Grybauskaite: monuments must be put up to Smetona and Basanavicius by 2018

  • 2015-02-17
  • from wire reports, VILNIUS

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has said that by 2018, when Lithuania will mark the 100th anniversary of the restoration of the Lithuanian state, monuments must have been put up for Jonas Basanavicius, one of the most important activists for the country's independence, and Antanas Smetona, the first president of Lithuania.

"Unfortunately and regrettably, we must assume responsibility for the fact that over its 25 years of independence [so far] Lithuania has not managed to find a place to build a monument to its heroes. The president's opinion is very clear: it is a point of honour for us to build monuments to Basanavicius and Smetona by 2018, when we will mark the centenary of the state's restoration," Virginija Budiene, the chief presidential advisor on interior policy, told the Ziniu Radijas radio station on Tuesday morning.

Jonas Basanavicius was a folklorist and doctor, and editor of the Lithuanian cultural and political magazine Ausra during the 1880s. This had to be smuggled into Lithuania from Germany, as the country was at that time part of Russia, which had banned people from writing Lithuanian using the Latin alphabet. He was a member of the Council of Lithuania that proclaimed independence in 1918, and lived until 1927. 

Antanas Smetona was also a publisher and editor of magazines prior to independence. He became the first president of Lithuania, serving between 1918 and 1920, but later returned to power following a military coup against the elected government in 1926. Following the suppression of Parliament a year later, he instituted authoritarian rule until he was forced to resign after the Soviet invasion. 

The presidential adviser reminded listeners that both monuments are listed in the programme of preparation for the centenary of the restoration of the state of Lithuania.

As well as memorialising these two figures, the programme includes plans to build a Heroes' Square, to build a Nation's House on Pamenkalnis Hill in Vilnius, as well as to renovate Lukiskes Square in the capital.