikis, a Kenneth Branagh lookalike dressed in a fisherman's jumper, poured more mead and explained how he founded Uzupio Pingvinai (Uzupis Penguins) a few years ago, to preserve all things Uzupian, including its creative and community spirit. He was a natural choice for president and is so dedicated to the task of making the republic work that he has put a successful career making commercials on ice.

"We're trying to energise a community by asserting our indepen dence," Lileikis says. "It's very different from the independence gained in '91, but we're trying to foster the same spirit so that people can make things happen for themselves. That's a trait they lost through 70 years of oppression."

Uzupis certainly appears to be a unique place in Vilnius. No other part of the capital has a proper sense of community. The aim is to draw the rest of the city into the spirit by holding carnivals and pyrotechnic shows on the river, as well as open-house art actions. As the ultimate act of satire, the republic shares its national feast day with April Fool's day.

"We're taking the term carnivalesque back to its medieval origins, when it was used to turn the status quo upside down for a while and shake people out of themselves," says Vytautas Kalanauskas, an avant-garde artist who looks a bit like Picasso and who lived in Uzupis in the 50s before the authorities moved him on. He returned in 1984, and says the artistic community, having spent years using "Aesop language" in its work so as to outwit the authorities, is "now trying to get its own tongue back'.'

Vilnius has fancied itself as a cultural centre of Europe ever since its postwar poet Oskar Milosz had a vision of Vilnius as a northern Athens of the 21st century. "We think the term is a bit bombastic and pompous now, but we can still dream that it will become reality," says Linas Paulasukis, editor of the cultural magazine Siaures Atenai, or Northern Athens. Uzupis, Paulasukis believes, fits into the right mould. "They have a fine vision to create a community atmosphere through art," he says, "but maybe it's more important as a social phenomenon than as an artistic movement. It helps the Lithuanians to learn how to open up."

The question now is how far the process will go. So strong is the nation's drive for freedom that one Uzupian, a video artist, confides: "I've declared myself to be an independent state. Even the Republic of Uzupis doesn't satisfy me."

Which is as concise a summary of the impact of those 198 cantatas as is likely to be provided in this celebratory year. As members of the audience finally drifted away from their places on the high wooden pews, Sir John Eliot prepared to pack away his elegant conductor's coat and return to London. "I'm going to miss the pilgrimage when it's over. But I won't be sorry if I never again see terminal two at Heathrow early in the morning."