Antanas Smetona

Antanas Smetona ( listen / i?) ( Born August 10, 1874 in Užulėnis, District Ukmergė; † January 9, 1944 in Cleveland, United States) was the first President of the Republic of Lithuania.

Youth

Smetona committed during his youth, by protesting at the high school against the Orthodox Church, and during his studies disseminated Lithuanian books. For this he is referred to several times by high school or university. In 1902 he finished his studies in St. Petersburg and works in a bank in Vilnius.

Political activity

In Vilnius prewar Antanas Smetona is one of the first members of the Lithuanian Democratic Party in whose presidency he was elected and he also represented in the Seimas. He also writes for several newspapers and litauischsprachige publishers, and taught in Lithuanian schools. In several publications, he writes that the establishment of an independent state must be the most important goal of the Lithuanians. He joins the 1917 newly founded Progressive Party of the people and is in the German-occupied Vilnius one of its most important representatives, together with Augustinas Voldemaras.

He is co-organizer of the Lithuanian Conference and sits there in the Bureau. He is also member of the Lithuanian Council (later State) in Vilnius, the formation of which allow the German occupation authorities. He is elected as its Chairman. On February 16, 1918, he is one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence of Lithuania.

President of Lithuania

On April 4, 1919 Smetona was appointed by the State Council as the first President of the Republic of Lithuania. On April 19, 1920, he gave this office to Aleksandra Stulginskis, who was elected by the Seimas president. He was not re-elected to parliament and worked in the episode mostly as a journalist and since 1923 as a lecturer at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas.

Following the acquisition of Memel by the Lithuanian Shooting Federation, which he chaired for many years, he was there after withdrawal of the French commissioner, put this post but soon settled. He was from 1926 professor of art theory and history, and later philosophy.

On December 17, 1926 Smetona was due to a military coup again President of the Republic. He determined Augustinas Voldemaras prime minister. On May 15, 1928 a new constitution was adopted, bypassing the Parliament, which gave greater powers to the president. 1929 deposed Smetona Voldemaras and took over the leadership of the country alone. He was reelected in 1931 and 1938 and remained until June 15, 1940 in office. In 1932 he received an honorary doctorate from the Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas.

Occupation time

In the summer of 1940, the USSR presented (then ruled by a dictator Josef Stalin ) an ultimatum to Lithuania. Smetona found with his proposal of armed resistance no majority. He transferred his duties on June 15, 1940 the Prime Minister Antanas Merkys and fled secretly to Germany and later to Switzerland and the USA. Merkys gave his office two days later under Soviet pressure on the USSR loyal Justas Paleckis on.

In the U.S.

In the U.S. Smetona wrote a detailed history of Lithuania, but he could not finish because he he died in a fire of his estate in Cleveland (Ohio ) on January 9, 1944 lost their lives.

Honors

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