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Lithuanian President hoped on Thursday that Germany will give away Lithuanian Act of Independence after political scientist from Kaunas found it yesterday in German diplomatic archives.
Professor Liudas Mazylis from Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University found a rare original copy of the Lithuania's Act of Independence, its birth certificate, which in 1918 February 16 reestablished the state after more than a century of Russian rule.
All known original copies were lost after Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, so after professor Mazylis unearthed the act inside German foreign ministry's archives in Berlin, the photo of the document immediately went viral on Lithuanian social media.
Last month, the Lithuanian business group MG Baltic publicly pledged a million Euros to anyone who managed to return the document to Lithuania but Mazylis said he was motivated by the upcoming centenary anniversary, not the money.
‘It was a rainy summer last year, I wanted to go to forest, but there were no opportunities, so I spent my time in the library, and since centenary anniversary of February 16 Independence was approaching I was interested in books about it and I thought that maybe we a repeating clichés, we think in the same framework, but shouldn’t we take a different approach? If we look at the environment of 1918, why should not we try to look from German perspective?’ said Mazylis.
Lithuania’s Independence Act, declared on February 16, 1918, came as a result of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and German defeat in World War One.
The President of Lithuania today expressed hope that Germany will present the best present to Lithuania on its centenary anniversary of modern state.
‘Once we learned about the news yesterday, we contacted Chancellor’s cabinet, she is traveling, so I cannot speak with her directly, but we are certain that with such warm relationships that we have, personal, and inter-state, certainly an opportunity to return the document to Lithuania is real’ said Grybauskaite.
Lithuania once made up one of medieval Europe's largest military empires but by the late 18th century the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were gradually partitioned between neighboring empires, including Russia. After regaining independence from Russia in 1918, Lithuania was annexed during World War II and remained under Moscow's thumb during the Cold War, before becoming the first Soviet republic to declare independence in 1990.
Sound bite (Lithuanian), LIUDAS MAZYLIS, political scientist at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University: It was a rainy summer last year, I wanted to go to forest, but there were no opportunities, so I spent my time in the library, and since centenary anniversary of February 16 Independence was approaching I was interested in books about it and I thought that maybe we a repeating clichés, we think in the same framework, but shouldn’t we take a different approach? If we look at the environment of 1918, why should not we try to look from German perspective?
Sound bite (Lithuanian), DALIA GRYBAUSKAITE, President of Lithuania: Once we learned about the news yesterday, we contacted Chancellor’s cabinet, she is traveling, so I cannot speak with her directly, but we are certain that with such warm relationships that we have, personal, and inter-state, certainly an opportunity to return the document to Lithuania is real. Of course, we still don’t know many details about the status of that document in Germany, the legal framework, so we are trying to analyze these details.
Sound bite (Lithuanian), vox pop, woman: Some people work not only for money, they want to fulfill their duties, so that we all can know about it. These news are very joyful.
Sound bite (Lithuanian), vox pop, woman: I lack for words. And why did not they search for it before? Where were historians? I cannot understand that. And know it is found in a moment.
LRT © 2017
