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Juozas Vitas
Juozas Vitas (real name Juozas Valūnas; 8 January 1899 – 1943) was a Lithuanian communist. In 1942–1943, he organized the anti-German resistance group, Union for the Liberation of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos išlaisvinimo sąjunga), and established contacts with Polish and Jewish underground. These activities were detected by the Gestapo and Vitas was executed. He was recognized as Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965. He was the seventh and last Lithuanian to receive Hero of the Soviet Union for anti-German resistance. Biography Vitas was born in the Dzūnija village, Alytus District, Russian Empire. During World War I, he was drafted to the Russian Imperial Army and became a member of the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) in 1919. He returned to Lithuania and conducted counter-intelligence during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. In March 1920, he was drafted to the Lithuanian Army and continued communist agitation among the soldiers of the 7th Infantry Regiment (Lithuania), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dzerzhinsk, Russia
Dzerzhinsk ( rus, Дзержинск, p=dzʲɪrˈʐɨnsk) is a city in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located along the Oka River, about east of Moscow and west of Nizhny Novgorod. Population: It was previously known as ''Rastyapino'' (until 1929). History First mentioned in 1606 as Rastyapino (), it is named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Bolshevik leader who was the first head of the Soviet Cheka (secret police), from 1929. Administrative and municipal status Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with three work settlements and eleven rural localities, incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Dzerzhinsk—an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the districts.Law #184-Z As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Dzerzhinsk is incorporated as Dzerzhinsk Urban Okrug.Law #151-Z Chemical weapons and other production Modern-day Dzerzhinsk is a large center of the Russian chemicals production industry. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mečislovas Reinys
Mečislovas Reinys (1884 in Madagaskaras, Kovno Governorate – 1953) was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic archbishop, a professor at Vytautas Magnus University, a Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mečislovas Reinys was imprisoned by the Soviets after refusing to collaborate with the KGB and sent to Vladimir Prison, where he died in 1953. Biography Mečislovas Reinys was born on a farm in the Zarasai region on February 5, 1884. In 1900 he graduated with honors from a gymnasium in Riga. From 1901 to 1905 he studied in the Vilnius divinity school; two years afterwards he was ordained as a priest. Reinys continued his studies in Russia and Germany, receiving a master's degree in 1909 from the Saint Petersburg Roman Catholic Theological Academy. He successfully defended his doctoral thesis in Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1912. With his fellow students he worked at organizing a Lithuanian students' league. After returning to Lithuania, Reinys became a vicar in Vilnius in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis
Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis (10 March 1893 – 21 May 1993) was a Lithuanian architect most active in interwar Lithuania (1926–1939). He was the father of Vytautas Landsbergis, the first Lithuanian head of state after independence from the Soviet Union. Landsbergis's father, the playwright Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, was an active supporter of the Lithuanian National Revival. Landsbergis studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnical Institute. During World War I, he was drafted to the Imperial Russian Army and completed a school for junior officers. Upon return to Lithuania, he joined the newly established Lithuanian Army and fought in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. He was taken prisoner by Poland, but managed to escape. He then continued his studies of architecture at the Higher School of Architecture in Rome (now a department of the Sapienza University). Landsbergis returned to Lithuania in 1926 and became one of the most popular and sought-after architect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ona Šimaitė
Ona Šimaitė (6 January 1894 – 17 January 1970) was a Lithuanian librarian at Vilnius University who used her position to aid and rescue Jews in the Vilna Ghetto during World War II. She is recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations. Life Born in Akmenė, Lithuania on 6 January 1894 and later educated in Moscow, Šimaitė became a librarian at Vilnius University in 1940. In 1941, the Nazis invaded Lithuania and created the Vilna Ghetto. She began entering the ghetto under the pretext of recovering library books from Jewish university students. Over the next three years, she smuggled small arms (helped by Kazys Boruta, amongst others) as well as food and other provisions; smuggled out literary and historical documents for the Paper Brigade; and also served as a mail carrier for ghetto inhabitants, connecting them with the outside world. She also found people who would forge documents for Jews, offered her home as a temporary refuge for Jews, and smuggled Jewish child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaunas
Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915. During the interwar period, it served as the temporary capital of Lithuania, when Vilnius was seized and controlled by Poland between 1920 and 1939. During that period Kaunas was celebrated for its rich cultural and academic life, fashion, construction of countless Art Deco and Lithuanian National Romanticism architectural-style buildings as well as popular furniture, the interior design of the time, and a widespread café culture. The city interwar architecture is regarded as among the finest examples of European Art Deco and has received the European Heritage Label. It contributed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panevėžys
Panevėžys (; Latin: ''Panevezen''; pl, Poniewież; yi, פּאָנעװעזש, ''Ponevezh''; see also other names) is the fifth largest city in Lithuania. As of 2011, it occupied with 113,653 inhabitants. As defined by Eurostat, the population of Panevėžys functional urban area, that stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 127,471 (as of 2017) The largest multifunctional arena in Panevėžys, Cido Arena, hosted the Eurobasket 2011 group matches. The city is still widely known, if indirectly, in the Jewish world, for the eponymous Ponevezh Yeshiva. Coat of arms Historical facts allow to state that the first seal of the city of Panevėžys appeared when the city self-government was established. It is clear that until the end of the 18th century, Panevėžys did not have the right of self-government, therefore it could not had its coat of arms. All the preconditions for the establishment of self-government arose during the period of the Four-year Seimas (1788–1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Šiauliai
Šiauliai (; bat-smg, Šiaulē; german: Schaulen, ) is the fourth largest city in Lithuania, with a population of 107,086. From 1994 to 2010 it was the capital of Šiauliai County. Names Šiauliai is referred to by various names in different languages: Samogitian ''Šiaulē'', Latvian ''Saule'' (historic) and ''Šauļi'' (modern), German (outdated) ''Schaulen'', Polish ''Szawle'', Russian Шавли (Shavli – historic) and Шяуля́й (Shyaulyai – modern), Yiddish שאַװל (Shavel). History The city was first mentioned in written sources as ''Soule'' in Livonian Order chronicles describing the Battle of Saule. Thus the city's founding date is now considered to be 22 September 1236, the same date when the battle took place, not far from Šiauliai. At first, it developed as a defence post against the raids by the Teutonic and Livonian Orders. After the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, the raids stopped and Šiauliai started to develop as an agricultural settlement. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the intelligentsia consists of scholars, academics, teachers, journalists, and literary writers. Conceptually, the intelligentsia status class arose in the late 18th century, during the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795). Etymologically, the 19th-century Polish intellectual Bronisław Trentowski coined the term ''inteligencja'' (intellectuals) to identify and describe the university-educated and professionally active social stratum of the patriotic bourgeoisie; men and women whose intellectualism would provide moral and political leadership to Poland in opposing the cultural hegemony of the Russian Empire. In pre–Revolutionary (1917) Russia, the term ''intelligentsiya'' (russian: интеллигенция) identified and described the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communist Party Of Lithuania
The Communist Party of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos komunistų partija; russian: Коммунистическая партия Литвы) is a banned communist party in Lithuania. The party was established in early October 1918 and operated clandestinely until it was legalized by Soviet authorities in 1940. The party was banned in August 1991, following the coup attempt in Moscow, Soviet Union which later led to the collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ... and the dissolution of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, Lithuanian SSR. History The party was working illegally from 1920 until 1940. Although the party was illegal, some of its members took part in the 1922 Lithuanian parliamentary election under title "Workers Groups". It manag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. Established in 1917 as NKVD of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the agency was originally tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, with its functions being dispersed among other agencies, only to be reinstated as an all-union commissariat in 1934. The functions of the OGPU (the secret police organization) were transferred to the NKVD around the year 1930, giving it a monopoly over law enforcement activities that lasted until the end of World War II. During this period, the NKVD included both ordinary public order activities, and secret police activities. The NKVD is known for its role in political repression and for carrying out the Great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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